What if you don't challenge your kids?

[lisamarie]

My DS is very gifted. He hasn't been tested so don't know which level, but he's definitely gifted (level 3 at least). I live in a GATE wasteland until junior high/high school, and then it's either housed within the public schools or else costs a LOT of money through the University. No charter options in my area, no private school options (even if we could afford them).

 

He's in a charter school right now and the one thing he likes about the school is that everything is easy so he can get his work done fast and get it right. :glare: DH seems to think this is okay but I feel like I am cheating my DS, that we're closing doors on his future by letting him stay in a place that isn't challenging him at all.

 

He finishes up soccer this week so we'll start doing some afterschooling now that our evenings aren't all full. The other day he asked to watch TV, I said no, that he could go play, read, or do math. He said he would go do math and that he thinks I should make him do math every day. I just looked at him like he was crazy and said okay. Go do math. He is constantly reading at home--like 5 real books a week (150+ pages each). He is probably the only child in his 3rd grade class who checks out science books at library time. Real, meaty science books.

 

So what if we leave him where he is? Don't do anything extra for him? Don't pull him and HS him at his level? (He was HSed up until this year) Do nothing until he hits junior high/high school and can start doing some of the expensive GATE classes? What if I do what my DH wants and just chill out and let it go?

Edited October 24, 2011 by lisamarie

[lewelma]

He's in a charter school right now and the one thing he likes about the school is that everything is easy so he can get his work done fast and get it right. :glare:

 

What I think he might learn is:

1) Everything is easy.

2) I'm better than everyone else.

3) I don't have to work hard to succeed.

 

I personally think that those lessons could haunt him later in life. This is why I homeschool my ds.

 

Ruth in NZ

[Whereneverever]

What I think he might learn is:

1) Everything is easy.

2) I'm better than everyone else.

3) I don't have to work hard to succeed.

 

I personally think that those lessons could haunt him later in life. This is why I homeschool my ds.

 

Ruth in NZ

:iagree:

[ebunny]

What I think he might learn is:

1) Everything is easy.

2) I'm better than everyone else.

3) I don't have to work hard to succeed.

 

I personally think that those lessons could haunt him later in life. This is why I homeschool my ds.

 

Ruth in NZ

 

Ruth articulated it better than I could've..and I agree with her 100%.

I had all of the above 3 points in school. It took me one whole year to develop study habits in the first year of college--Task commitment and persistence.

 

I homeschool DD too.

[Maus]

School was easy for me, even when I got to the honors/AP track in Jr. High/High school. When I got to college, it was a shock. I loved my classes, found them wonderfully challenging,....and almost lost my scholarship because studying was a foreign concept to me. I've heard this is common.

 

I did eventually develop some study skills and I did finish a degree.

[lizbusby]

School was easy for me, even when I got to the honors/AP track in Jr. High/High school. When I got to college, it was a shock. I loved my classes, found them wonderfully challenging,....and almost lost my scholarship because studying was a foreign concept to me. I've heard this is common.

 

I did eventually develop some study skills and I did finish a degree.

 

Amen! I was in the same boat in college. If you don't want to/can't homeschool or private school, you might try a challenging extracurricular/instrument and lots of household chores. Self-discipline is hard to learn if everything comes easy.

[wapiti]

One of my favorite quotes on underachievement, from the GDC:

When gifted children are not given opportunities to work at their own level and pace, they settle for less than their best. They learn to slide by without stretching themselves. Patterns of underachievement are subtle and cumulative; they become harder to overcome with each year. Students who attain A’s on their papers with no effort are not prepared to take more challenging classes in high school and college. When work is too easy, self-confidence to attempt difficult tasks is steadily eroded. A student who has the potential to win a scholarship to an Ivy League university settles for a B average at a state college.

[regentrude]

So what if we leave him where he is? Don't do anything extra for him? Don't pull him and HS him at his level? (He was HSed up until this year) Do nothing until he hits junior high/high school and can start doing some of the expensive GATE classes? What if I do what my DH wants and just chill out and let it go?

 

There will be a good possibility that he enters college and encounters a hard class for the first time in his life, without being prepared for something like this. It happened to me, and it happens every semester to some of my smarter college students who got through high school with little or no work and good grades.

