By Maxine McLellan
You have been blessed with a brilliant child and yes, you can deal with this if you will only learn how! After all, they got their brilliance from somewhere so why not take the credit? Would it surprise you to learn that brilliance in a child comes with its own set of challenges? If you are like most people, you probably think a challenged child has significant delays or difficulties with one or more aspects of academic and/or social learning. These challenges may or may not be obvious. Some appear only as the child begins to receive formal academic instruction. There tends to be a good array of resources and aid available for teaching such a child.
On the other side of the coin is the child who seemingly came out of the womb and almost from the first day exhibited extra special abilities and developed mentally at a rapid pace. Perhaps the most significant challenge in such a case is the attitude of the parent who feels intimidated and unqualified to teach such a precocious offspring. An average parent may question, “From where did they get those brains? Now what do we do? How do we deal with this?” Lesson to learn: challenges are just opportunities to grow!
As a home school consultant since the late 1980’s many parents have expressed to me concern about a gifted child getting beyond their peers academically. If they get ahead, the fear is that the child may not fit in.” They believe the typical nine-year-old would be in the fourth grade. Accordingly, the gifted child then should have lots of busy work at the fourth grade level so he does not grow beyond his peers, right? Wrong! Consider this: in bygone eras it was not uncommon for gifted students to be in college or university in their early teen years! Infants learn to roll over, crawl, stand, walk, run and speak at greatly varying ages without being told, “Hey, you are too young to be standing yet. Get back into that crib and lay down or the other babies will not relate to you!” Nor do you limit the precocious and fluently speaking nine-month-old to two-word phases because most babies don´t talk in sentences until much later! I implore you, do not stifle the development of a gifted child because if you do, you will run the risk of killing their spirit.
Referring to our two children is by no means meant for bragging rights, but for illustration purposes only. In 1981 we enrolled our five-year-old daughter in the public school for kindergarten. Prior to her first days there she was reading at about a third grade level and had a vocabulary and wisdom far beyond her years. She had been speaking in understandable sentences before she was one year old. This was no surprise to us as we had spoken and read to her while she was in the womb and certainly ongoing from the day she entered this world. As the daughter of a church pastor, she was always actively involved in activities with people of all ages. At barely age three she had memorized and recited for her leaders at a church club Psalm 23 and several other lengthy passages expected of the group for five-year-olds. She regularly read stories to other children. Upon entering kindergarten, within the first couple of months she was demoted to the sand and water table because her gifted abilities were totally unacceptable to her teacher. With the exception of one other girl, the other students were not yet reading because many did not yet know the alphabet.
By the March spring break the teacher demanded that we no longer read to our daughter, nor allow her to read to us because she felt we must be forcing her to learn! Nor was she allowed to do any academic subjects in the classroom. We enrolled her in a Christian school for the first grade, thinking this would fix the situation. For grades 1-3 she was loaded down with grade level busy work. What a waste of her time! She tried hard to bury her brilliance in deference to her teachers and to keep from doing all that busy work! Even though her academic ability and IQ test results were off the charts for her age level, in the third grade she took to failing some tests. She had determined that by doing so she would fit in more readily with her classmates.
Our son was also gifted. Being a natural follower and of a sanguine personality type, even though he was in kindergarten he had taken up with students in the higher grades who were less willing to apply themselves academically. He had determined they were the cool guys to hang out with. He covered school work easily and decided he had time to play with the “big kids,” thinking it was an honour to be called into the Principal´s office! Being tiny in stature with a sunny disposition, he quickly became the mascot of the tough crowd.
Not good. Praise the good Lord, during that year we learned about the home schooling option. We started home schooling our son in first grade and our daughter in fourth, continuing to teach them to embrace their gifts and to understand that it was their responsibility to develop them. For your gifted child or children, yes, there will be grade level academic foundations to be laid. By all means, do so, but let the child set the pace. Your job is to make sure they are understanding what they are learning. If the speed of learning is rapid in some areas, then so be it. If they are slow in an area, then so be it. For instance, although our son was gifted in many areas, he just could not get the hang of third grade grammar and that was apparent by Christmas. We dropped grammar until the beginning of fourth grade, whereupon he completed all of the third and fourth grades of grammar by the end of May of that academic year.
It was about this time that we realized we needed to move beyond home schooling and move into the area of home educating our children. Educating any child goes far beyond mere academic basics and even advanced academics. You do realize, do you not, that education means preparing an individual for life? That preparation does not always come out of text or work books, nor even always from you. Teach the child everything you know, and then engage others to help the child go further.
For instance, we arranged for our daughter at age 12 to take adult level classes in sign language at a church because she wanted to do so. By special arrangements, she took community college night classes at age 15. Our son developed exceptional business skills and taught himself to play the guitar well. Online internet classes which are now available expand their horizons even further. For many years we operated Clean Sweep Cleaning Services, which included providing house cleaning, yard work, and painting services. Our senior clients provided free instruction to our children! Those senior citizens and other adult friends helped to expand their horizons by teaching them calligraphy, piano, accounting, business skills, painting, woodworking, professional and competition cake decorating, sewing, knitting, web site design, computer language, and more. Additionally, they were both also involved in other entrepreneurial pursuits.
New resources I recommend to help budding entrepreneurs, or you as an adult, include: Financial Choices, by Dr. Stanley Schmidt, author of Life of Fred Math, and Developing the Business You Always wanted, by Bob McLellan of JOY Center of Learning.
We trained our children to each be self-sufficient and skilled by their twelfth birthday in domestic duties such as cooking, sewing, house and yard work, banking, planning social events and so on. This would have been the case even if they were not gifted. (Two books you might find to be helpful guides are, Gifted Children at Home, by authors J. Baker, K .Julicher & M. Hogan, and, Life Skills for Kids by Christine Field.)
All that said though, it is important to let your gifted children be children. They are not miniature adults. They need to have time to mature in character and in spirit. You, as a parent, need to keep this in mind. This is particularly true if your children are tall in stature because even though they may have a brilliant mind, sometimes you and others might forget they are only seven, or nine, or 12.
Allow and encourage all children and young people, gifted or otherwise, to stretch in their development.
Do not assume your children will pick up success principles by osmosis. Many adults do not even know what it means to be successful or how to attain success. Do not be afraid of the word “success.” Surely, you are not called to be mediocre. Are you? You will no doubt want your gifted child to be a person of integrity, making positive contributions to the world, yes?
Finally, embrace their gifts. Don´t be embarrassed by them nor squash them, let them be bored, or keep them in a grade level box for the sake of the almighty “peer relationships.” Consider: For most of their lives their “peers” will be adults! As part of their training, reassure them that yes, it is quite OK for them to rise to even higher levels of achievement than you or others may have attained. While you are teaching them to be humble, confident, and thankful, let them also blossom, be blessed, and be a blessing to others! Remember, as you are dealing with their challenges of brilliance, you are simply
experiencing opportunities for you and for them to grow.
