Is your child gifted?

[TheBazTheBearandTheBelle]

I am just wondering if there is anyone else out there who finds it hard to talk about their child being gifted? If my son had special needs due to something more debilitating like dyslexia or ADHD it may in fact be easier to push the teachers to act on helping him, not that I would wish those things on anyone. Is it just me or is it truly more difficult?

I moved ds from a state school into a private school as they were being introduced. I have friends that teach in the state sector though so she tells me all about it. I do think that with support and encouragement a child can go far, experience tells me that a child doesn't always get this though and it can be a difficult rock to climb without.

But on MN parents always think the other kids get the lion share of attention and not their child.

And they always say it's because their child is average, or because their child is ahead, or because their child has SEN......

Almost no parents are happy with the provision they get.....

:)

I'm perfectly happy with the attention ds gets at school. All I'm saying is I think it is wrong to focus on academic attainment. Ds is very bright academically when he is interested and can be bothered. Nothing he does academically at school especially interests him. That is in stark contrast to the focus and commitment he shows in his out of school activities.

in which case he may love
www.ram.ac.uk/primary-academy
or
www.gsmd.ac.uk/opportunities_for_young_people/junior_guildhall.html
etc

I suggested RCM because I know of a girl who was admitted aged 6, although this is rare. MollieO does DS play an instrument? Schools are more interested in all round musicianship rather than just a voice.

Hi - Great to hear your child could be gifted.
As the parent of an obviously gifted ds with general ability and high IQ , and being so gifted myself ( as was my wife) I think the most important thing you can teach your ds to realise that he needs to fit in with other people and hide his abilities .

It is a sad thing to say but a clever child can do this and will benefit from it.

That doesnt mean you put a full hold on his natural ability ( that may need nurturing at home) . It does mean you have to teach him/ her that folk do not take kindly to " wizz kids" and its best to be a bit above average but not to put the peddle down too much.

Best life skill and survival skill you can teach. I didnt learn it until quite late myself. My dw struggled to adulthood before mastering it. A child who gets this early has all the advantages I think

What a very sad post jabed

My kids aren't at proper school yet (nearly 2 and just4) but my impression from being a primary school governor and married to a teacher is that being classified as 'gifted and talented' at school is not supposed to meand gifted in the sense that those on this thread mean it. So, perhaps it's an unhelpful name for this programme but it seems to me entirely reasonable to find the top 10% for whom a bit of extra stretching might be useful in the same way as schools identify those that are struggling with reading relative to others in their agegroup and give them extra help to catch up.

I think jabed has a very good point and I'd add to it telling your child that they're "gifted" beyond the normal encouragement we all give our kids is a bit over the top as, I reckon, most little kids would find it hard to process this and so it may create an impression that they are superior to other people because of that "gift" which may lead to trouble socially. Not expressing it too well but even if I saw my children had particular talents I would be very careful about marking them out as all that special from everyone else as I think it's really important to teach kids that everyone is special and has their own strengths. not saying that anyone on this thread is doing that with their child but it is a very difficult balance I suspect...

Oh my! If I had known this would happen I might never have started this post. I am infact a well experienced teacher and now a mum too and I know for a fact that my eldest IS gifted. I understand it may be perceived as cheaper to help these special needs but that doesn't mean it actually hapens. My point have been proved by some on here and Colleger in particular; you are really quite agressive in the way you come across. However , I do really appreciate all the positive stuff and want to apologise if I implied that children with dyslexia or ADHD for example could not be gifted. I didn't mean to portray it like that and know from experience that it is quite possible!

Yes mine is, so school told me .

I would also be interested to find out what people such as the OP and many others wondering and hoping if their toddlers are gifted would like for the final outcome.

Top of the school at GCSE and A level, Oxbridge, Profession????

adamschic - Surely, the 'final outcome' everyone wants for their child is for them to be happy.

TheBazTheBearandTheBelle - it may be perceived as cheaper to help these special needs . I don't think anyone thinks it's cheaper to help out kids with SN........ There is no way I believe a full time 1:1 is cheaper than setting appropriate work for a 'gifted' child.........

I don't talk about my son being clever. It's not something I need the support of my friends and family with.........

But it really is just plain bad manners to talk about how bright your child is......

When people tell me 'Gosh, he's clever', then I can say 'yes he is'. And smile. But that's all that's required.......

(Whereas I do need the support of my family and friends for his SN, and talk about that an awful lot....)

How am I being aggressive?

Firstly, we should all remember that we are reading text and choose to put our own emotions into the text, which usually is not the emotions of the poster.

All I said was:

Why would you need to talk about your child being gifted?

I thought it was arrogant that parents thought that just by the child opening their mouths everyone would see that they were gifted. As parents we are so wrapped up in our little darlings that we assume everyone else will be as equally in awe of them!

I didn't think singing was a gift, especially in boys when the ability may be short-lived. FWIW my son too has an amazing voice but I don't think he is gifted.

