Thread: Exceptionally gifted children

This is a topic I became interested in because my third son, now three years old has been reading since he was two years old.

First we need a definition: What does it mean to say that a child can read? It means that you can give them a book or paper, which they haven't seen before, with no pictures or visual clues to what the words say, and they can read five words in that book or on the page. This definition is from a book entitled "Exceptionally gifted children" by Miraca Gross.

Particularly typical of exceptionally gifted children is not only do they read from an early age but they learn to read by themselves without being taught. In the case of my son, he learned from public television shows but I think that does not count as being taught because the important point is that he was not made to read by a parent obsessed with making the child read at an early age. This is certainly not the case with my youngest because this is my third child and both of his two older brothers learned to read at the usual age in first grade.

The study of this kind of exceptionally gifted children show that they typically have IQs of 170+. I know that my son has a good visual memory but not anything like a photographic memory. He has a particularly good aptitude for recognizing and identifying shapes. He has not only learned the english alphabet, numbers, and geometric shapes (like square, oval, crecent) but has also learned the Japanese alphabet (Hiragana) of 46 letters, which is better than his considerably older brothers. His early reading at the age of two was just remembering whole words including those which he could read on signs everywhere, but now he actually sounds out words he hasn't read before.

Here is an example of the most recent paper with words which I have used to measure his reading ability (with the results). On this one I was intentionally thinking up longer words which I knew that he would understand the meaning of, some of which were words I knew he could read already (last marked with *).
COMPUTER............read instantly
PAPER...................read instantly
TELEPHONE............read instantly
KITCHEN................read instantly
CHOCOLATE...........read instantly
LIBRARY ..............*read instantly
ALPHABET..............read instantly
OUTSIDE................read instantly
LIVING ROOM.........couldn't read
CIRCLE..................would not read possibly due to lost confidence
SENTENCE..............couldn't read
CHURCH.................would not read possibly due to lost confidence
GROCERY STORE....was determined to read but did not read without assistance
SCHOOL...............*read after some hesitation definitely due to lost confidence
PARKING..............*struggled with this, used to reading "no parking" signs
JAPANESE..............tried to sound this out but did not click
MORNING...............tried to sound this out but could not read
DANCING...............successfully sounded this out to figure out what it said
GRASSHOPPER......*read instantly
READING..............*read instantly
WORKING..............this one he figured out by sounding out the letters

I had exceptional reading and verbal skills at a similar age, but unfortunately my parents were less than adequate. As a result much of my adult life is working toward honing skills that should have been honed in adolescence. My only advice to you is to keep pushing the bar, keep challenging him, and give him a fulfilling life by training him from the very first day.

My only regret is that my photographic memory and other innate gifts were not exercised from day one. Were they, I would possibly be comparable to Leonardo Da Vinci, and I'm not joking.

You noticed that his first stumble was on two words not one? And I wholeheartedly agree about confidence.

I'm curious to know just how phonics-heavy this reading is. I mean, full-tilt phonics kids only incidentally comprehend the meaning of what they see and pronounce (they know it after hearing themselves vocalize it), while non-phonics children (though initially slower) will often guess a word before they've sounded it all out. In the long run phonics is a less direct route from page to comprehension, and the phonics adult might never read faster than an auctioneer rattles.

JAPANESE..............tried to sound this out but did not click

That's very interesting. I'm sure you know bilingual infants - phonics or not - compartmentalize language and concepts. So maybe I 'm reading too much into this but perhaps your boy isn't satisfied with sounding-out until the meaning "clicks"... and then he may extract the correct "dressing" from his audio knowledge. The concept "Japanese" should be isolated from his English thinking, for now. Test my hypothesis with scrambled versions of words he could read, like LACHETOCO (it's just chocolate :wink: ). ...Next, let him know the words are only silly sounds, and see if performance improves.

I made a thread in Biology asking about (normal) mass deaths of neurons in infants. Your precocious 2-yr-old is interesting because over a third of his neurons are scheduled for termination in the first three postnatal years. It hits like a wave of deaths because unconnected/unstimulated neurons have limited lifespan. Somehow (I'm speculating!) your child has exploited his pre-crunch abundance of neurons. He'll surely keep more than most of us. Maybe he'll cruise through the tantrum phase, if cell loss underlies tantrums.

Scheduled loss of grey matter seems a cruel injury. On the bright side you can think of this as "sculpting". How would David look as a solid slab of marble?

