is anyone else uncomfortable describing their child as gifted

[dalziel1]

.. or talented.

Both my boys are very good some aspects of school work. one of them has an excellent memory and the other can work out complex mathematical things without having the usual explanations first. He always gets the right answer, but very often, he is unable to describe the process by which he got there.

i think most people would say that my boys are highly able or intelligent, but they aren't gifted (or talented). They can't sing or make a musical instrument play beautiful music, they can't draw or paint, and I seriously doubt that either of them will ever make a scientific breakthrough, write a classic novel or prove a mathematical hypothesis.

To me G&T is a misnomer, and its actually an unfortunate label for a child to accept for themselves.

[Coconutjoe]

Hi dalziel,
I was I intrigued by your post as I've never seen it that way. I'm not, nor are my children G&T ( at least in the school system :) ) but I've always seen this as a positive label. Added pressure but added benefits of opportunities. Other students don't seem to envy or begrudge them, just accept that that is their gift. As it's one the school teaches, why not highlight it so a new teacher meeting them, knows they might appreciate a challenge in that area.
Solving a maths problem is a beautiful and satisfying thing. It may not be art in the conventional sense but I genuinely would love to look at neatly outlined numbers in a long maths solution and know I understand it, or even did it, rather than a picture. Each to their own.

They may not go on to do any of the things you listed, but they still may do great things, whether the impact is global or just for them. Hopefully someone will ignite or keep a passion alive in that talent by being alerted to it so it can flourish.


I'm hoping this will help you feel more comfortable. I understand you have concerns. I hope I've managed to balance them with the positives. Either way they sound like amazing boys x

[Snapespotions]

I dislike the label and avoided telling dd that she had been put on a G&T list until the school sent home a letter with it on - without an envelope!

[Beastofburden]

To me the "g&t" thing is just a bit of school jargon I'm afraid. Like SATS. It didn't exist when mine were little. We just said "x is good at y". Though even then we cringed really.

[Snapespotions]

That's the point, really, beast. It is just school jargon and gifted in one school might not be gifted in the next - it's meaningless!

[morethanpotatoprints]

Yes, this is strange because my dd gift is music and I always think it isn't G&T although was on the register at school, but so was any other child who played music.
I find it is more associated with academic subjects than the arts.

[Beastofburden]

It's not very British, is it? perhaps we need a "not too bad I suppose" register.

[Snapespotions]

[PiqueABoo]

"G&T" has been deprecated ever since Gove/Wilshaw started pushing the all-ability potential, challenge, progress stuff:

• Schools haven't had to report a G&T headcount for a few years now.
  

• There is an anti-G&T, slightly anti-intellectual bandwagon kicking around that has been seducing some of the more credulous via shiny but shallow ideas, misplaced science etc.
  

I wish they'd never invented the term because it never did very much and both words are relatively useless now, tainted by the baggage they acquired at school.

"Good" is like "nice" these days. I would like to be able to say DD has a bit of a gift for X, is quite talented at Y, but it's only safe with people oblivious to education-world who still use or hear those words without all the connotations.

[merlehaggard]

I think it's meaningless. My daughter is on the gifted and talented list at her school for music. She is 12 and has had music lessons since she was 5. No wonder that she is better than her non instrument playing class mates then!

[dalziel1]

I wonder if we are setting our children up for a fall by letting them think that either the term gifted or talented could be applied to them?

There are children who are gifted and/ or talented at something but they are rare - not 1 in 10. I know its just two English language words that have been hijacked by educationalists but do children get the subtle distinction between dictionary meaning and education terminology?

Average is another word that educationalists have hijacked and rendered meaningless. As far as I can gather, it means anything between 20% - 80% inclusive. However, "above average" is also somewhere in the 20-80% range- which doesn't make any sense.

[tess73]

Dd was "defined " as gifted in literacy in year 2 (now yr6)
Nothing has been done by the school to develop, stretch, expand her literacy
Yr4 and yr5 SATS her maths score was higher than her literacy
She does ace verbal reasoning without any tutoring/prep
No G&T classes in school anymore (budget cuts)
Complete waste of time labelling her. Not that it was very overt - and I don't think it has affected her. It seems to take each teacher at least til half term to realise she is pretty good.
Anyway what I am trying to say is it was a totally pointless exercise but hasn't done her any harm as it is rarely mentioned/talked about.

[treadheavily]

No I have no problem with the school labelling my children as they are just trying to extend them (it's called higher learning potential where I am) and in fact think they are v lucky because they get to do all sorts of cool things. But I wouldn't be talking about it other than with the school or a parent whose child was also in the programme.

[grumpasaur]

I don't have a child- but I am comfortable describing myself as gifted :-)

[Theas18]

The g&t thing at school is a misnomer really. It's a status as thing - top 10% or so really not that special for most kids. Of course some will be off the scale but not many.

[dalziel1]

Personally, I would never brag to other parents. It just gets their backs up and sets you up for a fall when your DC does something less than wonderful.

The teenage years are still ahead of me as a parent, and I am not taking anything for granted!

[iseenodust]

It's not a term I use and DS doesn't know he was ever on such a list. I've said to some close friends/family 'he's on one of those lists' but only when I've known/had a very strong feeling that one of their children is too.
School didn't do anything extra but did differentiate well. As in most classrooms, the children including DS realised who was always 'top' in maths. I just always stress he's lucky to be able to pick up ideas/theories quickly.

Know what you mean about the awkward feeling though. We were with a group of friends plus DC when one mum joked 'don't know where my DS got his brains from but school say he is gifted in maths'. No-one responded with reference to their own children (probably because they were present) but I know the same was applicable to two girls and my DS. Harsh reality is that in that group of friends we are all graduates who have/had careers in science/maths areas. Probably not one of those children is gifted if using a decent definition but all brought up in households where an interest in shown in such things.

