BellaOnline Forums Education Gifted Education JUST REALIZING MY SON IS GIFTED

I was told by the Doctor at age 2 that Noah was very smart and would need to be challenged.

At 10 and just finishing 5th grade he started to have social issues. Even though he is outgoing, smart, confident, Kids would tease him and ridicule him. Some of these issues were boundary issues on his part.

I started looking up ADD and aspbergers and a whole host of other things to see how I could help him and then once school ended ( a week ago) and the dust had settled I typed in the words, Traits of a Gifted Child. Don't ask me why it took this long. For me I always took people's comments to mean that Noah was smart and inquisitive and picked up on things. Well, my son has most traits listed under those of gifted children. I am beginning to learn more and more.

I need discipline advice for helping him socially. I need the advice on the best book to first read and then consequent others and how to advise other people on how to best understand my son.

Anyone who has already been through this chapter is welcome to fill me in.

Thanks so much.

Both my children were classified as gifted in school. One developed what you might call social issues. It was like she was extremely insightful and completely unrealistic all at the same time. She gravitated toward kids who were "on the fringe." Most of her friends were undersupervised. I went to every seminar the school offered on how to raise children, gifted or not. The biggest piece of advice they gave was to watch out for peer pressure, but they never gave any advice on effectively dealing with it. After all, there is no magic answer for this problem.

Finally, we decided that school was exacerbating the problem. Kids are immersed in an atmosphere of tons of peers at school, and we're supposed to watch out?

Ultimately, in senior high, we decided to homeschool. Long story short, this child completed homeschooling and worked a couple of years before starting college. She graduated from college with a 3.9. She now teaches art with an emphasis on therapeutic art exercises for behaviorally challenged kids. Her social skills are just great.

Beware of people who tell you that kids won't get proper socialization without school. For some kids, school provides over-socialization. It can be a catastrophe. There are kids who thrive in school, but not all of them do.

Remember, kids aren't "done" 'til they're "done." It takes time for them to reach full adulthood, and they're not all on the same schedule.

The other thing to remember is that, regardless of whether a kid is gifted or not, the single most valuable thing they need to learn is empathy for other people. The second most valuable thing for them to know is that it's not so much how smart you are as what you do with the intelligence you have. Love your child and enjoy his childhood as much as possible. It will be over before you know it.

Keep an eye on things and see if your kid seems really happy with school. He may not need the overstimulation. If you consider homeschooling, don't be intimidated. Homeschooling is not that intimidating when you realize that the kids are the ones who do the learning--you just make the resources available.

Probably one of the best books I ever read on child-rearing was The Hurried Child. It's content is more about social development than anything else, and it makes a wonderful case for not hurrying kids in the social sense. It ties right in with raising gifted kids, though, because no matter how smart a child is, he's still going to progress emotionally no faster than anyone else. With this in mind, I think there's no advantage emotionally to accelerating kids through school. They're just not socially ready to start college young. Heck, they really are not usually ready for college at 18--most 18 year olds have no firm idea of what to major in. Gifted kids do need the resources that will satisfy their different curiosities, but it doesn't mean they need to start college early.

I don't mean to run on and on. Hope this helps. Good luck.

Thanks so much. Very insightful and helpful.

Noah loves school. If it were not for the kids he would "live" there. He often wants me to homeschool him just so he doesn't have to face the "injustice of it all". Which means the teasing and non-acceptance of who he is.

Tonight I have been questioning why the school never thought about him being "gifted". Even starting in kindergarten with the Bracken Test, he had to take the second half because he scored 99% at 4 years old. He continues to exceed NYS standards with distinction in most subjects.

I think I will guide him gently through the social aspect of school. I am very active in school and know a lot of what goes on. Next year, with starting Middle School it will be the same as I am Co-Chair of the PTSA for that building. I won't make any decisions until we get through one year of the "new" school and see if he doesn't connect with kids more like him as 3 schools merge into that school. there will be new people to make friends with.

