zoosermom

I have one kid who has a super-duper high IQ and a real talent with words and one who is jus average in terms of IQ but who has the best time management skills I've ever encountered. She has a LIST and a PLAN for everything and gets the job done every time. Also gets everyone else to get the job done. A counsellor once told me that the one with the natural abiliy is as different from the average as a child who is handicapped. I keep that in mind now that she has channeled her considerable abilities toward driving me stark, raving mad.

mom2three

ZM-
It really only seems that they are focused on driving us crazy. I finally figured out that teenagers are far too involved in their own lives and drama to spend their energy figuring up ways to make us insane. No, they just do what they do, and it's merely a happy coincidence (for them) that the very things they would choose to do anyway are the things that run up our spines like the sound of a dentist's drill.

Of course, it seems that even if they spent every waking hour plotting to make us nuts, they couldn't do a better job than they do without giving it a thought.

:-)

madbean

What a step forward it would be if schools/society appreciated all learning differences--whether dyslexia, ADHD, giftedness, etc.without them bringing undeserved negative or positive spin. Profoundly differing learning styles and abilities present challenges for kids affecting social development as well as school performance and each child develops their sense of self in this context. I had heard of LDs and I had heard of "giftedness", but I, quite frankly, hadn't realized they could co-exist in one child. But I am an expert on this topic now.

zoosermom

"that the very things they would choose to do anyway are the things that run up our spines like the sound of a dentist's drill."

That is a wonderful description.

je_ne_sais_quoi

In some school districts, children need to be classified as "gifted" to receive adequate educational opportunities. The classification is a double-edged sword. It can engender scornful and resentful reactions; some parents mistakenly assume the term carries a superior connotation, which it doesn't. It's more of a description than anything else. Some gifted children struggle quite a bit because of large discrepancies between their social and intellectual development. My older daughter was classified as "gifted" early on, and it has not been an easy road, though she ALWAYS does her homework (maybe that's the perfectionist part)!

hayden

Most of us want our kids to be smart. But I don't trust IQ tests as a measure of whether they are. Our S didn't get invited into our local G&T program in elementary school, but most of his friends did. I always thought he seemed as smart as they were, but his IQ tests always showed him as moderately smart.

Then in high school, the school administered the IQ tests again. His score came back more than 30 points higher than he scored in elementary school.

What was the difference? Did the school make a bureaucratic error and actually mixed up his results (and if so, which test result was in error)? Did he mature into a person who tested higher by not being intimidated by the test? Are the IQ tests inherently flawed? If a test like this can be subject to such flaws, how can we trust our kids' futures to the results.

memake

And let me add something else to this stew; playing Carnegie Hall is not as special as you may think. Promoter/packagers regularly rent the hall and schedule groups of Youth Symphonies to perform in blocks (so maybe 3 different Youth Symphonies play in a 2-hour segment).

Playing Carnegie Hall in one of the hall's own soloist series - now for that I'll take my hat off. Even renting the hall for yourself and carrying enough weight to get reviewed by the Times -- good enough for me.

Also, I hear A's are the most common grade at Harvard.

Narcissa

heh gifted kids have "problems"
i have problems
i wonder if i'm "gifted"

lspf72

Are there really that many parents on CC touting their kids as "brilliant?"

I probably wouldn't use the word gifted unless I had someone like Mozart as a kid, but even so, I can imagine a lot worse things. Telling a child that he's a genius and the second coming of Einstein would certainly be a bad idea, but is there really that much of it posted here?

tokenadult

Hear. Hear. My very favorite math textbook author, Israel Gelfand (who is my avatar on the Brand X forum where I first used the screen name tokenadult) once wrote, "Students have no shortcomings, they have only peculiarities. The job of a teacher is to turn these peculiarities into advantages."

garland

I agree with Northstarmom's definition, and its downfalls. I don't know what word wouldn't bother people; I just know that my kid's mind leaps across spaces in ways that I don't think most others do, which helped him stumble into an Ivy with one hand tied behind his back (not really trying all that hard) and wasn't enough to keep him there when he went back to not trying very hard.

Would I rather he was less smart, gifted, or whatever word doesn't hurt anyone's feelings, but worked harder at school? Honestly, no (blast away!). I wouldn't give up one IQ point or however you want to measure it. His mind is him, and makes him the fascinating, endearing, imaginative person he is. The maddening stuff can be outgrown, but the individual can't be replaced.

I wouldn't change that.

Edit: I will add that the work ethic thing drives me nuts, as the rest of us in the immediate family have it in spades, but we have extended relatives who've had more issues like his, and have overcome them, so we rely on that for sanity.

katliamom

The interesting thing to me is that traditionally, academically high-achieving subgroups in the US (Asians, Indian, Jews) rarely trusted the whole concept of 'giftedness' probably due to suspicion of labels of ANY kind. What was and is being stressed is work, desire, focus. I can't help but think we'd all be better off if schools demanded those qualities first, and looked for 'giftedness' second. But as Mr. Payne pointed out, an awful lot of IQ "experts' would be out of work, as well as school administrators who make a pretty nice living catering to the ambitious parents of 'gifted' kids.

OK, go ahead and stone me now.

katliamom

garland, i love your post. the giving up of IQ points was said in jest. i really adore my kid for who he is which is primarily sweet, funny, kind and a talented cook. Unlike your kid, this one won't get into an Ivy, but I'm OK with that.

garland

Katlia, that wasnt addressed so much to you but to the prevailing "work hard is better than smarts ethos." I can't argue it in a vaccuum; I just have to go on gut feelings. And what can be better, overall, than "sweet, funny, kind and a talented cook"? that would describe my S, too, except for the cooking part!

DonnaL

I was classified as "gifted" at the age of 3, in the late 1950's, when I was admitted to a special school for gifted children in NYC, where I remained for the next eight years. (I still remember taking the admissions test. Especially that I had trouble climbing up on the chair I was supposed to sit in! But I sure could talk.) And I assure all of you that it's not a ticket to anything -- particularly, I can personally attest, fame and fortune!

Mostly, other people do catch up. I may have been one of the most impressive little kids in Manhattan when I was 4, but by the time I was in high school, well, I was just one of thousands like me. Smart, and high-achieving academically, but no Einstein.

So when I realized that my son was every bit as precocious as I ever was (far more so in some ways), I didn't get too excited about it. And certainly never "had him tested," like a lot of other parents I knew did with their kids. And I have never communicated to him that he should feel that any of this means he's any more "special" than any other kid. Even though, of course, he's the most wonderful kid in the world, to me! And even though I'm not the least bit surprised at how superlative he's been academically, at the things he's really good at. Which certainly isn't everything.

Anyway, as he goes off to college in September, he has far better study habits than I did at his age.

Donna