I just got this message. "I found your blog while researching an article I'm writing for Parents magazine. I'm looking to interview the parents of an exceptional/gifted child. The main goal of this article will be to help parents learn how to deal with their kids' separate needs. In many families, one child is the subject of much attention due to either a positive accomplishment (ie. academic exellence, mvp) or a negative situation (ie. chronic illness, behavior issues). When this happens, a perfectly normal/average child may begin to feel inadequate or left out. I hope to raise parents awareness of this situation and give them tools for dealing with it. I read that your children are grown, but I thought you might be able to connect me to a family with 2 young children (under the age of 10) because of your connection with the Mensa organization."
I'm always willing to help out a fellow writer, but in this case I'm not qualified because my kids are too old for Parents' target audience. Can anyone out there help a brutha' out?
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2 comments:
This intrigues me. I have an 8 1/2, 5 and 2 1/2 - all boys. The oldest has qualified for the Highly academically gifted program in NC (99+% percentile). The other two are showing signs of academic/intellectual giftedness as well, but our state does not test until 2nd grade and we are not planning to test privately (though we did the first time around due to other issues including teachers who were interested in diagnosing other things.)
Our approach has always been not to focus on the giftedness, but instead to reinforce that all children/people have a special gift of some kind. For my 8 year old that has translated into the idea that while others in his class need to work hard on spelling/math/....., he has never even studied - but other kids seemingly have an inborn ability to behave and follow directions in class, while he struggles mightily.
Also - I have a very close friend who has a very highly gifted 5 year old and a 10 year old with Down Syndrome (very high functioning) - I don't want to volunteer her - but she might be willing.
If she is interested, she may contact me at dlamphier@yahoo.com
Not only do I now have children in the same situation and age groups, but I also saw this in my home growing up. My youngest brother has an extremely high IQ and the brother closet to him always felt like a failure - the younger (high IQ) brother at 4 reading books to the 6 year old. This drove me to spend the last 20 years researching gifted education.
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