Outcomes for G&T kids- does anyone have experience?

[Theas18]

Thought I'd posted about this before but can't find it (or maybe it just got zero replies LOL).

There are a lot of parents of G&T kids on here. The kids seem to be universally primary age or younger.

Is this early promise the start of a hugely high academic career, or is it accelerated learning that then stabilizes out?

I'd love to hear peoples experience. Might add mine then,

Hazledog I'm so glad you ave finally found your own contentment now.

I know ds's HT's in secondary school were appalled that I didn't do more to reign in ds, stop his truanting in sixth form, make him work and point him to university. But truth be told he wouldn't have been happy and at 18 he could choose for himself anyway.

Ds found his own path and he's very happy so that is all that matters and tbh once he left school the gifted label got forgotten about.

Ds now advises schools and any number of times he is asked "are you the "insanity's son"?" although I'm not sure whether he's remembered for his ability or the frustration he caused tbh.

For all 3 DC I had a letter stating they are G&T, this was in secondary school, what it meant was that they were in the top 10% of their year.

DD1 is very bright and listed as G & T for music and maths. Her primary head teacher reccommended that we apply for a scholarship for a v. high brow independent school. We decided not to. She would have to leave at7.15am and not get home until 5.30. SHe would then have 1.5 - 2hrs homework each night. - she is going to the local comp (much to the shock of many) as being very bright doesn't mean you are automatically an academic. She isn't. she's good at academic stuff ,but is very much an all rounder - loves sport and drama also. I do think that when labelling a child as 'gifted or talented' schools need to be careful that they don't guide children into a route that they actually don't want, just because they're good at it . Being bright shouldn't narrow chioce. IFSWIM
DS3 has also been highlighted as 'exceptonally bright with an incredible capacity for learning' He's 5!, at the moment he's a sponge. THis may or may not continue, but I don't ever want him to be a 'dissappointment' to his next teacher if he begins to plateau.
I hope that doesn't sound un supportive. I am very supportive of all my children - in their successes and in their efforts! :)

DS is now 12. We started to suspect he was gifted at 18 months, when he started telling the time and counting. When he was 2, he started reading and knew his numbers to 1000 and beyond. At 3 he was writing, and starting adding and subtracting. At 4, he taught himself his tables, at 5, he taught himself fractions from a homework site on the Internet. First I knew about it was when his reception teacher advised me to stop teaching him.

...

At 6, after a horrendous time at infant school, his class teacher accused us of pandering to him and said, if she hadn't been told he was gifted, she'd have thought he had special needs. The G&T co-ordinator at the County Council told us his job was really to control the expectations of pushy parents and that he'd be average by the time he was 10 or 11.

We approached a local prep school, absolutely desperate: DS was wetting his pants daily at school and was biting his nails until they bled.

DS passed their entrance exams with 100% - and finished the maths paper in half the allowed time. He's never looked back.

I noticed the difference in weeks. Instead of dreamily trailing out of school last, he was rushing into my arms at the end of the day, full of enthusiasm. He's achieved so much, exam results remain outstanding, despite being scholarship papers these days. He plays chess at international level

And the future?

He's taking his scholarship exams next year and has his sights set on getting into College at Winchester. No clear idea after that, but I'm not stressing about it and neither is DS.

My SIL is a G&T co-ordinator at a comprehensive. She says it's uphill work, with the other teachers not caring at all about the brighter kids - they have too much to do trying to improve the struggling ones.

More and more, I'm convinced that, had we left him to fester in the state system, the story would have been very different. Probably he would have been average by 10: he'd have learned to survive by hiding his ability. The signs were already there - his prep school spent the first year or so convincing him that it was ok to put up his hand to answer questions and to contribute to class discussions. Previously he'd been told off for doing this.

This is our experience. No doubt there are state schools that can cope with gifted children. Unfortunately, I strongly suspect that our experience is the more common one.

I'd love to tell that county G&T co-ordinator, who dismissed my son without even seeing him, just how far from "average" he turned out to be

Sorry - should have made clear that we are not well off and DS is on a bursary.
Strangely enough, the Headmaster of his prep school really wanted him there. His previous school did not, but still had the nerve to advise us that the prep was very academic and DS would struggle there

I've changed my approach and attitude. My ds 14 is G&T. We were told when he was in reception he was mathematically gifted. He doesn't fit some of the stereotypes I've read about. He's competitive sporty (very) in an elite sports team at County rep level lots of friends but lazy as hell.

I'm letting him be a 13 yr old. No extra pressure from me he has to learn his own way.