Thanks so much. I'm just beginning this journey.

MaryLee

Regarding the fact that his school did not pick up on his being gifted, it is my understanding that gifted students fall into the category of special needs students; and your school is REQUIRED to "meet his needs" educationally, if it's a public school. I believe this is a national requirement, but you can check. The school district's superintendent's office should have a counselor-type in charge of special needs. That person should know what's required. The reason gifted students are classified as "special needs" is that they are statistically way more at risk than other students of dropping out of school. The drop-out rate is so high among gifted students if they are not challenged (in a positive way) and/or if they are isolated by their peers if they seem different.

Keep in mind that "challenge" is different for each child, gifted or not. For some gifted kids it means opening avenues for them to study something out-of-the ordinary like advanced violin. For others "challenge" means fast tracking on certain traditional subjects. Some schools simply are not adequately geared (or funded) for this kind of specialization. Ultimately, there may be limits to what the school is capable of offering. Some of it may be up to you.

It sounds like your child enjoys the academic part of school but is having some social problems. He is only 10, and 10 year olds are pretty agreeable, so, he may not be in a frame of mind to "buck the system" yet. One book I read on child development said some people call 10 "the last good age." Of couse they mean this in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way. After 10, kids start turning into adolescents. Just monitor his situation, and use your best judgement. In the case of the daughter I mentioned above, middle school was where the trouble started. It was a slow progression which peaked at age 16 (the teenage years can seem to be infinite!!). Her middle school was not all that good. There were discipline problems which meant some of the rougher kids were a bit out of control. This was scary for our daughter. Also, there were several sub-standard teachers there.

It's good that you're so involved in school. There's no substitute for that. As your son gets older, you may need to find inconspicuous ways to be involved at his school. Usually, the older they get, the more of an embarrassment you are!! I say this, but I did notice that, after the homeschooling started, our daughter quit being embarrassed by her parents.

Oh, the book I referred to in this post was part of a series on child development by two child psychologists who have observed a kazillion kids as they grew up. I believe their surnames were Ames and Ilg. I think that some of the later books in the series were authored by Ilg and another person--or was it Ames and another person? Anyway, the titles are Your One Year Old, Your Two Year Old, Your Three Year Old, etc.--you get the picture--one book per year. It seems like the series ends with a book devoted to the pre-adolescence years as a group.

I loved those books because they helped me know what was normal emotional developmental behavior. If my kids fell in the normal developmental range, I knew I did not have to stress out. I could just wait for them to mature. (Example: when a two year old says, "No.")

One more thing to worry about: the kid trying to adapt to peer pressure by acting dumb. If he decides that intelligence is not an asset, he may try to "blend in" by appearing less intelligent than he is. Naturally, this will not be good for his grades; and, ultimately, it will not get him "in" with any crowd you would want for him!

Well, you sound like a conscientious mother. That's great. Best of luck to you!

Hello Mary Lee-

It must be so frustrating to only now realize that your ten year old is gifted. Unfortunately, there is no national standard for identifying or accommodating gifted students. Cela had some good advice for you, but her assumption about public schools being REQUIRED to meet the needs of gifted students is incorrect. It's a very sad situation.

I hope that with your new knowledge, you can send Noah back to school (or homeschool, if you go that route) with a new sense of the best fit for him educationally. You may want to talk to the school about testing for placement. Most districts require a written request detailing what sort of testing you want and why.

Cela, thank you for your warm and thoughtful comments. I'd love to hear more about your experiences with two gifted learners.

I enjoy David Elkind and his book The Hurried child is well worth reading. However, it is important to note that Elkind has openly talked about how the books applies to parents who are actively pushing their children, as opposed to gifted kids who are chomping at the bit. Countless studies have proven that it is harmful to hold gifted learners back, and that acceleration can be extremely beneficial. Early college isn't right for every gifted kid, but it has been a lifesaver for some, especially profoundly gifted kids who are thinking and performing many years above typical age/grade level.

