Being told my child is 'gifted' Where to start?

[MrsRyanGosling15]

My dd is turning 7 soon. She is 1 of 4. My eldest is a smart kid. A in his 11+, at a top grammar school. Needs to put his head down and work but a bright boy. The other 2 are both younger than my dd. So no real comparison there.

My dd has always seemed to us to be different somehow. She just knows things and I don't know how. Her reading is fantastic. She reads a dictionary every night to help her learn more words. She is forever looking things up and learning, online, in books etc. Its like she reads things once and never forgets. If anyone can't find something in the house, doesn't know the answer to something etc the running joke is we all ask her. And she always knows!

Another example, the eldest was doing multiplication. She asked what it was. He told her briefly, in under 5 min. She sat for about 30min practicing over and over and now she can do it. Even numbers in the hundreds. When we ask her how she can she just says if she is shown it once she just needs to think hard and she gets it.
Same with division. I still struggle with division!

Since nursery her teachers have said she has something special about her. Now in p2 we have been called into a meeting with the head and her teacher. They have told us in all their years of teaching they have never come across a child quite like her and that they have never seen a p2 with such a level of intelligence. I don't really know what to do. They said they gave her some work from p4, then p5 up to some p7 work. I knew she was smart but the head is telling me she answered some of the questions from a mock transfer test and the English section especially was excellent.

Moving her ahead is 100% not an option. She is a shy, quite child. She prefers playing with 1/2 friends rather than big groups and loves the friends she has. She does seem to get board/frustrated as she has homework 4 nights (They all do) she does it all in about 15min on a Monday.

Any ideas where we take it from here. I don't want to tell anyone in RL for fear of being 'that parent' School are happy to continue giving her work tailored to her alongside what they have to teach in the curriculum.

Is there anything we should be doing at home? Any extra resources we should be getting? She would love to do work at home as she is always making us do tests on her e.g. spelling tests, maths tests. I knew she was very smart but always went along with the thinking, if she is smart she will.learn but the school feel that we all need to be working together to push her.

Any ideas, help or advice would be great.

She would be the opposite. She is the life and soul of the party in her own home. She puts on concerts for us sings, dances, dresses her brother up in fashion shows! But she just crawls into her self in public. She loves her ballet teacher and for some reason when she is on stage dancing she is fine. She says she doesn't see people when she dances. Nursery and p1 she physically couldn't make herself speak in the nativity play but in p2 she managed to say a line with such confidence and we were so proud of her. Its funny how they are all so different and unique in their own wee ways.

Oh and forgot to mention her bags. Not sure if it's relevant but none of the other kids in the family do it. She has about 3/4 bags on the go at one time. All filled to the brim with pieces of paper/stones/shells etc all random stuff she finds but carries her worldly possessions and checks on them. They sleep in her bed too to keep them safe. Her memory is so good if I took.out one stone she would know. Her school bag is a ton weight as she would freak out if we emptied stuff out. She is almost a bit of a hoarder!

Ah she sounds a lot like my 8yo (who is not “gifted” like yours, I don’t think, but was very competent from an early age - reading and doing music theory at 3 and doing Y2 work in reception etc.).

She would line up caragories of toys/pencils and pens and put them one by one in containers and they had to stay that way. Lots of collections, cant throw anything away, even scraps of paper, and she gets very upset if she can’t finish what she starts, and not just in the normal way kids are upset if they’re asked to do something different to what they want to do, she’s deeply disturbed by the process being interrupted. She’s also very anxious and socially awkward. The anxiety has hindered her progress at school as one teacher refused to give her harder work and basically told her she wasn’t special and if she had finished her work she played on the computer until everyone else was finished. She wasn’t allowed to do group reading because she was quite a bit ahead so again, she got computer time instead so the others didn’t feel bad. She spent a lot of time on that computer. Needless to say, we changed schools as she became a nervous wreck and started displaying tics and waking in the night terrified of going to school. God knows what that teacher was saying to her. From my experience of her helping out at school trips etc, she was a bit of a sadist; knocking children down rather than building them up.

DD has also created her own fantasy world that she half lives in all the time, with a map, characters, language, history, currency, school and curriculum, geology and natural history of the land. It’s cute and also a little weird and all-consuming. It’s been going on for about 5 years now and getting a little in the way of social situations now she’s 8. The concept is called a ‘paracosm’. I think it’s because her mind needs to be doing something all the time and having this world means there’s always stuff to think about and organise. I’ve always just accepted her quirkiness but it’s standing out more and more now she’s older.

definitely look at chess like someone has said - amazing intellectual outlet for bright people.

For maths, these sites are great.

www.khanacademy.org/
brilliant.org/
mathigon.org/
wild.maths.org/
nrich.maths.org/

BoundByBrairs so many similarities between them. I always just thought of them as her wee quirks but it is interesting to see it in other children too. That must have been an awful experience with the school. Dd is only p2 but the 2 teachers and head that she has had have been fantastic. They are always telling us lovely things about her and really praise and reward her. She really loves the school and her teachers. Long may it continue.

I have spent the past hour learning how to play chess. It's strangely addictive

Thanks for the websites. I will give them a look when I sort my chess out!

By the way, forgot to say, she sounds like a wonderful daughter, and she is so lucky to have such a wonderful mum.

If she’s good at maths/academics/music you should look at unrelated stuff for extra curriculars. Stuff they aren’t so good at.

