Is my daughter gifted?

[claypole44]

My DD is 6 and has always been a long way ahead of her peers at every development stage but I find it difficult to talk to anyone, besides my husband and mum about it.I am conscious of seeming boastful or being pushy ( I am neither!) and do not even raise the subject with close friends.

Her teachers have said she is top in her year in the key subjects and she has been put into extension groups. The school's ethos is to not say too much about how each child is doing, compared to other children. I understand why they do this, but many parents feel the parent's evenings are so vague and general, it is hard to know how your child is really doing. I want to just say 'Is my child considered to be gifted and/or talented by this school?'

I have looked at guides designed to identify if your child could be gifted and my DD fits the profile exactly. She is always asking questions,wants to continue work after she is home from school,she is very intense and argues like a lawyer! Her school achievements are always ' well above average for her year group'. Her reading level has been recently assessed as that of an 11 year old.We have difficulties with her behaviour, as she tears apart every argument we put to her and relentlessly challenges us. Her behaviour is hard to manage and is different to other children I have come across. It was this reason that made me seek help on gifted

Is she just bright or gifted? If she was struggling academically I would find it much easier to address with her teachers but I just don't feel right asking if she is gifted. Does it matter if I know whether she is gifted or not?

Bright and gifted are the same thing apart from the term 'gifted' is used by schools to select (I think) 5% to meet government targets/initiatives.

So it's just a label and it sounds like she is doing really well. They may allocate her to a gifted and talented group for certain subjects as she gets older (my dd is in a couple)

Thanks :-)

I did feel it was just a label.Her school isn't great but improving and I do try fill the gaps at home and answer all the questions as much as I can. I have a toddler and a preschooler so opportunities are rare!

It certainly sounds as though your DD is very bright. However, there is a difference between very bright and gifted (in the true sense) children. My DD is on the "gifted and talented" register but, although she is extremely bright (has a reading age of 15 at actual age 8, does numeracy with year 6 while actually in year 3), I do not think she is gifted. You might find this Difference between bright and gifted children interesting

Just keep the behaviour part separate from the gifted part! Bad behaviour doesn't need an excuse

She does sound bright. Is she happy with school and the work they give her? Mine are bright but challenged at school. They're not 'gifted' in the sense of child genius though

Just keep the behaviour part separate from the gifted part! Bad behaviour doesn't need an excuse

She does sound bright. Is she happy with school and the work they give her? Mine are bright but challenged at school. They're not 'gifted' in the sense of child genius though

It's just a 'label', and a subjective one at that. Clearly she is a very able young lady. Isn't it enough to know that ? Will it make a difference to you, or to her if a teacher said "She is 'gifted'" ?

Have a look at the NAGC website - lots of info and a helpline.

Just clicked on the above link and found it quite upsetting.... I think having a "bright" child would be the preferable option.

My dd is 12 and in year 8. She has had the gifted and talented label since early primary but wasn't told about it until dd was almost leaving year 6. Her CAT test score was "off the scale". Means nothing to me. Apparently we knew about it??. Hasn't done anything for her. I (single parent) wasn't told anything about it and what it was or did as school didn't have any leaflets or anything and dd and i had never heard of it. I always said that dd was "brainy" as she definitely is and finds everything very easy academically. I was also classed as "brainy" when i started school just because i could already read and write! Dd never really challenged at school though as i have posted before and was always asked to help others instead of giving dd extra stuff to do which she wanted. She actually had a girl placed with her so she could learn her to read. I wasn't happy with some stuff but teachers always said "look on internet" for work for dd. Very helpful i don't think. They just didn't know what to do. I don't even know if any others were in G&T - i suppose they might have been but i never heard anything. Since starting high school nothing is really mentioned about g&t. Dd is in set 1 for all subjects apart from dance and pe and all the top set are classed as gifted and talented. It doesn't do much - sometimes they may have different school trips. Dd recently went on one but it was only 8 of them picked from her year. Having the G&t label won't make any difference to you or the child. If they want to learn they will learn. Good luck and best wishes to everyone and their children.

Who wrote that link? Some of the stuff i was reading about the "gifted" child just sounds like the naughty children who was a dd's school. They certainly were not bright. Where dd got level 5a in her sats for three years running, these children got 2A or 3C if they were lucky. I just keep seeing these write-ups about children who are "gifted" or brainy to me and it always says that there is something wrong with them and there is certainly not anything wrong with my dd. Aspergers is one of them. I saw a program once and the people with aspergers on there were certainly not gifted they were uncrontrollable.