I never had any kind of challenge and breezed through a good, college prep German high school without having to do any work. Then I started studying physics at the university. My first semester, I was close to failing, was working extremely hard but it was all useless because I did not have effective study techniques. I cam close to dropping out because I thought not understanding everything immediately had to mean I am too stupid. I was depressed and unhappy. Fortunately, after half a year, I had found my footing and was successful after that.

So, learning from my own experience, I make sure my kids are adequately challenged, encounter material that forces them to work hard, develop study techniques and realize that hard work leads to success - before they hit college.

 

Another dangerous thing that can happen (and this, too, I see every semester) is overinflated self-esteem. Those kids with the easy A's think they are incredibly smart and talented (which they may be) and entitled to great grades - if they don't get any, they start blaming the instructors and the circumstances and anything except themselves. I find it important for a student to realize that he is not the best at everything.

[boscopup]

I agree with everyone else. Coasting is a common problem in gifted students. It happened to me too. I even coasted through several of my engineering classes (I think optical physics was the one class I really had to work hard in, and I ended up with a 7 on a 9 point scale... drove me away from physics, when physics probably would have been a good field for me - I just needed to actually WORK in the class to understand it!). Then I hit the real world, and the problems were harder than the college class problems, and there wasn't an example in the book to help me through it. I had to solve the problems myself. While I did well in my job, I think I would have done a lot better had I been challenged in school and learned how to work hard on a problem. And I guess because it didn't come easy on the job, I felt inadequate, even though my superiors clearly liked my work.

 

I saw my son coasting when he was in first grade. I pulled him out, and now we have some harder subjects and some easier subjects. I don't push him in every single subject, but I do make sure he's not coasting in any subject, and I make sure he has some subjects where he really is being pushed to work hard. It's all done in an age appropriate manner, of course.

 

Thankfully, my son LIKED being pulled out of school because he knew I would actually challenge him. He wanted to be challenged a little bit.

[Cera]

What I think he might learn is:

1) Everything is easy.

2) I'm better than everyone else.

3) I don't have to work hard to succeed.

 

I personally think that those lessons could haunt him later in life. This is why I homeschool my ds.

 

Ruth in NZ

 

:iagree:

 

My kids have to be in school. We are working around this by finding something that each is not as good at to work on (for one it is music, for the other a sport).

[JeanM]

What I think he might learn is:

1) Everything is easy.

2) I'm better than everyone else.

3) I don't have to work hard to succeed.

 

I personally think that those lessons could haunt him later in life. This is why I homeschool my ds.

 

Ruth in NZ

 

:iagree::iagree: I experienced the same thing when I hit college.

[jennynd]

I didn't have a challenge until I was in graduate school (mechanical engineering) with bunch brilliant people from all over the world. I couldn't handle it and I didn't finish my PhD. I regretted every day. I have the capacity but can't handle that I actually have to work for something.

[TracyP]

Well, I will just add my agreement. I was a complete coaster. I'm VERY embarrassed about this, but it might help you. I was a straight A student all the way through school with very little effort on my part. In 10th grade I had all A's except a B in gym. I had the highest score in my Geometry class. My name was in the newspaper with all the 3.5 GPA's but the school refused to pass me into 11th grade. I had skipped school so often that I failed. I eventually got my GED and went to a community college where I coasted some more. I wish like crazy I could go back in time and tell somebody how they could help me.

 

 

What I think he might learn is:

1) Everything is easy.

2) I'm better than everyone else.

3) I don't have to work hard to succeed.

 

I personally think that those lessons could haunt him later in life. This is why I homeschool my ds.

 

Ruth in NZ

 

Yes. Yes. Yes. This is the #1 reason I homeschool.

[regentrude]

This is the #1 reason I homeschool.

 

Same here. Two gifted kids who were not learning anything in Middle school.

[lisamarie]

DS is in soccer, and while he is very athletic, soccer is a challenge for him--the dribbling aspect, knowing how to block the ball, etc. He loves it. I have been working with him on not quitting if something isn't easy. One all 3 of the state tests he's taken this year, he has done average in LA. He told me last week that he's not good at LA because he didn't score in the 99th percentile like he did with math and reading. I explained that he didn't do well because we didn't do much LA (or not what the test was looking for). That he is actually very good at LA, he just has to learn it first. He was like, oh. Really? :001_huh:

 

So I see it already happening with him. If he has to work at it, it must mean he's not any good at it.