[PiqueABoo]

For me it's not about bragging, it's the etiquette and words for a couple of scenarios we've had quite a lot over the years:

a) Normal, decent parent enquiring how DD is getting along with X (sometimes: what level/stage) when I know DD is miles ahead of their child.

True answer: Really well, but she has an aptitude for X so...

b) Competitive parent trying to find out if there is some secret (an expert coach, tutor, lots and lots of practise or whatever) to account for DD being much better at X than their child.

True answer: There is no secret! They're not born as blank slates and the difference is because of her nature damnit!

When DD was 8yo we'd had more than enough of dancing around these near-impossible conversations, so decided it might help if she did something that none of their children did, thus avoiding the comparison and competition problems. We picked something that's out of most parent's comfort zones and I really wish we'd done that earlier. DD (being DD) does have an aptitude for Y and we can say what we like about it, answer any kind of query without any awkwardness.

[Viviennemary]

Gifted is a word used far too much these days. Only a very few children are truly gifted. Good at maths, good at art, music and so on yes.

[Lilymaid]

I am very glad that G & T wasn't a term used when my DCs were at school. I have one DC who was always described as "very able" and who has continued to fulfill his potential throughout school/university and work. The other wouldn't have qualified as G & T but has now almost caught up with his big brother academically. What most pleases us most is that both have grown up to be thoroughly nice people.
It is helpful for a bright child to be identified and given work appropriate to his/her ability, but the description "Gifted and Talented" doesn't fit - these children just happen to be rather better than average in some academic areas; they aren't rare creatures who could write symphonies at 5 etc.
(BTW I always kept quiet about DC's abilities ... so much so that years later people were still astonished at well he was doing!)

[marne2]

My dc's school do not use the 'G&T' label, maybe because the school is a small one and only has around 18 children in each year group. We just get told what levels they are working at and where they are compared to others, Dd1 is top of the class in literacy and almost top ( not quite as good as her best friend ) at maths but she's given no label, her teacher tells me she's bright but I'm not sure how bright she really is and I have a feeling when she goes to high school next year there will be children a lot brighter than her. I just tell people 'she's doing very well', it's not a talent as such, she just enjoys learning.

Dd2 has ASD, she's pretty average at school but can play keyboard, drums and guitar by ear, I see this as a talent because she's never had a music lesson in her life.

[marne2]

My dc's school do not use the 'G&T' label, maybe because the school is a small one and only has around 18 children in each year group. We just get told what levels they are working at and where they are compared to others, Dd1 is top of the class in literacy and almost top ( not quite as good as her best friend ) at maths but she's given no label, her teacher tells me she's bright but I'm not sure how bright she really is and I have a feeling when she goes to high school next year there will be children a lot brighter than her. I just tell people 'she's doing very well', it's not a talent as such, she just enjoys learning.

Dd2 has ASD, she's pretty average at school but can play keyboard, drums and guitar by ear, I see this as a talent because she's never had a music lesson in her life.

[marne2]

My dc's school do not use the 'G&T' label, maybe because the school is a small one and only has around 18 children in each year group. We just get told what levels they are working at and where they are compared to others, Dd1 is top of the class in literacy and almost top ( not quite as good as her best friend ) at maths but she's given no label, her teacher tells me she's bright but I'm not sure how bright she really is and I have a feeling when she goes to high school next year there will be children a lot brighter than her. I just tell people 'she's doing very well', it's not a talent as such, she just enjoys learning.

Dd2 has ASD, she's pretty average at school but can play keyboard, drums and guitar by ear, I see this as a talent because she's never had a music lesson in her life.

[Muskey]

When dd was put on g&t I told her not to tell anyone as I knew it would cause problems with other mums in the class (too many pushy parents who were always hanging around the school) as usual with many schools when you want to keep something private it always finds its way into the school yard. The problem in dd school was one parent in particular was obsessed with having her children on the g&t list even going as far as demanding that her dc were put on it (her kids were bright but not gifted as per the definition). The mum in question saw the g&t list as some sort of a badge of honour that she could wear. When in effect labelling a child g&t doesn't actually help them. When dd changed schools in year 5 she was again put on g&t list this time no one has found out and if they did I don't think it would matter to them any way.

[PiqueABoo]

In school-world "talent" is the word for non-academic stuff and it's not supposed to be exclusively based on prior attainment e.g. a very good, seasoned peri. music teacher apparently saw something(!) and got DD put the school's G&T register at a very early stage, prior to any grades etc.

[dalziel1]

Talking of other parents who are competitive about the G&T thing, there was a mother of a boy who was G&T in maths in the same primary school class as Ds1.

DS1 joined the school in year 5 when the G&T children had already been identified and for whatever reason DS1's ability wasn't noticed by the teacher for a couple of months by which time it was too late to put him on that year's G&T program.

So, the other child and his mother didn't notice DS1 until year 6. When they did notice though, the mother treated it like I'd been deliberately misleading her and she tracked DS1 with a near obsession. She ended up demonstrating to me that she had better recall of DS1's test scores, in sequence, over several months than I did. It was really unnerving and quite irritating the way she kept cornering me to tell me where my DS was versus hers.

Meantime her son was avidly questioning DS1 about what he scored etc in the classroom.

Its not the right thing to do, really bad parenting, particularly un-mumsnetty, and its the only time I have ever done it, but I took DS aside and suggested that he might like to put some effort into beating the other boy. Two years later and they are both in the top set at secondary and DS1 has left the other boy trailing in his dust. Oddly, the other mother has stopped chasing me down in the street now.

I know I shouldn't have done it, but it felt good!