Any parents of gifted children here ?

[wwcookie]

tamarind:

I totally agree. I think many parents are neglecting this aspect. Even if a child is gifted, he/she should still make friends with kids of lower abilities, without feeling that he/she is \"lowering\" herself. Why can't a bright kid make friends with not so bright ones ? In fact, helping weaker students is an important part of character building. It is also very important to teach the child to be sensitive to other people's feelings, to know how to say the right things at the right time. I think it is really up to the parents to teach the child.

Agreed. All kids must mix with all other kids regardless of abilities and character building is more important than all else. But I think the point here is not whether bright kids should make friends with whomever but whether the education system is providing for their needs. As can be read from some parents here, the kids really do have problems in the normal classrooms stemming from the teaching styles and curriculum. The ideal would be to have differentiated learning within a classroom of mixed ability kids but that is quite impossible to implement in reality. Im also not really comfortable with extra supplementary lessons on top of the normal school hours as already the kids are spending 6 hours sitting in the classroom. So what's the next best solution besides dedicated classes? Pull-out programs within curriculum time? Any parents heard of this in any Singapore schools?

[wwcookie]

wellness:

Hi wwcookie & EN,

Well he was crying about attending Math in class - sitting there, cannot move etc (he is in the top class of his level) - so the principal arranged for the school counsellor to talk to him. My son told the counsellor that he ranks school, especially Math, 4 out of 10. That's when we decided to seek gep's opinion and maybe recommend him for accelerated math (ie. let him attend P3 math class).

But the result was that he was 'bright & should be given challenging work differentiated from his classmates. It will not help even if accelerated' and therefore, no need for acceleration but just wait till P3's gep test.

So sad. Don't see any new learning for him in Math.

Yes, wellness, it is very sad. Sometimes the teachers simply don't know what to do. There is no well thought out program for them at all in the lower primaries.

[wwcookie]

breguet:

Maybe what could work is a club of similarly afflicted parents so we can muster our resources and help each other out. It won't help with the school work, but it helps when we have more information.

Breguet, I support you! We should get together and help each other out. I read that there are such clubs in the US. We should start one here too

[ChiefKiasu]

Here's a http://www.pearlsoup.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=pearls.view&pearlID=14744 @ Pearlsoup.com:


If you're like most people - myself included - when you hear the term “special needs,” you probably start thinking of a certain type of person; one who may be physically or emotionally handicapped. And in fact, until very recently this is the only definition of special needs that I was aware of. But while trying to find out more about our son's giftedness I found something very interesting. It seems that the more profoundly gifted a child is the more that child could be considered special needs; not in the traditional sense of the definition, but special needs none-the-less. Initially I didn't much care for this label for our son, but the more I thought about it the more it made sense. And the more it made sense, the more freedom I found.
Our son's chronological age doesn't seem to have much bearing on either his cognitive reasoning or his emotional maturity and it is the great difference in these areas that makes our son a special needs child. While it can be quite a delight to teach him and see him absorb information almost as fast as I can feed it to him, because of his ability to communicate at a level on par with a 12 or 13 year old I have a tendency to treat him as though he were older than he is. This can cause quite a lot of frustration on my part, especially when he starts behaving like a 3 or 4 year old, which is about where he is emotionally. It's sort of like have three kids rolled into one - and boy can it be tiring!

To look at an asynchronous child - one whose emotion, intellectual and chronological ages are on different levels - you might not think that the child was different from any other. But then they talk to you and you soon realize that something is different. Our son is much like that. He looks like a normal 5 year old boy. Then he opens his mouth and it's all over. For the parents of asynchronous children life becomes an unusual symphony - trying to be the intermediary between your child and the world, and vice versa.

My husband and I are the ones who have to explain the world to our son; not only the world, but his place in it. We also have to explain to our son why he can't do the things that he wants to do because he's just too young to do them. It's times like these that his asynchronisity is most evident. His intense emotions are easily frustrated by his advanced intellectualism. When these worlds collide inside our son, all we can do is be there for him, hold him and comfort him.

Just the other night my husband said that he wished our son could just be a little boy. I have often felt cheated out of our son's toddler years, and even this time when he should have no cares, no worries other than which toy to play with first. But when your child teaches himself to read by the age of two and a half, when he takes six weeks to complete a full year's kindergarten curriculum before he's three, and learns his states and capitals by his fourth birthday, what can you do?