 

At this point my plan of action is to wait until his PT meeting next month. If the teacher will work with me to challenge DS, then we'll keep him in school. If the teacher won't, I'll pull him and HS him.

[roanna]

This is very enlightening.

[ElizaG]

So I see it already happening with him. If he has to work at it, it must mean he's not any good at it.

I can remember feeling that way about stuff in kindergarten. :001_huh: I thought keeping my children out of school would prevent this, but it hasn't. We've had to make conscious efforts to challenge and encourage them ever since early childhood.

 

It makes me wonder if typically developing children just have more built-in opportunities to face and overcome challenges, even outside of school.

[Tracy]

What I think he might learn is:

1) Everything is easy.

2) I'm better than everyone else.

3) I don't have to work hard to succeed.

 

This was me. In many ways, it still is. Numbers 1 and 3 aren't really that bad. For someone who is gifted, most things in life will come easy, even when they are hard for others. I am not sure to what extent you can artificially make things more difficult. But at home you can teach good habits that will be there for your dc when things do actually become difficult.

 

I think that #2 is the worst, at least in my case. I was soooo arrogant, even as a young adult. I am embarrassed to admit that it has taken me way too many years to see the good in others when they were not up to my intellectual standards.

[lisamarie]

I think that #2 is the worst, at least in my case. I was soooo arrogant, even as a young adult. I am embarrassed to admit that it has taken me way too many years to see the good in others when they were not up to my intellectual standards.

 

We have this problem in my house, but in my DH. He had the hardest time in his old position at work because he knew more than anyone else in his department and he thought they were just dumb. He's since moved into computer programming and it's the first time in his life where he's encountered something he has to actually work really super hard at and it's taking its toll.

 

He just took the LSAT this month, he barely studied, got a 164 which is good enough to get a full ride scholarship to the school he's looking at. Just tonight I asked him if he agreed with the things said on this thread and he went on about how he did well on the test without much effort, that the test was easy, that everyone should be able to do that well, etc, etc. I thought he was kidding.:001_huh: He seriously believes that BS he spouted. Sigh. Doesn't think he's gifted, doesn't think he's all that smart, that anyone can go take the LSAT and get a great score without much effort. And I wonder why DH is completely unsupportive of trying to get DS's school to ramp it up on with his education.

[Tracy]

We have this problem in my house, but in my DH. He had the hardest time in his old position at work because he knew more than anyone else in his department and he thought they were just dumb. He's since moved into computer programming and it's the first time in his life where he's encountered something he has to actually work really super hard at and it's taking its toll.

 

He just took the LSAT this month, he barely studied, got a 164 which is good enough to get a full ride scholarship to the school he's looking at. Just tonight I asked him if he agreed with the things said on this thread and he went on about how he did well on the test without much effort, that the test was easy, that everyone should be able to do that well, etc, etc. I thought he was kidding.:001_huh: He seriously believes that BS he spouted. Sigh. Doesn't think he's gifted, doesn't think he's all that smart, that anyone can go take the LSAT and get a great score without much effort. And I wonder why DH is completely unsupportive of trying to get DS's school to ramp it up on with his education.

 

For me, there was nothing else that I could cling to for self-esteem. I was not athletic. I was not beautiful. I was good in art class but not exceptional. I played the flute well but not exceptionally. If I admitted that "smart" was not important, than what did I have left? Nothing except a lot of badly needed character training.

 

So I would suggest that changing the academics by homeschooling is not by itself enough. Gifted children need to be exposed a diversity of people with a diversity of gifts. They need to take part in a diversity of activities that develop a diversity of skills so they have something else to look to for their self-esteem besides their intellectual ability.

[zenjenn]

What I think he might learn is:

1) Everything is easy.

2) I'm better than everyone else.

3) I don't have to work hard to succeed.

 

 

ABSOLUTELY! :iagree:

 

This is what happened to my brother and he has for the most part been a dysfunctional adult with a diagnosed narcissistic personality disorder. (Which I am not so convinced is a personality disorder so much as side effect of the above.) If I recall, there was no gifted elementary program when he was in school (he's substantially older than me), but my mom says his IQ was in the upper 140s.

