Gifted or 'just' bright?...

[bubbleymummy]

As they've gotten older, what has set your child apart from their peers? I think that when they are young it is easier to notice children who are doing things earlier/to a greater extent than other children their age, but as they get older skills such as numeracy/literacy etc obviously don't stand out as much. While my son seems gifted in these areas at age 4, he may not seem so in a few years! So what do you think it is that 'defines' your child's giftedness as such?

[webwiz]

If you go on the DirectGov website in the supporting Gifted and Talented children section you'll find a link to this board under the useful links. So the Government obviously think it matches their criteria

I think it is helpful to have somewhere to discuss problems that arise from having a very bright child but an open forum is not always the most supportive place.

[cory]

I have always been in two minds about this board. On the one hand, felt perhaps it is for parents of very bright children with problems, on the other hand felt perhaps there is some sort of point in posting occasionally to point out to anxious parents that even a very high degree of early brightness is no guarantee that you are going to be bored and unhappy and struggle socially.

[GooseyLoosey]

Chilli - I'm sure you do, we all need advice. For me, I have always approached this seciton of the board as specifically aimed at the peculiar issues which can arise with very bright children and how to approach them. I may be wrong though.

[chillikate]

Theres an awful lot of criticisms / putting down of those children who are "only" bright - yet I'd say that 9-% of the parents here say that their child is "only" bright.

The question here is that this Board is called "Gifted & Talented". What does that mean??

Does it mean the goverments definition of G & T?? Because if it does then probably all of our "only" bright children fit the criteria.

Or does it mean Gifted & Talented in the truest sense of those words?? If it does then I'd imagine this board to be rather quiet and that mumsnet need to consider bringing in a Bright Child board for the rest of us.

I need specific advice on raising my bright child as much as those with gifted or talented or special needs kids do.

[kissingfrogs]

Posters keep refering to Mozart as gifted. To my mind he was different: he was a savant.

Bright is having a lively, enquiring mind.
Gifted is bright with specific talent/s.
Savant is naturally inherent extreme talent/s.

That's my tuppence worth

[cory]

My brother was of the late developing sort: just a giggly little boy until he hit his teens, didn't learn to read until well after he had started school at 7, did language lessons at home from an early age but more in a sort of compliant obedient why-not sort of way than in anything that suggested a fizzing brain. And then suddenly in his teens, something seemed to hit him. Bit unnerving for me, who had always been the clever one of the family, but definitely impressive.

[Bink]

Well, yes - overtly gifted vs otherwise ... I have a couple of observations there.

One is my own personal take, and maybe prejudice in this, which is that in the long run gifts which stay latent are not (inherently) of the same sort as gifts which are made something of. There'll be a bit of personality issue in there in the making something - drive, dynamism, discipline, and circumstances too - but there is also the issue of the gift that won't be denied - which is what I was using the term for. However, I realise not everyone will see it the same way.

The other observation is what I was saying about its not necessarily showing itself in early childhood, but sometimes later; personally (again, just from my experience, in universities & professionally) I don't think you can really tell whether someone is going to have the wind in their sails till at least mid-twenties. So it's a bit difficult to be anything other than guesstimate with children - in some cases where they're likely to be going is more obvious than others, but I don't really think you can say anything certain. So yes, un- "overtly gifted" children might well end up flying.

Of course I wonder about this - my ds's ability is of the loose-cannon/multi-track sort where he will appear to be paying no attention whatsoever and then suddenly ask an intensely on-the-button lateral question that makes you realise he has not only taken it all in but he is busy re-assessing and testing it for himself. (Little example from early childhood: being told about friction with the example of the irregular atoms of rubber ... pause ... "Does glue have zig-zaggy atoms then?" This is a daily thing - I was telling him about my work's pension scheme the other day and he did the same sort of immediate cut-to-the-core question. It is fun telling him about stuff, because you get such good input.)

So though there's ability there I have no idea whether he's going to end up a 'gifted' adult (in my terms).