I don't think that getting a 2A or 3C in a SATS necessarily means that a child is not bright or gifted. Perhaps their skill/gift is not being tested or perhaps they have dyslexia. On the other hand, a child getting a 5a is undoubtedly bright. You can underachieve but you cannot overachieve. There are lots of gifted adults who failed at school. Many people with Aspergers are gifted! Put in a Google search on it!

Found this:

Norm Ledgin caused a stir with his book, Diagnosing Jefferson. The author claimed that the genius of America's third president was due to Asperger Syndrome, which could explain his 54-year obsession with building and rebuilding Monticello, his inability to control his spending, and his affair with a child/slave. After this book became a best seller, the author wrote Asperger's and Self-Esteem: Insight and Hope through Famous Role Models, which claims that thirteen giants of history - Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, and Mozart among them-also had Asperger Syndrome. Some people also believe that Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charles Darwin, Galileo, Pablo Picasso, Benjamin Franklin, Margaret Mead and Aristotle had Asperger Syndrome.

Lately authors are adding Bill Gates to the list of famous Aspies because of his lack of social skills, inability to make eye contact and tendency to rock back and forth coupled with his obsession with technology. Diane Kennedy, an author and advocate for Asperger Syndrome, writes, "They are our visionaries, scientists, diplomats, inventors, chefs, artists, writers and musicians. They are the original thinkers and a driving force in our culture."

dd2 is 10 and has not been assessed as 'gifted' - as OP says schools are very reluctant to label and generally focus on SEN. Looking at the list, she ticks most of the boxes on the gifted list. eg she is v. controlling and a total perfectionist, leading to temper tantrams even now.

School is definitely not a good fit for her. She finds it boring and alienated with what takes place in class. There were friendship problems and issues with class teacher (being too quiet, not engaged in lessons etc). Yet she is always top of class. I've tried to get her school to take her issues seriously but no avail.

So OP, I've got no advice as such but I think it gets better as the child gets older. eg, dd2 has adjusted her expectations of the school so she puts up more with what goes on. Not great but she is less frustrated. Her friendship issues have also improved with maturity. Our challenge now is to get her through year 6 (notoriously tricky year) and hopefully secondary will have wherewithall to deal with her better.

I don't think behaviour on its own is enough to diagnose giftedness. I get the same constant arguing and challenging from my ds who is the least gifted of my children, in fact slightly under average for his age group.

Dd otoh who almost certainly is gifted grew out of it when she was about 4, because she realised you get better results through not arguing all the time.

The more important question to you is not whether your dd fits a special label but how you can ensure:

a) that her intellectual needs are met both at school and at home

b) that her behaviour is acceptable and that she copes socially

Starting with the second, first of all you should make it clear that there is no amount of giftedness in the world that excuses rudeness. Never feel guilty about pulling her up on that; in a longer perspective, good manners are another tool to help her make the most of her intellectual gifts.

However, it is also the case that many gifted children are not rude as such, but struggle socially because they are simply not speaking the same language as their peers. Here I find you can do a lot as a parent by helping to bridge that gap, explaining to your child where the other child is coming from and suggesting ways in which she can meet them halfway. I never had this help from my mother who was a somewhat shy and awkward person herself and therefore rather tended to encourage the view that there was something special in being so clever that I couldn't get on with the other children- as you can imagine, that attitude hasn't done me many favours in life. But I do think I have been able to help my own dd in this respect.

As for the first, at home I don't think you should be too apologetic if you can't always answer her question. The aim is to help her to become an independent learner, so open-ended questions (I don't know, but where do you think you could find out?) are not actually a cop-out but a learning tool. Encourage her to read as much as you can, make sure she has access to dictionaries and encyclopedias and has a library card.

The school is trickier. First of all you need to find out whether she is being stretched or not, so you need to talk to the teacher. Be as open-minded as you can. Find out if she is kept busy or if she is performing to her expected level. Ask how she is doing socially. You can use your concern about her behaviour at home as a reason for a meeting.

cory, agree that (bad) behaviour does not define giftedness, but is often an outcome of the frustrations the child feels esp when young. For gifted children as with those at the other end of spectrum, school is not a good fit.

Between 3 and 9yrs , dd2 used to have meltdown tantrums after school on regular (at least twice a week) basis. These were the bad days when she had to sit frustrated for much of the day. Other days, she would come out literally walking on air. Something had inspired her and she wanted to run home to pursue it further.