I'm so glad to hear that homeschooling allowed your daughter to bloom socially. My family also homeschools, though I have one child in full time college now. We absolutely love the freedom of this type of learning.

best wishes-

Lorel

Hi, Lorel--
Thanks for your comments. If you re-read my post about gifted studies, you may notice that I was not at all positive about what was required, but that I was telling Mary Lee what I thought was the case. I hoped it would give her a jumping-off place in talking with school authorities. Also, I thought my posts were pretty clear concerning acceleration socially vs. educationally; but I'll try to clarify. To me, Mr. Elkind's advice has more to do with not pushing kids socially. I just do not believe kids ever benefit from fast-track socialization, and I think that is his main point, too. I do, however, whole-heartedly believe in providing kids with learning materials that keep up with the pace of their curiosity. I simply believe that education provided in a highly "socialized" setting such as school is not a recipe for harmony in the under-twenty set.

Early college is not the only venue for precocious learners, and I question whether the full-out college experience is all that beneficial to younger students. I've witnessed several early college scenarios personally. Putting a sixteen year-old in dorm life is rushing things socially. College can, however, be beneficial if you have the young student in selected classes while still living at home.

I'm just really reluctant to put kids in school situations (even college) because of the "socialization" aspect of school. There's just something that happens to kids when they are in an en masse situation. You get a bunch of kids in one place, and you've got peer pressure. Peer pressure can be very damaging and often unnecessary.

I can't count the number of successful people I know who have said that they wish they had waited to attend college because their maturity level would have allowed them to be more focused on their educations rather than their social lives. The other thing they talk about is that, going to college early--or even at 18, they ended up being indecisive about majors or, even, going back to college later to switch careers.

I just really do think we rush ourselves too much to settle on a career path. And, career paths do not always equate with the sheer joy in learning.

One of the best pieces of advice we received during our homeschooling years was to watch for what interested our kids and, basically, pounce on it. The person who told us this said that, if you can pick up on what exactly is of interest to your child and react appropriately and fast, the child's curiosity will take over and the learning will be full-throttle. He said that, often, if you do not (or can not) provide resources to foster a current curiosity, the curiosity may wane. This is not to say that you have to pursue every tiny little thing; it's just to say what important clues we do get when we notice what our kids are "into." Luckily, if you miss the boat on one interest, most kids develop another one pretty soon. You just don't want to let too many "boats" go by.

The person giving us this advice was a former public school teacher who, ultimately, became convinced that too much classroom-style structure did nothing but cut curiosity into little, ineffective chunks governed by a bell. He did go on to become a college professor, but he feels that college structure has enough self-directed time to be beneficial (not to mention the credentialing it offers). He and his wife also unschooled all their children, and all became successful adults. Anyway, my point is he knows what he's talking about educationally.

Well, I hope this clarifies things a little. It was interesting hearing from you. Thanks for your thoughts.

Cela, I agree with most of your advice and observations and comments, but will toss in some thoughts from another angle on some of the things you noted that I feel debatable (not wrong so much as debatable in most cases).

"I think there's no advantage emotionally to accelerating kids through school. They're just not socially ready to start college young."

Most studies (as opposed to anecdotes from people like Norbert Weiner) have shown many early college students to have been ready socially to be in college and studies done on early to college people in their adult life have come back showing the majority to have been glad to have started college early and felt it was not a disadvantage emotionally (and some have felt it an advantage).

"Heck, they really are not usually ready for college at 18--most 18 year olds have no firm idea of what to major in."

Which is one reason why it is advantageous to start early - they have more time to explore different options and change majors/fields before needing to pay a mortgage or feed a family, and frankly, no matter the age of the college student, adults tend to change fields several times in their lives (even if they first go to college in their 30's). Our son's Honors College had a night where the parents of the students spoke about their own education and current occupation and only one of these parents were working in the same field they got their college degree in (that was my husband, who rarely seems the odd man out but was that night).

