<p>^^CTY uses several tests and the SAT did not used to be used before 7th grade. DD took a SCAT test to qualify in 3rd grade. What CTY looks for is kids who score high at two levels above grade level when they are in grade school. He would not be taking CTY classes without qualifying scores. We had mixed results with CTY, though, and I did not think that all of the instructors were well trained to work with gifted kids. I do wish this young man the best.</p>
<p>I sent you a PM, but in case you didn’t see it: I’m a 3rd grade teacher, and this same exact thing happened in the school where I taught (it was about 7 years ago!). The boy was in 4th grade and his parents decided he needed to be “enriched”, so they paid for this online math program. It was Johns Hopkins math program, probably the same one your brother is taking.</p>
<p>5th graders should NOT be taking an online course. Emotionally, they need their teacher’s input, their nurturing, and their immediate feedback. Online gives none of that. This boy just cried and cried. His class meanwhile was just doing their regular math. Turns out, this kid needed to be with his peers. </p>
<p>Skip trying to stretch your brother past his age. So what that Johns Hopkins offers this amazing math program, your brother should not be taking it. It’s creating a terrible, negative feeling of defeat for your brother.</p>
<p>BTW: this student is now about to enter college next year. He’s 16 years old and got an 800 in his Math SATs.</p>
<p>“No crying, period? I hope that doesn’t really mean no crying period and that you were referring strictly to tantrums.” - Most crying is tantrums. It is natural to cry when experiencing severe pain or loss of friend / relative, both of which are relatively rare events in one’s life. Other than that, one needs to learn to control emotions, to learn that crying is not solving anything, it creates another layer of problems. This learning process is not easy, it takes years and a good starting age is about 2 years old when child begins to communicate his needs verbally instead of getting attention by crying.</p>
<p>We did not feel it appropriate to label S as “gifted” even though he qualified at that age. It was much more important for us ( and ultimately him) to thrive in any environment he was in, without adding needless pressure and any false sense of superiority associated with the term “gifted”. As an adult, the term means nothing. He also scored an 800 on math SAT as a sophomore in high school. He understands that such an accomplishment is great, but it doesn’t or shouldn’t define him! The key to success for him has been balance. He is a perfectionist and very competitive, but has been successfully able to channel his brilliance in many endeavors not related to strictly academics.</p>
<p>He has also realized that he is not perfect at everything, and that is OK ! As parents, we allowed him to try things outside of his comfort zone. We also let him know that every child is good at something, and that even the kids who aren’t as good at math, are probably better than him in something else. We totally disagree with the concept that the only thing that defines a kid is his test scores. I met a Mom the other day in the grocery store who remembered my S from when he was in middle school. (9 years ago). She didn’t comment on his perfect academics or math scores, she remembered how excited he was about playing the part of Tony in West Side Story. ;)</p>
<p>"The key to success for him has been balance. He is a perfectionist and very competitive, but has been successfully able to channel his brilliance in many endeavors not related to strictly academics. " - exactly! The same with my D. (college junior), who continues streatching herself to the limits and excell in all of her activities, academic and EC’s. What she is learning now is that day is only 24 hours and she is not a superwoman. So, when she was nominated Sorority president, she respectfully declined because of other important commitments. Yes “The key to success” is balance, not too much focus, but enough to be successful and feel happy pursuing various interests and keep being surrounded by friends.</p>
<p>I do not agree that most crying is tantrums. Most crying is done privately, and is a healthy method of staying in touch with oneself. People who don’t cry tend to be shut off. </p>
<p>I think that the poster who mentioned problems as being “wired” in the brain of gifted kids made a good point. This means that parents who are parenting benignly could still find a gifted kid having some distress. The parents need to learn pro-active skills that many parents never need to have, in order to deal with the situation of giftedness (and some of these skills were described well by that same poster, meaning a lot more work and a lot more consciousness than most parents need to have). Help for the family that is non-blaming would probably work best: I don’t think they should be judged too much from online comments.</p>
<p>We raised our kids to value learning versus grades. Hard to do, and the system and our culture made it harder. When they came home with report cards, I did not look at them for days. I told them that I didn’t need a report card to know they were working hard, that I could see it for myself, and that I was glad they were enjoying some of it.</p>
<p>Now in college, they don’t actually look at their grades when available online, but spend vacations reading more on the subjects they just studied. To me, that means their education has been successful, much more than an “A.”</p>
<p>There are cultural differences here, and perhaps this idea violates the culture of the original poster’s family, but reminding children that grades are not really the point, but just a measure of how much learning is happening, might help.</p>
