Accelerated Learners in the Middle Years

[Gil]

I am obviously not the first person on this board to be in this situation. Have there been threads about this that I missed? If so, titles that I can search/or links would be nice.

 

What are the BTDT tricks of the trade?

Good books (for parents) to read?

Good books to share with the AL themselves?

Any pit falls that everyone with older kids have realized along their individual journeys that I need to know about? :bigear:

 

 

[....]

What are the BTDT tricks of the trade?

 

I don't post on this board much, but I have 5 kids, and 2 that are "apparently" gifted (or it's obvious or whatever).  One (now 16) tested as gifted during the brief time she went to public school (she went to K-1st grade).  The other (now 12) is at an early college level in one subject.  And I think she's only gifted in this one subject, but I suspect she is mildly on the spectrum.  I don't know - not really an expert on this topic and I definitely could've used more help/advice over the years.

 

So what worked for us:

 

1.  Finding a teacher who specializes in the field dd12 is gifted in.  Dd12 meets with this teacher several times a month and I pay for private lessons with her.  This lady gives dd stuff to research on her own, projects/assignments to do at home...they talk about other people's work in the field and dd gives her opinion...the lady gives her advice on working in that field, etc, etc.  I can barely afford it, but it's been priceless.

 

2.  Letting dd16 run her own circus.  I always let her pick her classes, pick what books she wants to read, choose outside classes...she runs her own day, too.  I just type out a checklist on OneNote for her each day.  She wakes up on her own schedule, checks OneNote and works on her stuff.  Sometimes, she will do almost an entire week of school in one day.  One day last week, she sat and read an entire Steinbeck novel in one sitting without moving from the chair.   :ohmy:

 

3.  Giving them as much freedom as I can with their interests, even if it is inconvenient for me.  When she was 12, dd16 wanted to volunteer with dogs.  *shrug*. I probably contacted 50 different places and they either said, "No, she's not old enough," or they didn't answer my emails.  One dog rescue told her she could come and work for them.  It's far.  I had to drive her all the way there once a week...it's a bummer of a time commitment.  Fast forward 4 years and she has won volunteer awards.  People come out of nowhere and tell me how incredible she is.  She helps set up and run their annual 5K.  She travels every weekend to their adoption events and helps with the adoptions and paperwork.  She's fostered about 10 different dogs over the years.  She has some kind of social media thing where she scans kill shelters and contacts rescues that specialize in various kinds of dogs, contacts those rescues and gets the dogs rescued from the kill shelter.  She's only 16, but people think she is an adult.  People have offered her JOBS while she was working the adoption events.  Real jobs.   :lol:

 

My other kids are unusual, but I don't know about gifted.  DS14 is really asynchronous.  This year, he designed and built an entire computer...on his own.  You should've seen the parts all over the table!  It was like a huge puzzle with wires.  He installed the software by himself and everything.  This computer had so much power, it flipped the circuit breaker on the 2nd floor!  LOL.  But he still can't remember his multiplication facts.  He also seems to have a photographic memory with words, but not numbers.  *shrug* He probably needed to be tested by someone who knows what they're doing (big regret here).  DD10 is a Perfect Paula (if you ever read Cathy Duffy's book), but seems to have signs of dyslexia that go away and come back (which I got great help from recently on the Learning Challenges Board).    

 

Um, regrets over the years...

I regret not being able to get my kids tested.  I suspect 3 of them are mildly 2E, but I have no way of knowing.  We never could afford private testing and our school district does NOT like homeschoolers.  I can't take them up to the school and have them tested (like I could in MO).  Oldest went through gifted testing in MO and they really went all out and gave me lots of information.  But, our school district is not homeschool-friendly.    

 

I do not regret my Free-Range Parenting or letting them follow their interests.

 

Sorry for the rambling.  I hope something out of there helps.

[Crimson Wife]

 Any pit falls that everyone with older kids have realized along their individual journeys that I need to know about? :bigear:

 

Don't be surprised if you reach a point where your previously compliant child refuses to work for you and you need to outsource. That's why my oldest started taking DE courses at the community college at 13. She wouldn't work for me but she is willing to work for her professors.

[Dmmetler]

We also ended up outsourcing to the community college starting at age 12. The primary reason was that DD needed a SCHOOL-or, more to the point, she needed a group of people that she felt she belonged in and that she could talk about and feel "normal".  She wanted to be able to do homework with other people, to gripe about teachers, to come home and talk about her day.  After being turned down by the DA at age 11, she also needed to feel wanted.

 

A year later, she's doing wonderfully. I suspect we could have found higher level courses in most subject areas online or created them at home, but I couldn't provide that classroom experience. It may not be the "ideal" option-but it's the one that seems to meet her social and emotional needs, not just her academic ones. Or, as she puts it "I'm not JUST a brain, you know!"

 

Extracurriculars are a big help, too-in her case, competitive cheer and moving to a higher tier gym, even though she's on the lowest team for her age group, has helped a lot. By her age group, most of the kids who are there are very focused and driven, and many of them are in honors or gifted classes in the schools. So, they see DD as being on the "Travel" team for school-because she's already at the college and occasionally has to miss practice for conferences and the like, and can compare that to being on a travel sports team and having to miss school. They understand her "I can't be here to do open gym and hang out because I have a big exam tomorrow", because they have had to give up a lot to practice and compete. And they help DD with her tumbling, and she helps them with their algebra homework :).

 

It's not where I would have expected we'd be a few years ago at all. I never would have expected my kid who seemed happy with her tiny group of friends to suddenly want to be part of bigger groups so intensely. But it happened, right about as puberty hit.

[....]

 It may not be the "ideal" option-but it's the one that seems to meet her social and emotional needs, not just her academic ones. 

 

Well, whatever is ideal is what works best for your kid and your family.  As long as she's happy and doing well!