 

I experienced this to a lesser extent. Though gifted ed was in place by the time I was in elementary, I was NOT identified as gifted (just barely not so, according to whatever evaluation standards they used). I remember EVERYTHING being so effortless in elementary I hardly tried. I would complete homework packets in about 10 minutes (which were supposed to be a week's worth of work), lose them in the crumbled mess of my room, not care, and then get sent to the hall as "punishment" on Friday to redo them and turn them in. I did so in 10 minutes and then spend another 45 minutes goofing off and having fun with the other bright kid who did the same darn thing. I did not act bored and I was not a troublemaker. My grades were fine, though certainly not top marks, mostly because I didn't try and I didn't really care. I ignored class almost entirely in the elementary years, and spent class time reading novels, drawing pictures, and writing stories. In 5th grade when a teacher saw my creative writing journal & sketchbook, she showed it to the principal and they wanted to send me to the gifted school, but the idea of leaving my school and friends at that point seemed ridiculous to me and I was perfectly happy and didn't even understand the point.

 

Now, since I wasn't amazingly gifted or anything, it was in Jr. High (7th grade) when our school joined with students from the gifted program and I got sent to the advanced classes that it all hit the fan for me. I had absolutely NO study skills or sense of responsibility for putting in effort and trying my best. Sometimes I would do fine because the class interested me, but if it didn't, it was just a huge struggle for about 3 years. Putting in effort and struggling was NEW to me. If I didn't get something without effort, I felt stupid, and it was easier to not try so I could have a smug teen emotional excuse for getting poor grades - namely, being too cool for school. Thank goodness I had some extremely patient teachers who identified enough potential in me not to just throw me out of the honors program. By 10th grade I had recovered enough to do reasonably well, but it wasn't until my last two years of college I started to really *get* what it was about.

 

I saw the same thing happening with my DD. I was trying to keep her "behind" her big sister (to spare big sister's ego) for a bit before I realized it was impossible and would be doing her a huge disservice, not because she NEEDS to learn long division at age 6, but because she needs to learn about overcoming challenges and working hard.

Edited October 25, 2011 by zenjenn

[zenjenn]

And, BTW, I've come to believe that the above is true for everyone, gifted or not, age 6 or 96. If you do not constantly push your comfort zone and expand your mind with new knowledge, skills, and experiences, there are consequences to your intellectual and emotional health.

[Greenmama2]

And, BTW, I've come to believe that the above is true for everyone, gifted or not, age 6 or 96. If you do not constantly push your comfort zone and expand your mind with new knowledge, skills, and experiences, there are consequences to your intellectual and emotional health.

 

:iagree: Well said

[Donna]

I wonder if the results of not being challenged depend more on a person's personality or maybe how they are brought up or some mixture.

 

I know a man who is absolutely brilliant...genius IQ. His parents didn't have the money or resources/time to send him to a special school or provide him with the most stimulating environment growing up...they certainly weren't finding him classes, books, no gifted program to speak of or grade skipping at the schools we attended, etc... but he found what he needed to stimulate and challenge himself and before he graduated from high school he had developed and marketed his own computer programs and bought his parents a home with the money he made. He is now a fully functioning adult who still finds new things to learn for himself.

 

For every story like that, there is another of a bright/gifted person not challenged who checked out in school, got in trouble, etc...

 

Just wondering what makes some people create their own challenges or what makes some learn to do what they need to do to function and make society work for them while others give up/check out.

 

Wondering if parents always creating the challenge for kids teaches them to be passive and unable to learn to challenge themselves? Or is it just a personality issue? Do you think kids need to learn to challenge themselves or do some kids just do it naturally because they are made that way? If they need to learn, how do we teach them that?

 

Just thinking out loud.

[5 Hikers]

What I think he might learn is:

1) Everything is easy.

2) I'm better than everyone else.

3) I don't have to work hard to succeed.

 

I personally think that those lessons could haunt him later in life. This is why I homeschool my ds.

