Just found out my daughter is gifted, but her grades are average?

[Xantippe]

There are challenges that go along with giftedness. One such problem is that gifted children often think that since they are intelligent, they do not have to follow rules.

I would revise that–it’s not necessarily because they think that they get to violate rules because they are intelligent, it’s just that they think that they get to violate rules or that they have a better way of doing something.

And you know what? Sometimes they do.

So the desire to find a better, more optimal way to do something is not necessarily something to try to squeeze out of a child, as if it were a moral flaw.

To give a different example, my husband is both brilliant and an out-of-the-box thinker. The combination of those two things means that he is very, very good at his job, which requires a lot of original problem solving. In fact, I’d argue that there’s only so smart you can be while doing things exactly the same way other people do it.

There needs to be some willingness on the part of parents and teachers to allow the child some leeway in non-essentials.

 

[Xantippe]

Also, the tendency of giftedness to be combined with ADHD, autism and other learning disabilities often means that it isn’t just sheer cussedness on the part of the child if they do something differently.

I would very much discourage seeing non-standard behavior on the part of gifted children as simply a character flaw.

 

[styrgwillidar]

There are challenges that go along with giftedness. One such problem is that gifted children often think that since they are intelligent, they do not have to follow rules. I had one student who was probably not even gifted but bright. He never put his name on his paper. When I counted points for a project, I might come up with 29 features that I want to see, each being worth one point. In order to round it up, the name on the paper would be worth one point.

He didn’t put his name on the paper, so he didn’t get the point. His argument? He didn’t/shouldn’t/won’t put his name on the paper because after all, he got the other 29 points. His mother agreed. Why should he have to do that? He is way above that. We went round and round. They kept saying, “why can’t you just give him the point?” to which I responded, “why doesn’t he just put his name on his papers?”

Another issue I had with my daughter was that teachers kept trying to give her reading material that was too mature for her. She had a very high reading level, but some content was inappropriate for her age. I think it is easy to assume these gifted kids are adults and are ready for adult situations.

I don’t know if that’s necessarily a quality of the child as it is of the parent. The ‘my child is a special little flower’ syndrome- their kid is so special that they’re not expected to abide by the standards.

Why doesn’t the kid get his point on the paper? Because the standard was very simple, put your name on the paper, and it’s unfair and unjust to award points to ‘Special Little Flower’ when he didn’t meet the standard. Done. I had teachers in school who graded anything without a name as a Zero. Wasn’t their job to sort through a stack and figure out who’s was who’s- want a grade, put your name on it. This isn’t a matter of ‘out of the box thinking’-- a point which I believe does have merit; it’s the basics of following the rules.

I think the out of the box thinking needs to be exercised in specific activities. That is, given a problem to solve they should be encouraged if they approach it from a different angle than the rest. Or have a different opinion if they can defend it.

 

[Xantippe]

I don’t know if that’s necessarily a quality of the child as it is of the parent. The ‘my child is a special little flower’ syndrome- their kid is so special that they’re not expected to abide by the standards.

Why doesn’t the kid get his point on the paper? Because the standard was very simple, put your name on the paper, and it’s unfair and unjust to award points to ‘Special Little Flower’ when he didn’t meet the standard. Done. I had teachers in school who graded anything without a name as a Zero. Wasn’t their job to sort through a stack and figure out who’s was who’s- want a grade, put your name on it. This isn’t a matter of ‘out of the box thinking’-- a point which I believe does have merit; it’s the basics of following the rules.

I think the out of the box thinking needs to be exercised in specific activities. That is, given a problem to solve they should be encouraged if they approach it from a different angle than the rest. Or have a different opinion if they can defend it.

Isn’t the zero for no name a failure in terms of basic justice? The child did 99% of the work, and gets nothing for it. Next time, maybe they won’t do the 99% of the work that they did last time. That will show teacher! (And then, what is the teacher’s next move?) Also, little kids usually don’t understand the impact of numerical grades and don’t care at all. They do usually care about their relationship with their teachers, though.

It’s very easy to accidentally set a bright but difficult child up for an oppositional relationship with authority. (I was exactly that kind of child around 4th grade or so and my oldest, who is mildly autistic, is even more so.) It’s a very bad idea to meet a stubborn child head-on, as they can always out-stubborn you. That’s why the standard parenting advice always says, “pick your battles.” It’s easy with a difficult child (bright or not) to enter what I personally call the “spiral of doom” where small conflicts steadily escalate into domestic or academic Armageddon.

On the no name front, at my kids’ school, they started out by having offenders write their names 10 times and then later 50 times. I found that a bit harsh and non-educational (especially the 50 times), but I haven’t seen my 4th grader forgetting for a while. (He’s very conscientious and a bit of a stress muffin, rather than oppositional, so I always hated to see him getting the 50 times punishment–he wasn’t doing it on purpose.)

 

[Xantippe]

If a child has any substantial amount of autism in their makeup (and a lot of gifted children do), they can beat you in any test of will and persistence.

The trick is to work with the child, not against, and to demonstrate to the child that you are on their team.

