Excellent article on parenting the gifted; here's just one excerpt ...
Parents need to understand that gifted boys and girls alike benefit from exploring many activities and do so best when they are not expected to excel at or stick with all of them. Social pressure exists for boys to be decision makers—meaning that they need not only to decide but to adhere to their decisions. Exploration without demands for permanent involvement allows decisions to be temporary. Trent only wanted to try out the trombone, but he was expected to make a long-term commitment to it. His parents should have allowed him to experiment with a rented instrument, without private lessons. He could have done so for an agreed-to period of time and just as easily decided not to play any longer at the end of it. Time parameters set in advance permit gifted boys to try their hand at many activities and interests. Indeed, this kind of experimentation should be encouraged and supported as late as the first or second year of college.
Thanksgiving Letter to the Family
5 months ago
2 comments:
Support groups should be offered--and not on a trial basis--for parents who read these articles and yet still go out of their minds wondering when their gifted children will ever settle down and get serious because God know you can't just go through life TRYING things what are you going to do, TRY marriage, TRY college, TRY jobs, TRY children, what do you think this is, a GAME, because it's not, it's LIFE, and you've got to develop some SKILLS and you've got so much POTENTIAL, you can do anything, and so well, so find something and STICK WITH IT, FOR CRYIN' OUT LOUD!
Not that I've ever said or thought these things.
Purely hypothetical.
mama ava, you are awesome. i love it that i can totally hear your voice in that comment.
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