 

Ruth in NZ

 

:iagree: I can tell you that I was just like your child. My mom refused to let the school skip me ahead a few grades. I even took Honors classes throughout High School and it still was super easy. I never studied. I majored in Chemistry during college, but it was difficult because I finally had to study once I reached the upper levels and I didn't know how. I ended up quiting with 4 classes left to grad. I wish someone had pushed me a little.

[lisamarie]

I remember EVERYTHING being so effortless in elementary I hardly tried. I would complete homework packets in about 10 minutes (which were supposed to be a week's worth of work), lose them in the crumbled mess of my room, not care, and then get sent to the hall as "punishment" on Friday to redo them and turn them in.

 

This is exactly what my brother did! It drove my parents crazy! LOL! :lol::lol::lol:

 

I wonder if the results of not being challenged depend more on a person's personality or maybe how they are brought up or some mixture.

 

Just wondering what makes some people create their own challenges or what makes some learn to do what they need to do to function and make society work for them while others give up/check out. Do you think kids need to learn to challenge themselves or do some kids just do it naturally because they are made that way? If they need to learn, how do we teach them that?

 

Just thinking out loud.

 

My DS is naturally challenging himself. He comes home after 7 hours of school and picks up a hard book to read, does half a lesson in his saxon math book, and has found a new love for his legos and other building sets and is coming up with even more creative models than before. He never did that when we were HSing and I think it's because I was challenging him with school work so he didn't have any reason to challenge himself further outside of school time, IMO. But since he's barely learning a thing in school, he NEEDS a challenge so he's seeking it out on his own.

 

My DS is just that way. He always says yes to doing chores, seeks out chores, always gets his work done without complaint because he just always does what is asked of him, he is super concerned with following the rules, etc.

 

Now my DD, OTOH, is bright as well. But she is also situationally lazy. She went half the year in PS-K without me knowing that she could read or do math. Seriously. I tried to afterschool her and she would act dumb. Only after going to her PT conference and seeing the work she did for her teacher did I realize that she could actually do a lot more than what she was showing me. She's gotten better, but she still tries to play dumb--last night her homework involved telling time. I know she can tell time on a non digital clock, but she put up a stink and acted like she had no clue how to do her math, how to tell time, etc. DS would never, ever, ever in a million years act dumb to get out of work. He would get it done as fast as he could with a smile on his face and then walk off and look for a science book to read.

[zenjenn]

Donna - I think you can't generally count on children to take initiative like the man you mention. It is possible, which is why extreme unschooling works for some, but it's rare, which is why extreme unschooling would be disastrous for many.

 

Also I think those who are *extremely* gifted are often among those who have initiative, or who are so intelligent that everything always DOES come easily, even content of the highest level. Then there are people with highly unusual personalities - I know a guy like that that I went to high school with - now a quantum physicist. He's extremely humble and even-tempered, and so when he started facing the new challenges, they didn't phase him. And then there's your rank and file nerd, who DOES struggle so much with other aspects of their lives - physically, socially, etc, that they will have the incentive to continue to play to their intellectual strengths, even when it starts to get hard. (My husband was in this category)

 

Most of the time, when we talk about this, we are talking about people who are gifted but standard in other ways - who do not have a special sense of initiative, who have a typical ego, etc.

 

Although one approach I thought of taking with my DD is to have her learn a musical instrument or something, so that there's something outside of school that she has to consistently work at to improve.

[Rebecca VA]

I agree that people who are genuinely intelligent find *some* outlet for their intelligence. They just have to, or they'll burst. Even if it's a socially unacceptable outlet (for example, gambling or manipulating people), they do it to create a challenge for themselves.

 

I once read a biography on Jim Morrison of The Doors. He was one of those brilliant people who was underchallenged in his public high school. If I'm remembering correctly, he would read, memorize, and write poetry (the weirder and more esoteric the better), read classic literature, and get himself into and out of scrapes to pass the time.

 

My dad, who was a businessman and traveled very frequently, would get into conversations on airplanes. He met some very accomplished and even famous people that way, and he even brought some of them home to dinner. He would read whatever was at hand and was ready and able to discuss whatever he read at length. He was very successful and widely sought-after because he had creative ideas based on common sense. Yet he grew up in a little shack in Mississippi and had to support his mother because his alcoholic dad (who abused both of them) couldn't hold a job. He could have spent his life posting on message boards about how he was underchallenged growing up and how it ruined his life, but he chose to work and live a fascinating life instead.

