Any parents of gifted children here ?

[wwcookie]

ChiefKiasu:

So am I? Am I?

OMG! You are! You are! What a classic case! Whahahaha!!!

[breguet]

Just make sure you post a pic of your present day self in school uniform, ok?

[ZacK]

I think CKS should post a pix of himself (overgrown and in primary school uniform with pulled up knee length socks!!! ) ..... Hmm come to think of it... Looks like one of the students from MINDS* rather than GEP :?


However for you to be able to administer to such a forum here... You are certainly more gifted/brighter than most of us here

* No offence intended but for the fun of it

[lizawa]

Chief Kiasu,


Thanks for the post. Really brightens up the gloomy Friday afternoon. :lol:

I am pretty sure with such humour, your IQ and EQ must be high. So if not gifted, must have been a bright child !

[jedamum]

ChiefKS, thats a good one!


Just some thoughts…a gifted child may be insensitive, and a sensitive child may not be gifted…it may just mean that he/she is more matured.

[tamarind]

ChiefKiasu,

I like your post :lol:

I also had chicks when I was a few years old. When they grew big, my mother slaughtered them in our bathroom, cooked and fed to the family. I did not feel any remorse. In fact, I even watched her cut the throat of the chickens. I am definitely not gifted hahaha

ChiefKiasu:

OK... I've been following this thread with interest... and based on what I read so far... can any parents with gifted children tell me if I may have been gifted too?

1. I hate clothes labels. I was good with scissors from an early age from all the surgical removal of the offending clothes labels - my objective being the complete removal with ZERO trace of them having ever existed. I hate prickly clothes too and have my favorite blanky.

2. I had a chick once. My mother refused to let me keep that stray dog I found earlier, so I was surprised when she generously allowed me to keep the chick which I showered with tender loving care and fed it until I couldn't find it one day. We had chicken that evening. Despite all assurances that dinner didn't comprise my favourite companion, I cried my eyes out and refused to eat chicken for one whole week, until I was sure that none of that particular chicken remained. But it didn't affect my appetite for other chickens.

3. I was sensitive (still am) and very conscious of what people think of me. Fair play and fully understanding the rules of any game I participate in to ensure there are no loopholes are very important to me. But I have no problems making friends and working in teams - except I always end up doing most if not all the work.

4. I spent long periods of my childhood scaring myself sleepless at night because I couldn't understand how the universe can be infinite and why I am what I am.

5. I remember and recognise people from a single glance but cannot remember names. I love logic and IQ tests but hate arithmetic calculations. I love A-maths but hate E-maths. I love science, literature, and economics but hate accountancy and biology.

6. I drove my father nuts when I dissected the family tape recorder in P3 to find out how the thing worked. Wanted to make the tape go backwards to hear what it sounds like. Did the same to the iron to look at the thermostat... but managed to put it together again so he didn't know. Constructed several projectile weapons based on pen parts with effective shooting ranges of up to 5m. Tried to build a submarine out of a motor and Smarties can... failed when the motor dropped off due to the lousy scotchtape I used. Got electrocuted countless times (that's why I know how difficult it is to die from electric shocks from the wall socket) from trying to build a rechargeable battery. Come to think of it... I'm been living really dangerously :).

So am I? Am I?

[tamarind]

I don't think there are any fixed set of characteristics that a gifted child should have. I think generally a gifted child has superb memory and learn things very quickly.


I posted the following in the first post of this thread :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gifted
Generally, gifted individuals learn more quickly, deeply, and broadly than their peers. Gifted children may learn to read early and operate at the same level as normal children who are significantly older. The gifted tend to demonstrate high reasoning ability, creativity, curiosity, a large vocabulary, and an excellent memory. They often can master concepts with few repetitions. They may also be physically and emotionally sensitive, perfectionistic, and may frequently question authority. Some have trouble relating to or communicating with their peers because of disparities in vocabulary size (especially in the early years), personality, interests and motivation. As children, they may prefer the company of older children or adults.

I would say that my girl has most of the above traits, except that she has no problem communicating with other kids her same age. She also has superb fine motor skills compared to other kids the same age.

[ChiefKiasu]

tamarind:

I don't think there are any fixed set of characteristics that a gifted child should have. I think generally a gifted child has superb memory and learn things very quickly. ...

OK, from the wiki definition you included, I guess I'm about as gifted as Forrest Gump. Phew. At least I can stop being annoyed at my mother (bless her soul) for not trying to develop my \"gifts\" early with all sorts of enrichment programmes. She was always telling me and my sisters how if she was educated she would have better smarter than LKY, so I took her word for it and found out after 17 years of burning midnight oil with books that she was either very mistaken or I was just not made of the same stuff as her.

Fortunately I grew out of the sensitive stage by growing additional fats and thicker skin such that I don't feel my labels no more. And the army has a way with dealing with squeamish and wimpy recruits by ensuring that the cookhouse food tastes worse than the pythons and chickens we have had to throttle, barbeque and ingest. Just make sure you don't look into their eyes when you swing them by their necks. And of course like heutistmeintag says, avoid fraternizing with them or making them your pets lest you have problems eating your friends... err ... food.

