Gifted and talented

[fembear]

I have been totally gobsmacked by the vile postings on the G&T board: it has been nothing short of bullying. I know that the perpetrators will say, "it was only a bit of fun, where's your sense of humour" but that is what bullies always say.

I will repeat what I said on that thread: I know several parents of Gifted children who could never discuss their problems with other parents because of the nastiness at the schoolgate. It's no better on here really and it's shameful. So much for the MN philosophy of "We believe that by pooling knowledge and experience, parents can make each other's lives easier ... if there's one thing all of us could do with, it's some moral support."

I've had enough of MN, had enough of wasting my life wading through pages of verbiage for the very few worthwhile postings so I'm flouncing back to RL.

Bye

Join NAGTY (National association of gifted and talented youth) and hang out with like minded people. Schools themselves bully in my experience. If your kids are clever, have them assessed and move near a grammar school. They are such a relief after non-supportive primary schools. good luck

Yes, it was bad bad bad behaviour on Kerrymum's part. I feel she should apologise.

I agree. Come on Kerrymum, do the decent thing and issue a full apology!

I think the best thing about MN is you can post what you think rather than worrying that someone might not like what you say or have a contrary view. There are lots of contentious posts on this website. No one makes you read the ones you don't like. If we start expecting everyone to apologise for postings that some others take offence at then where do you stop? I speak as someone who was on the receiving end of a personal and attacking post. I chose not to read that thread again. The same as I would do in life. If I met someone whose views were rude and offensive then I wouldn't see them again.

Well this is nice.
-I've had one pleasant posting from someone who has only been on MN a few days and, unfortunately, gave duff advice (thanks tanja but NAGTY closed over a year ago. We have made some good friends there and it is a pity that the same opportunity no longer exists for following generations.)
-I've had another post which said, "meh".
-None of the more regular posters cares enough to post to say "don't go" or even "you will be missed" which reinforces the conclusion that I am wasting my time on here.

So I shall definitely take Mollie's advice i.e. quit this place. MN clearly is not supportive (understatement!) of parents of G&T children who are having problems so I shan't bother with it any more and shall only post on other specialist boards with like-minded parents. I don't think that it is an ideal solution for MN nor G&T parents. The problem is that MN is too weighted towards young children so we get silly threads about 'genius' toddlers and not enough about older children who really are G&T. MN is not grown-up enough.

That's the flounciest flounce I've seen for some time.

NAGTY has closed, but has been replaced by IGGY. Might be worth checking out?

If your child has problems you will always find support on MN in my experience. Whether they are gifted or not would be irrelevent.

And that's the point.

The point that has been made over and over again, about objections, or reservations, abot GandT topic.

and if you can't undersatnd or except that viewpoint then MN is probably only going to wind you up more and more as that viewpoint is probably not going to go away.

Or certainly the non-argument, personal attacks issued by KM, are not going to change anyones viewpoint about reservations about Gand T.

You can stay, argue your case, accept others disagree, or go.

well mn tradition is that if you post dont go you will get close uour door on the way out; never expect otherwise

'I will repeat what I said on that thread: I know several parents of Gifted children who could never discuss their problems with other parents because of the nastiness at the schoolgate.' I do know how you feel. I suffer the same treatment because of the sn problems of ds1. but it belongs within g&t (or aibu at a stretch) just as i place my sn issues

oh my own take is not to eliminate g&t but to make it opt in like Sn.

fembear, there was no bullying. No parent with a child with problems due to being G&T will ever be mocked or bullied, but supported and helped.

It doesn't make the TOPIC any more sensible - it is a silly topic, because of a silly education policy. To define a certain percentage of children (and not even cross reference between schools) as G&T is silly silly silly. And the vast majority of those children will NOT have problems, and would be fine WITHOUT a label. You might as well have three topics; Education:bright/toptable, Education:average/middletable and Education:struggling/bottomtable.

It would never happen. And rightly so. But what inevitably happens is that parents get carried away by the G&T thing and believe their child is the next Einstein, which most of them just aren't. And then you get the 'aspiring to be G&T parents' - which is where you get the 'my toddler can tell the difference between pink and purple, I'm enrolling them in MENSA' (which believe me did happen, though not on MN). And that is BAD for the children, and for the parents.

Then you get the posters who think the topic should be exclusively for people whose children are 'on' the register, irrespective of what problems there may be. And disregarding the fact that their child may be less able than many children who are NOT on the register, just they are in a lower achieving school.

When you hear of children being 'G&T in history' it just makes a nonsense of it.

I am of the opinion that all G&T posts can be put into Education:Primary or Education:Secondary. And threads would probably be more interesting with a more varied range of responses.

I should add, there WILL be the odd child who has problems as a result of being very highly gifted. But again, the problems can be discussed in other topics. Because the vast majority of G&T children do not come into this category.

Seriously, to flouce off is daft.
My kids are in independent school and there are far worse threads about that.
So what? I wade in or I ignore.
Yet I know if ever I posted a serious problem there would help immediately and support would come whether folk agreed with my choices or not.

If you don't like mumsnet then find a gentler bullitin board. Ie. Like Bounty or babycentre where everyone is terribly nice and its not half as interesting.

I think that many of the mums who claim their kids are gifted and talented are deluding themselves. Or certainly are terrible show offs. They are fair game whether its real life or the internet. I would not agree with take the p!ss out children, but their stupid mothers are really asking to get ribbed.

You have no idea who people are on Mumsnet or even if they are telling the truth. Their poor kids might be completely average.