If she’s that gifted she doesn’t need more “work” to do at home, more practice at stuff she’s already good at. That will just take her further ahead in school and make it more boring.

I think it’s important gifted kids learn to fail. That they can’t get it right every time, and that sometimes you need to practice a lot. Also that people will still like/love them if they aren’t immediately brilliant at everything.

So gymnastics is always good. Dance, martial arts. Team sports. Horse riding? Swimming, cheerleading. Anything where the pressure to maintain her identity as “the really clever/good one” is off.

Iyswim?

That's lovely to hear, thank you

That is very true, and part of the reason why it has taken for the school to be pushing us rather than the other way round. She does ballet and piano. She would love to do gymnastics but with 4 of them plus me and dh both working we have only really 'space' and time for 2 activities each. I go to work when he comes home so 1 parent always has all 4.

She isn't a boastful child but she knows she is smart and she knows the other kids aren't doing the work that she is. I would hate for her to be a miss know it all with the attitude to match.
I will start looking even at games etc we can play that she will struggle with. The chess really seems like a good start with that. imaddictiedtothechessappnow

My 8 yo DD is gifted too and it's a constant battle to get the right balance.
What I really want is for her to fail at things sometimes, it's something she finds extremely difficult to deal with as it very rarely happens and I think teaching resilience and persistence at this age is vital. I've badgered her teachers all year to give her more challenging work (not just more work) and we seem to have got to a good level now. She does additional 'projects' in school rather than eg spellings and we work on broadening her scope rather than just moving ahead. We've added music and dancing lessons to spread the focus for example.
Moving a year up has been discussed but I don't think it's the right choice for the future.

Petulia Just my experience, but I moved up a year at school and it really didn’t work out.

My weaknesses became worse and a real point of anxiety for me. I masked how bad it was and it got very out of hand, although I had zero parental support/input and no one to really talk to about it. Plus, socially it was a nightmare.

P.S - My DD experienced a ‘failure’ this last week and although she was absolutely gutted and frustrated and wanting to damn it all to hell, I’m pleased she’s felt a bit of challenge and will have to learn to persevere!

I think music would be a good idea for anyone with an academically gifted child.
You have to practise to progress, you can have disappointments, rejections, to cope with, and it teaches discipline.
It can be really hard having a gifted child and what might be right for them maybe different to their peers.

Totally missing the point here, but

My dd is turning 7 soon. She is 1 of 4. My eldest is a smart kid. A in his 11+, at a top grammar school

How is your 7 year old ‘1 of 4’ when you have an older child and two younger ones?

What do you mean by scoring an A in the 11+?

Apologies-I was just confused-not being a cow, just genuinely interested if it’s a typo or if the 11+ is just really different where you are.

Op try teaching her other languages. You can swap English and someone can teach Spanish, french, Chinese...let her do work if she wants on the weekend... She enjoys it!! Have you tried Mensa? Good luck

Red.

There's a boy, the oldest, then the 7 year old dd, then two younger ones, totalling 4 kids.

Congratulations OP. She'll probably clear your mortgage before long 😊 what an extraordinary child

Sounds like you are already doing everything right - don't push too far, just allow her to follow her passions as they come in and out. I know you said you couldn't teach her, but what about allowing her to use 'DuoLingo' on a phone or tablet or similar every night for 15mins to pick up language skills?

@RomanyQueen1

How is the daughter 1 of 4 then?!

My DD now 17 has a lot of what you have pointed out. We always knew she was brilliant and quirky but in the last year we uncovered that she was gifted and on the spectrum. I would say as she is growing up as intellectual as they are their emotional side is still very young and really spend your focus on ensuring good wellbeing and emotional regulation habits. Really pleased to read that she is doing mindfulness/yoga - a very good life skill. Gifted kids tends to be perfectionists and don't know how to fail. Sometimes the moment they find something a little challenging unravels everything when they probably had all the skills to meet the challenge. So really agree with a poster above who said about building resilience. Your DD sounds brilliant and with support she will fulfil her potential happily.

I do Duolingo (language learning app) for fun. She might like that.

Here’s a list of the private schools in NI, if you fancy going for a scholarship/bursary when she’s older.

www.educators.co.uk/northern-ireland/

Redlocks28 1 of 4 isn't the same as 1st of 4. I'm 1 of 3, but I happen to be the youngest.

@redlocks28 - there are 4 children in total, of which the OP's daughter is 1 of the 4. Not the eldest, just 1 out of 4 in total.

I'm glad I opened this thread, firstly I think she's amazing and your doing brilliant with her. I would just say carry on doing what your doing and let her lead you.

My 11 year old sounds very similar, he is very bright and has always been like a sponge of information, can give you the answer to sums in his head, reads reads reads allll the time .. he writes fantastic stories and his English teacher is putting it forward for an award, however I often wonder if he is on a spectrum of some kind, I don't know a lot about Aspergers but very early on he never spoke I took him to the HV at about 3 because he would never talk 'boys are lazy' anyway when he did decide to talk it was words I had to look up sometimes, he has really poor motor skills and was diagnosed with hyper mobility so his hand writing is unreadable most of the time but he has a lap top in school and home and manages well... he has a problem with noise and often asks to sit alone , he prefers older company and the boys his age he just don't appear to be like them all... is this something I should be concerned about,
Thanks ladies