Not accelerating my (likely gifted) dd when she is capable and willing

[forty-two]

I've been reading about giftedness with an eye to understanding *myself* better (pg based on test scores (eta: because I've now discovered there are widely differing standards for what is eg/pg, to clarify, I meant pg by DYS's 99.9 percentile standards, *not* by the "pg equals fifth standard deviation above the norm, so a deviation IQ of 175+" definition; by those standards, it is more accurate to say hg (three standard deviations above the norm, IQ 145-159)), and Ruf level 4-5), having finally gotten over enough of my issues with being unable to think about giftedness without getting mired in whether my children are gifted to be able to "safely" do so. Finally got to the point that I could separate all my personal feelings about giftedness and my experiences as gifted from the issue, and just continue to appreciate my dc as they are, continue meeting them where they are, genuinely *feeling* that not of their awesome accomplishments and general zest for life would be diminished one iota if they didn't happen to be under the "gifted" umbrella. They are who they are, and nothing can take that away, no matter what label(s) best describe them.

 

This was a *huge* breakthrough, btw - I've basically been unable to research or even much think about giftedness for years because of my issues spilling over onto my perceptions of my dc. It's great to be able to keep the two separate, and I've been working through a lot.

 

Only my new, clearer-eyed view has allowed me to see that dd6.5 probably *is* gifted, maybe even pg like me, and so I've gone from being fairly happy with our schooling to feeling like I am underserving her horribly - basically, however much she is beyond a typical student, that's how much I am underserving her.

 

Because the limiting factor on our schooling is, and always has been, *my* energy and ability to do things, and not my dc's abilities or willingness to do school. I was depressed for several years, and though I have been "back to normal" for over four years now, I was having to dig myself out of the hole I'd dug for myself. So I'd say that just now, in the past few months, have I gotten myself back to the point I was at before I was depressed - which is to say, with all the self-discipline and perseverance of a gifted 20yo who had great ambitions but had never learned to how to work hard to make those ambitions come to fruition. (Granted, it's a bit better than that - while I only have the self-discipline of my 20yo never-learned-to-work self, I am not that 20yo any more. I am a 32yo who has learned some needed lessons the hard way, and I am ready to harness what my 20yo self had in a way that my 20yo self would never have done.)

 

Now, I am pretty good at following my dc's lead, and I have been stretched over the years by the demands of my *very* intense dds (comparatively, ds is easy-going, but only when judged by the standard his big sisters have set http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/wink.gif). But it was all I could do to stay *just* over the line between enough/too-little - no earthly *idea* where the enough/too-much line is . I am very, very relaxed and child-led for most things. I read to them tons, all sorts of books, all levels - they love books, their comprehension is great, and they know and use lots of things they hear about. Plus I think we have a pretty intellectually interesting life, and I do try to help dd follow her interests (again, we are way closer to the enough/too-little line than I'd like - too often I do the minimum she is asking for - and combined with the times I just have to say no because *I* simply do not have the wherewithal to help her make this happen, and she can't do it on her own, I feel a bit bad. And that was *before* reading about gifted kids - by that standard, I feel I am positively an anchor around her neck.)

 

But I do believe in proactively working on the three Rs, and most of the past year was spent on teaching dd to read (PA issues and sometimes I wonder about stealth dyslexia - just enough of the markers to put her right on the line, but some proactive teaching on my part has, thus far, been enough for her to keep making leaps). For most of that time, I think I had a reasonable handle on where both lines were, and generally was able to tell when to gently push and when she needed more help - I was teaching to her level, and we both felt pretty good about it most of the time (although there was a lot of character-building learning to persevere when it is hard and learning that failing just means we didn't get it *yet* - that's what practice is for). She had a reading breakthrough a couple of months ago, which was awesome, and she's reading all over the place. I've kept up with her lessons (because I think she needs them still) and though she doesn't mind doing them, they are definitely *way* below her level now - she could move a lot faster, but she's resistant to the idea (they are kind of like taking ok medicine for her - not a big deal, but it's not like you want *more*) and I haven't pushed it.