I knew a girl developed like your son, and she had seizures. There might be other risks or tradeoffs to an exceptional density of grey matter. :? Unusual intelligence suggests unusual neurology, and chemistry.

Originally Posted by Pong

You noticed that his first stumble was on two words not one? And I wholeheartedly agree about confidence.

Yes his exceptional gift at reading earlier doesn't change the fact that he only has the maturity of a three year old and since he has come to recognize that there are books that are too hard for him, he will often suddenly decide that a book is too hard for him when he encounters a word he cannot read, will decide he cannot read the whole book. But as you can also see, he does sometimes find the determination to push through that when his interest in the book is great enough.

Originally Posted by Pong

I'm curious to know just how phonics-heavy this reading is. I mean, full-tilt phonics kids only incidentally comprehend the meaning of what they see and pronounce (they know it after hearing themselves vocalize it), while non-phonics children (though initially slower) will often guess a word before they've sounded it all out. In the long run phonics is a less direct route from page to comprehension, and the phonics adult might never read faster than an auctioneer rattles.

JAPANESE..............tried to sound this out but did not click

That's very interesting. I'm sure you know bilingual infants - phonics or not - compartmentalize language and concepts. So maybe I 'm reading too much into this but perhaps your boy isn't satisfied with sounding-out until the meaning "clicks"... and then he may extract the correct "dressing" from his audio knowledge. The concept "Japanese" should be isolated from his English thinking, for now. Test my hypothesis with scrambled versions of words he could read, like LACHETOCO (it's just chocolate :wink: ). ...Next, let him know the words are only silly sounds, and see if performance improves.

Yes of course! His early reading was all a matter of learning whole words NOT by sounding them out. This he could do because of his high aptitude in pattern recognition and visual memory. Learning to sound out words and reading them that way is a more complex skill which he is only now beginning to master a year later.

Originally Posted by Pong

I made a thread in Biology asking about (normal) mass deaths of neurons in infants. Your precocious 2-yr-old is interesting because over a third of his neurons are scheduled for termination in the first three postnatal years. It hits like a wave of deaths because unconnected/unstimulated neurons have limited lifespan. Somehow (I'm speculating!) your child has exploited his pre-crunch abundance of neurons. He'll surely keep more than most of us. Maybe he'll cruise through the tantrum phase, if cell loss underlies tantrums.

My boy is now 3 yr old. No I don't think tantrums are caused by neuron loss (though the reverse might be true). LOL Tantrums involve a question of how they manipulate others to get what they want. The tantrum is the vestige of the method of infants for doing this. The longer the parent respond to this method the more the child develops this as a habitual means of getting what he wants. A clever child will find ways of enhancing the effectiveness of this methodology. My three year old does this by making himself throw up.

All people, children included, manage to learn different lessons in different ways, and thus different people are smart in different ways. My child may be good at learning to read but may be rather slow in learning the value of eating healthy for example (he is a real candy addict). A big part of this different smarts for different people has to with interest - they apply themselves to learn what they are interested in and thus for example a person good at math and physics may not be all that good at making money.

Originally Posted by mitchellmckain

Tantrums involve a question of how they manipulate others to get what they want.

They may and it's a rare child who does not learn to pull a tantrum, like a bogus owie.

One cause of tantrums I've heard, that seems true sometimes, is the mind-exploding possibilities of "no". Children gain this powerful device and proceed to swing it like a rattle. You ask, "Want a cookie?" and the child experiments "No".

Inwardly deciding "no" I mean. The result puzzles and enrages. I've actually seen a child barking "No No No" while clutching the thing chosen against. Learning the power to make choices must be quite a doozie.

My own kid's tantrums seemed oblivious to mom and I. He wasn't demanding anything from us. Attempts to understand and soothe, by optimistically talking him out of the trouble, only exasperated. He'd make clear we could do nothing to help, and he'd even remove his own carpet-clawing, fist-chewing self to a corner or another room. He wished his agony inflicted on nobody. After the child grew out of that we could have said we taught him the futility of tantrums. But that's like saying we taught him not to wet the bed, by not rewarding that behaviour.

Of course a child may learn to initiate some behaviour if they find it works to their advantage. Like maybe bedwetting in some cases. Mine used to cry out about a pain in his eye: he learned it from bath-time, but soon a lack of candy or failure to stop at the pet store became hurtful to the eye.

Finally, tantrum is a behaviour that may have different and evolving causes. I think an infant's significant and unsteady loss of brain cells would come out a bit in behaviour.