[bubbleymummy]

Very handy Lynli! :) I have a husband for that sort of thing but if I ever need something written in Greek DS1 is my man! (or boy) :)

[Remotew]

High five to anyone who has a 'gifted child'. Tonight I have tried to explain what I have learnt about politics in my nearly 50 yrs existence, to be shouted down by my 16 yr old who knows so much better Weird thing was that she gets it so much more than I.

And to this point I think I'm giving up. She is very 'clever'!

Didn't learnt to read fluently until she was 8.

[snorkie]

Hmm. 'self-starting' and 'fizzing' children are quite possibly just the overtly gifted. There are supposed to be children who hide their giftedness who probably have a completely different personality type but may well be no less gifted. Just because some gifted are obvious about it, really doesn't disprove the idea that there could be others who aren't.

[Lynli]

To be completely honest, at the risk of sounding smug.

It is completely obvious to anyone DS ever talks to that he is gifted.

The speed he processes information, and the way he thinks.

I wanted to build a website and bought a book, within an hour he had done it for me.

When you sit and talk to him, you feel you are talking to an educated adult and not a child.

He is who he is and I have never tried to push him, he was just born that way.

When he was born I put him on my shoulder and he looked at me and then turned and looked at the MW, she said she had never seen a newborn baby do that, you could see him thinking.

[singersgirl]

Hello, Bink! Lovely to 'see' you. I'm supposed to be working more (paid work) so don't visit here as often, but have phases...Hope all is well with you as well. We should revive our Dreamers thread.

DS1 has always been a Perrier child but I suspect there is little beneath the fizz. Funnily enough people always say when they meet him how bright he is, but he's found his first year at a v. academic school really hardgoing. (OT, and for Bink, after a poor showing in end-of-year exams I got him to see the Learning Support teacher at his school, and she thinks it highly likely he would get a diagnosis of dyspraxia if we pursued it. At last! Finally someone who doesn't think I've got educational Munchausens-by-proxy.) DS2 does not fizz but ponderously thinks Deep Thoughts.

I'm kind of interested in percentiles and tests etc since DS2's school has asked to 'test' him and I'm not sure of the value of it, for him, right now.

[Remotew]

Bink I like your fizzy brained description and the mention of chemistry. I couldn't shut DD up, she exhausted people as a youngster, but has calmed down a bit now as explained that not everyone is interested in listening.

I can remember watching a programme on TV a few years ago about human evolution, it made prime time network so not off the net about Indigo rubbish. Cannot remember what it was called, it was saying that there is a rougue human intelligence gene which is increasing but not for everyone, just for about 20% of the population. Perhaps these scientists have been coluding (SP) with the education powers that be, so G&T isn't as bollocks as some like to believe.

[Bink]

Hello singersgirl, I haven't seen (= been on the same thread as) you for ages! Hope all is well?

This is not really with ref. to my children but to specially clever people in general, which I've been lucky enough to be surrounded by just about always. (And at the same time by people who are thoroughly bright, but just not in the league of the special ones. So I've seen the difference every day.)

And the difference is chemical. You know those children who can't stop talking, like they're human Perrier where the speech bubbles form and form and cannot BUT collect rise burst & TALK? And while one bubble is rising and bursting endless following bubbles are endlessly following?

Truly gifted people are like that - it's not just that they're self-starters: they can't NOT self-start, they can't stop self-starting, it's not in their nature. It's a state of intellectual inspiration that just keeps renewing itself.

What I think is quite nice is that sometimes that quality emerges later than early childhood - most fizzy-brained people probably show themselves that way from early on, but some find themselves later. (And, of course, some quite able people/children level off eventually because, in all final truth, they aren't fizzy. I'm one of those, I think.)

[NotanOtter]

sanefairyann - yes . I was a bit like that - got an unenexpected U at GCE english literature and a B at a level. The head of english said he'd never heard of such a discrepancy and assumed my gce answers were more akin to a level...

