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[quote=Anonymous]We started our private school journey thinking that social skills and emotional maturity were more important than a focus on intellectual achievement.  We’re at a Big 3 elementary finishing up 3rd grade.

I’m starting to rethink our choices and wondering whether we made the wrong decisions, or at least should consider different choices.

Sadly, we’ve learned that our school doesn’t deal well with the emotional needs of gifted children. Our DC has the classic gifted kid emotional profile:  emotional intensity, perfectionism, combined with a sensitivity that is consistently misinterpreted as “immaturity” and “overreacting.”

DC learns faster than peers, and is several years ahead of grade level in reading, math, and science.  He is allowed some freedom to pursue advanced reading.However, in math and science, subjects DC loves, there is no opportunity for differentiation or advanced learning. Aside from reading, there’s no differentiation period. DC has complained for some time (since the start of 1st grade) about being bored and going over things that are too easy over and over again.

I’m wondering if it would better for DC to be in a school that allows for more differentiation in the elementary grades.  Are Feynman and Nysmith the only private schools that allow gifted kids to go at their own pace?  I worry about these schools lacking an overall balance. On the other hand, I remember what torture it was to be forced lockstep into a pace that didn’t fit.

It seems that schools like Sidwell, GDS, and STA don’t allow differentiation until 9th. I can see DC getting turned off from school and learning if forced to wait another six years before being allowed to pursue things at a pace that fits him.

I’m also wondering if a school that knows how to work with gifted kids’ emotional needs might be better. I worry that DC is being labeled as oversensitive, even as some teachers praise his empathy and compassion for other kids.

I know there are a lot of gifted kids at the Big 3s.  I also know not all gifted kids have the emotional profile that includes intensity, perfectionism, and sensitivity.  I’d appreciate if parents who have kids similar to mine could speak to their experience in the upper elementary and middle schools of the Big 3?  Or, if you left for a school that specializes in gifted education, could you speak to that experience?  [/quote]

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