Okay folks - I am aware that I may be opening a can of worms here but why does this topic piss so many people off?

[Theclosetpagan]

I mean if someone has deemed a child G+T (or is it G or T) why is it that they seem to be flamed when they post about any difficulties here?

If the label has come from outside the family and the family struggle why can't they post here saying "Help" without people leaping in to say "your child sounds normal to me"

For what it's worth I don't have a child labelled as G+T but am glad I don't given the response some posters get to this topic.

Surely it's okay for some children to be extra bright. Or is it that there is distrust of this label?

Just interested really.

Nothing wrong with a bit of motor-neurone development

or where they training you to be housewives

I of course am old enough to have been at school when girls had to do domestic science. I can still bake a mean apple crumble.

Blu, my mother would have chewed broken glass before she complained to a school!

In my favour I should say that the knitting did tutn out helpful in later life, but possibly not quite so much of it would have been a good idea!

I did make a rather fabbo DNA scarf not that long ago, so those enless lessons were not totaly pointless

You could peel the glue off your fingers in long strings.

I vaguely remember making a Bodice with Bust Darts. The sheer horror. I was enormously pleased when I moved to a school where you actually could learn stuff, and embarked on a lifetime career as a nauseating swot .

We really did. Every afternoon!

The teacher was bonkerooni. We went to a mixed school after six months (two schools amalgamated) and we found out that while we had been learning to knit, the boys had been learning how to do joined up writing! That was a shocker!

I wish I'd been taught to knit.
I've just signed dd up for Needlecraft Club. How retro is that? (And/or reactionary? Am I betraying my Sisters? Fret fret)

Bink, you can still learn. I learned at 18, with startling results you may remember .

While the boys at my school did woodwork of course. We also had to do sewing, I made a trouser suit like the ones in the drawings in Jackie.

I am teaching mine to knit. They are not remotely interested.

I would have loved to be allowed to knit
Would have been more intellectually stimulating than what they did with me, which was to make me go back to the beginning of the maths books and go through them all again - I remember sitting there aged 10 writing pages of '1+1=2' etc.

Mind you, thank God they didn't force me to play football

Blu's point is an excellent one though.

I reclaimed my inner Girlie later in life, and I enjoy knitting, and tapestry and cross stitch. But only after years of irritation swotness (which persists )

Well as you know MI I have a quite quite different recall of you from then

While we're on the topic can I just release some horror and embarrassment. I was just talking to a senior colleague about Foxtons - the agency - and and and totally by accident and with no Freudian anything behind I said SEXTONS. I went cold & he pretended nothing had happened. Argh.

Lol MB. We didn't do anything like that, though at middle school we had to learn something which translates as- I think- " Ttechnical drawing". I wasn't very good. I received my work back with comments like "very dirty", as I left lots of fingermarks.

On very hot days we were allowed to sit outside and knit while a teacher read stories from the classics to us. I think it was thought that simply listening was a waste of time and we should do something useful. Or maybe that knitting was a waste and we should be properly educated at the same time. Either way, I am still crap at knitting. My brother knitted the woolly hat that I submitted for my Brownie Home-makers badge!!

Kerrymum - yes, they should. But does it need a whole separate board?

Not that it bothers me particularly, tbh.

lol bink

I have to admit that when i read some of the comments from the G+T posters i also think that they are simply bragging.

Might be wrong of me to think that - but that is my honest reaction.

Lots of threads on here should actually be behaviour and development,particlaulry in relation to preschoolers, and people will chip in as such. Everyone wants their kids to be bright beyond compare and to be recognised for some specific talent, a few are genuinely described as such but the majority are simply bright and doing well. Rarely do you see a thread which says my child is remarkably artistic but thick as 2 planks, in reality few are all rounded geniuses (geniuii?). Humility is perhaps a tactic to gain a more sympathetic hearing.

Because the term is a misnomer and recently there have been threads along the lines of 'my child asks lots of insightful questions/know colours at 3/is non-stop'. Non of these strike as truly gifted, which hasn't helped its cause. Sometimes tone can be a problem too - some of aforementioned can seem a bit braggy because they aren't really what most would see as 'g&t'.

Personally, I usually am happy to stay away from them as I have nothing too offer - mine are certainly not g&t, but the titles of some recently have caused rumpus. Have completley not one jot of a problem with any discussion re genuine g&t - I'm sure it brings its own problems.

jeez if one in 10 kids is labelled it in schools i think its an inappropriate label

my kids are very academic but not gifted

gifted is one in 10,000 not one in 10 imvho

Yes, I agree with many of the posts on here. .

G&T is a totally inappropriate phase for a pre-schooler, and does leave me wondering about the motivation of the poster. If the child's at school, that's one thing. A concern about whether they are being stretched enough, etc., is a valid concern, and I would expect the OP to give some examples to back it up.

But to say, OMG, my 2yo is a fluent reader, what can I do? ... sorry, but it seems a bit disingenuous to me.

It's the same annoyance level as if someone said" my child is so beautiful that she has x, y and z problems" it's bragging. You don't need to talk about your child being bright, sorry G&T, it's just an excuse to show off. Very sad.