Who thinks it is ridiculous when someone says his/her child is bored in school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think so many parents are doing their children a great disservice with this insistence on "my child is so gifted and isn't challenged enough."

I know some truly gifted adults, and some of them haven't been very successful at holding down a job. The reason is that no job is "challenging" enough and their belief in their own intellectual superiority has been a huge roadblock in making progress in their lives and being a functional adult in the world with all of the nongifted people.

It's great if your kid is reading early and doing well in school. But I see all of these parents so convinced their children are so gifted and so far ahead of all of the other kids that I fear those children will grow into some really ego-centric, arrogant and possibly dysfunctional adults.

The bigger concern, for parents of gifted children, is that they will grow into unsuccessful and dysfunctional adults because they will be stymied from a young age by a system and culture that prevents them from advocating for themselves ("excellent students are never troublemakers" "only boring people get bored" "truly smart kids can find ways to amuse themselves in class") and jumps on their parents ("you're just bragging!" "You're over-invested in your kids performance!" ) for raising the issues. How is a smart child supposed to interpret these messages? You have to go to X school and you have to be in Y grade, but if you are different from the rest of the kids in class you need to keep that to yourself and keep yourself occupied without drawing any attention to yourself lest the teacher become annoyed or the other kids notice and pick on you. That is a lot for a kid to deal with!

God forbid the adults in this situation (parents, teachers) intervene to make sure that a child who has mastered the material is still given the opportunity to learn something. I can't believe the posters who disparage the concept of providing additional material to children who learn quickly as "entertaining" kids. I would call it "teaching" or "doing their jobs." And if a child requires so much differentiation that a teacher can't provide it (which is reasonable in some cases--most would agree that we shouldn't expect teachers to be able to provide sufficient differentiation to children far on the other end of the spectrum), he or she may say that school is "boring." Parents and teachers should be able to figure out if a kid says school is boring because they don't like doing something necessary but tedious (in which case, suck it up kid, that's life), or if its because they aren't being challenged, and other parents should MTOB and not take it as a personal insult.

http://www.stephanietolan.com/is_it_a_cheetah.htm

This is hilarious - gifted children (like cheetahs) are considered endangered? Not on DCUM they aren't. I feel like every child mentioned on DCUM is gifted!

LOL. No one said that kids need to keep being "different" to themselves. It seems hilarious that this lady doesn't get that most people are saying that often, the parents are being melodramatic and most certainly have an exaggerated sense of their child's giftedness. But her posts, if anything, prove our point

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think so many parents are doing their children a great disservice with this insistence on "my child is so gifted and isn't challenged enough."

I know some truly gifted adults, and some of them haven't been very successful at holding down a job. The reason is that no job is "challenging" enough and their belief in their own intellectual superiority has been a huge roadblock in making progress in their lives and being a functional adult in the world with all of the nongifted people.

It's great if your kid is reading early and doing well in school. But I see all of these parents so convinced their children are so gifted and so far ahead of all of the other kids that I fear those children will grow into some really ego-centric, arrogant and possibly dysfunctional adults.

The bigger concern, for parents of gifted children, is that they will grow into unsuccessful and dysfunctional adults because they will be stymied from a young age by a system and culture that prevents them from advocating for themselves ("excellent students are never troublemakers" "only boring people get bored" "truly smart kids can find ways to amuse themselves in class") and jumps on their parents ("you're just bragging!" "You're over-invested in your kids performance!" ) for raising the issues. How is a smart child supposed to interpret these messages? You have to go to X school and you have to be in Y grade, but if you are different from the rest of the kids in class you need to keep that to yourself and keep yourself occupied without drawing any attention to yourself lest the teacher become annoyed or the other kids notice and pick on you. That is a lot for a kid to deal with!

God forbid the adults in this situation (parents, teachers) intervene to make sure that a child who has mastered the material is still given the opportunity to learn something. I can't believe the posters who disparage the concept of providing additional material to children who learn quickly as "entertaining" kids. I would call it "teaching" or "doing their jobs." And if a child requires so much differentiation that a teacher can't provide it (which is reasonable in some cases--most would agree that we shouldn't expect teachers to be able to provide sufficient differentiation to children far on the other end of the spectrum), he or she may say that school is "boring." Parents and teachers should be able to figure out if a kid says school is boring because they don't like doing something necessary but tedious (in which case, suck it up kid, that's life), or if its because they aren't being challenged, and other parents should MTOB and not take it as a personal insult.

http://www.stephanietolan.com/is_it_a_cheetah.htm

This is hilarious - gifted children (like cheetahs) are considered endangered? Not on DCUM they aren't. I feel like every child mentioned on DCUM is gifted!

