Mensa
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Anonymous
Put her in AAP if she qualifies. She does not need an academic peer group. If she is as smart as you say she is that will take care of itself. She needs a social peer group, and an environment that gives her the opportunity to have as normal social development as possible when it matters the most. In my opinion, that time is late elementary school through middle school, when the skills on how to interact with others are really set. If you don't get that part right it will not matter one iota what sort of mensa/cty/private enrishment you do for her. My child tested far above the minimum required for AAP admittance. At the age of your daughter he did many of the behaviors you are describing, but with much better social awareness and a strong ability to make friends fortunately. AAP provides a broad enough sample of all sorts of kids that it mirrors a regular classroom. In addition, the AAP classroom has a disproportionate number of quirky stand out kids who might struggle socially. In AAP, they are not social outcasts. They are just one of the kids. There are enough of them there that they start to blend in, and as a result are able to find their footing socially. The AAP classroom allows them the have a peer group to develop friendships in a typical, normal manner, and at the slower pace and maturity that these kids seem to need. That is why I think your daughter needs to consider AAP. Kids go to school to learn to eventually become good citizens and functional adults. Your daughter sounds like the place she is weakest is in her social development. AaP will provide her a place where she can find enough kids who are similar to her so that she can take the time to effectively develop the social skills she desperately needs to, be fore it gets too late and you are dealing with isolation and depression in the teen years. Your daughter does not need AAP for academics. She needs it for the peer group and the social development that having friends provides. |
Anonymous
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Long-time Mensa member here. I qualified back when I was about 8 (with the WISC-R test needed to get into the gifted program in MoCo schools), and I'm in my 30's now.
It's important to separate Mensa members from active members. Most of the active/vocal members are indeed a bit awkward socially, and not necessarily in an endearing way. I've been to a number of events, and I'm usually the most "normal" there in terms of my ability to integrate with society. I had a decent job, could converse with others, etc. I know it sounds odd, but really a lot of them just aren't that good at those things (perhaps due to intelligence). One event host used to say she loved it when I showed up because suddenly the group had someone to lead in conversation. I attend at most an event per year, and to put that in perspective, there are usually about 5 events per week. Now on to your daughter. There is a Mensa kids group, but I forget the name. Your local chapter around here is MWM ( http://www.mwm.org/ ). The head of it (in Mensa terms) is the LocSec (Local Secretary). Mensa is pretty desperate to get younger members involved, and in recent years has been more focused on it. I'd say it's worth giving it a try. At worst, it's the $40 membership fee and a bit of wasted time. Contact the LocSec if you like, as they'll probably just let you go for free to an event or two to see what it's like. Ok I just checked the latest local newsletter, and I guess things have come a long way in recent years. There is not only a Gifted Youth Coordinator, but also an assistant GYC. She also has a column in this month's newsletter. Since the newsletter is member's only, I won't post her full details, but her name is Ms. Campbell. Here are some events she has posted for youth coming up: - Board games night - Chinese New Year Family day at a museum - Kite Festival - CultureQuest (like a quiz bowl competition) - Science & Engineering Festival (and they are working on getting into the invitation-only preview event the day before the official opening) These are all events in the next few months, where the local Mensa group will be organizing a group of youth members to attend. If I was a kid again, those seem to be pretty fun. Also I agree with others to consider Johns Hopkins CTY. I had a couple classmates who did that and really enjoyed it. |
Anonymous
14:35 here. Please read my post. At what point did I say to have your DD sign up for team sports? Your child has to learn to get along in society. that does not mean team sports (in fact one could make the case that team sports really doesn't help in society!) I've got an outlier, life sucks with an outlier. They've got to learn when to keep their mouths shut. Telling their teacher they are wrong will not get them anywhere. As a life long FX resident I've got friends (and siblings of friends) who were TJ grads and TJ drop outs. I know MIT post-doc grads who spent 2 days at TJ and then went back to their base high school. I also know TJ grads who failed out of college because they couldn't cut-it when the world didn't revolve around their quirks. Your job as a parent is to raise a good citizen, not a smart kid. A good kid gets along with people. As a parent you need to stretch you child, make them learn to do things that are uncomfortable, so they can be better people. You have to teach your kid the rules of the world. That involves learning how to tell the teacher she is wrong without making her look stupid (A lesson that gets harder in middle school for some kids). I'm not a fan of AAP in fairfax. Too much homework and parental involvement. But, we did language immersion, so we aren't completely mainstreamed. (the language immersion does seem to pull AAP -ish parents, so we do hit the geek quota). |
Anonymous
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11:35 what you are saying about AAP and homework is very inaccurate. There is very little homework in AAP. Nearly all the work is completed in class. There is a little math homework, and lots of Spanish homework, but little else.