We have never pushed our son academically. On the contrary, it has been our son who has run so far in the lead that at times my husband and I merely try to keep up with him. I won't deny him intellectual stimulation just because society says that a child his age should be doing X, Y or Z. And we've found that if he doesn't have something to challenge him intellectually, he becomes bored and then, watch out!

Parenting a “normal” child is a big balancing act. Parenting a child with special needs, whether society would call them handicapped or gifted, can be a three-ringed circus. But with God's help and guidance, and learning as much as you can about the uniqueness and intricacies of your child, it can be the greatest show on earth!

[ZacK]

This came out from Straits Times' Mind Your Body dated 21 Aug 08, thought is a good article to share on the Child's Self-Esteem... In our quests to groom talented kids, inevitably some kids may feel stressed.


Sorry if the image is blurry as it was scanned from the papers and not sure where to find the article online.

http://img262.imageshack.us/my.php?image=selfesteemjj5.jpg

[raysusan]

ZacK:

This came out from Straits Times' Mind Your Body dated 21 Aug 08, thought is a good article to share on the Child's Self-Esteem... In our quests to groom talented kids, inevitably some kids may feel stressed.


Sorry if the image is blurry as it was scanned from the papers and not sure where to find the article online.

let me help u
hope this one make it easier to read

http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/745/selfesteemjj5tt7.jpg\">

[ZacK]

raysusan:

ZacK:

This came out from Straits Times' Mind Your Body dated 21 Aug 08, thought is a good article to share on the Child's Self-Esteem... In our quests to groom talented kids, inevitably some kids may feel stressed.


Sorry if the image is blurry as it was scanned from the papers and not sure where to find the article online.

let me help u
hope this one make it easier to read

Thanks... You managed to make it darker

[tamarind]

"I now realise that I do not need to prove anything to anyone in my results , but that I needed to remind myself I have done my best each time."


This is what I will tell both my kids. There is a big gap in their abilities. I need a lot more patience to teach my boy. But I am still very happy with his progress, because I don’t compare him with my girl. So long as he improves steadily, that is good enough for me. I praise him highly whenever he succeeds in learning something new. My girl will say "I already know all of that !" I will just smile and tell her "Yes I know that ! "

I think that poor girl’s parents have to take full responsibility for making her suffer : "She had felt that her parents’ approval and love were conditional to her doing not just well but very well in school."

What is the use of having a very bright child who does not dare to take risk ? The child becomes like this, simply because the parents are too critical whenever he makes mistakes.

My girl loves to draw, and she has become quite critical of her own drawings. When she is not happy with a drawing, she simply gives it to me and say "I don’t want it anymore. You keep it." If she likes a drawing, she will bring it to her school to show all her friends. But we always praise her no matter what she draws.

[tamarind]

Can parents share what you are doing with your kids at home ?


I have been teaching my girl map reading with a compass. I print out a map, mark the destination with a sticker, then bring her downstairs and teach her to navigate using the compass and map, and lead us to the destination

I also taught her how to use the index of a book. I have a very thick book called \"The Ultimate book of flowers\". The contents page do not list all the flower names, so I taught her to go to the index page to find a flower name.

I think it is not so important for a child to have encyclopedic knowledge. It is much more important to teach her how to search for information efficiently.

The best way is of course to search from the internet. But since she is only 5 years old, I am worried that she may see unsuitable contents.

[breguet]

Hi Zack and Raysusan,


Tks for the article. I rather think that self esteem issues pertain to all kids though. It’s really sad that such things happen, but the statements made by the good doctor seem a bit blanket. In my family’s case, I really don’t believe in praising in a blanket fashion. My position is that I am the reflection of the real world to my son, and if I praise him no matter what, he’s going to get an imposter sense of what is good or not so good. After all, every one, even children, will know whether they’ve put in effort or not. I try to praise my son’s effort, and when it does look great (like better than what’s he’s been doing - sorry, he ain’t no van Gogh!), I tell him that I think he’s improved by pointing out the improvements.

In other instances that are less tangible, like his behaviour, I help re-live a positive incident by retelling it, and asking how it made him or others feel. I do the reverse when he isn’t so hot, but I’m harsher so he can learn and I can communicate my disapproval. I do see some results, but everything with a kid is Work-In-Progress, and I find, they’re ingenious in finding new testing ground!