A Gifted Child

Recently I came across an article entitled “10 Signs Your Child May Be Gifted“.  It caught my attention for a number of reasons.  The first one is because I’m educator, I often come across parents (and students) who think they are gifted.  I say “think” because the students are not normally gifted. 


There’s a big difference between being smart and being gifted.  Lots of people are smart.  I believe I fall into the smart category.  Smart is pretty common, but it’s not common for a person to be gifted.  This is a (awkward) conversation I’ve had to have with parents before.  Some of the problem stems from elementary school.  Just because a student tested as “advanced” in second grade doesn’t mean they will still be advanced in eighth grade. 


And when things keep getting harder and your “gifted” student can’t keep up, they’re probably not gifted.  I taught excel English (our school’s version of the advanced class) for two years and I hated it.  Parents feel their student can’t do anything wrong and it’s always the teachers fault and students feel entitled.  And when something starts to get too hard or they’re challenged in a new way, it’s not that the child might not be cut out for the class, it’s something the teacher is doing wrong.  Grr.


Another reason this article caught my attention is because I’m a parent.  And I’m a parent with an extremely smart child.  Now the educator side of my brain says I don’t need to think my child is that special, but my parent side says my kid is pretty bright.  And it isn’t just me who thinks this.


Since Elliott was born, she has participated in research studies at Riley Children’s Hospital.  It started out with a hearing study and since then she’s done a couple language studies, some play studies and she’s also part of a yearly growth and development study.  Some times she’ll have to go and be recorded while listening to a story or maybe she’ll spend an hour playing with Chris and a researched while being videotaped.  We often get surveys in the mail that we’re supposed to fill out about her environment, words she says, parental interactions, etc.  When a study is done, we get sent the report and it’s neat to read the findings and know that we helped them understand more about the speech patterns of children with hearing problems or how parent interactions help vocabulary development.


Recently Elliott did her two year evaluation at the hospital.  It was two 3-4 hour sessions where she was videotaped playing with Chris, interacting and being interviewed with a researcher, and then doing some hearing and speech tests. 


The results were impressive.  When the tests were done, Ellie was 25 months old, but she tested in verbal, reasoning, and logical areas at 4 years plus.  Her vocabulary was also at the level of a four year old.  She’s smart, but I could have told you that before the test results.  It’s obvious when you talk to her or play with her.


And so reading this article, and the 10 things, it got me thinking more.  Elliott has about five of the indicators on the list.  So she could go either way, really.  And while I want my daughter(s) to be smart, I don’t want them to be too smart.  That probably sounds weird to say, huh?  I would rather them be smart and hardworkers than just gifted.  Because being gifted comes with some awkward quirks.  And some times a sense of entitlement without earning it.  And just because you’re gifted doesn’t mean you have any drive or a hardworking bone in your body.  So I think smart is good enough.  I want my daughters to be hard workers and smart.  Because I think that will serve them better in the long run.