http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/family/08/27/gifted.kids/index.html?imw=Y&iref=mpstoryemail

Discuss.

DH found this today and emailed it to me ... clearly we've been duped! KG's on his way back to public school as we speak ...

Well, most of the advice about parenting is good, basic advice. The premise is just dumb. The article seems like it's geared to those "stage parents" that are supposedly out there but that I've personally never seen.

I just wish that people who write articles like that had actually met an HG+ child before they sat down at the computer...

While we are being picky this morning:

"Of those, only one in 100 is considered highly gifted."
Awesome, where are all those little HG buggers, hidden away somewhere......

The article is well meaning though........

I think she meant 1 in 100 of 2-5% are HG. That would put it to 1:2,000 - 1:5,000 for HG way beyond 99.9%. And there are many more kids reading at 2 and academically capable going to college at 10 than 1-2 out of 1,000,000

The parenting advice is good though.

I read it as 1:100 highly gifted moving the cut down to about 135, which I kind of liked. It's reasonable I think to consider the top "half" of gifted (2:100) as highly gifted. I especially liked how it bumped up both girls, .

But if that's the case...the article does miss the point that 1:100 is actually quite plentiful. You'll see that every year in your school, and in large numbers. There was quite a jump from "highly" to "prodigy" after that, with lots of gray in between.

I think the article has a lot to offer. The one thing it tends to downplay is getting an official label as 'gifted', but that's what is needed to get advanced education at the school. I'd say the majority of the people here are doing what that article advises, for instance can you fault any of this:


Unfortunately I know some people who don't do those things but who will try to drill their child with alphabet flash cards.

My bad....so much for the girls, ROFL! I skimmed the article last night and was going by memory.

Still, most people reading the article will not have a gifted child, LOL!

Good points OHG!

I agree with Dottie that 2-5 kids out of 100 are advanced and 2-5 out of 10,000 are highly gifted is not insignificant. And she didn't say kids capable of going to college at 10, she said going to college at 10. I think those that really half to, because they are that far ahead and want to continue is smaller than just saying PG could go.

First, it is very valid that IQ can change before ten, but she never makes a case for why IQ testing at 4 or 5 isn't accurate.

On the contrary, there needs a case made for why special education is necessary. The Special Music School identifies "gifted" students in the musical sense in order to train great musicians and give kids that lean in that direction a real chance at a career in the arts.

Providing an education towards high achievement and opportunity allows kids of high IQs a chance to build their talents and contribute. Unfortunately, that is a hard idea to float to John Q. Public. Allowing a child that has a gift for violin a chance to solo professionally is far different than giving gifted kids a leg up so they take most of the spots at Harvard.

Ren

Ohhhhhhh, I see now.

I guess my biggest problem is that it makes it sound like the parents of that 2-5% are nutty -- this article says, basically, "since most children aren't gifted, you can just forget the possibility that *yours* is."

This, for example:



That's just not true. They just said a few paragraphs above that true giftedness occurs in 2-5% of the population. So that's really not all that rare -- 1 in 20 kids, 1 in 50 kids, whatever. Not all *that* unusual. I think it's very possible that a parent of a gifted kid could read that article and say, "Oh, I guess I am that doting mother" and discount the idea that his child may need sometime extra educationally.

There is also this quote, which doesn't make much sense to me:



Erm, that's why you don't just get FSIQ. It's perfectly possible to identify a gifted child before 5 who is gifted in just one area.

And then there's this:



Herein lies our problem. Many of our kids *did* enter K reading Dr. Seuss, writing their names, counting to 100. And they're right -- these kids do have a problem in K, but not because they necessarily can't take turns or follow directions! This article makes it sound like all kids entering K with these skills were hot-housed. And if I were newer to the gifted scene and I read this article, I'd be much more reluctant to approach my child's school asking for accommodation -- I'd feel like my kid were destined to be a weirdo.

Of course, the parenting advice there is perfectly sound. But I think that it underscores the prevailing attitude we saw from posters in that other article -- that giftedness is either all in our heads, or it's far rarer than it really is, or that our kids don't have the right to an appropriate education and stimulation too -- even if it's not the norm for agemates.

I'd love to see a flip article about the emotional needs of gifted kids. *That* would be good journalism -- investigating both sides of the issue.