 

On writing and math, we are mostly informal, and her output for math is typical for first grade. She likes what we do, but I don't feel I've ever hit her limit in math. In writing, there is a *big* discrepancy between what she wants to write and what she *can* write. Now that reading has taken off, I'm moving the "slow-n-steady" bus over to handwriting. Not sure of the practicalities in giving her an outlet for her ideas - scribing, keyboarding, what else? (it was easy in reading - just keep reading aloud) - but I'm pretty confident that I can solve most problems that matter to dd.

 

It's all the problems that *aren't* a big deal to dd in the short term (but in the long term might be a big deal) that worry me.

 

I see of lot of myself in dd, and as a kid, I was capable and wanting to accelerate, but I had no chances to do it (I tried to do it on my own, but didn't have the discipline - I see this "reach exceeding her grasp" in dd a lot, and I don't always have the wherewithal to help her bridge the gap - she has *big* dreams). I was identified as gifted and put in what gifted programs the school had and took the hardest classes available to me and made all As (my teachers in middle school were having a freakout at my wanting to talk four honors classes in 9th grade - that I, and the other high achievers were going to get in over our heads; suffice it to say that I didn't http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/wink.gif). So I found other ways to stay interested (hello procrastination, my old friend) and feed my brain (read under my desk - eventually I did it openly). While it kept me happy and engaged with life and interested in learning, it also underserved me in many ways, and I imploded big time in college.

 

And so while I have been happy that I have been increasing what I've been able to do with my dc, and have been more consistent in doing some gentle school, and saw what I was failing to do in light of succeeding at a lot of other things, I am now feeling like I am succeeding if my dd were typical or a bit bright. I've been judging the success of our hs by the fact that, even with our very relaxed, mostly child-led schooling, dd6.5 is more-or-less at a comparable level to her ps peers in most things, plus she's been able to learn all sorts of things along areas of her interest, all with plenty of time to play. I felt like my weaknesses hadn't harmed her and she'd gained from my strengths - overall I was serving her well, that I had *time* to continue working on my weaknesses.

 

But now I feel like that's only true if she's within spitting distance of typical. I know I am beyond the line of not-enough (because she drags me over that kicking and screaming), but I was using her age peers as my barometer for "enough", and heavens knows that while I found my own way to cope, it wasn't *anywhere* near enough for me, *and* no one but me ever really knew. One teacher figured it out when he saw my SAT scores - which were apparently 100 points higher than anyone else in my class of 600 - but the rest just seemed to know that I was beyond their class, but not by how much. Even though I wasn't surprised by my scores (and to be fair, neither were my parents - they just figured that since I was getting all As and was happy, I was doing well, although my dad suspected that I was coasting a lot more than they thought). And really, even *I* have no idea where my limits are. I was just reaching the limit of what I could do without having to work much in college when depression hit with a vengeance, but even then I sometimes was still getting As without working hard (well, just doing *anything* was working hard at that point, but without having to stretch my study skills), and so I never really hit my limits, just the ceiling on what I could do without trying for it.

 

I knew I wasn't hitting my dd's limits anymore, but I knew I was doing enough for her to be mostly happy and content. The problems we had were where her reach exceeded her grasp and I didn't have the wherewithal to bridge the gap for her. But I guess I sort of assumed that those were the anomalies (because a lot of the time I *did* bridge the gap for her, and almost always on the things that really mattered to her (i.e. that she pushed for)), but in reading about giftedness, and seeing the likely gap between where she is and what she is likely capable of, it feels like that I am holding her back everywhere, instead of just in a few places. It's like that instead of her having a window of 10-20 and her being right in the middle at 15, her window is really 10-100, and so her being at 15 is way at the bottom, not in the middle. IDK, does that make sense?

 

And so my question is: how bad is that - doing a bare minimum "enough" academically - *at this age*? (I already know the answer to that if it never changes - not terribly good.) Is it equivalent to delayed academics in a more typical child (because that's what is effectively is), which isn't a bad thing in my book - I can live with that as I am working my way up. Or am I materially holding her back - is this the difference between delaying teaching reading at 7/8 and delaying to age 12 or 14? Recoverable, of course, but usually not to the extent of having done so earlier.

