S/O - If you were a 'gifted' kid, how does that inform your parenting choices?
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Anonymous
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I was considered "gifted" in reading but not in math. I was normal in math. Therefore I concluded I was "bad at" math and did not make much of an effort. Now I realize that if I had worked harder at math, I could have been excellent at it.
I think it's dangerous for children to be told that they are "gifted" or "smart." There is a slew of research on the problems this can cause. Grades and academic achievement became central to my identity to a level that, now, seems to me to be insane. I think moral development should have been stressed more instead of intellectual achievement. My school had me skip a grade. That made me a misfit in the grade I was moved to. I wish my parents had instead found some other school for me. If possible, I will put my kid in a school that does not evaluate or grade kids in this way. I will look for one that encourages all kids to develop the inner motivation to explore their world and develop themselves to their fullest potential. In that kind of school, picking out some kids as "gifted" would not even occur to them. |
Anonymous
Me too. I was in all the gifted programs at school, went to an Ivy League university, yadda yadda, and I'm happy and doing fine. My husband failed HS biology (which is my area of expertise, so we laugh about it), went to a small college, yadda yadda, and is happy and doing fine. I guess my point is, while I want my child to be challenged and excited about learning, I also want her to be a happy, successful, and well rounded individual. There's lots of ways to get there-- whether she's "gifted" or not. |
Anonymous
My husband and I were both in GT programs in our respective public schools growing up (from 2ng grade - by IQ cut off). I am not sure it impacts my parenting choices directly (or my husband's). Our kids are very young. The most important thing to both of us is reading - and we try and convey that to our children. We also talk to them like they are regular people, encourage questions, explain things and let them know that learning is fun. I guess we will have high expectations for them as I believe they are both very bright (just like every other parent .
One thing is that I don't ever want them to be ashamed of being smart...many kids i went to school with felt that way and only ever wanted to be cool and fit in. I want them to be proud of being smart (not obnoxious) and proud of who they are - whatever that may be. |
Anonymous
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OP here.
Thank you all for the interesting responses. In posting this question I was thinking more broadly of children who were 'gifted' in school whether private or public, but it is interesting to see that the specific 'gifted' label seems to apply primarily to those who attended public schools. I was also very interested / concerned to see the posts about being unhappy in elementary school. Personally I loved school until middle school, and had blithely assumed this was because it was easier to meet the needs of a broad range of children at those ages. However I'm beginning to see that I probably need to give more credit to the quality of the teachers at my (private) school. The stories of not learning to work hard, being ostracized for being smart, feeling like a failure for needing help, etc. also resonate with me. And those are the specific areas that I hope to address as a parent - the issue for me is figuring out how best to do that. I don't want to make my child pursue an activity that she honestly hates, but I also don't want her to just give up on activities that don't come easily, and I'm not sure how to tell when to pursue which course, since other than completing school I don't have a lot of 'must dos' for my kids. Basically I agree with so many PPs that being 'gifted' isn't the ticket to success, and I guess that informs my parenting in the sense that I hope to instill in my children the character traits (integrity, persistence, grit, etc.) that I hope will lead to a happy, meaningful life. |
Anonymous
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I plan to send my child to a Montessori school for the early grades and into a private school for middle and high school, based on my atrocious experiences in public school. I experience the range of approaches, from pull-out groups to being sent to older classrooms for math and reading to a magnet program within a regular middle school to tracking in high school. Very little of it was challenging and the whole thing added up to a disjointed and stigmatizing experience, all while being often bored and frustrated.
Should DC turn out like me (in terms of interests or abilities), I plan to spend a lot of time outdoors and to have indoor activities like puzzles (jigsaw, word, logic) available. We already do a lot of reading, avoid TV, and are introducing him to music and basic instruments. He is very curious, and I try to keep new things coming at a pace that feeds and supports his interest but is not overwhelming. We'll see how it goes as he gets older. I also think it's made me more relaxed about achievement-oriented ways of thinking. I want him to retain the spark that I see in him now that was nearly ground out of me through my childhood. That doesn't mean never being challenged, quite the opposite. It does mean I have no patience for busy work (for him or for me!) and am committed to making the effort to keep his life interesting to the degree that's within my control. Again, that doesn't mean no disappointments or lulls or moments of boredom, but I don't expect him to put up with that day in and day out as his defining experience (in school or out of it). |
Anonymous
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In therapy a few years back, I mentioned I had been a gifted kid, and my therapist said, "That explains a lot." She had me go home and research the emotional impacts of being gifted. I found whole lists of my personality traits as a kid that I thought were just me but actually had to do with having such a high IQ that enabled me to grasp what was happening in situations without the emotional maturity to handle it.