Losingitall, my dd is 12 and in year 8 and was always mathematically gifted too.Has been on G&T since the year dot but hasn't done a thing for her. She is very good in all subjects apart from sport as she is overweight although she tries hard. My dd doesn't fit sterotypes either. Do you mean people talking about Aspergers and things like that? Dd is just normal to me and doesn't have any quirky things going on. She has always loved school and loves working hard. Can be quite "nerdy" apparently (parents at primary school called her nerdy).

My mate and I were always placed 1st-5th in end of year exams at school in all subjects up to Y11. We have pondered what might have happened if any of our teachers had ever been aware of, or had taken any interest in, this fact.

But then, as you get older, you look around you and see most people turn out pretty much the same at the end of the day (OK job, 1-2 kids, partner, a holiday every year, fairly decent place to live....) So does all this angst actually matter?

Oh that was a grammar school in the 70s BTW so we were doing pretty well to get 1st to 5th!

The writings of people on here ring so true. I never had to work hard in primary school and always achieved top marks, moved to secondary school and again was in top sets for all subjects except maths (which I repeatedly got excluded from!) Did no revision for the exams at all except what we were forced to do in class (spent most of that doodling), passed 8 GCSE's with good but not outstanding grades. My A level grades were appalling because I had never learned how to study and I didn't go to uni - I worked in a supermarket for 4 years bored rigid. I then trained as a nurse (frequently argued with Drs regarding their care decisions and often was proved right), I didn't attempt difficult learning paths due to a fear of failure.
Throughout my childhood my mother constantly complained that I could do better, so I took pleasure doing less and less. We argued constantly about how she allowed my father to do nothing while she did all jobs, with my father I had blazing rows at the injustice and lack of role modelling by him when he told me to do chores ( very strong sense of justice). I skipped Spanish but yet passed the test with 94% and the GCSE in a year.
With age, experience and maturity I am now succeeding and utilising my problem solving brain, leadership and management skills in a field that tackles injustices and inequity. Finally I am peaceful having completed my Pg Dip. .
The very able pupils are not always the high achievers and are often confused because the high achievers are actually hard workers.

I was the gifted child too and it was a hard childhood for me and to a certain extent I find it hard as an adult.

Having sailed through primary school with zero effort or study, I was sent to a superselective grammar where they expected a lot of effort and huge amounts of learning. I really struggled to knuckle down, I got bored rigid after 10 minutes in front of a book and to a certain extent I still struggle with that now. My results were hugely mixed, I got very high marks where my intelligence could make up for the lack of effort but low marks where I just needed to absorb information rather than manipulate it.

Socially I found it hard to engage in conversations which I thought were "light" and still struggle now, have never been into popular culture and many things tend to bore me, although with maturity I have moderated a lot of it. My mum said I always struggled with my peers all the way through. I looked at some books I used to read when I was 5, they included entire works of Shakespeare, my mum said I was often referred to as a "prodigy child" by school. Reactions to me at school varied a lot but I had many hostile teachers as well as ones who thought I was great. The worst thing for me is that my education was just one big roller coaster.

Like some posters say on here, I have found ways to channel it now, I have a successful career but I made many mistakes. I have one child (out of 4) now that is very similar to me and I worry about him the most because I know he will have a rough ride through the system. It's a bit scary how these things are genetically inherited, he has exactly the same thoughts and thought process as I had, he has even developed the same "ticks" as I had at his age. I wish I could change it for him although we try our best to boost his confidence and most of all make him feel he needs to work for things in life.

I was good at school, but essentially bored. Three things I remember:

Aged 4 in a class of 5 year olds we were doing maths questions. I had one of those draw string bags on the back of my chair with my stuff in. In the draw string there was a join, which made it fatter. The draw string was quite thick - like ribbon, and folded over. The thicker bit could thus be opened up like a tiny book. I used to look in this 'book' for the answers to the maths questions as it made them take longer, so I didn't finish as soon, but I still finished first every time despite being younger that everyone else - and could not understand how it was anything more than an exercise in writing down numbers.

Aged 8 I was put back a year, having been accelerated a year - because I couldn't go to secondary school a year early. I distinctly remember being given the same maths work to do and being able to provide answers to the questions I had found more tricky the first time from memory throughout the year. We used Peak Maths - I did books 0,1,2 and 3 twice, and was still the first person ever at the school to complete book 7.

Aged 10 having a student teacher. When I finished the project for the half term in two afternoons, she took the time to get me some more work. I was told it was maths that undergraduates were given in their first year, although I assume it wasn't work from a maths course! I finished that too, and I remember overhearing my teacher saying that she didn't understand it. The person in that class whom I considered my closest peer in terms of maths ability now has a PhD and is doing research into String Theory at a very good university. He was not quite as good as me, and therefore was stretched a little by the work. He also went to a Grammar School at age 11, whereas I refused to take the exams.