 

Yeah, the only way I would know is to test her. And I really thought that testing is unnecessary if you aren't intimidated by following your child, and heavens knows I am not. But now I get it - boy, it would really help to have some one-stop shopping for figuring out her level. Sigh.

 

(Also, I hereby apologize for every time I rolled my eyes at people saying how much harder it was to teach a gifted child than a typical one - it's all just following the child, isn't it? Or so I thought. Because now I get it. It was *way* easier to follow dd's lead when I was teaching her to read, because her level of "too much" was quite close to her level of "not enough" - there was a narrow-ish sweet spot, and I could easily tell where I was in relation to it. Handwriting is going to be the same way for a while, and I feel quite confident in my ability to handle that. But this whole post is about me freaking about not knowing where the upper limit is - and that is definitely harder to judge when the window is so *wide* and the levels of her age peers might mean *nothing*.)

 

I can't do IQ testing - simply not in the budget - but would something like that online DORA or ADAM help? Or work my way through out of level achievement testing? Or is it really not the big deal I am making it at this age, and continuing to follow my dd's lead and test around 3rd/4th (my previous plan) would work just fine?

 

Thanks for listening to my (very long) angsting http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/smile.gif.

[MinivanMom]

Wow! You sure sound profoundly gifted. It sounds like you are letting your perfectionist tendencies paralyze your decision-making and prevent you from enjoying the journey. Don't forget that homeschooling should be more fun and less angst. We are here to buoy you up.

 

You are a wonderful mother who clearly loves your children very much.

You have done a wonderful job creating an environment that supports learning and curiosity.

You have successfully built a literacy rich home environment.

You are aware of your daughter's needs and you are seeking to meet them.

You are aware of how your depression affects both you and your family and are actively addressing the issue.

You care so much that you worry you are falling short when there is no evidence to suggest that is the case.

 

Love yourself. Stop and recognize all the things that you have achieved with your children. They love you. If you fall short (and we all will at some point), they will still love you. Testing your daughter may give you a better idea of how much she may need to accelerate. The more acceleration she needs, the better off she is at home with an individualized education. You will find the right level of challenge, because you are trying to find it. You will succeed, because you care enough to seek success. You may not do it perfectly, but you will do it better than 99% of b&m school. Your daughter is blessed to have a mother that cares this much. Have a lovely day.

[abacus2]

I have several random responses swirling in my head, so I hope this ends up making sense. I wonder about this with my kids too. None of them have been tested and diagnosed gifted, but I was as a child. My husband wasn't diagnosed, but he was the first person I met my age who ever brought up things in conversation that I didn't already know or immediately understand. I am more of an auditory-sequential learner and dh is a visual-spatial learner.

 

Recently I've come across several different mentions of things studies are showing to be essential in academic and life success. One is talking to your kids; engaging your young gifted child in conversation will naturally meet them where the are intellectually and lead to growth. Another is that there is no better educational option available than lots and lots of books (sounds like you are doing great with this :)). Third is that one of the best things we can do for children is praise their efforts. When students believe their success is based on innate ability, they shut down when they encounter difficulty and believe struggle is negative. When students believe success is found in hard work, they embrace challenges and see struggle as productive.

 

Choosing curricula is challenging. It can be valid to go fast, to go deep, or a little of both. A curriculum that seems perfect at the beginning of the year can quit being a good fit when a gifted child learns faster than the scheduled pace. Also, I've observed that kids seem to have learning spurts just like they have growth spurts, so not only do they seem to outgrow new shoes as soon as they are purchased, they'll do the same thing with schoolwork. I've also found it challenging to find items both developmentally and academically appropriate especially for my middle child. Last year I really would have liked a second grade level language arts with lots of kindergarten level cutting and pasting type activities. I'm just hoping what we've done this year has a least helped her in some way. When she opened up her book to one of the first lessons and promptly read the directions, "Underline the words with the short sound of 'o'" despite not yet writing her "o"s correctly I was reminded that buying curriculum for the this child is going to be challenging.