Should my kid turn out to be gifted, I hope to go into it informed. The biggest starting point will be praising effort, and I will go from there. |
Anonymous
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Many of my experiences echo PPs.
I started going to gifted classes during 5th grade, where I was separated from my class. I was already an outcast because my family moved a lot (this was my 5th school in 6 years), so it was actually a relief to be a smaller setting for an hour or two each day. If we hadn't moved so much, I probably would have been placed into a GT program earlier. By middle school, I was typing up notes for other classmates. I didn't get paid for this - is was my effort at making friends. Yes, pathetic. Took AP programs. By my last high school (school #8), I was tired of the hype of being gifted and honestly just wanted to fit in. I didn't go to college right away - my parents had NO money. I went in the military. Later went to college, got my masters, yadda yadda. I am happy and have a great husband and wonderful children. My oldest sister pushed her first child. She was reading by 4. Advanced this, that... by HS she was so tired of learning. She wouldn't do homework unless harped on by her mother. She only got Cs her first year in college, so my sister told her no more $. She quit, worked for Walmart, went to community college... She's now 27, owns a condo, does accounting for a small business and is very happy. My children are small. My DH told me we need to work harder on our 4 year olds reading and writing. He knows his abc's, can write them all, can write his name, but the writing is a bit "shaky" and he isn't actually reading. I think it's perfectly normal for a 4 yr old and I don't want to push him. DH wants him to be ahead... but I don't want to burn him out on learning like my niece. And I'd rather focus on his friendships and ability to adapt socially. |
Anonymous
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Being labeled as a gifted child bears no indication of how successful of an adult you will be.
These labels in the DC area are for parents inflated or deflated egos. |
Anonymous
I agree with you, but for many, identifying a child as gifted is not about egos. I was incredibly bored in school, got in trouble for sleeping during class, my brother was a troublemaker because he was bored... Many gifted children need challenges, otherwise they end up getting labled as the misfit or troublemaker because they are so bored. |
Anonymous
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My experience is different from the other posters in that I was referred to the gifted program 3 times and failed the test. My mom, a teacher, pulled me out of a Montessori school because after k they wanted me to skip 1st, and my mom refused. She put my in public and they referred me to the gifted program and I failed the test. This happened in second, and again in third, which is when I stood up for myself and said no more. Though my IQ is average, have no clue what it is, I have always been very creative and a voracious reader. I also love philosophy. I can't stand standardized tests, but it pains me that I've done so poorly on them. About 5th grade I started having trouble with teachers. For years I'd won district book writing contests and wanted to write a novel. My teacher said that I couldn't turn in a book without pictures or I "wouldn't win." But I didn't care about winning, I cared about being an accomplished novelist, so I scribbled over it in defiance. I had it happen again in junior high when I won a speech contest. I just thought the adults were idiots. I really needed a program that fit wacky students like me, probably a private school that rewarded creativity. My mom also told me "well you're just different" which she said in praise, but I always thought that meant I'd never be able to relate to people on a spiritual level. I have lots of friends, but always keep a distance.
My mom, though a teacher, was single and poor and didn't have the energy to manage us. She did rise to the occasion once in junior high to come to my defense, and I later heard the principal bad mouthing her. I was very proud then, but I wished she had pushed me to not be so stubborn and help me find my way. Also, my brother was intellectually gifted and did terribly in school, never went to college. She held him back for a year, and he was very bored. My brother and I have agreed that we wished she helped us manage school better. I have my kids in public for elementary because I feel like they will be a bit more grounded (don't flame me). Later, if they are not thriving I will help them to find a school that fits, whether it is public or private. They are very smart, though probably not gifted, and both excel in different areas. I want to give them the life I wanted, though make it work for them. From a very young age I wanted to move to the East Coast, and I feel so much more at home here than on the West Coast. I always wanted to see art and travel, so I make that a priority for my kids. I stress the importance of education, but find ways to make learning fun (like homework). Now as I'm finally finding my true self as an adult, I think that will inspire them. My mom was unhappy and depressed throughout my childhood, which affected her parenting. |
Anonymous
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I was in the gifted program in my primary (public) school and loved it. It was a chance to lose the rigidity of the normal classroom for a few hours a week and really bend my mind around creative exercises in logic, imagination, physics, etc. And it meant that I was either skipping a lot of classroom repetition that I simply didn't need or that I was able to catch up on my classroom learning at a pace more suited to my abilities, so I wasn't bored. The GT time also gave me a weekly time where I was challenged mentally, which helped me later on in my schooling--if I ran into something that I needed to work at to learn, I put in the work.