I'm curious about your son, Mitchell. How's his sympathy? Like, when he sees Barney or whatever dancing does he mimic? More or less than the first two? Does his mood swing a lot? How is his motor development? Is he fascinated by anything in particular? Anything you did quite differently as a parent?

Originally Posted by Pong

I'm curious about your son, Mitchell. How's his sympathy? Like, when he sees Barney or whatever dancing does he mimic? More or less than the first two?

no more or less than the first two.

Originally Posted by Pong

Does his mood swing a lot? How is his motor development?

I would not describe him as moody. His motor development is the same or better. I is certainly higher energy than the other two. But what was noticeable was goal oriented cleverness - finding a way to get what he wants like stacking things to climb up to get things out of reach from an early age (1 yr old).

Originally Posted by Pong

Is he fascinated by anything in particular?

Yeah letters and numbers and shapes - seeing them and identifying them everywhere even inside larger patterns. That was the very first evidence of exceptional behavior. But I really mean it - letters was his number one obsession, with candy coming in a close second (the first holding his attention for long periods of time and the second for the insistence of his demands).

Originally Posted by Pong

Anything you did quite differently as a parent?

Only in response to his differences. In other words, as he expressed such an extra-ordinary interest in reading, I and others began to indulge his interest in special activitities. Like for example, every week one summer (2 yrs old) I took him to a different library branch in the Salt Lake Valley for their story time.

You should take an active, not a PASSIVE role, in parenting. If you did not do so you should have done so with your prior children. Taking your child to reading sessions because he loves to read is supportive, but you should have been doing that all along to build the intelligence of your prior children regardless of their initial interests. It should not matter if you take care of all of them anyway.

You should also train him heavily in things he is not immediately interested in, such as mathematics. And never allow public schools to go at their ridiculously slow pace. I was taught division before the second grade and come to find out MOST schools don't teach it until the fourth or later (wtf?). Push him. Edge him on. Train him to be more than you could ever be.

Originally Posted by mitchellmckain

letters was his number one obsession

While this is a "gift", and of all possible obsessions reading's the most fruitful, I wonder if that isn't a bit exclusive? Because if he's doing one thing he isn't doing something else. Like he could be reading every streetsign on a walk, while other children notice puddle worms and truck fumes. At your son's age he needs diverse & rich experience. This is the broad platform he builds on. Cruelly, a foundation neglected in the toddler years can't be bootstrapped later.

The talents of gifted children strike us because we relate to them. They're overt. However much much more human cognition is unconscious. For example calculating the safety margin of traction on icy steps. Or anticipating the exact moment Wile E. Coyote begins to fall after looking down. These too take intelligence, of other sorts.

So my unsolicited advice is, by all means encourage and enable literacy and later mathematics I think - it's awesome - but not to exclusion. A toddler must also learn properties of playdough and flight dynamics of packing peanuts. But I guess with two older siblings he'll get plenty of other stimulation.

There are two senses to the term "extrovert" and both seem to fit your son. In one sense, extrovert is social - it just means he seeks to engage people. In another sense, extrovert (as opposed to introvert) has to do with nerves - the ratio of sensory input vs. one's capacity to process that input. An introvert, then, is someone more or less oppressed by too much information, who seeks to regulate that. An extrovert, conversely, is always hungry for more. That could be due to weak inputs, or an exceptionally open mind. Either way, the extrovert finds his world too simple.

I'm not meaning to suggest classic giftedness is necessarily a problem mistaken for an advantage. I believe these kids overall better... if we're allowed to say that.

Originally Posted by Pong

While this is a "gift", and of all possible obsessions reading's the most fruitful, I wonder if that isn't a bit exclusive? Because if he's doing one thing he isn't doing something else. Like he could be reading every streetsign on a walk, while other children notice puddle worms and truck fumes. At your son's age he needs diverse & rich experience. This is the broad platform he builds on. Cruelly, a foundation neglected in the toddler years can't be bootstrapped later.

The important thing is that it is HIS interest - HIS choice. This is why I completely disagree with Darius. Parents who set out to "build" their children are really annihilating their children with their own oppressive will for their lives. Children are not things and they are not created by design but by their own choices in response to the stimulation of their environment, of which the parent should only be one small part, in fact, preferably only one parent out of two or more. One of things they need is encouragement to help them develop the confidence and determination that will enable them to acheive difficult goals, but it if the goals don't come from them then it is all meaningless as far as I am concerned.

