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Gifted and talented

Talk to other parents about parenting a gifted child on this forum.

Original poster

look, stone me now, but WHY do g+t kids need recognition/ diagnosis etc?

51 replies

fillyjonk · 27/05/2007 07:05

is it just about getting them a bit ahead in the race of life?

Why not just let them fininsh the work faster and then go to the library, or run around the playground? Or sit on the computer. or whatever. But once they've done the required work-why feel the need to "stretch" them more?

what they really need is self motivation, learning skills etc. And you can't really teach thise!

discuss

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Boredveryverybored · 27/05/2007 07:14

If you don't stretch gifted kids they'll very quickly get bored of school full stop. What would be the point in them going at all if they can do the work they're given with no thought at all and then spend the rest of the time in the playground?

Original poster
fillyjonk · 27/05/2007 07:17

ah well THAT is a whole other subject....

agree, send them home early!

or let them read books

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hippmummy · 27/05/2007 07:17

I think it is about helping them get ahead. However, I watched the C4 programme on gifted children a while back and it said the vast majority of children labelled 'gifted' will be average by adulthood or will not do anything special with their talents.
Maybe those who are nurtured and stretched are the ones who go on to be exceptional in their field.
I definitely feel that it needs to be driven by the child though, and that they should be encouraged to do a wide range of things other than their particular talent.

Original poster
fillyjonk · 27/05/2007 07:21

i think the thing for me is that the skills you need to gett ahead in the adult world are not a fabulous understanding of quantum physics aged 6 - not even if you go on to be richard feynman.

no, its interpersonal skills, self-motivation, self teaching, independent study

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belgo · 27/05/2007 07:27

filly - you are right about the skills you need to get ahead - motivation, determination, confidence - more then academic ability.

A family member of mine was descibed as being a genius at the age of eight. Now I don't believe he's a genius, but I do admit he is above above in intelligence - probably quite a lot above average.

But academically, he has achieved very little in his life, despite going to a good school, and has a very low paid job. This is because he has no detemination and no motivation, and not much confidence either.

hippmummy · 27/05/2007 07:29

i agree FJ - certainly from this documentary there seemed to be the tendency to nurture the gift at the expense of learning normal social interaction.
Maybe parents fear that if they don't act on it, though, it is a waste of the gift and somehow they are letting their child down?
I have no experience of this though (DS2's unique talent being an astounding inability to understand 'don't touch' ). I do find it interesting though.
Maybe some G&T mums can shed some light.

Original poster
fillyjonk · 27/05/2007 07:30

also think "getting ahead" is overrated

being happy is what matters

its much harder to bring up a child to be happy than to bring them up to get 11 grade As at gcse

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DominiConnor · 27/05/2007 07:44

Actually I don't see that "being happy" and getting As are opposites.

They can be of course, but the kids I was at school with who did less well didn't seem happier because of it.

I suspect a good % of the useful big of G&T work should be to make the parents better able to support their kids.
Seen like that, it seems to me that parents of any kind of kids could do with some help, and that part of it needs to be tailored to the individual.
But that's very different to our crap education system done on the cheap.

Boredveryverybored · 27/05/2007 07:45

Agree about kids being happy, and I don't think all G+T kids will go on and have extraordinary lives. But if you're going to send them to school then they need to be challenged while they're there, same goes for all kids of all abilities otherwise boredom will set in more often than not bad behaviour following not far behind! So I do think there is a need to identify kids who are G+T if for nothing else than to make their school life interesting and exciting for them.

littleal · 27/05/2007 08:01

Is there anything done to give G&T children emotional support? My DD gets herself so stressed about achieving although I keep telling her we love her just for doing her best. The pressure from the teachers is so strong.

ahundredtimes · 27/05/2007 08:07

I think they do this because the kids finish first, and then if they weren't given something else to do they might start taking the desks apart, unhinging the doors, flicking elastic bands, doodling on the desks.
G&T provision a bit mixed up. The top 5% or 10% of each class are NOT gifted, they are clever. Fair dos. Properly gifted chidren do have slightly different make-up though, and their brains are engines and you might as well pop something useful in front of the engine otherwise it'll just go steaming away somewhere else, like the loos with a felt tip pen.

ahundredtimes · 27/05/2007 08:09

littleal - also remember gifted children often have a strong perfectionist streak, all of their own, pressure from the teacher might not be the whole picture.