Regardless of whether my kids exhibit gifted tendencies, I hope to help instill some of that same creative love of learning and exploration that my gifted classes helped impart to me. |
Anonymous
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I was in the gifted program by 3rd grade, when we moved to a school district that had one, but had been pulled out since first grade to go to higher classes for reading and math. I was already reading chapter books when I started kindergarten, so when they did letters or reading, they just sent me to another part of the class with a book - sometimes spent most of the day separated from the class, which I think made it hard to socialize and make friends. I was better than average, particularly with reading and writing (and I assume had a high IQ since that was the test I took for the program, though I have no idea what my IQ is), but I actually was the child of a truly gifted person - my father. Compared to him, I was nothing special. He skipped at least four grades, was studying calculus on his own in junior high (!) and got his masters in the sciences by 19. He finished his doctoral work by 21, but was so burned out he didn't want to do a dissertation, and he dropped out. His whole life, his parents pushed him and he wouldn't let any of his kids skip grades. He wasn't super pushy with me at all. I am thankful for that, as I was already enough of a nerd and an outcast between leaving class for GT and all the moving (went to 10 different schools). But I was bored, and like some of the other PPs, I got good grades with almost zero effort, which makes me a deadline chaser and a procrastinator, especially since I pretty much am always able to pull something out that people like. But I don't think my parents should have done anything differently, except perhaps private school would have been a better place academically - but they had many children and it wasn't really a financial option. I think they did their best.
For my own kid, I'm not sure how I'll manage school - he seems very bright and super verbal, but he is just two, so who knows? I feel strongly about trying to make public school work, because a kid has to deal with life as well as school, and public school isn't as sheltered. But if he turns out to be bored, or has other issues with school, we'll look at private, though god knows how we'll afford it. No skipping grades though. One day at a time. |
Anonymous
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I had a horrible experience in public school and the 'gifted' programs in that I was a smart, hardworking kid that could not get high enough scores on the standardized tests to get into the gifted programs. I had 100% in 4 of my 7 classes in junior high and solid A's in the other 3. I received something like over a dozen 'academic excellence awards' in the year that I was in regular classes and my district still denied my request 3 times to be place into honors classes. I 1) had a math teacher that recognized my abilities and by-passed the district putting me into the honors math program and 2) eventually did pass a third set of exams to get into the other honors classes. Needless to say 4 years later I got into the hardest college in the US, top in my graduating class. Most of my friends in the honors program were gifted and much less motivated than me. Most are doing o.k. but a lot had more potential.
My experience with friends and the 'system' means that I will empower and help my kids any way that I can. Keeping them challenged and instilling a good work ethic are my two top priorities. Motivate them when the work seems to hard and help them pursue the subjects they love while being practical at the same time. |
Anonymous
I wish it was just this area, but labels are everywhere. I learned to discount labels early in my schooling when I went from being labeled "special ed. material" because I couldn't read in 3rd grade (undiagnosed dyslexia) to "Gifted" in the 7th grade. This was not in the DC area but down in New Orleans. It was clear to me that family resources and attention were the difference for me. My family rallied around me and I was tested, outside of school, and given tons of tutoring, outside of school, and learned to read the summer between 3rd and 4th grade. I've always wondered about the kids who didn't have families with the money, time and knowledge to help them. Are they really less "gifted" intellectually or just less "gifted" by circumstance? |
Anonymous
OP here. True. Which is why I am curious how the parents *experience* with the label is influencing how they choose to parent their own children - looking at our own histories in order to learn how to better serve our children. Am I trying to raise gifted kids? No, I'm trying to raise healthy, well rounded, happy ones who are satisfied with their life paths. But I need to figure out how to do that within the parameters set by who my kids are, which may include a certain academic aptitude. I have my own experience to inform this process, but think I can learn a lot from others as well, thus the questions. |