( great excuse to not have to re sit the gce!)

[magicmummy1]

sanfairyann, I was never good at those regurgitated answers either. I wrote an entire essay for one of my final history exams in the sixth form about why I thought they were asking the wrong question.

Obviously didn't piss them off too much, as I still got the top grade.

[magicmummy1]

mamaloco - nice to know she has a twin. Around the same age, too!

As you say, she fits all the "gifted" criteria given in the link, with the possible exception of the fact that she enjoys her peers and adults!.

I agree, Mozart was gifted. My dd is not!

[sanfairyann]

liked the link. reminded me of my sister. failed most of her gcses, got crap a levels, got a first at uni. it wasn't til she got there that her answers to the questions were appreciated. she just thought far far too deeply for gcse and, in a bit of a 'clever but daft' way, couldn't see that all they wanted was a regurgitated answer that matched the script, not an inventive and new take on an old idea

[rey]

People are always telling me our children are "gifted" but I disagree and over the years I did wonder but now that they are mixing with more school children (ie at bigger school) they do seem to be doing well easily but are not exceptional or the brightest but people still tell me they are "so bright" even when I ask them why they are still saying it they still just come out with weak reasons.

[mamaloco]

nobody My dd1 (5.5) fit the description of "gifted" in your link (I know she is still young). But I don't agree that she is gifted (may be I am wrong). For me gifted is being a genius. Agree with the mozart comparison he was gifted.

magic it sounds like you have my DD's twin (early posts).

[cory]

My db was not particularly good at school, but he was definitely gifted at all technical things: mending household appliances while he was still in infants and setting up the school computers when he was in secondary (in the days before ICT lessons, evidently- he just taught himself programming). He started making and selling his own computer programmes after he left school and is now running a successful computer firm. But he was easily overlooked at school because he was not particularly good at either literacy or formal maths and never willingly tried to find anything about those subjects.

[cory]

Agree with most items on the list, but would suggest that it is possible to tick all the other boxes and still be able to enjoy equally the company of adults and that of your peers, and to understand that you must not hurt the teacher's feelings by showing up her ignorance. I have known some highly gifted people who have also been emotionally and socially mature. It is possible to have quite a young child who comes home and says "well, of course I never talk about X, Y and X with Emma because she wouldn't enjoy it, but I like playing with her because she's great fun". Not saying that I reached this level of maturity in my younger days but it is possible.

[Remotew]

Singers, the example you gave with a Poet is why they were asked to idenify pupils by subject. Our school did this and one child might have been listed for English only and so on. I can remember a couple of pupils being taken to meet an author etc.

I like that definition list posted by Nobody, sometimes younger children displaying these traits are judged to be non-compliant and distruptive/different and overlooked. Often they astound the teachers when it comes to tests. Speaking from experience here. Memories of a yellow table (below average), warned about a struggle with the tests, then afterwards declared a whizz at Maths.

Sorry if it comes across as I'm talking to myself here but had a couple of cross posts.

[Remotew]

Cory, agree with what you have said. That was the original idea. I've noticed that if one or two in a group of friends are working hard and setting their sights on going to university others will measure themselves against that, in a positive way, and aim higher themselves.

Most of the DC's I've watch grow up are staying in school with a view to going into some sort of higher education and wanting to do well.

It wasn't about the top 1% which I certainly wouldn't put DD in, it's a very small amount, It was 5% then widened to 10% to make it more inclusive. If 20% of school leavers make it to Uni then stands to reason that they keep an eye on top 10% who should be aiming to get into the Russell Group's with high grades regardless of their background. AFAIK there is a shift with G&T to place more emphasis on recognising underachievers. I guess they then went onto looking at toddlers/primary to catch them younger.

It seems to me like some sort of social experiment and it's a shame they didn't do a bit more with it. It hasn't been mentioned for years in our school so don't know what is happening atm in other schools.

[nobodyisasomebody]

Difference between a bright child and a Gifted child