My view: The joys and challenges of raising a gifted child By Chandra Moseley, Special to CNN
Editor’s note: Chandra Moseley is a working, single mom. A resident of a Colorado city, she makes sure to expose her daughter to small-town living through weekly trips to the Rocky Mountains.
(CNN) – My daughter, who is 5, was identified last year as "gifted.” Well, I honestly had never properly understood what being "gifted" meant. I naively thought, "Oh, my baby is so advanced, she is just so smart!”
For those of you who are truly unaware of what being gifted means, let me help you understand.
Gifted students are defined by the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) as those who demonstrate outstanding levels of aptitude or competence in one or more domains.
The part of the definition that’s missing - and what I so desperately needed to understand - is the social and behavioral issues that may come with giftedness.
For one thing, my daughter, Nya, is a perfectionist. She gets frustrated even if she only slightly draws outside of the lines. She also gets unnerved by certain loud noises (buzzing or toilets flushing) and even the seams on her socks. I’ve had to turn her socks inside out because the seam on her toes irritated her so much. I thought she was just being fussy.
I became aware of Nya’s giftedness through Rev. Regina Groff, a family member’s minister, who noticed the way Nya was coloring when she was just 2. Rev. Groff has gifted children of her own and recognized Nya's frustration each time she drew outside of the lines. That type of frustration and overexcelling is all part of the perfectionism characteristic of being gifted. Just that simple act of frustration revealed her giftedness at the right time that day.
There are other characteristics of giftedness that for many, including my daughter, are telltale signs - excessive energy, unending curiosity, emotionally advanced, early and superior language skills or a need for perfectionism. Gifted children might have supersensitivities, and that’s what was going on with the loud noises and her socks.
Rev. Groff suggested getting Nya tested and recommended an early childhood education public preschool that has a program for gifted children. Her children attended the same school, and she could not say enough good things about it. I was in the process of trying to find, as many parents do, the "perfect preschool.” Thank God, I listened to her advice and pursued that specific school. I am a firm believer in the notion that God sends people into our lives to guide us, inspire us, lead us and teach us. Rev. Groff guided me that day into the right place my daughter needed to be, and Nya continues to guide me into the right place I need to be.
Nya, which means fulfilled wish, has always been extraordinarily special to me. She was a gift from the day she was born, delivered to me by another vessel. Nya is adopted. I sometimes have to remind myself of that because she couldn't possibly be any more like me. In what I thought could be only one miraculous event by her being born, she continues to produce miracles and forever enrich my life. She has not only taught me what unconditional love feels like - how to laugh until your belly aches, how to play like you are the silliest person in the room - but also how to be so aware that every challenging moment in your life exposes you, teaches you and prepares you for something to come.
I remember Nya’s first year of preschool. What could have been a 10 minute homework session (yes, homework in preschool) turned into an hour and a half of erasing and rewriting each word until in her mind it was perfect. Let me tell you, there were many pencils being thrown across the room (not by me), breakdowns, and crying (yes, some by me.)
What I didn't understand at the time was her constant quest for perfection.
Her amazing teacher, Brenda Natt, explained to me that it is all part of being gifted and that was the very reason Natt cuts off all the erasers of her pencils in her classroom. She understands that her students struggle with that issue and what she wanted them to understand was that it was OK if something isn't perfect sometimes.
The same teacher strongly advised me to enroll Nya in a gifted school to prevent her from getting lost in the loopholes of a typical school program - not only academically but also emotionally. She told me, "gifted kids are almost comparable to special needs children. While their IQs are high, they have behavioral aspects that need special attention and the right teachers with the right understanding to guide them."
After four years of questions - How can Nya go from 1 to 10 over something so simple? How can she be so sweet, compassionate, mellow and then completely lose her cool over not remembering the right words to a verse of a song? Why is she such a hothead? - all of this was finally making sense. If I only knew then what I know now.
What I have learned is not to deter Nya from finishing a project or even a simple task when she’s in the middle of it. Gifted children are not all on the same page; they all have very different levels of needs, some more than others.
It has been fascinating and amusing to talk to other moms in her class and compare how they react to certain situations in the same way. I am constantly learning and trying to gain knowledge on how to help Nya be the person she is destined to be, while she has helped me be the person we needed me to be.
One of the most important things now truly embedded in my thought process is the notion that we just don't know what a child may be struggling with or what a parent might be going through. Many of us have witnessed situations in stores or restaurants where a child is lashing out or just having a complete breakdown and we are so quick to assume or place judgment on that parent.
"They just don't know how to discipline!" "That child is a complete brat!" or even "That kid is completely out of control and that parent has no idea what they are doing!"