"Gifted kids do need the resources that will satisfy their different curiosities, but it doesn't mean they need to start college early."

In our case, it was our last resort (where homeschooling was our first as it seemed to us the best method of learning and so our son never was enrolled in a school before college). He didn't like EPGY physics once the novelty of an online "blackboard" and such wore off; he wanted a real classroom with a real professor and classmates to discuss ideas with in person. And he wanted lab equipment that we couldn't supply him (for example, at age 9, he was working in a Howard Hughes Medical Institute lab and getting upper level chem credit for it thanks to the director meeting him and inviting him to have a desk there and try out AIDS research, and our son learned that was not for him at age 9 rather than having to wait till 19). And he enjoyed many of the college extra-curriculars (he was voted into SGA and also was on the crew team at age 11, plus he was active in the philosophy club and went to things like chess club and game club and math club and such when he felt like it), and he went to homecoming at age 9 (though we refused to allow him to accept the 17-year-old female friend's invite to her dorm that night) and again at I think 13 (his senior year) and a crew team formal and other dances. He went on study abroad programs (three: one to Italy, one to France, and one to 9 countries) and Honors College trips to the opera and Broadway musicals and Shakespearean plays in D.C.'s Folger Theater and more. He volunteered in the inner city by reading Dr. Seuss books and helping kids paint toys (with Golden Key Honors Society). He won $50 in a campus comedy contest and enjoyed giving keyboard performances on open mike nights. He also won $1000 cash (plus another $100 cash for most valuable employee) and thousands more in prizes when his team (of three; the total cash prize was $3K) won the statewide business plan competition for undergraduates and graduates (which was a real shock to us being that he was only 10 and many of the competitors were in their 20's and beyond, like the team that had a medical resident, a law student, and an MBA student) and very much enjoyed the prizes like the helicopter ride and venture capital conference (where he met a venture capitalist who invited him to be in a sailboat competition about a year later and they came in second place). I could go on and on about his college experiences and they were almost all positive experiences, and almost all experiences he likely wouldn't have had if he had not been in college but homeschooling (which isn't to say he couldn't have had them at a later time, but he'd have had a less interesting childhood rather than a more interesting one, seems to me).

"I question whether the full-out college experience is all that beneficial to younger students. I've witnessed several early college scenarios personally. Putting a sixteen year-old in dorm life is rushing things socially. College can, however, be beneficial if you have the young student in selected classes while still living at home."

I question it, too, even having had a child whose early college experience was a positive one. And I certainly think keeping the kid at home is better *in general* than letting them live in a dorm *at any age* (even 21!), but again, this will vary by the child. We figured our son was ready at 14 to live on his own as he was already financially independent (graduated at age 13 with degrees in math and CS and was making $200+/hour on some projects even with his first client), had been wise about financial matters since before he was 5 (and had a savings higher than about 40% of the American population already, including having put the maximum he could into a Roth IRA since he was 12, something he had wanted to have since he first read about these at the bank at age 6), had been doing his own laundry since he was 10 or so, and just seemed to have his act together in every way to us *then* but after a year at MIT living in the graduate dorm and working in the lab with people who miss meetings and forget they have class or sleep through class, even classes where they are the TA, some bad habits have come to him that I suspect wouldn't have had he still been living at home. But these habits are also in the graduate students who are in their 20's and 30's (one is even married to another MIT grad and he has three MIT degrees and is going for his doctorate now), so I don't see it as a function of our son's young age.