[dbmamaz]

Hmm, she is 6 years old. You wrote a book about worrying about whether you have done horrible things by not perfectly homeschooling your 6 year old.

 

Let me say . . . the best thing you can do is stop worrying. Homeschooling is not usually about buidling a detailed blue print for exactly what to do with your child and sticking to it like glue. Find programs she likes and let her go through them at her pace. find books she likes and read them to her. You dont have to spoon feed her material. and if you are worrying this much, you are wasting energy. If she asks for something . . . find a way to give it to her, instead of worrying about whether or not you have failed.

 

also, all of this might be easier if you just listed what you are doing and how she responds to it, rather than writing a philosophical treatise. are you using a math program? are you using a science program? are you using a reading program? Or are you just trying to teach her everything from your head?

[Tanikit]

I believe in homeschooling my gifted 5.5 year old one day at a time - we have curricula and can move with them as fast as she wants to and she is expected to do some form of schooling 5 days a week. But she is 5 - some days she is moody and wants a quiet easy day, other days she wants to hear books read to her all day, other days she wants to read her own book for ages, some days she just wants to do crafts. There are days she wants to write and days she doesn't want to touch a pencil - "Mom, I'll tell you the answers and you write them down," has become quite frequent when we are doing math which is also possibly below the level she can function at.

 

I think with homeschooling a gifted (or any child for that matter) child you just have to start somewhere and then move forward - it is perhaps harder with gifted children because they can go through work so fast and this can be expensive if you are buying curricula or books. What are your goals for homeschooling her - do you want her to be happy? have a fancy career one day? be able to choose whatever she wants to do later on? reach her potential? I think you need to figure out what it is you want from the homeschooling.

 

More importantly however, you need to look at your daughter as a separate person - she does not have your history or your upbringing. I know you said that you can separate the two, but it seems like with your DD you are imagining that she will feel as you have felt when she is older. She is not you and while she may also get frustrated or coast like you did, she will have her own problems, her own issues and her own way of dealing with things - she lives a whole generation away from what you grew up with so things will be different and she probably has a different personality too which will also influence the way she sees the world. And this is all why you have to take things as they come and stop worrying about where she is performing academically, but rather how life is for her on every level.

 

What have you been doing with her so far - what is she reading, have you got any curricula, where is she with handwriting, math, science, history etc? What is she interested in?

[forty-two]

Thanks for your support and advice and things to think about :).

 

Re: philosophical treatise - would you believe I had a section in there about what we were specifically doing and then cut it because I thought it was the least relevant part :lol. I am definitely a big picture person - once I know what I want to do and why I want to do it, the details generally sort themselves out.

 

Re: still not separating myself from my dd - there may be some of that, but I think it is more just good old-fashioned borrowing trouble ;). I used me as an example, but from all the stuff I've been reading recently about giftedness, my outcome is practically a success story :yikes. While there is some truth in today's small seeds of trouble becoming tomorrow's giant choking weeds if you don't nip them in the bud, I am definitely borrowing trouble given our current environment.

 

Re: why exactly I am hs'ing - a tangled mess of more family time, working at child's pace/interests, and excellence (reaching their potential). Right now there's some conflict between excellence and following the child and my limited energy - I can't do it all the way I ideally want to and I'm not sure how to resolve it all atm. This post is part of me working through that.

 

I do believe that dd is best served at home, and so I am now trying to get back into a more helpful mindset - to focus on maximizing what I *can* do instead of get overwhelmed by all that I can't do. The reality is the same as it was before - it's just my perception that is different. So onwards to figuring out the best use of effort given dd's interests and my energy.

 

Things that we can do: read, read, read. If it involves snuggling on the couch with a book, it's a winner here. We can also do oral output based on what we read (or things that just happen in day to day life) and a bit of written output on a magna-doodle.