 

I really wonder about people who complain endlessly about not being challenged. Anything in life can be a challenge. Unless you're locked up in a room with no access to books, television, or other people, you can find *some* way to challenge yourself. (And if you are locked up in a room you can try to come up with a way to get yourself out of that room.) I think being underchallenged is a character issue -- the person doesn't want to take any initiative and passively accepts boredom -- and not a lack-of-resources issue.

 

ETA: It could also be an energy-level issue. People who have greater levels of energy -- even if they're not intelligent in the IQ sense -- just seem to be more curious about things and want to do more, see more, and experience more.

Edited October 25, 2011 by Rebecca VA

[regentrude]

I really wonder about people who complain endlessly about not being challenged. Anything in life can be a challenge. Unless you're locked up in a room with no access to books, television, or other people, you can find *some* way to challenge yourself.

 

For a child attending a public school that allows no out-of-the-box thinking, it is like being locked in a room without access to resources. After being forced to spend seven hours doing busywork that engages only a tiny fraction of their brain, many kids are just too tired to seek out challenge in the afternoon. It can be extremely draining being forced to spend that much time on mindless exercises.

That is the reason why, for some gifted children, afterschooling flops. We tried. My son definitely did not want to have anything academic to do after a day at school - he was bored silly, but it cost him so much energy to just make it through the school day obeying all the rules and fulfilling all the requests that all he wanted was relax and play.

So, not being challenged at school can mean that there is no energy and drive left for a child to find challenge for himself. It is a very sad thing to see the spark and the excitement being killed by hours and hours of meaningless, unnecessary drill.

[La Condessa]

We have this problem in my house, but in my DH. He had the hardest time in his old position at work because he knew more than anyone else in his department and he thought they were just dumb. He's since moved into computer programming and it's the first time in his life where he's encountered something he has to actually work really super hard at and it's taking its toll.

 

He just took the LSAT this month, he barely studied, got a 164 which is good enough to get a full ride scholarship to the school he's looking at. Just tonight I asked him if he agreed with the things said on this thread and he went on about how he did well on the test without much effort, that the test was easy, that everyone should be able to do that well, etc, etc. I thought he was kidding.:001_huh: He seriously believes that BS he spouted. Sigh. Doesn't think he's gifted, doesn't think he's all that smart, that anyone can go take the LSAT and get a great score without much effort. And I wonder why DH is completely unsupportive of trying to get DS's school to ramp it up on with his education.

 

This reminds me so much of my husband. He is just so smart, but he doesn't really notice it. He thinks it is fine and normal to never work at anything in school and get perfect grades, because he always did, right up through his undergrad degree. He did well on the LSAT without studying and qualified for a half tuition scholarship. Then he hit law school, and lost the scholarship and barely passed because he had no study skills and no experience with sticking with something that was hard and he didn't particularly enjoy. Now he has just started his first real job, and it he is wonderful at it--but we have twice as much debt to dig ourselves out of. And he still doesn't understand why I want to make sure our kids have a challenging education from the start.

[Maus]

I know a man who is absolutely brilliant...genius IQ. His parents didn't have the money or resources/time to send him to a special school or provide him with the most stimulating environment growing up...they certainly weren't finding him classes, books, no gifted program to speak of or grade skipping at the schools we attended, etc... but he found what he needed to stimulate and challenge himself and before he graduated from high school he had developed and marketed his own computer programs and bought his parents a home with the money he made. He is now a fully functioning adult who still finds new things to learn for himself.

I'm going to propose here that "stimulating" and "challenging" are two different things, especially for the gifted, for whom learning comes naturally.

 

I would say I grew up in a stimulating environment (despite being quite poor). My mom loved books and we went to the library twice a week and bedtime stories were often two hours long. We played a lot of board games, tough ones like chess, MasterMind, etc. My parents rarely got a sitter (couldn't afford one), so we went wherever they went. We ate as a family and had great philosophical discussions about all kinds of stuff. My dad loved logic problems, especially the oral ones like the riddle about the three missionaries and the three cannibals and the two-man boat, and he'd bring them home and get us to work them out. My parents were/are autodidacts, and we all are, too.