So the whole point of my posts were maybe parents of gifted children should chill out. There is a standard parent of gifted children who are OTT for about the first 8 years (but especially ages 3-6). Kids develop more of a backbone/personality by 8 and are less compliant and do not want parents banging on about their "gifts". By 12 they seem like every other child who just happens to be doing well at school, although sometimes this is not the case. So all this stress really is not worth it. They end up at uni at the same time, they have similar jobs and potentially they may be less happy than other adults because of the unhealthy focus they received when they were young and the fact that they feel they did not reach the potential expected of them!

The trouble with geniuses

IQ does play a role in success in life, but only to a point (an IQ of 120). Beyond that, what makes the difference is the family and community environment, and hard work. Lewis Terman, a professor of psychology at Stanford University has tracked about 1450 Californian kids with high IQs since 1921, and until 1955, before he died. The study, called GeneticStudiesof_Genius is still going on. However, sociologist Pitirim Sorokin showed that their performance was indistinguishable from that of kids taken at random, from families of similar backgrounds. Terman's fieldworkers also rejected two students who were to become Nobel laureates because their IQs were too low.

That is why I care not one whit about how clever my DS is or isn't......

Colleger according to the govt guidelines your Ds is gifted. I agree with you that having a great singing voice isn't gifted in the true sense of the word but neither is being in the top 10% at school.

Does anyone know how to test a childs IQ? I think dd1 is bright (as i said before) but how do i know if she has a high IQ? Today her and another child in her class were taken out of the class and given some level 3 SAT papers (maths) to complete, they were allowed to talk to each other and they managed to complete all the questions, dd1 is now asking for the level 4 paper (i dont really understand the levels but the fact that only 2 children where given them makes me think the others must be working at a lower level?) Will the school tell me how she has done in her SATS? (she's 7 so year 2).

Marne, lots of Y2 children do the level 3 sats papers. 38%+ of my class completed the L3 maths sats successfully, although not all of those children are working at a level 3.

The sats tests are used to support teacher assessments when levels are given at the end of the year. If her performance in this test was to be used for formal assessment purposes, she would not have been allowed to do it collaboratively.

The teacher is probably interested to see how the 2 of them got on with it, which is fine.

L4 is a whole different ball game, and done in Y6!

I'm glad dd is so keen

I think dd1 would do exam papers all day , she has really enjoyed the SATS, she was telling me all about it on the way home and saying she wants to try level 4, she probably works better in exam conditions or with one other but i can imagine her struggling in the classroom as she talks non stop (due to her Aspergers). The teacher seems to have been giving her verious papers for the past month (she's done level 3 literacy).

I was incredibly proud to be told my DD1 was Gifted academically when she was 7yrs old, she is now 13, and I have to ask, what is/was the point? To attend a GAMA activity day once a year. IMO Really not worth the aggrivation that the label brings with it.

I really don't like this term gifted. The IQ starts at 130 but a child with an IQ of 130-150 does not compare to one of IQ 170+. The former tend to have less issues!

What I would say to Marne is that it would have been obvious to you if your child had an exceptionally high IQ from a very early age rather than noticing it when a teacher takes DD out for extension work. Of course this may not be the scenario and you may well have noticed unusual developments.

I view children with IQ's of 130-150 as bright and capable academically but not amazing. It's the ones who have very high IQ's that really need extra support. I have two children with one in each range and the child with the lower IQ is achieving more and fitting in better at school.

colleger- we noticed from a early age with both dd's but this is common with children on the autistic spectrum, dd1 spoke very early, read early and could do simple maths at an early age, at the age of 3 she could name all the country's on a map and name the flags (due to her obsession with maps, again due to Aspergers). With dd2 its harder, she was reading early, counting early and spelling long words using magnetic letters at the age of 18 months but was non-verbal, we suspect she has Hyperlexia but i have no idea how you can mesure the IQ of a almost non-verbal child?

You need to get an IQ test that tests abilities separately otherwise you will get a figure that is inaccurate. One of my children has an IQ of 137 but that is made up of VR being off the scale and NVR being around 100.

Id say your children are easily in the 150+ range but the SEN may bring the score down so not giving an accurate picture.

Thanks Colleger- i will ask dd2's pediatrician when we see them next, we have been told she possibly has high IQ (by pediatrician) but they have never tested . Dd1's speech scored at the level of a 12 year old when she was 4 (this was tested as part of her Aspergers diagnosis) but again no mention of IQ.

Colleger,

Entirely agree. There is a huge difference between 'bright but of an ability that appears once in every 10, 100 or 200 children' and 'bright and of an ability that appears once in 10,000 children and most teachers won't encounter in a lifetime'.

The former tend to fit prety well into school, react normally to extension activities etc. The latter are very 'different'.

Marne, yes, what IS it about flags???? DS was the same ...