 

Things that are hard for me to make happen: things that require more-than-just-reading-things prep, organized/directed activities, specific output requirements

 

"Official" school right now (all of dd4.5's stuff is because she insists on doing her fair share of school too):

*Read alouds: nursery rhymes and Around the World in 80 Tales for dd4.5; book of children's poetry and Lang's Fairy Books for dd6.5

*lesson in Let's Read for dd6.5; Alphabetti for dd4.5

*One or two chapters of LoF Butterflies (still a little hit or miss in getting to it each day); dd gets the typical stuff easily and finds the stretching, not-strictly-kid-math stuff interesting and sometimes challenging - at times she needs me to give a few examples of my own to the open-ended questions to get the idea

*Guided C-rod play (using Math Made Meaningful) and free c-rod play, or chess lessons, or something else worthwhile-seeming

 

History and science are child-driven and mostly books/Netflix-videos on topics of interest. dd6.5 is more into science than history. She is very interested in natural disasters right now, and in fact wants to be a meteorologist. I am feeding her interest with books and videos but haven't figured out how to do more hands-on stuff. She'd like to but needs guidance to carry out her ideas.

 

We listen to classical music and read lots of books throughout the day. TV time is limited to the evenings, so they have time for creative play. dd6.5 writes a lot on her own, but her handwriting is the same now as it was when she taught herself the letters when she was 4yo. Lots of child-led math.

 

ds1.5 definitely limits what gets done officially.

 

Looking at what feels lacking to me:

 

*Handwriting - which is top of the list for expanded effort on my part - it is my top-output-related priority, by far

 

*Math - output is definitely lacking; her ability to rote calculate instead of needing to reason through the problem is lacking (she can solve a lot but is slow doing it; counts on her fingers instead of using memorized facts). Lack of rote calculation is not surprising because we haven't worked on it; same with lack of memorized facts. I see her using the ones she *has* learned, so imo it's mostly an exposure issue. Working more consistently through LoF elementary would solve the fact problem. I have definitely been focusing on conceptual understanding over calculation ability, and it is clear in dd6.5's strengths and weaknesses. I *do* want to add in more living math, expose her to more concepts. That, along with being consistent with LoF and doing some guided and free c-rod play, are my top priorities right now. I think I need to either make peace with her calculation ability being delayed because I am delaying practicing it or else bite the bullet and add in mental math every day - could work through one of the public domain books, or something.

 

*Science - given that it's an interest of hers, I've been wanting to go through BFSU with her, but haven't managed to for energy/inability-to-plan-activity reasons. I really want to give her a solid foundation in science, but am hampered by lack of energy - science is definitely falling off the stack. Maybe try to use BFSU to generate a sequence of books to read together?

 

Ok, I have a bit better picture of our strengths and weaknesses and overall approach, which is heavy on inputs (particularly books, with discussions as a strong secondary) and weak on outputs. I am fine with no outputs in the non-3Rs. I am fine with dd6.5's output in reading right now, which is to say she does her lesson and reads aloud a lot and naturally talks about what she reads. I am not fine with handwriting output, which is top of my list to work on and was before my little freakout. I am mixed on LoF being our only output for math - maybe if I give dd her head and let her race through?

 

I am fine with completely interest led in history, but would like a little more structure/guidance for our science inputs.

 

ETA: Ok, so our homeschool's strengths are in our inputs and our weaknesses are in the outputs. Given dd's age, aside from writing (and possibly math), I am ok with this - I have the time to improve on that front. Best bang for the buck, from my perspective, wrt modifying for giftedness, finding her limits, is to focus on the books I read to her. Expand the scope and the topics and the text difficulty.

 

Thoughts?

[kiana]

FWIW, mathematically, I would see absolutely no issue with letting her be conceptually ahead of her computational ability. You should be able to separate them out just like penmanship and reading, and it's perfectly okay for her to be computationally at a 'typical grade 1' level and conceptually at a 'typical grade 5'. I think giving a 6 yr old the amount of drill you'd give a 10 year old is a mistake but giving a gifted child the concepts can be wonderful.

[brendag]

I can't type much right now, but just wanted to let you know that as a fellow "angstee", I get it.

