We didn’t grow up in the US, so we don’t really know much about the gifted programs. She has scored 99 in CogAT, and 96.5 in ITBS, so she qualifies to the HAG program in NC. We can either switch to a different school that has the HAG curriculum, or keep her in the current school under the next lower level curriculum (AIG). The school says their AIG program is excellent, and that many HAG students have opted to stay in the school’s AIG program.
I want to do what is best for her social, emotional, and academic growth, so please share your experience/horror stories/success stories with the gifted programs, and your advice on which one to choose.
She’s an only child and a bit naive, if that matters.
What does she want?
Also keep this in mind: your daughter got to where she is at her current school, so it may not be bad to stick to what’s working.
The vast majority of child success comes from parent involvement, not curriculum.
Basic stuff like participating with them in activities like schoolwork, reading, games, etc is what largely makes or breaks success.
Id start by taking your kid to check out the place, let her see what it looks like, maybe ask for a quick tour.
Then after, ask her what she wants and listen.
If you get her in a better program but she hates it, or it damages your relationship, that likely will be a heavy net negative on her long term success.
An enthusiastic kid in a normal program will typically go farther than an unhappy kid in a premium program.
I did not find out that I was gifted until I was 36. I had a terrible childhood where I was emotionally neglected and psychologically abused, so it is difficult to say what issues that I had were strictly from the giftedness and what of them were due to being abused.
One thing I do know that is likely due to giftedness is that in middle school I spend all my time in class reading comics or other books instead of doing assignments and paying attention to what the teacher was teaching the class. As I got grades that were okayish (not that good, but good enough to pass), this was ignored. In high school I also did the bare minimum that was necessary to pass. I never did any assignments that were not graded if I could get away with it and I often slept during class. They always thought I just was very lazy and they told me this often.
Then I started studying psychology at university. For the first exam, I was very afraid that I would not pass. This was university, so I thought it would be difficult. However I got a 9.8 out of 10. From that point on, I was not able to concentrate and only got grades that helped me to just pass the courses, but not much better. I wanted to do better than that, but I just could not get myself motivated.
All this time I felt very bad about myself. I thought that I was just lazy too. I tried to get myself motivated and do the work, but I just couldn’t. I also felt that the time I was in class was completely useless and that the same was the case for making assignments. It just felt like I was jumping through hoops because, well, those were the rules. I still get angry about that. I wanted them to just tell me what I should be able to do and know in the end and just let me figure out myself how to get there, instead of just doing useless stuff. It was very frustrating.
I had a bit of a breakdown after studying psychology for two years due to my traumatic childhood. When I got better and wanted to start studying again, I went to the study advisor and simply told her I wanted to do something difficult. She told me to try Artificial Intelligence (which back then was something I never heard about). I went to the first lecture and I did not immediately understand what they were explaining. That created a bit of panic at first, as that was a bit of an unfamiliar feeling. All of a sudden, I really had to work for it.
And that is what I did and it was not difficult to get motivated at all anymore. I worked really hard and really did my best. I had an average mark of 8.6 out of 10 in the end for my master’s, which is considered very high. However, most importantly, I was having a lot of fun! I had a lot of energy all of a sudden, I had all these new ideas. It just was a really good time. Learning did not feel like a chore at all anymore. After that I got my PhD and now I am an assistant professor and I hope to become a full professor one day. Once I can do that, I am thinking about starting a whole new career path to keep myself challenged.
I am telling you all this to illustrate what it feels like to be gifted, but having to fully adapt to your environment instead of your environment adapting to you. The psychiatrist that told me I was gifted once said to me “if you have an IQ of 70, people will help you and adapt to you, if you have an IQ of 130, people expect you to figure it out by yourself and adapt to everyone else, even though it is the same deviation from the average.” That stayed with me a lot. Gifted people need help and they get exhausted by continuously being expected to adapt to their environment and having to jump through hoops that were not made for them.