 

I did not grow up in a challenging environment, except at the most basic, how do you make $1.50 stretch into enough food for a week, kind of way. I did not learn the self-discipline needed to meet a challenge. I did not learn how to see "that's where I want to be, here's where I am, here's how I'm going to get there." I did not learn, "the paper is due on the 15th, if I go to the library on the 1st, prepare an outline by the 5th, etc." I don't think my parents really knew how to meet a challenge, and I think that's why we were so poor. My dad was self-employed as a genealogist, and he was really good at it. But he never had the discipline to spend the day doing billable things. He'd go off to the research library and spend the day helping other people, for free, for example.

 

Even today as an adult, though I have gotten better at it, I still procrastinate. I still seek stimulating things over hard things. (I'm doing it right now: I'm here on the internet, interacting with you adults, thinking about interesting ideas instead of either getting the kids started on their school works or cleaning the living room so that it's more than just paths through the mess.)

Edited October 25, 2011 by Maus

[regentrude]

he went on about how he did well on the test without much effort, that the test was easy, that everyone should be able to do that well, etc, etc. I thought he was kidding.:001_huh: He seriously believes that BS he spouted. Sigh. Doesn't think he's gifted, doesn't think he's all that smart, that anyone can go take the LSAT and get a great score without much effort.

 

I can understand him.

I assume, most of us take being able to read for granted and are seriously puzzled if somebody can not seem to understand how to read, right? Because it is easy, many of us don't even remember when and how we learned it - it is completely normal.

For a highly intelligent person, other skills seem that natural as well. It is extremely difficult to wrap your mind around why somebody else would find something so incredibly difficult that they can just.. do. It can drive you crazy, if, for instance, you are a math whiz and are tutoring a very behind math student because you can not for your life figure out why your friend can not retain something you went over a hundred times already- because you do not see it as difficult. My 13 y/o was seriously puzzled how she could be the best student in her college physics class with some university students failing the class - she did not see what difficulty they could possibly have.

 

I am actually glad I ended up teaching the very subject that gave me trouble at the university in my first semester, because I can relate to my students. There are a lot of other things I would probably not teach well because I can not fathom how they could be perceived as difficult.

[lisamarie]

It could also be an energy-level issue. People who have greater levels of energy -- even if they're not intelligent in the IQ sense -- just seem to be more curious about things and want to do more, see more, and experience more.

 

Not sure if this is the connection, but my DS is an energizer bunny, always has been. He loves to run, ride his bike, play outside, climb trees, he's just always moving. As a baby, I had to childproof my house to the extreme because he was always into everything, put everything in his mouth, wanted to figure everything out.

 

This reminds me so much of my husband. He is just so smart, but he doesn't really notice it. He thinks it is fine and normal to never work at anything in school and get perfect grades, because he always did, right up through his undergrad degree. He did well on the LSAT without studying and qualified for a half tuition scholarship. Then he hit law school, and lost the scholarship and barely passed because he had no study skills and no experience with sticking with something that was hard and he didn't particularly enjoy. Now he has just started his first real job, and it he is wonderful at it--but we have twice as much debt to dig ourselves out of. And he still doesn't understand why I want to make sure our kids have a challenging education from the start.

 

I'm praying this doesn't happen. My DH did terrible his first 2 years of college, took off a gap year to do a year of service, then came back and 4.0ed the rest of college. We did start dating right after he got back, so that could also be part of his motivation to finish well.

[ElizaG]

Donna - I think you can't generally count on children to take initiative like the man you mention. It is possible, which is why extreme unschooling works for some, but it's rare, which is why extreme unschooling would be disastrous for many.

:iagree: When left to their own devices, some gifted teenagers will start software companies, read advanced math and philosophy books, study the violin, and get involved in humanitarian projects to feed hungry children. Others will play video games, read science fiction and romance novels, start hardcore bands, and keep 17 types of exotic hamsters. I've come across many more people in the latter group.

 

All of these activities can be stimulating, but some of them are more likely than others to help the child prepare for rigorous work in college, and for fulfilling and productive opportunities in later life.

