How to Tell if Your Child Is Gifted

My son is 11 years old and I am frustrated. I don't know what to do with him to keep him stimulated. He is in private school at the top of his class. The school refuses to skip him. He finished his homework in a heartbeat and doesn't need to study for test. He spends most of his free time reading stuff on the internet.

He doesn't do well in sports. We register him in a couple of sports a year. However he would be much happier if we wouldn't. He would be happy just to sit in front of the computer and read about the things he is interested in. We are concerned about how much time he can spend on the computer.


Whenever he is with me he tell me all kinds of thing............
Mommy do you know this or that. He goes on and on about all the thing he reads about. I guess he is reading these things. I feel badly alot of times I just don't want to enjoy talking on that level. When we are driving I tend to tell him. Let's be quite and enjoy the ride. I need to have my son mentally challenge but I don't know where to turn.

He is in therapy for seperation anxiety and the therapist keeps feeding his ego about how smart he is. I am not a mental health professional but I don't think filling his ego is a good idea.

The bottom line is my 11 year old son because of school and his therapist thinks that he is mentally more superior than his mother and siblings. This attitude does not bring harmony to the family unit.

Barbara, the first thing I would do is dump the therapist who is reinforcing your son's "I'm superior to everyone else" attitude that is causing problems in your household and get another. I'd, also, have a talk with the school personnel. This attitude will cause him problems later.
Second, don't feel bad about ignoring him when driving. Distractions when driving cause car accidents. Laura Bush's wreck that took the life of one of her friends was because as a teenager, she ran a stop sign while driving because she was talking with a friend. Ask him to research the subject. Maybe, then he'll give you peace in the car.
With the "mommy do you know this or that", if it were something I didn't know about, I'd admit it but say, "No, because it's not really something I'm interested in." then redirect his energy to something you are interested in, such as "I want to plant a garden, could you research which plants grow best in our region, how to improve the soil, etc.".
You might want to network with parents of other gifted children in your area who face a similar problem and arrange playdates where the little "geniuses" can bore each other to death with their superior brainpower.
Lastly, scholastic success doesn't equal sucess in life. Many of these geniuses wind up in psyche wards or as failures. As far as thinking he's superior to everyone else in the family, learning things easily doesn't make one superior. He hasn't discovered a cure for cancer yet, has he?

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I may be misinterpreting your post, but if this is the same child you discuss at the top and the end of your post, that is not profoundly gifted. The definition of profoundly gifted varies a bit from professional to professional, but I've never seen a definition of profoundly gifted that started below the 99.9th percentile (the top .1%). The top 2% (i.e. an IQ in the 98th percentile) is gifted, but really moderately gifted.

Where it all gets muddled is that schools are in the unfortunate business of labeling children with achievement scores in the 95th percentile or sometimes even lower as gifted. Ability on one part of a test in the 95th, but the total/composite score is just a bit above avg, well you're gifted too! It gets to the point where so many typical slightly bright kids are also ided as gifted that those 98th percentile kids really do look profoundly gifted b/c they are so different from the other "gifted" kids.

FWIW, I don't have profoundly gifted kids.

Amen, Bill!

I totally agree with you!!!! Same here in California. As in the Incredibles, when are we going to stop celebrating mediocrity and lowering the bar so low that it means nothing to reach it!

isn't "general population" a prison term?

Gifted children come out in many different ways, My son who will be turning 11 this month did not speak ONE word until right before his 4th birthday, no Mama, Dada, nothing just pointing and groaning when he wanted or need something. We went through many doctors, and got, the Autistic, ADD, etc disorders classified to him. We even had a speech theoropist come to our house until he was 3, but after that age they grow out of that system in Texas and have to start speach in the public school system. So three days a week we took him to the local elementry school to work with their specch teacher. It was not until his was 5 that we learned he was G/T- He is extremly advanced in Math, science, and reading.....just a not to other parents some kids that are G/T dont speak or reacting until they can put ALL the words and actions together 100% right (to their own liking :)

Jodi........I am sure that your children are wonderful and precious and gifted in many ways....but I think you should know that any and every child will drink through a straw at pretty much any age....even babies.....if you stop to think, drinking through a straw is nothing more than the sucking action....which is totally natural, reflexive and basically how a child takes in nourishment. The reason most parents don't realize this is that they never think to offer a baby a liquid through a straw. There's no reason to be shocked or impressed when a baby takes to a straw, although it does surprise people when they see it.