You and Darius are of course free to engage whatever ideas you have in your own parenting experience. It is one of the greatest and most important freedoms there are. But a parent with any capacity to learn will very quickly learn what a incredibly arrogant thing it is to take on the task of parenting because I guarantee that you are NOT as capable, competent and sufficient for the job as you think you are when you set out on it.

But one thing I will certainly guard against is the development of this victim's mentality that what he is and all his problems is a product of what other people have done. Life is too precious to waste one second on such thinking.

Originally Posted by Pong

So my unsolicited advice is, by all means encourage and enable literacy and later mathematics I think - it's awesome - but not to exclusion. A toddler must also learn properties of playdough and flight dynamics of packing peanuts. But I guess with two older siblings he'll get plenty of other stimulation.

He has two older brothers and three parents as well, one of whom is retired from the teaching profession (for ages 6-12). One thing I will not do is impose on him someones idea of what he "should" be doing in order develop "properly". I have far more confidence in his own ability to decide what he "should" be doing. And it is his own interest that has him reading, studying mathematics and two foreign languages. There are of course limits to this do whatever he wants sort of thing and that its the real difficulty, imposing those limits for his own safety and other family member's freedom to live their own lives. Anyway we can only do what every parent has had to do since the beginning of time - the best they can in perpetual crisis management. Smart kids can be dangerous to themselves and others and sometimes the miracle is just surviving their own inventiveness and ingeniuty, mine is certainly a destructive whirlwind.

Originally Posted by Pong

There are two senses to the term "extrovert" and both seem to fit your son. In one sense, extrovert is social - it just means he seeks to engage people.

Yep. But I think that a lot of this is a trained response. Does their parent hold them tightly in fear or watch from a distance? Even the length of breast feeding plays a part of this, by how it encourages a dependence on one person. I have raised all my sons with the watch from a distance approach, and my three year old walks up to anyone and everyone in the library to ask them questions and make friends with them on his own.

Originally Posted by Pong

I'm not meaning to suggest classic giftedness is necessarily a problem mistaken for an advantage. I believe these kids overall better... if we're allowed to say that.

I don't see much truth in your theory at all, if only because the actual complexity makes any simple minded approach like this look pretty ridiculous.

Originally Posted by mitchellmckain

I guarantee that you are NOT as capable, competent and sufficient for the job as you think you are when you set out on it.

It was that insight that released me to finally just do it. I realized that no one is ever ready.

Originally Posted by mitchellmckain

family member's freedom to live their own lives

Do you think his brothers might exclude him? Also, how do you suppose they might define themselves differently with this character for contrast?

Another question: since this boy (and probably his brothers too) are guaranteed celebrity status if they go to school in Japan, how do you feel about that?

Originally Posted by mitchellmckain

your theory

I'm unsure which "theory" you mean. Your critique there could apply to anything.

Originally Posted by Pong

Do you think his brothers might exclude him? Also, how do you suppose they might define themselves differently with this character for contrast?

Well I would hope that they would have learned better than to define themselves by comparison to others. But anyway the age gap is too great for this to have any such effect. My sons are ages 15,13 and 3. 10 year gap. THUS they DO exclude him quite a bit and most of the attention he gets is from the 3 adults. He has the character of an only child most ways.

Originally Posted by Pong

Another question: since this boy (and probably his brothers too) are guaranteed celebrity status if they go to school in Japan, how do you feel about that?

Celebrity status??? what makes you think that? gaijin is gaijin - ill mannered foreigners are forgiven for any number of sins because they aren't really proper persons and never will be. LOL My point is that there is always two sides to things like this. I expect they will first be delighted and then they will hate it and it is only when they leave that they will realize that they have learned to love the place. We love and enjoy japanese culture from a distance.

Originally Posted by Pong

I'm unsure which "theory" you mean. Your critique there could apply to anything.

I was talking about your weak input vs information overload explanation of extrovert and introvert.

mitchell, I agree with you about your parenting goals, and I hope I'm able to do the same when I have kids one day. I would like to add something I read in an article (which I've been having trouble relocating...) about children who are viewed as gifted or particularly smart. Many of these children are so used to being told that they're smart and talented that when they come across something that is genuinely challenging to them, they refuse to do it - they're afraid that the fact that they don't get it right away might mean they're actually not smart. What I do think we should help children understand is that even talented people need to work at some things, and working through something challenging will improve your talents that much more. I'm not sure how one should go about impressing that to a three year old, haha, but I do think it's worth keeping in mind.