With my experience in mind, I would think it would be best to get you daughter the help she needs, whether that is in a regular school or in a program. Also, it is very important to keep her challenged. If she is not doing well at school, she might not be lazy or not wanting to do better, she just might be very bored and unable to concentrate. If a program is needed to keep her challenged, that might be the best option. However, I think that lots of interaction with people outside of such programs remains important as it teaches you a lot about a variety of other people and how to work with them. I hated my childhood, but that’s something valuable that I did learn.
Hi from North Carolina. I was a gifted program kid (now and adult) in this glorious state and have had plenty of encounters with children since who are in the program. I even went to the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. Go for it with the more rigorous academics BUT the thing you’ll need to enrich in the home environment is those social and emotional lessons. They are getting deprioritized in favor of academics and in order to succeed in the world, the ability to people is actually more valuable than the ability to scholar. But if she isn’t challenged in the classroom, instead of learning how to people, she’ll learn how to be in trouble due to very appropriately suppressing her frustration and boredom as much as her age can possibly do … which isn’t enough.
Also, if she’s any kind of mentally healthy, don’t send her to NCSSM, no matter how much she begs. That’s where people go to have massive mental health issues. The only people who did better at that school, and I am one of them, were people whose home lives were so challenging and unstable that the school was actually an upgrade. Any alumnus - except the ones specifically chosen by the recruiting office, of course - will tell you the same.
Thank you for the perspective. We’ve gone ahead and enrolled her in the HAG school, but I’m still concerned about her social skills, because apparently she’s only gonna interact with the same 10 15 kids every year. Hopefully she comes out in top socially as well as academically.
There is something to be said about a small and consistent set of equally intelligent classmates from which to form bonds. I certainly did. It makes one not the weirdo because everyone there is HAG. Then, when out in gen pop and someone treats a HAG kid as The Weirdo, the response isn’t to internalize it with a, “Yeah, I’m the weirdo. No one ever wants to play with me,” but instead with a, “What’s his problem?!” So that’s actually good.
I was thinking more on the emotional side. Learning how to handle big feelings and small feelings. HAG kids tend to - and here I’m speaking from my former high school teacher career which I’ve long ago left - intellectualize the especially small feelings into nonexistence. It requires explicit instruction to just be taught how to feel. Not as an action item. Just as an experience.
That makes total sense and gives me peace, thank you! Do you have any resources on how to handle the emotional side properly that I could learn from?
If you ignore that the intended audience of the book is a parent of an ADHD child, “Why Will No One Play With Me” (book) is a fabulous step-by-step primer that covers all the social and emotional skills one needs to succeed in the world as well as talks the reader (parent) through how to impart those lessons to a child who is good at analytical thinking. I wish there were a book written more broadly that is this good at preparing parents with more than just platitudes and broad goals.
I’ll check this out, thank you for the recommendation!
I was identified as “gifted” in elementary school and was offered to participate in the 4th/5th grade split class. It was an accelerated program where we got to do all kinds of interesting science experiments, read harder and more interesting books, and learn math at a much faster pace than the other classes. I really loved it. The math was super interesting and all my friends were there. If your kiddo is interested in the class and gets along with the other students, I think she’ll do great.
As stated in other answers, the curriculum is significantly less important than your parental involvement. Ask her often what SHE likes most about the program (writing, math, the humanities) and listen, then encourage extracurriculars that conform to those interests.
What I DON’T see mentioned in the comments, though, is the fact that a “gifted” student is a “special needs” student. If your little kiddo is constantly around people that tell her she’s “smart” and “full of potential”, (statements that are undoubtedly true given your circumstances) her expectations of herself will be much higher than those of her “non-gifted” peers. Fulfilling these expectations will take a long time through school, college, and career. In this time, the assurances of her intelligence will seem to ring hollow as the inevitabilities of life take their toll on her development. Even more important than fostering her intellect is fostering her patience with herself. Your kiddo has to understand that it’s okay and natural to fail; and that smart people fail A LOT. “Gifted” students that never learned this lesson tend to burnout pretty early in life.
Anyway, thats enough from me. You’re on the right track in my opinion. Everyone else’s comments have been spot on and I wish I would’ve read this forum post when I was 11.
All the best to you and your kiddo