How important is it to you that your child reaches their full potential?

[mrsshears]

I have a highly gifted dd ( 99.9th percentile) who is basically coasting in most areas and has even gone backwards slightly in reading, although i put this down to lack of interest, she could and should be doing a lot better than she is however she is happy in school and has lots of friends (which has not always been the case and she has struggled alot social in the past)
I have found myself wondering over the last few days just how important is it that she reaches her potential? i would be really greatful for any opinions on this and also what would you do if this were your dc?
many thanks

This is something I have been thinking about a lot recently.

DS2 (5.7) has SN and learning difficulties. I want hi to be able to reach his full potential, but I dont know what that will be. I suppose whatever it is will be low compared to the average child, but I would love to achieve independence and happiness more.

auntevil Why should parents send their children for extra classes ahead of SATs? Isn't the point of SATs to check how the school is doing? If they have to add extra classes to boost their results, surely they are getting their focus wrong. Not wanting your child to be "crammed" ahead of a test which is not to their benefit is hardly "no caring about their children's education".

Minty took the thoughts out of my head! HOW do you know she is 99 th percentile and for what? potential or achievement academically?

Thanks everyone, really interesting points.

It's not that i feel she is coasting now, she always has in the school setting right from in the nursery.We were told she isnt reaching her potential by the person who assessed her( we knew already though),he did some acheivement tests with her as well as a full IQ test to determine this.

See, my child is really odd as he would probably want to go to extra SATS cramming lessons (not that I agree with them).

I want my children to be healthy and happy. I feel that a child who makes friends and gets on with other people will go further in life than a mini professor who has no concept about other people's feelings.

"I am very interested in how it is that you discover your child is on the 99.9th percentile academically at age 6."

So am I. Intelligence is not fixed and often early developers get over taken by later developers. The children who are on the top in reception aren't always on the top table in year 6. Factors like having a september birthday or being a girl or not having glue ear are less of an advantage in year 6.

I think parents who talk about their children 'reaching full potential' (or not ) are forgetting that their children are little human beings, with their own thoughts and their own likes and dislikes. These are little nuisance variables that may interfere with the 99.9% percentile!

Who is the person who assessed her? What is his job title? What are his qualifications? How did the assessing come about?

I am genuinely interested in all this.

'Reaching full potential' is wishy washy rubbish. A past HT I worked for banned the phrse (quite rightly) from reports). It means nothing.

So you feel she is capable of more than her current school is getting out of her. Well, that could be true for a lot of children, wherever they are in the centiles.

The question is, what could you do differently and would that be better for her overall development than what she is currenty getting?

I think children's education has to always be a balance between academic achievement and broader skills - social stuff, plus things like art, music, PE, where perhaps she isn't going to be top of the class. So I don't think focussing on the fact that she, theoretically, could do better than her current achievemt is necessarily going to be the most important thing, if it sacrifices the rest of life.

Going up a year is usually a very bad move socially - my sister for instance struggled massively being a year younger when they hit teens, and her academic work suffered from the disruption.

More stretching work within a year is good.

Changing schools to a hothouse is only going to help if you are happy with its caring and social side.

MY DS1 is just about to start school and I would rather he did not get into the habit of coasting and finding everything easy. The first reason is I think in that situation he could potentially get up to mischief, secondly I want him to find school and education an inspiring experience. He has such an interest in the world around him and thirst for knowledge about it it would be a shame to see his enthusiasm dampened. Third, my niece is fairly bright and now aged 9 years old. She went to a dire school that was completely not interested in her and it has really had a negative impact on her to the extent of her really being disinterested in school and signiicantly underperforming. She has been moved to a lovely school and is now soaring again and much happier. Finally I think finding things easy without having to put the effort in is a bad habit for later life at work. Most of all I want my children to be able to be whatever they want to be and ultimately whatever this is will require some effort and determination at some point whether its an academic vocation or not.
All this is not to say that it is less important having friends and enjoying school.

"I was a very very bright child, but I am not a genius adult - my brain just matured really quickly, I was a freak in primary school, the brightest in secondary but everybody else caught up with me somewhere in university between the ages of 18 and 21 and though I was able to do a post-graduate degree I am not outstanding academically.

Nobody knows what our 'potential' really is at age 6."

Exactly what maybenow said- except I have AS too, and once I was out of the supportive environment of school, and having to survive by myself, it all started to go pear-shaped. I certainly have a less than stellar career.