What I have realized is that parents are all on the same team. I really wish we would start doing less criticizing of each other and do more listening, learning, encouraging and supporting. Like my example in the store, maybe next time we see a child in that circumstance, we can evaluate that situation and maybe show support by a kind smile, a glance of understanding, a sweet distraction or maybe, for some, a sincere prayer.
That’s what it's all about, right? To learn from each other and grow with each other. To continue to become better for each other, our children and generations to come.
Post by OHMBLEEGOHHHHH! on Aug 23, 2012 10:13:51 GMT -5
I can see that. I am not gifted (TRY TO REMAIN CALM), but school was realllllly easy for me, and I loved it. I never had to work to grasp anything, I just picked up on it. There were 3 instances through school where I couldn't, and I remember them to this day. There was one in elementary school where I couldn't figure out where I was messing up in a math equation, one in middle school where I couldn't make a CAD program work how I wanted, and one in high school where I couldn't grasp a passage in a Spanish novel. Each one ended in half in hour of screeching, embarrassing panic. I have NO patience for anything that I can't quicky grasp today, and I start internally freaking out over it. And I have about half the smarts and half the OCD as this girl seems to.
Post by speckledfrog on Aug 23, 2012 10:14:30 GMT -5
This article rubs me the wrong way. "My gifted child is just sooooo special."
Gifted children are not all on the same page; they all have very different levels of needs, some more than others. Unlike all those other kids, who are all exactly the same. I think this lady just wanted to take some time to tell the world how awesome she thinks her kid is. I think she forgot that almost all moms feel the same way.
I teach at a gifted and talented school...some of the traits she talks about are things I've noticed in my kids. Then again, I'm not sure they're exclusive to the gifted/talented set. I agree with pp; the author didn't offer any usable advice or observations that weren't specific to her kid. Bragplaint.
Sooo, OCD now means gifted? That was about what I got out of that article.
We had a "gifted" program in school. I wasn't in it. However I was friends with the kids who were (their parents even let them play with us normal folk too!!). I will tell you, by the time HS rolled around, they damn near cracked under the pressure of feeling like they had to be perfect every where they went because of the program and then of their parent's over inflated egos.
I felt so bad for them. Sure, they were/are smart. But they couldn't act like normal kids, their parents wouldn't let them. And the school would come back with "well we know Bob would NEVER do anything like that" when in fact, the kid just wanted to screw up in some ways like normal teenagers.
I'm interested to know how parents of special needs kids react to her comment about the similarities. I don't know if it's a fair comparison.
As a parent to a "special needs" child I actually noticed that some of the things she mentioned are similar to my son, specifically the sensitivity to touch. Personal I think no matter what your child is "diagnosed" with, all kids have special needs. No kid is perfect and no two are the same.
My mom teaches runs a gifted education program. She's always hammering home that being gifted in one area doesn't mean a child can't be delayed in another or have a serious behavioral issue. And if a child really is gifted, they have a hard road ahead of them. I think the people who are more successful long term are bright, average students who work really hard and have good social skills.
I have all the books I could need, and what more could I need than books? I shall only engage in commerce if books are the coin. -- Catherynne M. Valente
I was talking to my son's preschool teacher this morning (NOT about him being gifted or not, LOL) and she quoted something and said "All children are gifted. They just open their gifts at different times." I like that a lot!
This woman is a total bragplainer. Her child may very well be gifted, but she seems to also have some sensory issues or something.
I was telling my H today that I hope our kid is mediocre at most things and pretty good at one or two just enough to make him interested in something and confident. Not gifted. That seems like a pretty big cross to bear.
My mom teaches runs a gifted education program. She's always hammering home that being gifted in one area doesn't mean a child can't be delayed in another or have a serious behavioral issue. And if a child really is gifted, they have a hard road ahead of them. I think the people who are more successful long term are bright, average students who work really hard and have good social skills.
My brother was one of these. He was always striving to be perfect that he just gave up all together his junior year of college. It was easier for people to not expect things of him. He is socially awkward and has a hard time relating to people on a normal level. Growing up, I always wanted to be like him- things just came so easy to him and I struggled through things normal kids struggled with. Now, I'm glad I'm not like him and it hurts to think that he may never get to know what "normal" is.
i think raising children has special challenges. because you're supposed to fight for them. as individuals. for whatever their individual needs are. so maybe she should drink a nice tall glass of shutthefuckup.
i think raising children has special challenges. because you're supposed to fight for them. as individuals. for whatever their individual needs are. so maybe she should drink a nice tall glass of shutthefuckup.