As for peer pressure, it is far worse with chronological peers than academic peers as with academic peers, our son can easily say, "I am 15 and so drinking isn't legal or right for me" when a fellow grad student offers him wine or a frat undergrad friend offers him beer, but when chronological peers (age 15 and 14) in a hotel on vacation together last week were allowed by their parents to stay out on their own all night (as in *all* night, never coming to bed until the next night), it didn't sit well with our son that we insisted he come back to the hotel room at 12:25 AM to get sleep before having an early morning that day and having to catch three flights to get to his business trip in Norway (he felt he could just pull an all-nighter that night and the next). It no doubt seems odd to him that he can pull an all-nighter when living on his own (doing a problem set, final paper, or final project at the lab) but not in a hotel when staying with us (and these kids actually left the hotel at 1 AM not even knowing the town they were in has an 11 PM curfew for kids under 16 and were lucky not to be arrested), and odder still that kids who aren't in graduate school or living on their own were granted permission to stay out/up all night while he wasn't.

"I can't count the number of successful people I know who have said that they wish they had waited to attend college because their maturity level would have allowed them to be more focused on their educations rather than their social lives. The other thing they talk about is that, going to college early--or even at 18, they ended up being indecisive about majors or, even, going back to college later to switch careers."

Note that you describe these people as successful... not all early to college people are, but more seem to be than in the general population, but this could be more due to their being smart than having gone to college early. I haven't noticed the early to college students being more focused on social lives than education, and certainly they have a higher GPA than most students and by a good margin (the valedictorians at our son's alma mater were 19 for two of the years he was there; another had a 4.0 and landed one of just 12 spots in Harvard's MD/PhD program). As much as our son is rather social (he is an officer in his dorm and on a transition committee for his dorm and has gone on retreats with other graduate students for both; he has attended frat, graduate student, undergraduate dorm, and faculty member parties; he was in a bunch of groups his first semester till we felt he was overdoing it), he also seems to be learning okay (as even with all his slacking this past semester, he still got all A's and an A+).

"going to college early--or even at 18, they ended up being indecisive about majors or, even, going back to college later to switch careers."

Again, this happens even with people who start college in their 20's and beyond, and indeed, my *guess* is that it happens more to them as they weren't "born with a drive for a given area" (I know quite a few people who picked an occupation like chemist, mathematician, inventor, engineer, etc. before they were 10 and have stuck with it, including my brother; not sure if science/math types are quicker to "find their calling" than authors or artists or what here, though).

"I just really do think we rush ourselves too much to settle on a career path. And, career paths do not always equate with the sheer joy in learning."

But early college shouldn't be rushing anyone to settle on a career path. Our son often notes all the options for what to do down the road (including be a scientist/inventor as that is what his current research assistantship is training him to be, photographer as he sold over $8K worth of his photos at age 12 to 14 working just a couple festivals a year and seems to have a good eye for images people enjoy, musician as he sold his CDs at age 9 at a lakefront concert and has since done many open mike nights and been asked to play for a dedication ceremony at MIT and also a graduation celebration at MIT and some MIT museum event, author as he has won some national essay contests (won first two computers at age 7 from one of these) and has heard many compliments on his writing from newspaper editors and published authors and English professors and such, professor as he has been a guest lecturer for several college classes and been well received, and more) and despite being in a graduate program rather young, he doesn't feel "locked in" to any career for life. Indeed, by having time to earn money before graduate school (indeed, he had three job offers at age 8 before he started college and had earned money as an independent contractor at age 8, so he had time to earn money before college), he knows he can always go back "to the real world" and isn't afraid of it like many "professional students" (and he also feels he has time to be a "professional student" if he wants and go for an MBA/JD program before he starts having to pay a mortgage, so he has toyed with that notion for a few years now).

I think everything else you wrote was something I could have written myself (unless I missed something). Sorry this was so long, but I will end with how I really don't know what is best (where many parents say they know better than anyone what is best for their child, I have felt our son usually has the best guess as to what is best for him as it's *his* life, but also felt even he could be wrong and that so long as he knows it's okay to make mistakes, that hopefully won't be any big deal). I am completely flying by the seat of my pants and just hoping for the best. Many of the decisions we have had to make have not been easy ones (nor all to our son's liking, such as our refusing to let him on Oprah or in most any mainstream media venue; one such refusal cost him a trip to Munich, but fortunately, he had another business trip that took him to Bonn, so he still got to Germany within a year of the first "opportunity" that we refused due to the media circus that would be involved in that one), but we just try to do what *seems* best at the time (after researching the topics as best we can and getting input on decisions from as many people as we can) as that's all any parent can really do.

