How to find gifted friends?

[musicianmom]

I would love for dd to hang out with some kids who are smarter than she is, more interested in learning and exploring ideas. I think she's capable of more academically, but I can't push her on it. Her test scores last fall put her barely under the cutoff for the gifted programs out there, so I don't have that resource. But hanging around littles all the time isn't exactly going to spur her on to greater things.

 

I can see it now, an ad on Craigslist: seeking highly gifted 7-year-old girl to influence my dd and show her that there's more to self-education than memorizing the names of the My Little Pony characters.

[Barbara H]

Plenty of highly gifted kids love My Little Ponies too! While I certainly understand the desire to encourage a kid toward more academic motivation, it probably isn't really a fair expectation to make of another kid. Good friends tend to share similar interests so my main suggestion would be to try to get in social situations with other kids and take the initiative to set up one on one playdates in hopes of finding a good match.

Edited August 25, 2012 by Barbara H

[Laura Corin]

There are some interests that tend to attract bright kids. Chess comes to mind. I wouldn't push your child into them if she's not interested, however.

 

FWIW, we tried chess club with our boys and they didn't make friends there. Cubs/Scouts had a wide range of people, and both found their niche there. The scout group is in a university town and there are lots of academics' children in the mix.

 

Laura

[Crimson Wife]

I agree about trying more intellectual activities like chess, First Lego League, Destination Imagination, math competitions, Jr. Great Books or other book discussion club, computer programming club, a good theater program, etc. The other kids may not necessarily be gifted, but I've found that common interest often trumps similar IQ when it comes to making friends.

[dbmamaz]

Also, just because she isnt interested in academics now doesnt mean you need to fix that. I think the best gift we can give our kids is to love them as they are and help them to find their passion - not ours. Sure, expose her to lots of stuff, but just because she's still being a kid . . when she IS still a kid . . doesnt mean she's not going to grow up to be an interesting, intelligent, wonderful woman who contributes great things to the world.

[nmoira]

I can see it now, an ad on Craigslist: seeking highly gifted 7-year-old girl to influence my dd and show her that there's more to self-education than memorizing the names of the My Little Pony characters.

True, there's Pokemon. :D

 

I find my kids have fun with highly imaginative friends. They dress up, put on plays, role play for hours. At seven, providing the opportunity and time for unfettered imaginative play is what I'd focus on (and 8 and 9 and 10....etc.). You've had some good suggestions for activities, and that's certainly where I'd place my hopes rather than intentionally picking "friends" to serve as an example of some desired behaviour.

 

How My Little Pony turned a little girl into a computer scientist

[Barbara H]

 

How My Little Pony turned a little girl into a computer scientist

 

Love this! It is a great example of how we need to look past the surface. There is such value in imaginative play and it is great when we get a window into what is happening in a kid's head like this.

[Dmmetler]

I'm doing a mythology club/NME prep group at my house this year, and based on the responses from parents, apparently there are quite a few gifted kiddos out there interested in mythology and DYING to find a friend. I'll be interested in seeing what develops.

[crazyforlatin]

I'm doing a mythology club/NME prep group at my house this year, and based on the responses from parents, apparently there are quite a few gifted kiddos out there interested in mythology and DYING to find a friend. I'll be interested in seeing what develops.

 

Awww shucks, you live so far from CA.

[FairProspects]

Awww shucks, you live so far from CA.

 

Yeah, ds would go nuts for a mythology club too.

[musicianmom]

Thanks for the kind and patient answers. I realize I may have sounded a bit nuts (the dangers of midnight posting). And for the record, I love the ponies, it's just the TV show that bugs me (all 52 episodes, unfortunately available on instant Netflix). And I am a huge believer in imaginative play, and I love to hear my kids engaging in it.

 

I think I've made the mistake of reading this forum and developing unrealistic expectations. Dd has no interest in going to the library and checking out a bunch of books because she's so into a topic. In fact, she balks at reading anything non-fiction (except history written in story form). She doesn't incorporate the literature we read into her imaginative play, though I did hear her recently pretending that something was a Hydra, which has given me new hope. To her, the computer is good only for printing out pictures from the Barbie site and playing games on the American Girl site. She never wants to write any stories or poems. It's as though there's a school switch that turns off the minute her required work is done.