Celebrity
My son's very outgoing and demonstrative... his "gift" is a totally unexpected leadership instinct. He attended preschool in Japan for two months, and kinda rocked the social conventions. Taught children to hug. Now the school wants him back. As well being "half" he could easily get modeling and performing jobs. I think most foreign kids have similar experience.


Explanation of extrovert and introvert
Good call, I guess that is hypothesis. But if you think it's mine, see here .

Originally Posted by paralith

mitchell, I agree with you about your parenting goals, and I hope I'm able to do the same when I have kids one day. I would like to add something I read in an article (which I've been having trouble relocating...) about children who are viewed as gifted or particularly smart. Many of these children are so used to being told that they're smart and talented that when they come across something that is genuinely challenging to them, they refuse to do it - they're afraid that the fact that they don't get it right away might mean they're actually not smart. What I do think we should help children understand is that even talented people need to work at some things, and working through something challenging will improve your talents that much more. I'm not sure how one should go about impressing that to a three year old, haha, but I do think it's worth keeping in mind.

It might not even be fear. It might just be a matter of getting tired of being put in a box. Growing up I became very tired of being called "a brain". I was a person not a brain. It is like a runner being called "legs" or an athlete being called "muscles" or a singer being called "mouth". Can you see how that can be very tiresome?

Another way of looking at that is life script and counter-script. I.e. rebellion.

Perhaps the most devious influence a parent may have is in cuing harmless rebellion. For example one may frame: "What are you going to do all summer? Study seriously or waste time camping with your friends?"

Originally Posted by mitchellmckain

Particularly typical of exceptionally gifted children

If you have a gifted child, protect it.

There are forces in this world that seek out the gifted and destroy their gift, so they cannot compete with those forces.

Be wary of governments and organizations that want to test the extent of your child's gift. If they do determine it is gifted, they know it needs to be targetted and they will destroy that child's gift.

I think the number one lesson you can teach your child gifted or otherwise is how to be a nice, fair, decent person. That will give him the base with which to succeed in whatever he/she does.

Originally Posted by AeDeAeMn0886

I think the number one lesson you can teach your child gifted or otherwise is how to be a nice, fair, decent person. That will give him the base with which to succeed in whatever he/she does.

I agree with the first statement, and I wish the second statement necessarily followed. Consider Mahatma Gandhi's: "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." This implies sacrifice doesn't it? Now put that into context of raising the next generation. Child sacrifice?! I do sacrifice my child. I often impose this nice, fair, decent person into rotten social situations knowing he'll be marred and knowing also some of him will rub off onto others, to their advantage. Like that obnoxious twirp at school and his sketchy parents who are a negative influence. They need a positive influence. Somebody's got to provide it. But nice guys don't always finish last thank goodness.

My boy's already been hurt (by girls naturally ) to the point of tears and days of sorrow. What's gonna happen when he hits high school? Success?

Was Clark Kent successful? (wait for the lyrics )

Can a gifted child change the world as a very very good bus driver?

Being a good person doesnt mean being a doormat. You show respect you get respect thats the way this world works.

Originally Posted by Karlson

Be wary of governments and organizations that want to test the extent of your child's gift. If they do determine it is gifted, they know it needs to be targetted and they will destroy that child's gift.

A little paranoid schizophrenia anyone?

Originally Posted by Karlson

There are forces in this world that seek out the gifted and destroy their gift, so they cannot compete with those forces.

Yes there are! But it is not governments and organizations. It is parent and teachers. In order to fight this you first have to understand why. It is difficult to raise and teach a child that is smarter than you are. Intellegent children are a danger to themselves and those around them because they can think of ways to carry out the notions that come into their head, but they do not have the experience to understand what the consequences may be.

A parent has to use whatever edge they can find to manipulate and distract their children from the endless dangers that this world holds for them. But controlling their every move is not only something that most parents cannot do because of all the other things they have to attend to, but I doubt that this is healthy for the child for other reasons. A child also needs space in which to explore not only the world around them but themselves as well.

Every parent has to find their own way of balancing these various difficulties and challenges - and for a child that is smarter than they are that is bound to include a great deal of coping with disasters. But I am afraid that some parents and teachers, whether consciously or unconsciously solve the problem by crushing the intellegence, creativity and inquisitiveness of such children in order to make them easier to manage.