[serendipitous journey]

 

So what if we leave him where he is? Don't do anything extra for him? Don't pull him and HS him at his level? (He was HSed up until this year) Do nothing until he hits junior high/high school and can start doing some of the expensive GATE classes? What if I do what my DH wants and just chill out and let it go?

 

I know a man who was a bit like this; and he came out kind, fairly humble, interested in his world, got a PhD from Stanford, has a job (in this economy!) in academia, married a truly lovely person, is the most academically advanced conservative Christian/intelligent design fellow I know.

 

He challenged himself in school to do the very minimum possible to get and A, and this habit is still limiting him. Which may seem odd, given his "stats" above. But he procrastinates; puts off the difficult yet truly important work; and has strange motivational challenges. It is hard to describe; but others have noticed it and find they have a hard time figuring out quite what, or why, is not working well for him.

 

Personally, I believe that we need to raise our children to be extraordinary people. I'm too tired to figure out how to say this right, but I have both read about and seen how easy it is for people to become unkind, mobbish, even evil or abusive if what underlies their normal behavior is just talent and a decent disposition. My concern about your son would not be necessarily his academic achievement, but his character. If you can keep him honest and growing as a person, humble and generous and kind and hard working and curious about his world, with a sense for the glory in doing the right thing when it is the hard thing, I don't know if the academic stuff will matter so much. If you are members of a religious community, that might provide a great deal of meaty material and opportunity for reflection, growth and service. But I can't imagine that letting any child coast through their childhood will produce the result a reflective person would want.

 

blessings; thank you for introducing this thread, which has given me a great deal to think about; and

:bigear:

[lisamarie]

I asked this question at the perfect time because yesterday I had my DS rework 4 math problems he got wrong in his afterschooling math work. He cried. He said the book was wrong. I told him to rework them and if he gets the same answer, I will do them myself to see if they are wrong. Later after fixing them, he cried because he always gets 3 or 4 problems wrong and he doesn't want to get any wrong. (He gets them wrong because he tries to do everything in his head and doesn't write his work out--if he did he'd get them all right).

 

This led to a huge discussion about why he felt that he had to get all the answers right. To which he said that if he doesn't get them all right, LIKE HE DOES AT SCHOOL, then that means he's not good at it. This child who is a very young 3rd grader (Oct bday with Dec 1 cutoff), who has consistently tested at a 5th grade+ math level, thinks he is bad at math now because he didn't get all the answers right while doing math that actually challenges him. PS work is super easy for him and he has quickly forgotten what actually working for an education is like after just 2 months of school. Thanks PS. :001_huh::glare::001_huh::glare:

 

He finishes up soccer tomorrow and then I'm going to look for something new to challenge him with. Maybe a musical instrument or a foreign language. Something he can do that is almost entirely home-based because I am tired of being taxi mom.

[poetic license]

 

This led to a huge discussion about why he felt that he had to get all the answers right. To which he said that if he doesn't get them all right, LIKE HE DOES AT SCHOOL, then that means he's not good at it. This child who is a very young 3rd grader (Oct bday with Dec 1 cutoff), who has consistently tested at a 5th grade+ math level, thinks he is bad at math now because he didn't get all the answers right while doing math that actually challenges him. PS work is super easy for him and he has quickly forgotten what actually working for an education is like after just 2 months of school. Thanks PS. :001_huh::glare::001_huh::glare:

 

 

Aww, poor guy. :grouphug: We do a lot of discussion about the "brain muscle" (a la Carol Dweck) that what builds brain muscle (and hence, smarts) is challenging work and mistakes. We watched the movie "Meet the Robinsons" where the PG/HG protagonist is cheered on when he fails at a task. They all encourage him and tell him that because he's failed, he can learn from his mistake (well, they tell him in a less corny and didactic way than I've just related).

 

We refer back to that movie a lot, and I reiterate the theme from it: "keep moving forward." We try to cheer on the mistakes as well, and say stuff like, "yes! A mistake! Something we can learn from, cool!"

 

If there is a patch of work that is too easy, I might also throw in an offhand comment along the lines of, "hey, this was really easy, so let's find something that's hard so we can really learn something new."

 

This may work b/c my son is younger, not sure if it would fly with an older child. But I was convinced to do it when I read the research about the children doing better when they were trained in this mentality that "your brain is a muscle."