Aged 14 being given a history project to do as a preparation for GCSE coursework. As it was unstructured I didn't feel constrained by the questions from the teacher, so I produced a huge project about the rise and fall of the cotton industry. A trusted and good friend told me that he had overheard the history staff in their staff room laughing about how much work I'd put in.

I've not achieved much academically. Ultimately it's because I didn't put any effort in, which is my fault - but part of the reason I didn't was that I never learned to. I thought you didn't have to, because all the way to GCSE I didn't have to, and wasn't expected to. When people said they didn't do much work, I thought they really meant it. I never did any work - almost literally. I did no more than three lots of homework for maths A level, for example, which should have been a warning because I only got an E - and that is because I got the last question worth the most marks correct - I did the easy ones at the start, and when I got stuck I started at the back of the paper where all the marks were. I didn't do much of the middle of the paper at all as I had to work out how to do the last question from memories of what the teacher had said and it took ages; I'd never actually done a question like it before - or since, for that matter.

I still got into one of the top Russel Group universities because I got As in my other 3 A levels. At University I did nothing other than turn up for about 70% of lectures and 80% of tutorials. I thought University might be interesting, but early on I was told by a lecturer that there was no room for new thoughts or challenging theory in his tutorials. I revised for exams by reading the text book while walking to the exam hall. It was much later that I realised that other people didn't do that: when they were reading notes outside the hall, that wasn't the sum total of their revision, that was last-minute cramming, and when they said they hadn't done any work, they meant that they wished they'd done more, not that they had literally not done any work. I very narrowly missed out on a 2:1.

All of this started to dawn on me when, having graduated, I lived with an Oxford undergrad who was considered one of the more naturally brilliant students amongst her peers - and I witnessed the sheer amount of work she did. She had also been to a state school, but somehow had retained the enthusiasm for learning that I had long since lost. I think the key difference for her is that she did things as a kid that were challenging: she isn't a gifted musician, for example, but via sheer persistence and hard graft she became good-enough-for-the-local-orchestra standard. She learned how to stick at things; how to learn. I'm almost 40 now, and I still don't think I can apply myself as well to things as I should, and look back on my exam results - as decently respectable as they are - and know without a shadow of a doubt that I was capable of more. That's kind of tricky to live with.

The DCs went to a school where they didn't maintain a G&T register or differentiate within classes - no tables with different groups working on different levels, etc. Throughout the primary years all the children had a folder in their desks labelled 'Never Done Work' -- when they were finished their class assignments they could open their folder and work on whatever piqued their interest in the folder, which the teacher stocked with puzzles, writing and drawing prompts, brain teasers, mazes, maps, word problems in maths, etc. They handed in the extra work with the class assignment.

The thinking seemed to be to keep students engaged in challenging themselves and constantly engaged in some form of learning at their own pace without singling anyone out for special attention. The teachers encouraged the children to read a lot at home. They were always happy to suggest sites for extra maths or other enrichment to do at home too. The DCs did standardised tests every two years and the two oldest DDs scored in the 99th percentile for all subjects tested each time. DS scored quite well but his results varied. DD3 and DD4 also had varied results with DD3 doing better overall than DD4.

DD1 read at three, got As all through and graduated second in her class in elementary and got one B and the rest As in high school, plus was a National Merit Scholarship finalist. Shone in all subjects. She ended up going to an Ivy League university and graduating with honours, going straight to a job. She was a party animal from age 14, very into fashion, always very involved with friends. Had a part time job and summer job and did lots of babysitting all through school. She also did sports in school -- swimming, water polo and badminton. Very gung ho and fearless about everything she decided to do. Had the odd brush with danger but got away with it. Had a boyfriend I couldn't stand in her late teen years but she dumped him. Current boyfriend is much nicer. I sent her to summer camps for G&T children where she played chess for six hours a day (her choice). Every teacher she ever had told me she was gifted.

DS read at 4, had a very patchy career in elementary and HS, didn't do much homework but never got into trouble, flew under the radar because he is quiet, got a lot of Cs and 'DS is an exceptionally bright boy and could do much better' remarks on reports, got into a so-so university and suddenly discovered heretofore untapped ambition and ability to do the assigned work and hand it in on time. Did exceptionally well in his first year and transferred to a great US state university where he is on track to eventually do medicine (if he can keep up the work for another 150 years, lol). I want to snog the academic adviser who suggested medicine to him. He played football in school and socialised regularly. He didn't shine at football but went to all the practices and did the weightlifting in the offseason. He played organised baseball all through his childhood and basketball in elementary school, alongside a group of flashy and brilliant classmates one of whom is now playing at college level. Their team had a 56-3 winning record in their final season. DS scored four points and played about 5 minutes per game.

