Saw this headline at CNN.com and had to comment: Is your kid really gifted? Probably not.
Did your child walk and talk early? Does she have a brain like a sponge? Scribble magnificently? Love learning? Ask questions that leave you marveling (and scrambling to Google an answer)?
Wow, clearly she’s a genius!
Or, um, maybe not.
“Gifted” has become one of the most tossed-about words in the parenting lexicon. Unfortunately — sorry, but let’s get this out of the way right up front — it’s also one of the most misused.
The vast majority of children are not gifted. Only 2 to 5 percent of kids fit the bill, by various estimates. Of those, only one in 100 is considered highly gifted. Prodigies (those wunderkinds who read at 2 and go to college at 10) are rarer still — like one to two in a million. And despite the boom in infant-stimulation techniques, educational DVDs, learning toys, and enrichment classes, those numbers haven’t been increasing. You can’t build giftedness; it’s mostly built in.
Still, it’s hard to resist scrutinizing your child for signs of greatness. (Those “signs” in the first paragraph, by the way? Not one guarantees an intellectual giant.) The growing fascination with giftedness is part natural impulse to see our offspring as special, part wanting to be sure a child’s needs are met, and maybe a bit of hoping for a competitive edge in the increasingly cutthroat school-admission process — or bragging rights. Parenting.com: Homeschooling a gifted child
“There are no average kids anymore,” notes Devra Renner, a clinical social worker and coauthor of “Mommy Guilt”. “The word ‘good’ is like the new ‘bad.’ Why settle for even ’smart’ when you could instead call your child ‘gifted’?”
True giftedness may be as rare as Einsteins and Mozarts, but the good news is that there are loads you can do to help your child reach her full potential. Even better: Whether young children are truly advanced or happily average (where they have lots of company), in the early years they need pretty much the same things. To raise a happy, emotionally healthy kid, follow these five steps to success:
1. Forget about the “g” word
There’s plenty of wishful thinking about giftedness because there’s no standard definition of it. Broadly speaking, a gifted child has special abilities in a particular area. The five main ones outlined in a popular 1993 U.S. Department of Education report are intellectual, academic, creative, artistic, and leadership — none of which is normally associated with the performance of babies and toddlers.
“‘Gifted’ is often misunderstood,” says Julia Roberts, director of the Center for Gifted Studies at Western Kentucky University. “People don’t always recognize a gift because they’re expecting a prodigy.” And parents whose kids are “highly capable” or “advanced” in one area or another may not feel satisfied until somebody official labels it “gifted.”
Many parents of kids under 5 look to IQ tests for a number that will “prove” their child’s ability. In truth, IQ testing doesn’t tell you much before the school years, and even then is generally considered unreliable. Why? Because “giftedness” is typically concentrated in one area and doesn’t refer to overall intelligence — the focus of an IQ test. (If you’re going to use it for academic placement — as many schools do, among numerous other factors — testing between ages 4 and 9 is optimal.)
You can read the other 4 tips on CNN’s website.
I apparently have met the all of the 2 to 5 percent mentioned in the article because every person I meet with kids says how “gifted” they are. If they’re so gifted, why are they eating crayons and playing in the cat box? Thankfully it’s not the other way around!
From my experience, kids that are constantly told they are extremely special or gifted often become self-involved narcissistic prima donnas. They’re told how special they are, but they also need to be told that other kids are just as good as they are. Can’t we nurture our kids and maximize their potential while we teach them humility at the same time? Can’t they just be “smart” instead of “the smartest”? Raising children has turned into a competition. And by doing so, the best interests of the child are not taken into account. It turns out it’s a way for the parents to prove they’re doing a good job.
And if that’s the goal, everyone loses.