<p>I also kept my kids out of competitions in the early grades, such as the reading competitions where the top reader gets a prize, etc. I told my kids that reading was its own reward, and I told the teacher to please keep them off the poster on the wall that tracked the number of books read. Many kids read short, easy books to rack up points, which was competely ridiculous. Kids motivations get so distorted by all the short-term external motivators in schools: emphasizing inner motivations can help a lot over time.</p>
<p>All kids have tough years when they are emotional. It is hard to tell how bad this really is. I would think that the younger boy must miss his brother, and the change when a sibling leaves can be so disorienting- even more so in this case because the older son took care of his brother and they seem so close. I’ll bet that with a little help, some advice for the parents on parenting a gifted child, and some time for adjustment with the brother at college, that things could very well turn out fine.</p>
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<p>Wow. Just wow. Frightening. Crying is clearly this little boy’s call for help, caught in a culture where 5th graders “should” be taking online pre-calculus courses instead of riding bikes and putting frogs down girls’ shirts. </p>
<p>Does this course make him happy? If no, it should stop. Immediately. End of subject. How good he is, how smart he is, how much it improves his chances to stay out of a bottom-feeder school like BC (I’m being SARCASTIC, obviously), how much it pleases the parents is immaterial. A fifth grader in pre-calculus is ridiculous. What’s the rush?</p>
<p>Pre-calculus material in not ridiculus at all. In other countries it is a norm, part of 5-6th grade curriculum. It is ridiculus only here, where teaching of math and sciences is lacking not only in elementary but also in HS even in best schools. Actually in other countries they do not call it calculus, but teaching several math subjects simulteniously starting in elementary (like trigonometry, algebra, geometry). My own granddaughter (11 years old) constantly compalins about math (her favorite subject) being way too easy and boring in school. I completely understand her, but she is very busy with whole lot of EC’s to take up some math outside of school.</p>
<p>Alright, there are some things that need clarification here.</p>
<p>It is not my parents who are the problem. My parents are treating my brother with a lot more attention than they treated me. They walk/drive him to the bus-stop, got in touch with the teacher, bought him instruments, take him to concerts, take him out, etc. Although they do put a high emphasis on grades for me, they don’t push him nearly as hard (and they shouldn’t). They just want him to give his best effort (without spending too much time on it), and if he makes a mistake, he should learn from it and move on.</p>
<p>My brother is very “involved” for someone his age (oh how I hate that word). Aside from math, he does band and a few other activities. We also make him exercise/ride bike/etc. for 30 minutes each day before he starts homework (we don’t have the money to let him join sports).</p>
<p>My brother was always a stereotypical “intellectual”. He cries after watching a sad (or happy) movie. He spends time doing logic puzzles and finding them online. He speaks with the vocabulary and eloquence of someone twice his age. As for math, it runs in the family.</p>
<p>He chose to take the course after passing the SCAT, not me, not my parents, not the school. The school was willing to provide for it (there was really no other options; we didn’t have the money to pay for it, math team was not available at his school, putting a fifth grader with high-schoolers is not a good environment, and he cakewalked everything up until now, where he’s actually learning new material). Again, he’s an intellectual; he likes learning. He’s only crying about grades. Like I said, he’s doing well in it, and he’s close to completion, so we’re going to let him finish the course (with more supervision and moral support). He’ll cry if we don’t let him finish. As a deal, he promises not to cry until the end of the course.</p>
<p>It would be a waste to let him lose this knowledge. The best solution would be to let him join the math team, where he’s going to be taught how to use his previous knowledge differently and make a good group of like-minded friends, but not under the constraints of grades or the pressure of being perfect. I know in math team, I formed a great group of friends (who were way too smart for their own good :)). There was no pressure to do well (I didn’t do that well, anyways), and most of our mistakes were treated like jokes. When he’s matured emotionally, we’ll let him take calculus at our high school (if he wants to).</p>
<p>And don’t feel bad for me about what happened when I got rejected. Like I said, I’m grounded and down-to-earth. I’ve handled worse.</p>
<p>P.S. Good news. He’s not been crying for three days now.</p>
<p>BCMan, you are a dear for caring so much for your little brother. I respectfully disagree that your parents aren’t the problem. I’m sure they are good people and mean well, but they have created an environment where one’s worth is equated with how much one achieves. Your little brother believes that in order to be worthy (loved), he must be constantly achieving (getting good grades), not just learning. If learning were enough, be wouldn’t be so stressed out about missing a few points.</p>
<p>I’m sure you realize that your brother is unhappy. Even though therapy is expensive, after raising two kids (one highly gifted), I believe that you really can’t afford NOT to provide him with a few visits to a qualified child psychiatrist or psychologist. They will also talk with your parents and help them understand ways of parenting your sensitive and gifted little brother, without blaming them or trying to change their cultural values. </p>
<p>Your brother isn’t you and may need a different kind of parenting than you needed.
