"What some parents of gifted children say..."

by Phoebe Fong-Smith

This article looks at several inherent issues surrounding many intellectually gifted children, their educational needs and their parents' struggles with the mainstream education systems.

Most of the parents interviewed invariably express the almost-universal fear that many gifted students are under-achieving and slipping through the systems. Some believe that many more have fallen through the cracks through inadequate support, professional neglect and lack of understanding from educators, schools and the powers that be.

While not wanting to come across as demanding or pushy, many parents of gifted youngsters agonise over the awesome responsibility of adequately stimulating and challenging their gifted children, both at home and at school. Others express frustration and dismay at their schools' reluctance to explore the issue, and failure to cater to their children's special educational needs.

Bruce, father of 8-year-old Ivan, says, "At first, we felt awkward, almost embarrassed, telling the school that our son has been psychologically assessed and formally identified as being intellectually gifted."

Assessed by a child psychologist the year before, Ivan's IQ has been determined to be on the 99th percentile, meaning he comes in the top 1 per cent of the population for cleverness.

"What frustrated and annoyed us most at that time was why our son's giftedness had not been picked up at school level," says Bruce.

"We noticed Ivan had become increasingly unhappy and withdrawn at school. He had become the classic loner. During recess and play time, Ivan would often sit by himself, reading a book instead of playing with his classmates.

"He found regular classroom work unnecessarily repetitive and mundane. Frustrated and bored, he would 'tune out' because he already knew what the teacher was going to say next."

Research has shown that most gifted children invariably display many common characteristics and behavioural tell-tale signs. Blessed with a prodigious memory, gifted children start to read from an early age, learning quickly and easily. They use appropriate and sophisticated language and vocabulary.

Highly intense, gifted children are also perfectionists with probing and questioning minds. Keenly and endlessly curious, they are creative, imaginative and original in their thinking. Because they function at a thinking level higher than that of their chronological peers, they thrive on complexity and abstractions.

Armed with long attention spans, gifted children tend to develop a deep and passionate interest in a particular topic over a period of time. They are energetic, assertive and persistent. Bored easily, gifted children may often become disruptive in class.

While having a keen and advanced sense of humour, they are often intolerant of others. Highly emotional, some may also cry easily. Many are sensitive to fairness, justice, moral issues and dilemmas; they may at the same time be sceptical, critical and judgmental of others.

The special needs of gifted children are often met with ignorance. Much to the dismay of many parents, the misunderstood gifted child often gets labeled as a problem child.

"Teachers should be adequately trained to recognize the characteristics of child giftedness before their boredom and frustration became a classroom behavioral problem," says Jill, mother of 10-year-old Mark.

She adds, "Giftedness should be picked up before these children become psychological referrals, usually as a result of their worrying negative behaviors at school. As far as I am concerned, the whole experience was unnecessarily stressful for everyone. It has been one big pain.

"The teacher had complained that Mark was being disruptive and was refusing to participate in class. Neither the school nor Mark's teacher could explain to us the reason for Mark's negative behavior. It was even suggested that perhaps Mark was suffering from epilepsy or some other disorder. It was woeful and distressing."

Finally, at her wit's end, Jill took Mark to a psychologist who confirmed that Mark is in fact gifted, and that he was suffering from boredom and distraction.

"Parents, upset over their children's disruptive classroom behaviors, feel guilty requesting help from the school. It's difficult to get back on a good footing with the teacher concerned after it had been left to us parents to find out that our problem child is gifted. The tension arising from the negative situation had by then become antagonistic," Jill says.

In retrospect, Jill believes that had teachers and parents worked together to resolve behavioral problems right from the start, it could have been a much more positive situation.

A private psychologist who specializes in assessment and counseling of gifted children and their parents, explains: "One common misconception is that a gifted child can just perform on his own. But for actual learning to occur, one's intellect needs to be challenged.

