Do you have a gifted child?

[bellababe]

If so, what in, at what age did you realise that s/he was gifted, and how? And what did you do about it?

[wizzysmum]

Did I read right? Is your baby just 20 months old? As a mother of 4 (including older gifted children) my only advice would be don't stress about it, simply enjoy having fun and doing stuff together. It worries me so much that babies are put into categories so young. Things change. By the time school starts others may have caught up and your child won't be so much of a one-off. Development goes in peaks and troughs.

[chipmonkey]

Montessori is great for letting each child develop at his/her own pace. what you could also look out for are schools which teach children in a "homelike"
environment. There's one in a neighbouring town to us which does this but I can't remember what the method is called. I'll see if I can look it up.

[jabberwocky]

Thanks, chipmonkey.

Wizzysmum, I'm sure I sound like I am overreacting and maybe I am. The thing is, we have lots of friends who are teachers, child therapists, etc. and the reason I started thinking about this is because people came up and started talking very seriously to us about just how advanced he is. Since he is our first child and I really haven't been around a lot of other children before having ds, I honestly wasn't aware at first that this was so unusual.

[bobbybob]

I've met two home schooled children recently. One is one of my favourite piano students, the other I refused to teach because I found her very irritating and the centre of her own universe. I didn't tell her mum that, just that I was full up.

Just to reassure you there are lovely homeschooled kids and little horrors. Same as in a school really.

[AussieSim]

My DS is gifted and talented at being well-behaved and hardly any trouble - he is 27mo. He seems to be developing just fine, verbal skills stronger than physical but probably not outstanding. He is bilingual as DH is German.

I can sympathise with Jabberwocky though as we are coming under pressure from friends and colleagues to put his name down for school, as that is what you have to do here to get into good private schools. I am reluctant as I feel that I need to know where his talents or weaknesses will lie before I choose a school/philosophy. We are considering the International German School here, or maybe Rudolph Steiner or maybe just the local public school initially and worry about private school later if necessary.

But I do really want to send him to a school that has a good languages program. My DH is good at languages and I seem to have a good ear as well, even though I only had to learn german late in life, so I would love to take advantage of the language aspect if I can.

Being a parent is full of pitfalls though.

Naturally I want DS's little brother to go to the same school as him - but what if they are totally different in regards of strengths and development needs? TBH that is where my parents messed up. I was much stronger academically than my brother and they did not know how to handle it, so downplayed all of my achievements and talked his up - which didn't help either of us and resulted in us being estranged as adults.

Pitfalls, pitfalls, pitfalls - if only they would stay babies forever

[expatinscotland]

20 months?! SO much can change! My goodness, some doctors told my aunt they were 'concerned' about my kid cousin at that age - he wasn't walking or talking. Luckily, his mother is a teacher who had seen very bright 3 year olds become very average 7 year olds and vice versa.

He's now a senior computer engineer for Microsoft. He finished his masters' in computer engineering by age 20. He also competed on the university's swim team.

Sad to say it, but being 'advanced' at 20 months (a very strange concept considering we're talking about a baby) probably has little bearing on the other 77 years of a child's life expectancy.

I was 'gifted' and went to an extremely competitve high school that I had to sit an all-day exam to even apply to. It still took me till my mid-30s to blossom. Sure would have to have seen what would have happened had I been labelled 'not gifted'.

Labels are for food, not children.

[Peachyclair]

Like the other post said, think about a Montessori. Two of mine went to one, one gifted one not (although actually he is gifted socially, what a wonderful thing to be!), both are / were happy there, and it has been a wonderful thing for all the family. They let the children find their own pace and guide their own learning.

ds3 can't go as he has to go to one attached to Uni.

[jabberwocky]

Thanks, everyone. I do appreciate the serious responses. I knew I would catch some flack posting on this but it is an important issue to me. Dh and I have been discussing things and he has become more open to options other than public school, so at least we are communicating about it a little better.