That leaves me as sensitive, perfectionistic and as anal retentive as ever, which are by no means indicators of giftedness (Thanks jedamum!). And thank you wwcookie and lizawa, but I'm not bright either, which you would have noticed from my inability to do my son's P3 math in the way the teacher wants him to do. If you see some fat guy in front of you at the char kway teow store gingerly taking the grimy change from the cashier and sorting them nicely by denomination and correct facing before insertion into his wallet... that could well be me. Everything must be in its correct place - I go to pieces when I lose something because it is not in its right place and I have to waste time looking for it. My wife thinks I'm mental sometimes and I don't blame her... so ZacK can relax because you are not the first to suggest that I belong to a certain class of people :).

So some things you grow out of, and some you don't. To breguet I would recommend patience, since we have to take every child with his/her strengths and weakness as a package, and that completeness is perfection in itself. For what diamond is desirable without the flaws that make it unique.

We have all been blessed with beautiful children with different traits... some with talents that are recognized as desirable qualities or \"gifts\" by society... others with strengths that are not so marketable, but nonetheless are God-given talents. Perhaps we should spend less time focusing on how we can maximize the output from our children's \"desirable\" talents (which appear to be the underlying goals of the GEP), and more time in helping them understand how all their talents (including the not-so-\"recognized\" ones) can be applied to make the world a better place for everyone to live in. The last thing we need in this country is a distinct segregation of the \"gifted\" from the \"rest\", or to permeate a culture that celebrates only \"useful\" talents.

[ZacK]

ChiefKiasu:

tamarind:

I don't think there are any fixed set of characteristics that a gifted child should have. I think generally a gifted child has superb memory and learn things very quickly. ...

OK, from the wiki definition you included, I guess I'm about as gifted as Forrest Gump. Phew. At least I can stop being annoyed at my mother (bless her soul) for not trying to develop my \"gifts\" early with all sorts of enrichment programmes. She was always telling me and my sisters how if she was educated she would have better smarter than LKY, so I took her word for it and found out after 17 years of burning midnight oil with books that she was either very mistaken or I was just not made of the same stuff as her.

Fortunately I grew out of the sensitive stage by growing additional fats and thicker skin such that I don't feel my labels no more. And the army has a way with dealing with squeamish and wimpy recruits by ensuring that the cookhouse food tastes worse than the pythons and chickens we have had to throttle, barbeque and ingest. Just make sure you don't look into their eyes when you swing them by their necks. And of course like heutistmeintag says, avoid fraternizing with them or making them your pets lest you have problems eating your friends... err ... food.

That leaves me as sensitive, perfectionistic and as anal retentive as ever, which are by no means indicators of giftedness (Thanks jedamum!). And thank you wwcookie and lizawa, but I'm not bright either, which you would have noticed from my inability to do my son's P3 math in the way the teacher wants him to do. If you see some fat guy in front of you at the char kway teow store gingerly taking the grimy change from the cashier and sorting them nicely by denomination and correct facing before insertion into his wallet... that could well be me. Everything must be in its correct place - I go to pieces when I lose something because it is not in its right place and I have to waste time looking for it. My wife thinks I'm mental sometimes and I don't blame her... so ZacK can relax because you are not the first to suggest that I belong to a certain class of people :).

So some things you grow out of, and some you don't. To breguet I would recommend patience, since we have to take every child with his/her strengths and weakness as a package, and that completeness is perfection in itself. For what diamond is desirable without the flaws that make it unique.

We have all been blessed with beautiful children with different traits... some with talents that are recognized as desirable qualities or \"gifts\" by society... others with strengths that are not so marketable, but nonetheless are God-given talents. Perhaps we should spend less time focusing on how we can maximize the output from our children's \"desirable\" talents (which appear to be the underlying goals of the GEP), and more time in helping them understand how all their talents (including the not-so-\"recognized\" ones) can be applied to make the world a better place for everyone to live in. The last thing we need in this country is a distinct segregation of the \"gifted\" from the \"rest\", or to permeate a culture that celebrates only \"useful\" talents.

Well said indeed ! ... To say that you are not gifted, in your own way, would be gross injustice to you.

I certainly agree with you on your last two sentences

[breguet]

Hurrah to that, Zack and CKS! Particularly, I like the last para of CKS' post.


I think most of you will agree - the most critical part about being a parent is to nurture the whole child, not just his/her special talents. What use are \"special talents\" if the child doesn't have integrity or cannot relate to the world? These issues are all the same regardless of whether the child has done well on some IQ test (lol!) or not.

Having said all that, there are quirks of some g (I dislike the word, actually. So elitist!) children for whom parents need help from other people who have btdt. Personally, I feel a bit pai seh to write because it can be seen as bragging. Of course I love the holy-guacamole-moments when he does some mental somersault. But it's the issues that go along with it (aptly called co-morbidities) that leave me speechless because my 5 yrs of parenthood hasn't equipped me to handle them. You can hear from the tone of some of us parents that we need advise and sympathy rather than congratulations !!!

I do draw from CKS' very down to earth advice to stay steady though. For children, EVERYTHING is a phase and will pass!