"No gifted child is born with ready knowledge. All an intellectually gifted child has is the potential to achieve intellectual excellence. Like every child, he has to be taught. For a gifted child to reach his maximum potential, educators need to realize that this potential has to be properly nurtured and developed. Therefore, it is vital that a systematic program be carefully developed to gear his learning activities towards challenging his natural intellect.

"It is unrealistic to expect a gifted child to cope in a normal classroom setting without special assistance as it is to expect a disabled child to cope without special integration and support."

Ivan's new teacher reports, "Despite having to work alongside new classmates three to four years his senior and with no special treatment over others, Ivan's natural enthusiasm for learning has returned, along with his self-esteem and confidence. He has had no problem settling in and he socializes well in the school yard."

Bruce, who moved Ivan to another school toward the end of the school year, recounts, "Some schools we approached had commented that they have 'yet to encounter our first gifted student'.

"One school 'helpfully' directed us to another which had had a gifted student the previous year.

"The negative attitude and ignorance shown by yet another school were equally disturbing. The principal had actually responded, 'Yes, we have strategies here to deal with such problems.'

"Moving Ivan to another school was the last thing we wanted to do but we felt we had no choice. When first presented with the psychologist's report and recommendations, his previous school had no resources, experience nor the knowledge to deal with the situation.

"They made all the right noises at the beginning but it soon became a wearing battle having to continually convince them to consider some systematic support for Ivan. After months of token meetings with them without much headway, we came away more frustrated and stressed out than before.

"It just wasn't getting anybody anywhere. And when they showed reluctance to even consider the simple option of acceleration, we decided it was time to review our option."

"However," Bruce adds, "due credit must be given to the hard work put in by the two supportive special needs teachers. Their commendable and dedicated efforts were constrained by restricted authority, and sorely lacked endorsement. Personally, I put it all down to the school's ignorance and reluctance in accepting Ivan's special needs in this area."

Kate, one of the special needs teachers at Ivan's previous school, expresses disappointment and despair at what she perceives critically as inequality in education opportunity for gifted students in mainstream schools.

She says, "Disabled students have access to a host of excellent specialist resources and support, as well as educational integration programs. But what are we doing for children at the top end of the scale?

"We really need to recognize our primary responsibilities as educators to also cater adequately to the needs of our gifted students. We also need to adopt the right approach and develop strategies - like providing them with meaningful and challenging work instead of just giving them more of the same repetitive and mundane work.

"Naturally, we were disappointed and saddened at losing Ivan (to another school). Yes, we did realize, and had to quickly recognize, our responsibilities as educators to develop that child. Although it was all new to us, we worked very hard with his parents to accommodate the psychologist's recommendations as best we could."

However, Caroline, mother of 5-year-old Lizzie, sings praises about how her daughter's school has taken on board some of her suggestions this year although she was frustrated at the "less-than-enthusiastic-and-understanding attitude" of Lizzie's teacher of the previous year.

"We're very happy with the school this year. The school's just been terrific. Some of the teachers have actually undertaken appropriate courses in gifted education and they seem to be more 'with it' - more understanding towards the special educational needs of these gifted kids," Caroline says.

"This year, Lizzie's teacher, who's relatively new to the school, is practically bursting with enthusiasm in the classroom. She's actively working Lizzie at her level and Lizzie, in turn, has responded well in that she's planning projects that she selects herself.

"Before, Lizzie had problems completing her normal school work because she's so thoroughly bored with it. Now, she's picked herself up and is more adjusted, both at school and at home. Whereas she used to be airy-fairy about all and sundry around her and daydreams, nowadays Lizzie actually sits down to write lists and plans her work."

Three other parents echo each other's sentiments when summing up their own experiences with their children's schools.

One of them says, "It was mostly fraught with frustrations, annoyance and despair. Schools need to realize their responsibilities to cater to the individual needs of every student, not just the average kids or the disabled children."

© 1997 Phoebe Fong-Smith

 © NSWAGTC 2007

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