 

:grouphug:

[forty-two]

FWIW, mathematically, I would see absolutely no issue with letting her be conceptually ahead of her computational ability. You should be able to separate them out just like penmanship and reading, and it's perfectly okay for her to be computationally at a 'typical grade 1' level and conceptually at a 'typical grade 5'. I think giving a 6 yr old the amount of drill you'd give a 10 year old is a mistake but giving a gifted child the concepts can be wonderful.

 

I definitely agree with this. Upon further reflection, I'm concerned that our ratio of "reading about math" to *doing* math is out of whack. That it's not just a lack of calculation ability, but also a lack of practice applying concepts to doing actual problems. Might work through an old math book - all the problems are word problems, and the early ones can be done orally. I'm willing to let fact memorization and ability to crank out an algorithm wait, but I'm not sure I'm willing to let *doing* math slide, and I think I have been. We play at it a lot and read about it a lot, but we just don't *do* it enough. But maybe I will give dd her head through LoF and wait for a break there before pulling out some word problem books.

[8filltheheart]

And so my question is: how bad is that - doing a bare minimum "enough" academically - *at this age*? (I already know the answer to that if it never changes - not terribly good.) Is it equivalent to delayed academics in a more typical child (because that's what is effectively is), which isn't a bad thing in my book - I can live with that as I am working my way up. Or am I materially holding her back - is this the difference between delaying teaching reading at 7/8 and delaying to age 12 or 14? Recoverable, of course, but usually not to the extent of having done so earlier.

 

I think you are stressing out way too much. ;) I have never had my kids tested, so I have no idea where they fall on IQ tests, but I know they are somewhere on the gifted spectrum. (consistently scoring in the 99th% on CAT type tests, qualifying for CTY via talent-search, etc. and doing things like diffEQ in 11th grade or devouring epics like Paradise Lost and Divine Comedy in 8th.)

 

My kids do zero academics until they are in K. In K-2, they only do the 3 Rs and only for very short amts of time. (only around 45 mins for K, 1- 1 1/2 hrs for 1st and 2- 2 1/2 hrs for 2nd)

 

Not doing heavy amts of academics at the primary level has not held our children back. If it had, they would not have been able to achieve what they have managed very successfully to achieve. What really matters is living lives filled with the love of learning and giving them opportunities to explore interests and encouraging them. If you don't use grade-leveled readers, etc and simply work w/your child at his/her level and ability of input/output following his/her lead, then IQ/giftedness, etc. really becomes a back-burner issue vs. the fore-front issue.

 

So......how bad is it to do the bare minimum at 6.5.........it isn't bad at all. It is not equivalent to delayed academics. It is not materially holding her back. It isn't even an issue of whether or not academics is recoverable. It is fine. She is fine. :) You can take a deep breath and exhale and simply decide what fun things you want to do tomorrow. :)

[nansk]

I think it is quite all right not to do more than what you are doing for another year. But if you are concerned about the amount of maths output, you can schedule one lesson of MEP everyday, in addition to your LoF reading.

 

6.5 yo is considered first grade here in Singapore. At that age, my dd was doing SM1 in school and MEP Y1 at home with me.

[kiwik]

If you have a kindle or kindle app you could look at "the verbal math lesson".

[Ravin]

I was a gifted child, and experienced a certain amount of leaping then back-and-fill. I started K early, wasn't socially ready (or able to stay awake on the bus home), so they had me do K twice. I read at a level far above my peers pretty much from first grade on, and attended a self-paced program in middle school then skipped 8th grade and started high school--where I was in WAY over my head socially. I found social and intellectual peers (and a lot of kids who, relatively speaking, were a lot smarter than me) when I attended an early-admission program for junior/senior high school students at UNT--and made lousy grades because while I tested well, I didn't have ANY study skills, didn't know how to balance studies with my new social life, and lacked sophistication in my writing/rhetoric skills.

