gifted Archives - Page 5 of 8

17 Wishes for Making Parenting Gifted Children Easier

January 17, 2015 · 19 Comments

I was Facebook chatting with a friend who’s just starting out on her journey of parenting a gifted kindergartener and we were talking about what would make our lives easier as we guide these unique little people. These are the items I came up with in no particular order.

Parenting Gifted Children Made Easier

Yep, I get it. Wishing for things to be easy as we raise gifted children is a total first-world problem. My kid has a full belly and goes to bed feeling safe. I’m more than thankful for this.

Nope, not all of these are very realistic. I know that. Some are tongue-in-cheek. Maybe a few of these things are already happening in some magical places but I’m pretty confident that they’re not the standard.

But some of these wishes sure seem like they ~~could~~ should be the norm.

Parenting a gifted child would be easier if…

Neighborhood libraries were open 24-7 and the next book in whatever series they’re reading was always available.

School districts provided professional development for ALL teachers on the identification of gifted students.

All the enrichment programs were high-quality, reasonable priced, within a 20-minute drive of home, and the schedules never conflicted with any other activities. And all those enrichment locations should be next to a coffee shop with comfy chairs and strong Wi-Fi (I’m writing this at a coffee shop 60 minutes away from home while my daughter is at math class. There are no comfy chairs.)

We could figure out how to download those *&{@! Minecraft mods without infecting our computers with some horrific virus. (I’ve had zero personal success with this.)

Differentiation in the classroom happened and it actually worked. (Remember, these are wishes – anything can happen!)

Every teacher, principal, and superintendent would be educated on what gifted students need in the classroom and then they’d provide it.

Elementary classes would be on a block schedule to allow say, a 1st grader to go to 4th grade math and 3rd grade reading without ripping a hole in the space-time continuum.

Schools would celebrate academic achievement the same way they celebrate athletic achievement (No, I’m not suggesting getting rid of traditional athletics!)

And for those middle school students that need to go to the high school for classes, please provide transportation. Thank you.

Gifted students would be grouped in a class so they would have true peers they could interact with. Maybe chat about things like a comparative analysis of Matt Smith vs. David Tennant vs. the new old Doctor (Whovians will understand).

Scratch that – gifted students would have their own school. No more pull-out enrichment programs that while we are so thankful for are simply not enough to sustain these kids.

There would be one universally acknowledged definition of what it means to be gifted and one universally accepted assessment to determine if in fact one meets that definition.

Chess club would count as a sport.

Computer programming would be taught as early as elementary school.

Teachers would communicate via email rather than the archaic ‘backpack’ system. (Ok, not really a gifted thing but I hate digging through a backpack for the latest classroom news. I’m sure most schools already do this and I’m just in a black hole of poor communication).

Librarians would limit the weight of the books a child checks out each week to prevent future chiropractic bills.

The term “smarty-pants” would be banned. Please.

I reserve the right to add to this list as the whims hit me.

What say you – what’s on your wish list?

Filed Under: Musings Tagged: Education, gifted, parenting, school

I’m Done Apologizing for My Gifted Daughter

January 13, 2015 · 26 Comments

I have a confession. I used to apologize for my daughter being gifted.

Maybe apologize isn’t exactly the right word but when other parents would comment on how bright she was I’d say something like:

Focusing on the positive side of parenting a gifted child.

Yeah, but she can’t tie her own shoes

If only she wasn’t afraid of every ball in every sport

You’d think she could figure out how to hang up a towel!

Ok, that last one really bugged me. Seriously, how tough can it be? I admit to telling her to stay in the bathroom until she figured out how to put the towel on the towel bar. It was either my worst parenting moment or my finest. The jury’s still out.

Now, I don’t mean that I said these things with earshot of my daughter or even that I said them very often. But I did say them. It happened most frequently when we were early in our gifted kid journey and someone, usually another mom, would comment about how well she was doing in school or the grade skip and I would immediately downplay things by pointing out something she wasn’t so good at.

Ugh. What was I thinking?

What I should have said was:

THANK YOU

YEP

It reminds me of the Maya Angelou quote: “I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”

Who knows why I said those things. Or why any of us do – because I know I’m not the only parent of a gifted child who’s done this.

Probably a combination of wanting her to fit in, me wanting to fit in, a bit of imposter syndrome (on my part) and simply not really understanding what the heck we were really dealing with.

I also think it was the adjusting of expectations. We knew she was an exceptionally bright little kid but didn’t really know until she got to school how exceptional she was. We had no clue of what being on the far right of the bell curve meant.

She did learn how to tie her shoes, but sometimes it takes a couple of tries so that the tightness is equal on each foot. Don’t laugh. I know you know what I mean.

Still not big on basketball but she’ll shoot baskets with her dad. Only once in a while – but he has to ask nicely and there are bribes involved.

I know she can hang towels up but she sometimes chooses not to. We’re working on it.

Sure, there are plenty of things she’s not good at. But I’ve stopped focusing on them and I’m choosing to focus on the positive because the positive things FAR outweigh the negative.

My daughter is gifted and I’m done apologizing for it.

What about you? Any regrets or things you wish you had done differently on your journey?

Filed Under: Musings Tagged: gifted, parenting

What You Need to Know About Above-Level Testing

November 20, 2013 · 6 Comments

When we first considered advocating for a grade acceleration for our daughter we came up with the brilliant idea of having her take the end of year assessment for the skipped grade to prove she already knew the material. Little did I know that we weren’t the first ones to think of this tactic and it has a name – above-level testing.

Above-level tests are commonly used in talent searches and as screening tests to identify students for gifted programs. Getting high scores is commonplace for gifted students and most tests don’t adequately measure what they could achieve if the test were more difficult. This is the ceiling effect – student test scores clustered at the upper end of the test because it wasn’t sufficiently challenging. This is the concept you explain to other moms who don’t understand why your child getting straight A’s isn’t good enough for you. All those A’s don’t mean that your student is being challenged and stretched.

When advocating for your child to be challenged appropriately in school, being armed with this information can be helpful. The above-level testing scores give educators an indication of the student’s actual achievement level. This can help determine where the student’s strengths and weaknesses may be. Remember, these kids tend to have asynchronous development. Just because they’re ready for calculus doesn’t mean they can put a sentence together.

Knowing a student’s strengths is obviously important but knowing where any gaps in knowledge may lie is equally essential. Understanding both of these information points can be influential in determining if a student should be grade or subject accelerated. Being armed with cold, hard data (test scores) is one way to avoid being labeled as “one of those parents” and want to discuss the issue objectively.

Tests commonly used for above-level testing are typically the SAT and ACT for students in at least seventh grade. For elementary students the EXPLORE is often used. These tests are also used in most talent searches. However, when working with a school on grade or subject acceleration other testing options may be available. A common practice is to have a student take the end-of-year assessment test for the grade in which they’re considering moving to.