MaryLee, my best advice is to homeschool your son if you are up to doing that and financially able. While my vote on early college and living in a dorm young will likely be out for many years to come still, I have always felt homeschooling to have been an *excellent* choice for our son and think it would be a terrific thing for most kids no matter their intellect, social level, emotional level, etc. (unlike early college, which I think is far better for people advanced in all those areas).

Which reminds me...Cela noted that emotional development isn't ahead of the norm even if intellectual development is, and this is one area where I am inclined to disagree. When our son was 2, a friend (in her 50's at the time) noted that our son was more mature than many people her own age (and I hadn't thought about it until she said that, but once she did, I could actually see her point), and one of the things that has been said to me by other grad students our son has had in classes is how mature our son is (some even noted that our son should have been paid a TA stipend as he was more helpful to them than the TAs and urged the professor to have him as a TA next time the class was taught). He was the only child working at the tech company that he interned with when he was 9 and people liked him such that he was asked to intern there again each summer than followed (and offered a full-time position with the company once he graduated from college, though he turned it down as he wanted to have his own business rather than be an EE again). He interned with another company during the school year hen he was 13 and the CEO lunch took him to CEO meetings with him (not the staff who had been with the company longer) and sent him on a business trip out of state on his own to reward him for the exceptional work he had done for the company (and this was his first client when he graduated from college). Another company asked him to work a few extra weeks beyond the time our son had originally agreed to and our son said he could do it, but it would cost double his regular rate as he had other clients for that period and so it would be his "overtime" rate and the client didn't blink an eye. I know many adults who wouldn't have the courage (or gal) to say, "I can do it, but it will cost you double." I'm not saying he is perfect when it comes to maturity (his wanting to stay out all night with fellow teens when he has activities the next day starting early morning and three flights to catch shows he isn't), but he seems more mature than most of his fellow graduate students and many "adults" beyond graduate school years to me (and to others).

Rose Marie:
How did you keep up with school on your son? You said you homeschooled. How did you give that insatiable urge to learn enough food to thrive? My son learns much faster than I can teach or even pull materials for him to learn on his own.

I just read an interesting piece:

THE ELEPHANT Highly gifted children learn not only faster than others, but also differently. Standard teaching methods take complex subjects and break them into small, simple bits presented one at a time. Highly gifted minds can consume large amounts of information in a single gulp, and they thrive on complexity. Giving these children simple bits of information is like feeding an elephant one blade of grass at a time - he will starve before he even realizes that anyone is trying to feed him. [Excerpt from "Helping Your Highly Gifted Child" by Stephanie S. Tolan, ERIC EC Digest #E477, 1990]

How do I not starve him?
You seem like a very qualified woman and endurant homeschooler. I would appreciate the advice.

Alicia

Hello, Rose Marie--Interesting comments, but I still think "social" development generally lags behind educational. I am curious about the studies you mention. I'd love to know exactly which studies you were thinking of when you referred to studies on early college students. I'm sure they would make interesting reading.

Also, why the reference to "anecdotes from people like Norbert Weiner?" I assume you must know he was not the professor who counseled us on homeschooling. (We're not that old--tee!hee!) He was a pretty eccentric fellow, though. Can't help but wonder if his early college attendance, among other things, had an adverse social effect. Then again, maybe his father should have focused on Norbert's social side as much as he did on his education. I still agree with Ames and Ilg and other psychologists who say that gifted children generally do not experience social coping skills that match their intellectual capacity. Cela