<p>Northstar, you did a great job explaining why it is important to recognize our kids giftedness in terms of high IQ and the negative effects it has on them, so I totally get that. </p>
<p>However, EMM, you are exactly where I am now, realizing I blew it. I NEVER ever tell our third son that he is smart. I ask, “Did you do your best?” Great. the end. </p>
<p>Our second has a fantastic work ethic and gets better grades. Our third takes the most initiative so I guess we are learning as we go along!</p>
<p>Katliamom, the usual reason PG kids don’t develop “drive and discipline”–which I agree is necessary–is that they are not offered an appropriate challenge. This results all too often in discipline problems, underachieving, and so forth. A fair number of PG kids are homeschooled for this reason.</p>
<p>Of course he doesn’t do his homework. It is probably meaningless busywork to him. The point is that they ought to be giving him completely different work, not the same or more of the same.</p>
<p>Consolation, unfortunately, I have neither the skills nor the personality nor the financial means to home school my child. </p>
<p>And in fact, from 5th grade on he was in a program for kids in 99th percentile as defined by the school district. The curriculum was supposedly created just for them. He LOVED the program. LOVED his friends. LOVED his teachers. But he didn’t LOVE homework. And didn’t do it. And didn’t much care!</p>
<p>Northstarmom-
I think my thread about my son was the straw that broke the camel’s back for the OP, and was one of those that led to this thread.</p>
<p>I used the term in the way you have defined it here. In fact, the reason I used the term is that the very traits that are listed as characteristics of “gifted” kids are also on the list for ADD kids, which makes it difficult to know what one is addressing and how to address it when it comes to the way some of those traits manifest themselves.</p>
<p>NONE of my “gifted” kids is a super-duper achiever. And I have always focused on the importance of what they do, and the level of EFFORT rather than on some label that was stuck on their foreheads in elementary school. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s important to try and understand our kids and how they are wired to help them best make their way in the world.</p>
<p>To me the term is simply shorthand. I suppose we could all just copy and paste your excellent post to avoid using the label that some find offensive. </p>
<p>I am not proud that my kids are *****. I don’t puff up and brag. It’s part of who they are. And as their mom, I have had to work for what was best for them, along with speech therapy and special reading tutoring for the one who was also dyslexic. Am I allowed to use that term here? </p>
<p>Thanks NSM. I’m glad someone here “gets it.”</p>
<p>P.S. I teach high school, and I completely agree that very often the highest achieving students are smart, hard working kids. They make great grades, get into great schools, and go on to rewarding lives. Frankly, that’s what I want for my kids. Being ****** is certainly no guarantee of that. Um, that’s why I posted? :-)</p>
<p>I’m sure he’s very smart. I don’t place much value in IQ tests for kids under 18 though. Unless, of course, he took a Titan/Mega/Power (or maybe Ravens) test or something of that nature, which are normed for people 130+ (your standard Otis-Lennon/etc test has severe resolution issues above 130+…).</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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. ;)</p>
<p>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)!</p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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).</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Also, I hear A’s are the most common grade at Harvard.</p>
<p>Are there really that many parents on CC touting their kids as “brilliant?”</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.”</p>