Being the parent of a gifted child can be difficult. You are faced with so many tough decisions regarding what you should do or where you should school your child. And as you are trying to figure things out everyone else sure has their opinions to express. Often they are not so nice. This is where we begin to feel like terrible parents.
We have had to make so many decisions for our 3 gifted kids, and each time we honestly aren't sure if it is going to be the right thing. Is anyone ever positively sure?
We've tried "enhanced" curriculum or what the schools call "enrichment" to give extra work or challenge to the kids.
We've done the full time gifted program.
We've done the split grades thing.
We've tried not caring so much what they are doing at school and teaching them at home.
We've tried opening other opportunities to them outside of just academics like getting them more involved in the arts to keep them less bored.
And then in the end we've skipped all 3 of them up a grade.
Now, is this evil? Well, according to many many others, you would think we were cursing our children for life.
Just recently when deciding whether or not we should skip our daughter into 1st Grade, we got quite a lot of comments.
They would say, "Oh, you are robbing your kid's childhood!"
Now come on--how is putting my child in 1st grade "robbing their childhood"? It's not like I'm sending them to military school or making them get a job! So they go to school a little longer and do a little more challenging work at their level. Would it be better if we just let them sit home and watch tv all day? Is that giving them more of a childhood?
Or for my 10 year old who just skipped 5th grade, how many comments we received over that. There are so many people that have told us that skipping grades is absolutely the worst thing you can do to a kid and that they will surely hate us later when they are older and have such an awful social life.
Now, yes, skipping grades is a big deal, and I do look ahead and see my kids being very very young high schoolers, especially my little girl who is now in 1st grade as a 5 year old who will not turn 6 until the very end of the year. It is weird to know that she is in 1st grade right now with kids 2 years older in some cases. That's a big difference.
It's hard to see my 10 year old be in 6th grade knowing he will be in Junior High next year and seeing all the other older kids towering above him or so much more physically mature.
It's hard to see my just turned 8 year old in 3rd grade with kids that don't share the same interests as him because of his age.
So, yes, maybe I'm an evil mommy, but we really have had to weigh over all the pros and cons and when we've tried so many things, this seemed only to be the next option.
I don't believe so much that skipping your child grades will ruin them. I think every child is different and an individual.
Well, as we get the ugly looks and the murmurs behind our backs about how we did such a horrible thing to skip our kids grades, we hang on and hope that things will work out for the best. Maybe it's not the best thing to do for all children, but for our kids, we're giving it a try. True, all most parents want is to see their kids happy. With our kids, being happy has a lot to do with being challenged at school.
We have had to make so many decisions for our 3 gifted kids, and each time we honestly aren't sure if it is going to be the right thing. Is anyone ever positively sure?
We've tried "enhanced" curriculum or what the schools call "enrichment" to give extra work or challenge to the kids.
We've done the full time gifted program.
We've done the split grades thing.
We've tried not caring so much what they are doing at school and teaching them at home.
We've tried opening other opportunities to them outside of just academics like getting them more involved in the arts to keep them less bored.
And then in the end we've skipped all 3 of them up a grade.
Now, is this evil? Well, according to many many others, you would think we were cursing our children for life.
Just recently when deciding whether or not we should skip our daughter into 1st Grade, we got quite a lot of comments.
They would say, "Oh, you are robbing your kid's childhood!"
Now come on--how is putting my child in 1st grade "robbing their childhood"? It's not like I'm sending them to military school or making them get a job! So they go to school a little longer and do a little more challenging work at their level. Would it be better if we just let them sit home and watch tv all day? Is that giving them more of a childhood?
Or for my 10 year old who just skipped 5th grade, how many comments we received over that. There are so many people that have told us that skipping grades is absolutely the worst thing you can do to a kid and that they will surely hate us later when they are older and have such an awful social life.
Now, yes, skipping grades is a big deal, and I do look ahead and see my kids being very very young high schoolers, especially my little girl who is now in 1st grade as a 5 year old who will not turn 6 until the very end of the year. It is weird to know that she is in 1st grade right now with kids 2 years older in some cases. That's a big difference.
It's hard to see my 10 year old be in 6th grade knowing he will be in Junior High next year and seeing all the other older kids towering above him or so much more physically mature.
It's hard to see my just turned 8 year old in 3rd grade with kids that don't share the same interests as him because of his age.
So, yes, maybe I'm an evil mommy, but we really have had to weigh over all the pros and cons and when we've tried so many things, this seemed only to be the next option.
I don't believe so much that skipping your child grades will ruin them. I think every child is different and an individual.
Well, as we get the ugly looks and the murmurs behind our backs about how we did such a horrible thing to skip our kids grades, we hang on and hope that things will work out for the best. Maybe it's not the best thing to do for all children, but for our kids, we're giving it a try. True, all most parents want is to see their kids happy. With our kids, being happy has a lot to do with being challenged at school.
2 comments:
I can relate to this. When I put Damian in the new school it was to make things better. It seems i may have merely made them worse, but how could I know that?
As a 5 years old boy's father, I agree with you. My boy also complains about that it is boring in Kindergarten classroom. Since his intelligence test before 1 years old, the persistence has been his most important character. Thus, we find his attention, persistence and endurance is outstanding now in reading, math, Taekwondo, piano, chess and other board games. We do want to give him more challenge or enrichment to make him not so boring in school and after school. Of course, we do all our best to involve him in tennis, swimming, and other sports game to make his development in balance. What we are worrying about is his social ability. Because we find that he is willing to play alone rather than play with friends in similar age.
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