He and his friends used to play video games and nerf guns, cinnamon challenge idiocy etc., and probably still do when they have a chance to get together. Set up his own gardening and odd job money earner in secondary and had a summer job this summer. Much more inclined to dither about decisions than DD1 and to doubt his ability and compare himself negatively with others, but now seems set on a course and happy and determined about it.

DD2 read at 3, has yet to get a grade below A and will be applying to very selective US universities this winter with a high hope of getting accepted by at least one. She is a very straight down the line academic whiz kid. She is also very sociable, loves fashion, loves going out with friends but not the diehard partier that DD1 was thank goodness, babysits and is loved by small children. She has held down a part time job all school year on weekends since turning 16 and had a full time summer job this summer. Plays badminton and played soccer, basketball and volleyball in elementary not a star but loved being on a team. Joined every club available in elementary including drama and the school band. Left the band after a year didn't like being the only girl in her year doing it. She went to a Harry Potter summer camp for HP geeks. Again, all her teachers have told me she was gifted.

DD3 sorted herself out gradually and by age 13 was getting straight As. I made her do maths at home when it became clear to me that her teacher wasn't much use. She went from being a quiet, medium achiever to really blossoming over the course of two years (12 to 14). She now loves acting and has decided she really 'gets' maths. It has sort of set her free. She would probably not have shone enough to get on a G&T register at a younger age but I think she has more potential than any of the others. She hasn't found her inner party girl yet at age 14, and tends to overthink all things social to some extent. Thinks long and hard before joining anything also, but makes good decisions about what is right for her, though initially getting her to do the extra maths was an uphill struggle. Played volleyball in elementary and enjoyed it in her own way. Refused to go to summer camp. I think DD3 baffled most of her teachers. She very much played her own game within her comfort zone.

DD4 definitely wouldn't make a G&T register and will take a lot of extra work and a change of attitude to get to be an all round student. Right now she will only work at things she has had positive feedback about in the past, and even in those areas her approach is 'get homework done with the minimum effort and minimum time spent and move on with your life'. Luckily for all of us she likes reading she is incredibly stubborn and I wouldn't be able to get her to do it if she didn't want to. She is loved by all her friends, who are all only children strangely enough. Plays basketball and volleyball. Values friendships over competition so the social end of school is more important to her than the academic. When she was 8 she was getting horrible grades and was referred for testing to see if she needed academic support. The test reports came back and her teacher said, 'The little minx she got over 90% in everything' . So we will see...I actually have no idea how she will turn out.

Apart from DD3 to some extent (in maths) and DD4 (whom I have yet to grapple with) I have let them organise their own lives and have not had a curfew or limited activities except for getting DS to do his homework in the kitchen. As long as they were able to stay on top of their work they could do as they pleased socially and in sports. Their schools encouraged the concept of continuous learning and the American GPA system encouraged consistent effort and responsibility. I always praised effort and good habits and not results. I think playing sports was very good for them all as they were by no means stars.

They all found aspects of elementary school very boring, especially the long revision weeks at the start of each year in maths, and those who were reading at 3 and 4 found phonics boring -- however there was plenty besides reading to learn at age 5 and 6. Lots of social/emotional stuff, and they kept at the reading at home.

High school was appropriately challenging due to the streaming and the fact that class composition could be very flexible so the idea of going ahead a year didn't matter; students of different ages were in different classes. You could be sitting beside an 18 year old in Algebra or a 14 year old in Calculus. In the sets they ended up in there were lots and lots of really, really bright students -- the sort who got into MIT and other exceptionally good mathsy places for instance, and a group who had to choose among multiple offers of places from the Ivy League schools they applied to. The teachers pushed them hard. For DD1 and DD2 it was bliss.

I don't count DS really in this reckoning as he paid as little attention to it all as he could get away with and has really only come into his own in the last year.

I wont bore you with my academic history and multiple talents. Suffice to say I have an IQ in the top half a percentile. Intelligence is no guarentee of "success". athough that depends on what you call success. I have on the whole had a good career and landed on my feet in most things.

If I have been hampered it has been by not really having a direction.

I think motivation and determination are more important than ability in deciding success. Any intelligence over 120 ( top 10%) can do anything I can do in the workplace. Thats the problem. Giftedness is not an advantage in the real world. In fact its a liability often. There is pressure to perform. Then there are those jealous wicked people who just want to set you up for a fall or knife you in the back.

I think I realised this at some point ( too late perhaps) and that there were more important things in life.

I worry for my own DS for similar reasons. He may want to be driven and successful. I want him to understand that other peoples definition of what he should do or be is not relevant. There are only limited places at the very very top and its not a place everyone wants to be anyway. The top is not populated by the most able generally.