July 19-25 is National Parenting Gifted Children Week

[DeepShadow]

This is a touchy subject because of people's preconceptions of "gifted," but the bottom line is that gifted children have special needs. For one thing, they have emotional needs that are not met by normal socialization. Beleive it or not, most friendships form within the range of 10 IQ points. Beyond that, you start to have trouble understanding each other.

Check out a bell curve sometime, and imagine being in the 99.8th percentile. That's where my daughter is, and doing the math for her school, there are approximately 25 kids who she would naturally bond with. Spread out evenly among grades and classrooms, she's lucky to have one such friendship in every grade.

So far, she hasn't been lucky.

She's sociable and fun, and she'll say she has lots of friends, but upon careful inquiry, they are really just aquaintences. She has no real friends at school yet.

This is just one of the reasons for the existence of SENG (Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted), one of the sponsors of this special week. Check out this flyer for more info, and pass it on to anyone you know with gifted children: http://bit.ly/ARktz

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I was lucky enough to have access to a gifted program growing up; actually, my parents moved my family to allow my sister and me to go enrol in it. In retrospect, I think it helped.

My elementary school had an approximately even split between standard classes and classes especially for gifted kids. My high school also had a gifted program for core subjects. Looking back, most of my good friendships were made while I was there... though I obviously can't say for sure that I wouldn't have developed good friendships with classmates in a regular class setting.

I think the program I went through was as close as practical to the best of both worlds: we had other gifted kids to interact with, but also other kids in regular classes as well, so we weren't completely insulated from the "real world"... though this sometimes resulted in animosity between the kids in the two programs.

By high school, the distinction wasn't really an issue... I think in part because the kids in the non-gifted program had access to "enriched"-level courses that were considered on par with the gifted ones, though just catered to a different learning style.

[Sunstone]

Gifted kids tend to have special learning styles too. Studies suggest if you leave in a normal classroom they will rebel in various ways depending on gender. Normal approaches to learning don't meet their needs.

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Originally Posted by Sunstone

Gifted kids tend to have special learning styles too. Studies suggest if you leave in a normal classroom they will rebel in various ways depending on gender.

Heh... I rebelled in a gifted classroom too, but I do think it helped in the long run.