Scoobydoo...I think Jodi was kidding. That's OK. Not all of us here are as sharp as our "gifted" children.

possibly . They have better than average physical coordination. Great athletes are gifted physically.

Remember, there are many different areas of intelligence and gifts. Too many people just focus on academic gifts.

There is social intelligence, spatial intelligence, visual intelligence, auditory intelligence.

Differences may indicate where your child's gifts are. As someone else said, all children are gifted. Find the gift and help them develop it.

Example: When a nursery school teacher asked kids to identify a color, some said brown, some said red...my daughter said "maroon." My daughter showed a higher vocabulary and a visual skill.

I advise all parents, of every type of child, limit TV and video games...and read , read, read to them.

Two things that really helped me was the book "College begins at two" by Elizabeth Buckley, and the John Hopkins Gifted and Talented Program. They offer college level summer courses for young kids.

Don't laugh. My grandson started doing all of those things at 4 1/2 months. It had been so long sense we had a baby around the house i thought it was normal. But several girls in my daughters group of friends all had babies within 2 months of eachother (4babies). Turns out they were all still learning to roll all the way over while Kyle was crawling and he is the youngest in the batch (:

I sooooooo agree. Gifted in the public school system means the parent pushed and pushed until their child was labeled gifted. What a joke!

Joe - that phenomenon is unique to America. In other parts of the world, intelligent children are respected and even idolized by their peers. Only in the United States is being smart considered a social liability, and that has only been the case in the last few decades. There are at least two leading theories as to why this is the case, but personally I think it is the overemphasis on sports/jocks that began taking place in the 1950's. This was the same point in time when a genius began to be seen as "nerd" or a "geek" among teenagers, and by the 1960's among even younger children. This is one of the reasons we left the Untied States and decided to raise our gifted children in an environment where they will prosper socially.

My daughter started talking at 5 months. By 7 months, she had the vocabulary of a one year old. She could memorize songs and poems by age one. I knew she was gifted by her advanced thoughts and learning abilities. All through school she tested in the 95th percentile on the national CSAP tests, but mostly made D's in school. Teachers and councelors told us she was lazy and to "ride" her and "get tough" on her. I would ask them that if she was lazy, how get she have the knowledge in the first place. They said I did not train her correctly. Teachers were very hard on her and frequently rude. Doctors told me she was extremely intellegent and to not worry about anything. I told them all that she was different and I wanted her tested, but they all told me that I was a proud mama and to stop trying to tell everyone that she was special. They would not test her.
But there were other signs that are not well known. My daughter would cover her ears and cry if there was a loud noise, like a balloon popping or fireworks. She loved to sit next to you, but did not like being hugged. She was extremely insightful, but could not put that insight into action. Example: she knew that people wanted to be friends with her but did not understand the purpose of saying hi every time she passed them in the hall. She was also sick a lot and missed too much school.
When she was 15 she got a new councelor at school. He said he knew someone like her and recommended that we have her tested at a community college. They started with the GED preparedness test. She is the only student to get a perfect score on the test in the college's history. They then sent her to the state university. They have wonderful testing programs! I don't know why they don't tell the community about them! They tested her and said that she was gifted, get her out of the repetitious learning of high school, and get her into college. They said she was working at a grade level of 18 and had a maturity level of a 30 year old. At last, confirmation of what I had known all along. She entered college at 15, got straight A's, was set up with 2 professor appointed mentors because she stood out to them, and hardly ever got sick. Finally a happy child.
My advice? Listen to yourself, you know when something isn't "normal". Listen to your child. They'll tell you what they need. Then follow through. When one avenue fails, try another. And most of all, love them, in whatever form it is that they need. Help them to understand what "normal" is, but never press them to conform.

A dentist at 25?