Originally Posted by mitchellmckain

Originally Posted by Karlson

Be wary of governments and organizations that want to test the extent of your child's gift. If they do determine it is gifted, they know it needs to be targetted and they will destroy that child's gift.

A little paranoid schizophrenia anyone?

Originally Posted by Karlson

There are forces in this world that seek out the gifted and destroy their gift, so they cannot compete with those forces.

Yes there are! But it is not governments and organizations. It is parent and teachers. In order to fight this you first have to understand why. It is difficult to raise and teach a child that is smarter than you are. Intellegent children are a danger to themselves and those around them because they can think of ways to carry out the notions that come into their head, but they do not have the experience to understand what the consequences may be.

A parent has to use whatever edge they can find to manipulate and distract their children from the endless dangers that this world holds for them. But controlling their every move is not only something that most parents cannot do because of all the other things they have to attend to, but I doubt that this is healthy for the child for other reasons. A child also needs space in which to explore not only the world around them but themselves as well.

Every parent has to find their own way of balancing these various difficulties and challenges - and for a child that is smarter than they are that is bound to include a great deal of coping with disasters. But I am afraid that some parents and teachers, whether consciously or unconsciously solve the problem by crushing the intellegence, creativity and inquisitiveness of such children in order to make them easier to manage.

Like stuey in Family Guy ? lol

Here's an old article that may pertain to your discussion:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=...ing-smart-kids

Originally Posted by DrmDoc

Here's an old article that may pertain to your discussion:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=...ing-smart-kids

Sorry but we don't click on links like this. If I was the moderator of this section of the forum I would delete this post. A forum is for discussion and just providing a link to say things for you is not acceptable. This is despite the fact that I love Scientific American. It is the only periodical that I subscribe to. But you must at least give your impression of what you are providing a link to or this is just spam.

Originally Posted by mitchellmckain

Sorry but we don't click on links like this.

No, you don't click links.

If I was the moderator of this section of the forum I would delete this post.

This is why you don't moderate any sections that matter.

A forum is for discussion and just providing a link to say things for you is not acceptable.

Heaven forbid someone not waste their time rewriting what someone else wrote better!

A forum is for discussion and just providing a link to say things for you is not acceptable. This is despite the fact that I love Scientific American. It is the only periodical that I subscribe to. But you must at least give your impression of what you are providing a link to or this is just spam.

If I had an opinion, I would have given it. The article was for information purposes only and not advertisement. Given your topic, I though your readers here would find it interesting--particularly those who are not subscribers to Scientific American and were not aware of the article. Excuse my intrusion.

Ok, mitchell is a valuable contributor to a few sections, but not that often in this one, while DrmDoc is a valuable contributor to mostly only this section (one of the few). Mitchell meet DrmDoc; DrmDoc, meet mitchellmckain. :wink:

Mitch is correct that simple link posting with no further contribution is generally discouraged, but I am sure that DrmDoc's intentions were pure in this case. A simple misunderstanding and no harm done, so let's forget it.

Hello DrmDoc, apologies for being all uptight out my place and sorry for being a trouble making visitor. As I said, I do like Scientific American. It is a great publication.

Anyway, I read the article. The first part is a theme of a few books and films and I had a small portion of that experience myself (not that I was exceptionally gifted). In fact, to tell the truth, I think my own experience leads me to conclude the such linear measures completely distort the picture of things. People and their abilities are really complex. My three year old leads me to suspect that a high aptitude in one little thing (in his case pattern recognition) can give advantage that allows one to leap forward in learning. Because besides this one thing I don't really see exceptional abilities. Despite his ability to read everything in sight, my three year old talks and acts like other three year olds, well perhaps I should say like his siblings.

Another way of looking at this growth mind set rather than fix mind set is to say that it is our choices and efforts that are important to us rather than our abilities. How many of you have heard this type of comment: "well of course he did well, he is a brain." In this way, praising ability can shoot down what really matters. One of the things that is quite common in the portrayal of this theme in books in films is how parents often take credit for the childs achievement, and this is another way they shoot down what really matters, the choice and effort that the child has put into what he does.

Hello mitchellmckain,

It seems I do have an opinion or theory of sorts, which I briefly wrote about in another discussion line. I think much of what our children will come to be is centered around what they may have acquired in the womb. This isn't about playing fine music to a plump belly, this is about the interests, attitudes, and skills of the mother and the bond or link she has with the child in her womb. If a child is gifted, my opinion is that this gift came from the spirit and mind of the mother during the nine months she shared with the child in her womb. I believe there's more that happens in the womb than what we are able to determine at birth.