This is behaviour is true for all kids, good days and bad days, but somehow more extreme in 'gifted' children, at least dd2. As said before, maturity lessens these outbursts. Thank heavens!

TimeChild Sat 23-Jun-12 12:45:07
"cory, agree that (bad) behaviour does not define giftedness, but is often an outcome of the frustrations the child feels esp when young. For gifted children as with those at the other end of spectrum, school is not a good fit."

I'd say that depends on the child. Gifted children, like children with special needs, are not all the same. They don't all react in the same way.

Some children, like my dd, are also intensely interested in people (and have plenty of outside ways of stretching themselves), so they won't be worried if the school work isn't always that stimulating. They are observers and engagers, so a school is actually quite a stimulating place to be for them (particularly if they have ambitions to be writers, as dd did for a long time). For a child like that, even a less academic school can be an excellent fit.

Others, like myself, are self starters anyway, so won't be expecting school to provide them with stimulation. I viewed school as a pleasant place to which I went to relax after the hard work I put in elsewhere.
(I was quite amiable about being told what to do, both at home and at school, but the idea that I would need someone else to get me started wouldn't have occurred.)

Other children,again, will feel very frustrated and unhappy and will need support, but again whether they express that in bad behaviour or not will depend on their personality.

And plenty of children who play up and claim to be bored are actually struggling instead- like my ds. But I am sure if I posted a thread worrying about his behaviour and not mentioning his scores, there would be plenty of posters to tell me that he is gifted and bored.

cory, happy for you that you and your dd have found school stimulating even when gifted. If only true for my dd :(

It has been heartbreaking for me over the years to see dd struggle so. Obviously she does stuff outside school and I help her as much as I can. But it seems that school itself tries her to tears (often literally). Her school is a fine school, but does tend to concentrate their efforts in the area of greatest need at the bottom end of ability (and quite rightly in my opinion) - but it does leave children like her high and dry.

The only consolation is that maturity is helping her to cope better.

My mum is a primary school teacher and has a lot of experience of teaching both dyslexic and gifted children. She always says she would rather have a "backwards" child than a gifted one. As another poster has said, gifted children often struggle socially because their intellectual skills are so far beyond even their gross motor skills. It's like putting a Ferrari engine in a Nissan Micra.

Really sorry to hear that, TimeChild.

In our case, where the school let dd down was about her physical disability- they weren't able to handle that at all. Schools all seem to struggle with different things.

Yes, sometimes it seems that schools can only cater to the mainstream, some average that may not exist. All the best for your dc.

What makes your DD different from other children?
My DD has a very high IQ (we were told 130 is considered gifted and 150 is highly gifted) and has skipped a class at school.
I didn't realise she was any different to her peers initially as she was very popular and always being invited by other children for parties/ playdates etc. It was the educational psychologist who pointed out that whilst her peers loved her, she was actually quite contemptuous of them as she had worked out she had nothing in common with them. She's still a bossy little whatsit but being with older children has helped!
It was only really after I had Dd2 that I realised how different to "normal" toddlers and young children Dd1 had been!

Lots of interesting comments.I understand that even if I knew she was gifted, there is not much I can do, that I'm not doing already. Also, she challenges herself by writing stories,doing online tests, home projects etc.

Everyone has pointed out that she is very able, from a young age.It is quite obvious. I have other children and they are bright but not exceptional. She has intense friendships,is highly competitive (this used to be a huge problem, but she is better now) and will not settle until she has dissected every little thing.

She loves school and as long as they keep her challenged and interested, I am sure she will thrive. :-)

Why don't you just ask them if she is on the G&T register?

david lewis wrote a good book with an i q assessment grid in it - can't remember the name. it might still be in print.
your daughter sounds able, gifted, whatever. have you tried mensa, nagc? make sure she has a lot of hobbies and interests - school can be deadly boring.

I was told by my DC's school that a child with 'special educational needs' is a child whose needs cannot be met through normal differentiation in the classroom. Two of my children fall into this category because they are particularly able in one (or in the other case, all) areas.
Therefore they are given additional challenges, as much as possible in the classroom, but sometimes outside to make sure they are making good progress.
They are on the gifted and talented register, but to me that is just a label and essentially irrelevant. The main thing is that the school ensures they continue to make good progress and are enthused and excited by education.