LOL. No one said that kids need to keep being "different" to themselves. It seems hilarious that this lady doesn't get that most people are saying that often, the parents are being melodramatic and most certainly have an exaggerated sense of their child's giftedness. But her posts, if anything, prove our point

Yup. Funny that you hit on the same point I did - maybe I'm giving this dishonest and self-absorbed poster too much of my time.

[Anonymous]

Mom of four year old reading chapter books here. I have only posted twice about my dc. I am not sure how anyone got that I'm pretentious, living through my child, overly invested, think I know more than anyone, or tell my kid she is smart. I just said kid reads well. She reads really well-- not just beginner chapter books like magic treehouse, but above that level. And, that because she is so advanced in this department and the books she reads we have noticed that her idea of what kindergarten is going to be like is a little off. We don't want to tell her she is advanced, but we also don't want her to be disappointed by how slow kindergarten will be.

That is all I've said. And, I've appreciated everyone's insight. I'm sure we will make it work.

That was the personal note. On another note, I think that the op is wrong. But, if she wasn't so combative, rude, and dismissive, I'd probably be more inclined to agree with her like I do with the majority of the other posts. It is ridiculous when parents make excuses for bad behavior. I also think many times when kids say they are bored that they need to learn to cope. But I would never agree with such a blanket statement like "truly gifted kids never get bored."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think so many parents are doing their children a great disservice with this insistence on "my child is so gifted and isn't challenged enough."

I know some truly gifted adults, and some of them haven't been very successful at holding down a job. The reason is that no job is "challenging" enough and their belief in their own intellectual superiority has been a huge roadblock in making progress in their lives and being a functional adult in the world with all of the nongifted people.

Honestly, the people I know who made it through medical school, law school, or ph.d. programs and went on to successful careers aren't even necessarily the smartest people. They are the ones with the most endurance. A huge part of medical school in the beginning is actually rote memorization. It serves as the foundation for all of the other stuff. The same is true with law school. And in all of those endeavors, there are times when it is tedious and repetitive. There are hoops to jump through. Any scientific researcher knows that truly groundbreaking research always comes from a foundation of really repetitive and tedious examination and experimentation.

My point is not that brilliant people can't succeed, but that I've seen brilliant people who are entirely too convinced of their brilliance fail in adult life because they were raised believe they were special, gifted, so far ahead of the other kids, that they didn't have to follow the normal rules or do what everyone else was doing.

It's great if your kid is reading early and doing well in school. But I see all of these parents so convinced their children are so gifted and so far ahead of all of the other kids that I fear those children will grow into some really ego-centric, arrogant and possibly dysfunctional adults.

+1 This is why we kept our son in "regular" MoCo elementary school rather than magnet gifted. In 6th grade, he'll be promoted into all of the "advanced" classes at a regular MoCo school.

[Anonymous]

PP at 14:09:

The OP said, "Who thinks it is ridiculous when someone says his/her child is bored in school?"

I said: "I don't think it's ridiculous. Children actually do get bored in school."

You said: "Obviously you can't read. Of course children actually do get bored in school. That's not the point."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mom of four year old reading chapter books here. I have only posted twice about my dc. I am not sure how anyone got that I'm pretentious, living through my child, overly invested, think I know more than anyone, or tell my kid she is smart. I just said kid reads well. She reads really well-- not just beginner chapter books like magic treehouse, but above that level. And, that because she is so advanced in this department and the books she reads we have noticed that her idea of what kindergarten is going to be like is a little off. We don't want to tell her she is advanced, but we also don't want her to be disappointed by how slow kindergarten will be.

That is all I've said. And, I've appreciated everyone's insight. I'm sure we will make it work.

That was the personal note. On another note, I think that the op is wrong. But, if she wasn't so combative, rude, and dismissive, I'd probably be more inclined to agree with her like I do with the majority of the other posts. It is ridiculous when parents make excuses for bad behavior. I also think many times when kids say they are bored that they need to learn to cope. But I would never agree with such a blanket statement like "truly gifted kids never get bored."

What does your DD think Kindergarten is going to be? My DD is heading to K in the fall and hasn't mentioned any expectations. I think she believes it will be like her current Pre-K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP at 14:09:

The OP said, "Who thinks it is ridiculous when someone says his/her child is bored in school?"

I said: "I don't think it's ridiculous. Children actually do get bored in school."

You said: "Obviously you can't read. Of course children actually do get bored in school. That's not the point."

kids get bored in school; mine does sometimes. But so many parents on here assume they are bored because they have mastered the material and are not challenged. Largely that is projection. More likely they are bored because the subject matter isn't "fun" and having fun is what it's all about, right? Many of them are also boring people who need to be entertained all the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Early reader does not necessarily equate to gifted child. Early mastery of math facts does not necessarily equate to gifted child. They are mechanics and don't require higher level cognitive thinking. Just as late reader or late mastery of math facts does not necessarily equate to ID or non-gifted child.