Here's a link to a recent article that seems to support aspects of thoughts I've expressed:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0512093301.htm

From personal experience, coming from Finland teh pisa test no.1 country, i can just say whole educational system here is ridiculous, lemme just type my history shortly,

first adhd suspicions, then eventually school&my parents decided to send me to professional for examination for adhd!?! something must be wrong when kid disobeys in school pblaaablaa...

and humdi dumdi then they figured out that i cannot have adhd due, my outstanding scoring in iq test, several years ahead of my class mates...

and the conclusion that teachers did infer from this was to reward me with already boring&too easy tasks and parents were quiet about the whole thing so i would not turn to evil elitist... (WTF?!)

So then i was diagnosed as exceptionally gifted, and from adhd&problem kid i turned into underachiever... or so they said always to me that im "underachiever" becouse i just did not care, i was annoyed already to society before i hit even teenage, school for "education" when its main purpose was lying&teaching place in sosial structure for common folk. Just look up statistics for fun how well these modern schools can raise middle/lower class born gifted children, funny how this "Equality promoting" schooling actually does opposite, it prevents poor&middle-class with high cognitive capability succeed in "capitalism"

Anyways results, are more than satisfying, im greatly amused that my old school mates are all asking me nowaydays what im doing and almost crying when i tell em, that i don't do anything for our society nor study officially, some even seems to hate me becouse i "waste" all my gifts...

So for your child's sake teach him problem solving playfully early on, and teach him systems of authority, whether teachers are allowed to hit or not, other children will do it...

Good reading regarding schooling John Taylor Gatto:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm

I teach/taught myself. The way I see it, nobody can teach me better.

It's all right being gifted, but if you don't want to learn, you won't. I am maybe not gifted, but I want to learn, and I persue my interests in and out of school.

What I mean is, it isn't the school that was the problem, it was your atitude.

well, i do constantly educate my self, try seek alternative view points, simply but it's hard for me to answer shortly or maintain precision on staying topic, im constantly seeing things in larger picture, and what could be, also i have problem of sacrificing ideas in order to implement even one, been trying to figure this one out, that i need to evaluate what ideas have practical possibility of succeeding, and let go others.

thus im very frustrated by rigid&formal educational system and hate it can dumb down people to think just specific field of intrest even they would have capacity for more.

Also there's kinda positive things also in my "failure" at school, it has even further reinforced my own thinking&seeking alternatives.

Lack of intrest in competition&authoritarian system's just makes me very poor fit, in capitalistic society.

partly reason why i hate "schooling" in the way it's happening in western countries, is the attitude found in many that after they get education for their work/job it's enough, when in democracy it's pretty much mandatory people keep learning new things in order to make it better society.

and reason why my attitude was bad, oh well being gifted doesnt still give you "superpowers" in reasoning and as child i build up quite good hate towards ageism, teachers etc usually work through frame of median, and assuming students being at certain level etc...

top-down learning combined with strongly disagreeing personality whom wants to cooperate is kinda tricky in school, as school wants you to follow rules&do tasks, no questions asked&strong feeling that school kills creativity&lack of ability to sacrifice ideas.

less creativity, less i feel my self
then i value even less my work.
and less i want to defend it.

For me, school has become quite boring and repetative. There's just not that much freedom. You either follow this linear path or you drop out. Still, I blame myself for my grades starting to fail as a result of me being lazy and perhaps a bit spoiled. Anyhow, my solution to this problem is to finish the last year and go to the military where I'll catch up on some of the study I was unable to get in school. It seems to have worked for some.

Really, some children may have great potential, but they could at times use a kick in the ass in order to move forwards (like me).

Hmmm. I learn what interests me, and use that to work out the answer to questions in exams. That's why I don't revise.

I sure needed a kick in the ass I never got. I never got it because I was bright enough to not need help and still pass well enough; just not spectacularly. With more help I could have learned alot more and passed alot more. One saturday afternoon with a lab instructor for "Historical Geology"; which she told me to do with her because I wasn't a geology major, gave me the top mark for the lab portion of the midterm exam!

Kids who have above-average ability STILL need pushing!
They don't need religious brainwashing. It takes time away from them.
It does them harm. Your kid, your choice to damage him or not.