Your parents are giving him a lot of attention, but it may be the “wrong” kind of attention for his temperament, focusing too much on achievement oriented goals.
He may not be crying now outwardly- after all, he’s been told it’s not going to be
tolerated in your family. Crying makes us uncomfortable, as we can’t ignore the distress that it signifies. But he’s still distressed.
Please encourage- no, insist- that he get professional counseling with someone trained in working with gifted children. Trust me when I say it can be life-changing, and life-saving.</p>
<p>BC, many gifted programs, like the CTY summer camps, offer financial aid for families that can’t afford to pay on their own, which sounds like it might be the case for your family. I encourage you to have your parents look into sending him to these type of camps during the summer, as well as look for other gifted programs, like the math club, that will offer him opportunites for social interaction with like minded gifted kids. He does sound like a “typical” gifted boy- sensitive, lives to learn, etc, but he will be a much happier, and well adjusted person if he can find other kids like himself to interact with. They are out there, just harder to find.</p>
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<p>Oh, gag. Pre-calculus is only pre-calculus, he can learn it again one day. This is his life and his happiness. </p>
<p>When I was a bit older than your brother, I was tested by the powers-that-be and they recommended that I start college classes in mathematics. Instead, my parents said that they’d only let me advance one grade (so I walked up to the high school for math class and then back to middle school for the remainder of my classes). They were SO right. There was no rush. Unless, of course, life’s a competition to see how much learning can be crammed in one person’s head.</p>
<p>I agree with moonchild; your parents have helped foster the equivalency of academic achievement = worth. This isn’t a kid who’s enthused about the subject matter the way some kids eat up info about dinosaurs or moon rocks or whatever other topic floats their boat. He’s <em>afraid</em> of not being perfect all the time. This is a real problem. The fact that he’s not crying may mean that he’s just pushed it all inside, which solves nothing. You are a good brother for caring; is there a social worker at his school who might be able to help?</p>
<p>Pizzagirl,</p>
<p>I had the exact same thought. What is it that he is “losing”? </p>
<p>If the kid is really “gifted” (even though I hate the term), he will never lose the quest for knowledge. If he has innate abilities or magical powers they don’t just disappear. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>If he forgets a few memorized facts from an online computer math class, who cares???</p>
<p>Heck, I was a freakin’ math MAJOR and I’ve forgotten most of it. LOL. Oh noes, what will happen if a fifth grader forgets how to calculate a derivative! Yeah, don’t want to lose important knowledge like that, that’s SO relevant to a fifth grader’s life.</p>
<p>I do not understand how we know that the parents equate worth with achievement. I just don’t see that in this thread. I know some people are making assumptions based on other threads regarding the OP, but I do not see anything in this thread but concern on the part of the parents. OP clearly stated that it was his brother who wanted to take the course. I also think that the OP is in a better position to figure out if his parents are the problem than we are. Maybe it’s true that his parents reacted badly to his college admissions, but that still doesn’t tell us everything about them or who they are with this younger child. I just find this rush to judgement disturbing. I also think it’s important to understand that in families where the parents immigrated to the U.S., the older siblings often play a more prominent role than they do in families who have been in this country longer.</p>
<p>I think the OP made it very clear that this child is enthused about learning - this is the first time in ten years where he has run into this problem, and it’s because something was suddenly hard – this is not uncommon. As for really gifted kids not losing their quest for knowledge, it does happen. I have known kids who were placed in a soul-killing program and went from being avid, passionate learners to hating school and shutting down.</p>
<p>The OP has asked for opinions, and further commented. There is no rush to judgment. If you ask a question, or ask for comments on this type of forum, you open the door for all. </p>
<p>If you do not believe that the parents have created stress, that’s great. Hopefully you are right.</p>
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<p>No one has had anything but praise over the fact that this young man clearly cares about, and wants to do right by, his little brother.</p>
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<p>Really? Because I saw comments referencing child abuse, medical neglect, the family being out of its mind and more. It sure seemed like a rush to judgment to me.</p>
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<p>It’s these comments that warranted the “parents as the problem” comment from me. The fact that the OP saw that the course wasn’t really appropriate but the mom didn’t listen, and the fact that the OP seemed to want our support in order to convince his parents of the need for outside help prompted my comments.</p>
<p>I doubt that the parents actually equate their children’s worth with achievement in their hearts, but the family perfectionism and the way they drive themselves, (“we are all overachievers”) and their children will foster that attitude in young kids. It creates an environment that triggers whatever perfectionism a person may naturally have. It doesn’t seem like a leap to me that the parents set the tone in the family of what’s important, and the message here seems clear. They have extremely high goals (OP’s words) and it’s very important that they achieve them.</p>