FWIW, as a 5yo I was assessed as having an IQ in excess of 180. I think this type of testing is flawed, though have undergone testing at other times, to have it settle around 140. Really, it's meaningless. It doesn't help me achieve my potential, and looking around, I'm pretty sure I'm a long way off that.

My daughter is in a similar situation - streets ahead of her peers right from day 1 of school, and staying ahead of them, now entering Y2. She also has a non-academical talent, which we nurture where we can, and we have done a lot of work on emotional/social skills with her, which has helped her hugely with relationships. Thankfully we have felt able to spend time on these as we have no worries about her academic work, and it has paid off- she is a very happy little girl, with strong friendships (albeit in a small circle), with the confidence to seek support when she needs it. She will be more well-rounded than I am, and hopefully achieve more of her potential.

You also have to consider that some factors are completely out of your control. I was very good at a sport as a child, county level, and put forward to train for national level, except there were no training facilities anywhere near us, and my parents could not relocate, so it went no further.

Sorry- how do you her parent(s) extend her btw?

Nurturing a solid work ethic would go a long way to helping children achieve their potential, and cut down on that coasting. It can start from a very early age.

Is she a perfectionist? The coasting may be a cover-up for anxieties around failing to succeed at things she tries that are new to her or difficult.

My DS1 is classed as gifted. He also has ASD, so is unable to form friendships.
I am immensely proud of his academic excellence, but would much rather he was an average ability student with lots of friends, rather than 2 years ahead of his peers and no real friends.
It all depends on what you want your DC to excel in.....academic ability or popularity?

People are ready to do different things at different ages and stages in their lives. Many people aren't ready for academic rigour until well into adulthood.
For my children, I think I've always strived to find the balance, between actually enjoying their childhood aginst this constant pressure you hear about on MN to be wanting them to be working all hours. I've always wanted them to develop their sporting skills, their music, their co-ordination, their technical skills, their social skills, their ability to know how to find out more, their ability to enjoy what they have achieved, and certainly not feel they weren't good enough because at some point someone said they were so bright and could achieve x, y, or z. Certainly when they were as little as your dd, I was pleased for them that they were lucky enough to be able to pick up school work quickly, and achieve highly without having to put in too much effort - what lucky children they were!

The thing that is most correlated with 'success' at work is not you IQ but your EQ (emotional quotient). Ie how well you can empathise, and adapt to change, and be self critical etc, etc.

So long term these are the qualities you need to nurture - and it all starts with making friends at school.

It does not matter at all if she is academically stretched at 6 or not. It will have no bearing on her future.

You should have a look at some of the long term studies on happiness in life vs IQ.

You should read 'outliers' by malcom gladwell.

And always remember that parenting is a long term game. You're trying to bring up a child who will be a happy adult.....

I want my DS to reach his full potential simply because he is autistic. He is in the higher end of the spectrum and tbh everything he achieves is a step towards integrating into society as an adult. Thankfully his mainstream primary school is fantastic with him. It's an ongoing process though.

I want DC to gain basic competency in many things and to explore their strengths and interests in many areas. Reaching their potential is about the process of finding what they can do well or to great enjoyment/satisfaction, and how to be content productive people. The final outcome is up to them, and difficult for me or anyone but them to say what it should look like, even if I do form opinions or get evidence along the way about their innate talents or brains.

So I tend to object to the term: "reach their potential", because it sounds so prescriptive & specific about outcomes.

ps: perhaps I was your child. IQ tested about that %tile about that age. So what? I've achieved some things to brag about & flopped in other areas. Like most everyone else(?)

You can give them the opportunities to fulfil their potential but whether they make use of them is up to them. I agree with Indigo and it is a long term game - some people don't fulfil their potential until late in life. At 6 years old I would happy that the social side is going well - there is lots of time. If she is happy, has friends, enjoys school and is eager to learn then you have the foundations.

I would say that my son (who I think is mildly G&T) will not be reaching his academic potential at junior or secondary school. Hypothetically, I think he might excel at something like philosophy which he is not even studying yet so all we can do is try to put in the building blocks which will give him the base from which to take off from when he reaches further education. Mentally, I think that he is capable of much more than we or school can easily offer but we do our best. I wish I was more of an "intellectual" for him..... I do my best but I am not "top 1% as he is. However, he's really happy at school, doing well socially, mixing with a wide range of kids, involved in student council etc so I am fairly happy.