Early reading can allow a child to be exposed to more and varied language and critical thinking. However, audio books can be used to similar effect if a child is a late reader.

Amen. My child who will be entering K in the fall does not read. Am I worried? No.

On an interesting side note, when my first kid was at the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center a while back, they didn't teach reading in the kindergarten. Their point was there are so many other important things a kid should be learning in pre-K and K, for example playing on the jungle gym has been linked to the ability to do conceptual math late in high school, that reading just wasn't a priority for this fantastic school. Of course, lots of parents complained when their kids hit first grade and were behind their classes in reading, so by the time my 2nd kid went through SEEC they were teaching reading in kindergarten.

[Anonymous]

Highly- and profoundly-gifted kids are something like less than 1% of the population. It's just not possible for every parent who thinks they have an extremely gifted child to actually have an extremely gifted child, even in the DMV area where all of us are something special . There are lots of kids with IQs in the 120s and 130s, and this will put a kid in good shape for doing well in the classroom, but these kids will always be in good company with several other kids performing at the same level.

[Anonymous]

The thing is those 120-130 IQ kids can handle so much more and need more variety than what is provided in a general ed classroom. So yes, I think those kids can get bored as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The thing is those 120-130 IQ kids can handle so much more and need more variety than what is provided in a general ed classroom. So yes, I think those kids can get bored as well.

Sure, they can get bored. So can the 90 IQ kids. The question is, how much boredom is bad and how much is OK? Do we hover over any of these kids and provide education that takes the form of passive entertaiment?

[Anonymous]

Not at all and I'm completely against technology as a means just to make material more interesting, but that said, it can be boring to do worksheets all the time, especially if they are of things you already know very well. It can be boring to hear the same information repeated over and over when you already know it. Children shouldn't be allowed to act out because of repetition, but I do think more children would be engaged if they had a little more control over what they were learning and if the materials they used for learning were a bit more varied.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not at all and I'm completely against technology as a means just to make material more interesting, but that said, it can be boring to do worksheets all the time, especially if they are of things you already know very well. It can be boring to hear the same information repeated over and over when you already know it. Children shouldn't be allowed to act out because of repetition, but I do think more children would be engaged if they had a little more control over what they were learning and if the materials they used for learning were a bit more varied.

I feel like a broken record. Of course worksheets all the time are bad for all kids, exceptional or not. If this is happening you need to talk to the teacher and, if nothing improves, you need to switch classrooms or even schools. Many of us, however, find this "all worksheets, all the time" scenario a little hard to believe because we know this to be contrary to policy in our school districts and have had very positive experiences with differentiation for our own gifted kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mom of four year old reading chapter books here. I have only posted twice about my dc. I am not sure how anyone got that I'm pretentious, living through my child, overly invested, think I know more than anyone, or tell my kid she is smart. I just said kid reads well. She reads really well-- not just beginner chapter books like magic treehouse, but above that level. And, that because she is so advanced in this department and the books she reads we have noticed that her idea of what kindergarten is going to be like is a little off. We don't want to tell her she is advanced, but we also don't want her to be disappointed by how slow kindergarten will be.

That is all I've said. And, I've appreciated everyone's insight. I'm sure we will make it work.

That was the personal note. On another note, I think that the op is wrong. But, if she wasn't so combative, rude, and dismissive, I'd probably be more inclined to agree with her like I do with the majority of the other posts. It is ridiculous when parents make excuses for bad behavior. I also think many times when kids say they are bored that they need to learn to cope. But I would never agree with such a blanket statement like "truly gifted kids never get bored."

My DD was in pull out 2x week with the AART for her reading level. And by the way - reading at a higher level is SO much more than decoding. It is the ability to retell, predict, summarize, make connections (which aren't so obvious), etc. Do me a favor...grab a NON fiction book of about 30 pages (relatively easy book) and have your kid read it aloud. Close it. Ask her to retell it IN ORDER and see how much she can remember in order. I'm talking one about dates a person was born, died, what they did, etc. Anyway...she was way advanced in reading entering kindergarten...she is now a rising second grader and can still happily sit through picture books. If you'd stop being so self absorbed, you'd see that many picture books have actually more advanced language than chapter books. This week alone, we've looked at sayings such as "once in a blue moon" or "he hit is out of the park" (related to a correct answer, not a ball game) AND vocabulary: "zero gravity" and "diving rod." Picture books can also have very advanced concepts. One we checked out a few months ago was on the underground railroad, and we just finished one on Martin Luther King, Jr. The one we're about to start is a Helen Keller book.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The thing is those 120-130 IQ kids can handle so much more and need more variety than what is provided in a general ed classroom. So yes, I think those kids can get bored as well.

My kid has a 140 IQ. She doesn't get bored.