 

I was the same way -- only doing what I had to do in school to make my grades. I've always blamed that on being a gifted kid in a mediocre school with no challenges, and was determined to give my dd something different. Now I'm thinking maybe it's a personality issue that she's inherited from me. I guess I'll just have to accept it and :chill pill:.

[8filltheheart]

You know, my little 7 yr old LOVES ponies too. She is academically not advanced, though. If she were and I wanted to spur on interests, I wouldn't attempt of have someone else inspire her (well, except for me, that is. ;) )

 

Some ideas you could do with ponies would be to research real ponies, work on creating pony names and symbols (making a symbol and name match could involve researching flowers, stars, the moon, light.......wherever it may lead), how toys are molded in plastic, history of myths involving horses and unicorns, etc.......these would be project investigations we would do together.

[dbmamaz]

My boys generally have no interest in academics outside of school either. Well, last year my teen started writing some fan fictions (some of them even about ponies, iir) and posting them on line and getting feedback, and a few times over the summer, the boys wrote fan fics together - i mean, my younger isnt writing, so he would sit at the teen's desk and they would discuss the story line together.

 

My younger one has occasionally played with the Charlies Playhouse cards, or re-watched a documentary about dinosaurs, but not much.

 

I just hope that they will find something to excite and engage them eventually . . . which is close to what I remember my Chem 2 teacher saying to me, my senior year of school . ..

[AK_Mom4]

I think I've made the mistake of reading this forum and developing unrealistic expectations. Dd has no interest in going to the library and checking out a bunch of books because she's so into a topic. In fact, she balks at reading anything non-fiction (except history written in story form). She doesn't incorporate the literature we read into her imaginative play, though I did hear her recently pretending that something was a Hydra, which has given me new hope. To her, the computer is good only for printing out pictures from the Barbie site and playing games on the American Girl site. She never wants to write any stories or poems. It's as though there's a school switch that turns off the minute her required work is done.

 

This sounds like DD11. She has always been a "just-get-it-done" girl with regards to schoolwork. Her talents lie in anything STEM or music related, but particularly math. But only history and foreign languages are "interesting" to her - everything else is "BOOOORRRING" (you have to visualize the eye-roll here since she's 11yo).

 

She gets her work done quickly so she can go have more time with her WebKinz. I guess I can't complain, right?

[kohlby]

It's as though there's a school switch that turns off the minute her required work is done.

Could you put her interests into her school work more? Like requiring her to write a story about My Little Pony? Or requiring her to learn about horses? My oldest is 9 and definately likes to just get through his work and be done with it. However, he will put his intellect into his playtime. I think a big part of it was tailoring some of his learning among his interests - like picking Literature books that he was interested in. It helped blur the line between school work and play.

 

*My middle child is gifted and loves Little Ponies too. Having a great imagination can take a child far. I love to see how imaginative my middle child can be because she's very much a by-the-book person when it comes to school work. She's a perfectionist and wants to do everything exactly how it's "supposed" to be. Creative play with her magnet dolls or ponies helps her because she doesn't think she has to be perfect then - and can practice more innovative type skills.

 

As for gifted friends, I'm not sure how to handle DD. She has a very ridgid set of rules for people and they must meet those qualifications. She has very high expectations. Much older girls usually meet those - but girls her age act like girls her age normally do, which means they aren't going to meet those. She's happy with the small set of friends she does have, so we're figuring it out as we go. My oldest is gifted but he is advanced socially and does very well with any kids. He'll say somethings that only a highly gifted kid would say that the others don't get. But no sooner have they given him an odd look that they're onto talking about Pokemon.

 

Socially, I wouldn't worry about another child being my child's motivator. I'm more concerned about DD wanting everyone to reach some impossibly high standard. Kids her age don't understand her, and she has zero interest in helping them out with that or any type of compromise. (For now, ODS is fine. Somehow he has managed to have the art of nerddom and coolness perfectly balanced. It's a puzzle to me how he manages that though!)