 

If I had a gifted child on my hands with the potential to accelerate (I suspect DD is 2E but haven't been able to test her to really know), I probably wouldn't encourage it. Instead, I would encourage going deep in things a student is passionate about, go wide and study things that an average student wouldn't have the time to study. Don't worry about going fast. It isn't necessary. Being gifted can mean more time to be creative, more time to follow the drive of curiosity, and more freedom to be a child, rather than less.

 

While they did let me accelerate as a teen, my parents also put on the brakes when needed, and declined an option to skip me over third grade. They found extra resources for me outside of school to explore my interests, in summer camps, scouting, and Saturday scholars programs. The only impetus to accelerate ever came from me, and then they didn't hold me back more than necessary--and let me learn how to fail, too.

[Spryte]

If I had a gifted child on my hands with the potential to accelerate (I suspect DD is 2E but haven't been able to test her to really know), I probably wouldn't encourage it. Instead, I would encourage going deep in things a student is passionate about, go wide and study things that an average student wouldn't have the time to study. Don't worry about going fast. It isn't necessary. Being gifted can mean more time to be creative, more time to follow the drive of curiosity, and more freedom to be a child, rather than less.

 

 

Completely agree with this. Thank you for posting it, Ravin. Of course, if a child wants to accelerate, and it's his/her choice - go for it - I wouldn't say otherwise. We've gone the above route though, because that's the direction DS has taken us. He tests PG, but for him it doesn't always mean he's working way above grade level (unless it's at his request or it is obviously necessary) - it often means that he's going deeper, wider, or totally following his own curiosity. (For that reason, I rarely post on this board, since he's often not "accelerated" ... but I lurk here, because of the PG issue, to find inspiration and glean ideas.)

[dbmamaz]

the website livingmath.net is all about reading and games for math instead of worksheets. the author said one of her sons did only 'living math' until middle school, and had absolutely no trouble transitioning to textbook math. Output at young ages is not necessary to obtain a strong understanding at later ages. imo.

[Runningmom80]

My 6.5 year old boy does this:

 

LoF elementary

ZB handwriting

Mct grammar & evan moor daily science very irregularly

 

Legos constantly, reads a lot.

 

 

That's it. I'm following his lead at the moment, and this is where I see the sparks. I need a few months of seeing his eyes light up until I decide on a formal curriculum for next year. (or maybe the year after?) he may be PG, definitely EG, and he's just not fitting into any boxes where I can figure out what the heck to do with him. I also have 2 almost 3 year olds, and I'm just now getting over the twin fog enough to where I'm actually engaging with my children on a regular basis. That sounds horrible, but we went through a couple of years of survival mode. It is what it is.

 

We are going to hang out in this weird in between space for a while, so I can just savor it and soul search. I'm reading a lot on education, not just for Fred kid's, but all kids. I'm loving Project Based Homeschooling. It's building my confidence to let go and be more open minded.

 

I personally have been where you are, and I'm just now giving myself permission to go with the flow.

 

 

Sorry this is all over the place, there is a rowdy game of hungry hungry hippos going on next to me.

[Clear Creek]

I think you are worrying needlessly. :001_smile: Unless you have her trapped in a box, you can't stop a gifted child from learning. In my experience, it is not so much the level of information that is fed to the child that marks them as gifted as the child's ability to extrapolate that information to develop understanding of other concepts that have not been directly taught (like figuring out multiplication on one's own after being taught addition). Math lessons become less direct instruction and more discussion of concepts at that age. Same with science. So I wouldn't worry that you are holding your daughter back by not giving her a higher level of instruction - she will lead you at the level that she needs and wants.

 

An example: when my son was four, he asked me how water cleans things. I tried to tell him about the force of the water pushing the dirt particles, but that answer was not good enough for him - he wanted an answer on a molecular level!

 

I think you can relax. It is probably harder to prevent a gifted child from learning than to keep a gifted child learning at their level at that age. Now, when the child is older and begins to consider the effort that must go into the learning, that is another story!

[LisaKinVA]

I have 5 children...I know (without a doubt), the three oldest are gifted, I pretty much assume the youngest two are (although, at this point that is more due to other people's comments about these two than my own observations...they just seem normal to me ;D) Each child is pretty unique in the way they respond to a lack of stimulation...or an over-abundance. I have children who are driven (or who are driven for a time), and children who are not internally motivated.