Original poster
fillyjonk · 27/05/2007 08:10

well let them run in the playground then

or read books

or whatever

why do they need to do more WORK? They've DONE the work, surely then its time for them to follow their own interests?

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Celery · 27/05/2007 08:12

It's easier for the school to spend the time with my son, giving him extra work and stretching him academically, than it is for them to deal with the consequences if they don't - i.e boredom, bad behaviour and disruptiveness. I'm sure many G&T kids would be happy to be left to their own devices, but many need the extra stimulation, and it benefits the whole class to give it to them.

ahundredtimes · 27/05/2007 08:18

Thank you Celery, my point exactly. Also filly tbh it's kind of not WORK as we might understand it for these kids. They like it.
But am the real mccoy gifted kid here, not bright and good at handwriting kids at all. I feel for them, they've done the bleeding work fgs, so give them a break.

Original poster
fillyjonk · 27/05/2007 08:20

um

g+t kids aren't some rarified breed

they're just kids who do well at schoolwork

I must say, i tested with an IQ of 170 at age 8, when i read the g+t threads am sooooo glad it just led to an unusual knowlege of the organisation of the stationary and art cupboard, and a pass for the older kids library on a friday afternoon.

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ahundredtimes · 27/05/2007 08:20

I meant to say 'am TALKING ABOUT the real mccoy gifted kid' not I am the real mccoy gifted kid. Obviously. Am not a kid and am not gifted. If I was kept in to do 'extension work' I would cry and stamp my feet and thow my pretty head about.
I would be asked to leave and would make a beeline for behind the bike shed.

lionheart · 27/05/2007 08:22

I think some children still need the structure, some don't of course.

Whether releasing them into the "wild" of the playground would pass muster with H&S is another matter.

Letting them have free time might also raise an eyebrow or two amongst some parents, I suppose, although I can see exactly what you are saying.

ahundredtimes · 27/05/2007 08:22

weeeellll - not rarified breed but also most DEFINITELY not kids who are just good at schoolwork.
Perhaps we're talking at cross purposes here though am not talking about top 5% of class in every school. Are you? Don't care about them, send them out. Get them to tidy the art cupboard. Most useful.

Original poster
fillyjonk · 27/05/2007 08:25

"I think some children still need the structure, some don't of course. "

this is my point, THIS is what needs to be worked on with these kids (ALL kids, in fact)

they need to find a passion.

They don't need to be spoonfed, even if they want it

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Original poster
fillyjonk · 27/05/2007 08:26

if you mean the few geuniuses-look at ruth lawrence, and tell me she wouldn't have been bettr off cleaning out the art cupboard

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lionheart · 27/05/2007 08:26

If it worked like that for all children, wouldn't that be something.

DominiConnor · 27/05/2007 08:28

As fillyjonk says, there is a limit to how much work a kid should do.
Variety is good, and there ought to be a serious difference between school and home, both for happiness and academics.
Schools can't do that much one on one, even with a bit of G&T, also their use of technology is utterly pathetic. The only way I can model it is by active hostility.
DC "plays" with Wikipedia, at 5 his current favourite programming language is Scratch, which ain't C++, but is helping develop structured thinking, algebra and logic.
He reads voraciously, and we see our job as simply pouring petrol on the fire. That means that a large % of the material is "junk", like comics, Disney, and "the book of the film".

Books of the film are actually a great framework for hanging educational discussions on. Many are quite different, like Charlie and the Chocolate factory, and helping them see two takes on the same thing is a useful skill, and fun.
We play with song lyrics, which teaches about syllables, vocabulary courtesy of the Internet just reading them.
We have a variant of the Classic "Robin Hood" sound that has guest starred both "Evil Hand" and "Captain Jack".
Seems to me that any education they enjoy so much that they sing it until you lose the will to live is good for happiness as well as development.

Original poster
fillyjonk · 27/05/2007 08:29

it SHOULD work like that for all kids IMO

it really should

they should do their work and then get to do what they WANT, jsut like adults

not have more and more tasks chucked at them

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ahundredtimes · 27/05/2007 08:30

If she had filly, it'd be INCREDIBLY tidy, and balanced and symmetrical. She'd be obsessive about it and guard it like a dog, and we wouldn't be allowed access to that pot of glue we needed because it would upset her pattern. She'd be a pain in the backside really. Give her the maths I say, and let me have the blardy glue pot.