I agree with many of the posters on here, particularly Indigo, lljkk, maybenow and Bintang. I was also one of those very able children, but most of my peers caught up overtook me, in fact by A Level. There was a boy in my class at secondary who was extremely gifted - straight A*'s in GCSE and straight A's in six A Levels including Further Mathematics. He was turned down by Cambridge to read Mathematics; not because of his academic ability as he was one of the best students they interviewed, but because they believed he lacked the social and emotional maturity to have a fulfilling time at University. He was accepted at Manchester, but was devastated; his parents had drilled into him how important it was to 'reach his full potential' and that, in their eyes, included him studying at an Oxbridge university. He was socially very awkward at school, struggled to make friends and, in hindsight, may well have identified and tested for possible ASD had this not been nearly 20yrs ago.

My DD has just started Yr1 and has been defined as 'gifted' by the school and she has been streamed into the Yr2/3 class, along with 2 of her classmates. It is a small village school; so their definition of 'gifted' may be different to a private prep school, but I understand that she is very able, academically speaking.

Whilst I am aware of her academic ability, I look at school, and her ability, as a whole and not just in terms of academia - emotional/social skills, physical ability, their enjoyment in school etc. My DD is very mature emotionally and has excellent social skills; I am told she is very caring and nurtures the less confident children. She is extremely happy and confident in school. On the other side of the coin, she is much less confident in her physical ability; she is late August born and just doesn't have the gross physical dexterity of her older peers, so this is something we are working on together. She goes to swimming lessons and gymnastics, just to build her confidence.

From what you have written, it appears as though your DD has previously struggled emotionally/socially in school, but that she is beginning to form friendships. I would see this as a good thing; social and emotional maturity is important and I would be happy for her to 'coast along' for a while whilst she develops and nurtures these new skills.

Personally, I don't like the labelling children as being in a certain percentile. Abilities at this age are very fluid and children mature in each area at different rates. I would be very wary of using what one person/set of tests has said about her academic ability as a means to defining her future ability/potential.

When DS was your daughter's age, I would have said 'yes' unquestioningly - he was exceptionally able academically, school was not stretching him, I was woirried about it.

Then it all went a bit pear-shaped - partly a less-than-strong teacher not quite controlling a very difficult class, but partly his own lack of social skills and resilience in the face of change. Cue selective mutism, extreme anxiety, huge amplification of his (already observable but previously mild) ASD-type traits.

During a short period of HE before a house move which allowed a change of school, it became apparent that, through HE, I could accelerate his academic learning very greatly. However, that would be at the expense of him developing in the areas he was already weakest in, the social and emotional skills, empathy, resilience, ability to make friends and handle himself confidently in social situations.

So I sent him back to (a different) school. I looked at lots - state, private, 'academic', more varied. I found myself choosing a school that I might not have considered when initially choosing a school - not a private school with a reputation for getting children into the local superselective grammar (because I found their rigid teaching approach and their emphasis on conformity would not suit DS), not even the state school which was meant to be 'the best' (which subtly implied that they were interested in having DS because he was able, but hoped that he would 'turn out to have grown out of his difficulties') but the one which modelled the things in which DS was weakest (empathy, human warmth, social skills, friendship) even in their approach to a prospective new pupil and parent.

DS has just finished Year 6. He has done very well academically, though he is perhaps not as 'ahead' as might once have been predicted (5,5,6 in SATs), but he is a fully-rounded human being in a way I might never have expected. He is popular, social, interacts brilliantly with both adults and children, mature, responsible, funny, caring.

Has he achieved his potential? Well, he is perhaps a little behind what might initially have been expected on the academic side (though tbh I suspect that he may excel in something like economics which he hasn't yet encountered as an academic subject) but he has exceeded his 'originally visible' potential in the social and emotional arena, and it is that which gives him the best platform for success and happiness in life.

Our priorities for our children change. What we want for them is for them to be happy, fulfilled adults. What we believe might get them to that point - perhaps exceptional performance at school - might not in fact be the main route to get there or the most important factor in them achieving future happiness. Do I believe that DS will be happier and more fulfilled because he knows even more maths, or because he knows how to make and keep friends and form strong relationships with a variety of adults and peers?