 

You are balancing emotional, social and cognitive readiness/skills & levels with personality traits -- and it's not easy. What may work "just fine" for a child with an IQ of between 150-160, will be a horrible experience for another, because there are multiple areas that grow/develop at different rates unique to each individual. It's enough to make your brain hurt (even a PG one ;))

 

I almost always start with the premise that, the child is 5. Regardless of her cognitive ability, she is 5. Now, depending upon her personality...she may be a very assertive, demanding, driven 5 who will pitch a fit when work is boring/too easy, or she may be a compliant, easy going child who doesn't say a whole lot and just goes along with whatever is put in front of her (I have at least one of each). Or, she could also be a child who isn't academically inclined (learning comes easily, but she has no strong desire to do so) (I have one of these, too). As a result, I have had to take multiple approaches in our early schooling in order to adapt and (hopefully) bring out the best in each of my children.

 

My oldest 3 were all very driven at a young age. My oldest boy would also pitch a royal fit. My oldest daughter would do what was asked, and then some...without pitching a fit, and my younger boy was a mixture of the two (mostly compliant, but could also pitch a fit of epic proportions). My 2nd daughter is not internally motivated to "do" school...she's quite adept at learning quickly, just has no real desire to do much other than play (she's 6, so I'm just not stressing...)

 

I worry...all the time (Am I doing too much/pushing too hard? Am I not doing enough?). I probably spend as much time debating, and second-guessing myself as I do lesson planning(...I have three different Biology courses outlined right now, and still wish I had a 4th!). I don't want my kids to have some of the very painful experiences that I did, and I want to give them the opportunities that I was at times denied. So, some of my hang-ups and issues with what decisions I make for my kids are based on trying to avoid things in my own past. It certainly doesn't make things easy :p

 

Back to...your daughter is 5... what I mean by this is that for the most part, you follow her lead. There may be days she is intrigued and wants to do more, there may also be days she doesn't want to do much. For us, we have set a "minimum" of core work that is done...the days my child(ren) wish to do more, GREAT. The days my kids just don't want to, fine. But, baring sickness or a mental-health day (usually for me), we set out to hit the minimum target in core areas (arithmetic and reading/phonics). Beyond that, there are audio books that play, there are special games (computer and card/board games), lots of unstructured play time, music, books everywhere, etc. The only thing I tend to have a fairly hard limit on is screen-time (non-educational and educational tv/computer game). Your driven child will want to do more (keep going)...your non-driven child will be more than happy to do the minimum and go about her day. Both of these children send very strong signals about what they desire. The child you may have to push a bit will be the quiet/compliant child -- in order to see where she gives you a bit of resistance, loses interest, is no longer excited about learning, just to try to find the "sweet spot" of enough, but not too much (it's always a test with this one...and it may differ depending upon the subject.)

 

AND, making things even more fun, a child can be driven, then decide something is too hard, shut down, insist they be given something a LOT easier...and then a month later be completely and utterly bored and want to go back to where you had them in the first place (and FWIW, this was my driven, but fairly compliant child.) So, even children who tend to one type or another can sometimes surprise you.

 

My older children probably averaged about 4 hours of school each day, usually not in one block, but their minimum core work was usually about 2.5 hours...they just usually did more voluntarily. My 4th child is the first child I've had who really doesn't care about how much she learns (in a formal setting). She doesn't care about finishing the workbook, or getting to the next reading book, or anything. She's doing an "advanced" 1st grade, but is not anywhere close to where her siblings were at this point. She doesn't have that personality...and until it's important to her, pushing would just make her more resistant...so we are just doing the minimum. I don't consider her accelerated (she *could* be, but it's not her choice to be...whereas with her older siblings, they were adamant about doing more). My 4yo is currently making demands to learn how to read...and taking over my lap, so I must go.

 

I wish you the best on this journey. You aren't alone in how you feel about doing too much/not doing enough. It is a wild ride.