As you have not sent your child through AAP, what you are saying about it is simply hearsay. Also, different centers have very different cultures within the program, so what you know about it through hearsay is not necessarily accurate to all AAP programs. As someone with a child in the program, I can say to OP with full certainty that given what she has expressed about her daughter's deficits, AAP is very worth trying out and will likely provide an environment where her daughter will blossom socially at best, or not spend elementary school as an outcast at the very minimum. |
Anonymous
It was and this issue was taken care of. We already do this when situations arise, but maybe doing it more about potential situations will help her. |
Anonymous
Funny! Her preschool experience was a disaster as well. The director didn't speak to me for a week because she called me aliar when I said DD could already fully read. Then she found out that she could read and was embarrassed to tlak to me I think. |
Anonymous
While I appreciate this advice homeschooling is not an option for us. Nothing against. In fact my siblings were homeschooled and I think it can be great for some families, but it just wouldnt work for us. |
Anonymous
Here's another thought about the situation of the wanting to spend more time discussing and conversing with the teacher. Since your daughter likes math, it might make sense to help her figure out the number of minutes spent in the classroom with the teacher each day divided by the number of students in the class. Depending on your specifics, it will come out to about 10 minutes per student. Let's assume that about half of that time is spent in addressing the entire class, so that means that any single child has the potential for about five minutes of individualized attention from the teacher each day. You could help your child to understand the demands on her teacher's time and that if she is spending more than five or so minutes a day with her teacher focusing only on her, she is keeping the teacher from helping other kids who have just as much right to her teacher's time as she does. Some kids respond really well to the idea of fairness, and this might help her to learn about taking turns and being respectful of others. I agree with the poster above who noted that our job is to guide our children to being good people in adulthood. No one will care how smart our kids are if we haven't helped them to develop good manners and the ability to respect the rights of others. |
Anonymous
| How can you "...tell the teacher is annoyed wiht her disorganization, messy desk, asking too many questions, trying to continue classroom discussions forever and into way more depth than planned and correcting the her." It is a little concerning that ou note her teqcher didnt think she did great previously and that they are annoyed with her. |
Anonymous
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12:57 back. Adult Mensa member (means "table" in greek in latin so shouldn't be in all caps - my bad) who wasn't impressed with Mensa.
A PP noted after your described your experience with teachers that your child was "frustrated". YES YES YES! I was hell on wheels (or so I'm told) as a very young child. My mother said to the pediatrician or our church pastor, "Either there's something wrong with me or there's something wrong with her" and that's when someone suggested testing my I.Q. with the Baby Stanford-Binet (long gone). I actually still remember taking the test, where it was, what color blocks they used, what direction I was facing. Anyhow, the therapists said I was "bored" and to start enrichment, play chess with me (my parents bought a large plastic chess set that one set up on the floor), bring books home so that's how I started reading at 2. "Frustation" and "Bored" are two buzz words you should try to keep in your head when your daughter is acting out. I don't know if you mentioned it, but you should get an up-to-date set of tests done so you can share it with the teachers to enlist their help. I like the idea of homeschooling (although personally I don't have the patience for it). A lawyer SAHM friend of mine did it for her extraordinarily off-the-charts daughter. The kid eventually got a full ride at Harvard Divinity School. Best of luck! |
Anonymous
| Many gifted kids are actually very socially skilled. So finding other gifted kids doesn't mean she will find others like her. |
Anonymous
| 12:57 back. How about a foreign language? Get her going right away. If you don't have the money for rosetta stone, check into available age-appropriate foreign language programs on the internet. I bet you can find lots of stuff. My daughter self-taught Chinese. That's a superb language for master and the characters are fun for kids to draw. There are many Chinese and Japanese weekend schools in the D.C. area. Hebrew also if you are Jewish. |
Anonymous
You have very specific experiences - but let's please not think that any bored quirky child is gifted/mensa/whatever. OP said DD qualified based on DD's score on NNAT. I believe it should be above a 132 (a usual cut off for AAP as well). There are a decent amount of kids that met this cut off either for cogat or nnat. Op- what was the NNAt score? |
Anonymous
| Not sure why you are considering Mensa based on what you have said so far. You mentioned the 1st grade teacher said she basically failed first grade and continues to have problems in second grade. I would hope you would agree that a child in second grade should be able to pick up on a teacher's cues when to wrap up a discussion 4 months into the school year. You make excuses for her by saying you can't blame your child for not getting that the teacher needs to move on or can't continue one on one discussions with just your child. I'd be more concerned with working on your child's seeming social missteps at that age than admission into Mensa. |
Anonymous
This is really helpful, thank you! |