If the child thinks you are on the opposing team, they don’t care what you think or what you want and they will devote all of their available energy and willpower to beating you. And they will, perhaps with terrible consequences for themselves.

 

[Xantippe]

This is a bit OT for the subject of the thread, but I have to add that in my experience as a parent of a mildly autistic child, it’s very important to be incremental about any punishments or removal or privileges. If you take everything away immediately, what do you do next time? You’re stuck, and any reasonably intelligent child can see that you’re stuck and that they win.

So, better to keep stakes relatively low. (For example, with the no name paper, I’d just wait until some activity that the child particularly enjoys, and say that they cannot participate with the other kids until they write their name on the paper or do whatever other BRIEF penalty I have in mind. When a child wants to do something, fun, even 30 seconds of delay is agonizing.)

 

[styrgwillidar]

Isn’t the zero for no name a failure in terms of basic justice? The child did 99% of the work, and gets nothing for it. Next time, maybe they won’t do the 99% of the work that they did last time. That will show teacher! (And then, what is the teacher’s next move?) Also, little kids usually don’t understand the impact of numerical grades and don’t care at all. They do usually care about their relationship with their teachers, though.

It’s very easy to accidentally set a bright but difficult child up for an oppositional relationship with authority. (I was exactly that kind of child around 4th grade or so and my oldest, who is mildly autistic, is even more so.) It’s a very bad idea to meet a stubborn child head-on, as they can always out-stubborn you. That’s why the standard parenting advice always says, “pick your battles.” It’s easy with a difficult child (bright or not) to enter what I personally call the “spiral of doom” where small conflicts steadily escalate into domestic or academic Armageddon.

On the no name front, at my kids’ school, they started out by having offenders write their names 10 times and then later 50 times. I found that a bit harsh and non-educational (especially the 50 times), but I haven’t seen my 4th grader forgetting for a while. (He’s very conscientious and a bit of a stress muffin, rather than oppositional, so I always hated to see him getting the 50 times punishment–he wasn’t doing it on purpose.)

As kids we saw it as really fair. The teacher explained the policy, the teacher followed the policy, we chose to either disregard or follow the policy. Simple. We learned to put our name on our work since it was unreasonable, and disrespectful to expect the teacher to try and sort out who’s work was who’s.

It’s really bad to cater to folks and reinforce their bad habits. One of which is the refusal to cooperate and follow the basic and reasonable rules- that’s just a bad habit. Also to cater to them thinking that the rules don’t apply to them and all the world should acknowledge what special little flowers they are and make exceptions for them. Everyone else should go to extra effort based on their whims. Others should be held to standards, but not them.

I agree with you about repeatedly writing the name. How does that reinforce that a teacher can’t and shouldn’t have to guess at who’s paper this is in front of them? Giving the kid a zero makes the point much more effectively- if you want a better grade, great, put your name on your paper. Take ownership of your work. Otherwise, sort through the stack of papers that don’t have names on them (in reality, after the first couple of papers there wasn’t a stack anymore).

 

[styrgwillidar]

This is a bit OT for the subject of the thread, but I have to add that in my experience as a parent of a mildly autistic child, it’s very important to be incremental about any punishments or removal or privileges. If you take everything away immediately, what do you do next time? You’re stuck, and any reasonably intelligent child can see that you’re stuck and that they win.

So, better to keep stakes relatively low. (For example, with the no name paper, I’d just wait until some activity that the child particularly enjoys, and say that they cannot participate with the other kids until they write their name on the paper or do whatever other BRIEF penalty I have in mind. When a child wants to do something, fun, even 30 seconds of delay is agonizing.)

Why should the teacher go through all these hoops? This isn’t a punishment- it’s grading a paper. Why drag in an unrelated activity vice addressing it within the context of an assignment handed in that a teacher needs to spend time grading? I think it’s entirely appropriate for a teacher to take into account a child’s ability to follow simple instructions in completing an assignment in grading. I think it would be inappropriate for that to bleed over into other areas of instruction as well as take up even more of the teacher’s valuable time by additional effort required. That other activity the child enjoys is also instructional, why deprive them of that over some other assignment. Keep them separate. A teacher of a group of 30 kids can’t start trying to teach each child individually all the time-- it can’t be done. They’re teaching a group, and addressing individual children as necessary and doable within the time constraints of the lesson.

 

[Xantippe]

As kids we saw it as really fair. The teacher explained the policy, the teacher followed the policy, we chose to either disregard or follow the policy. Simple. We learned to put our name on our work since it was unreasonable, and disrespectful to expect the teacher to try and sort out who’s work was who’s.

It’s really bad to cater to folks and reinforce their bad habits. One of which is the refusal to cooperate and follow the basic and reasonable rules- that’s just a bad habit. Also to cater to them thinking that the rules don’t apply to them and all the world should acknowledge what special little flowers they are and make exceptions for them. Everyone else should go to extra effort based on their whims. Others should be held to standards, but not them.

I agree with you about repeatedly writing the name. How does that reinforce that a teacher can’t and shouldn’t have to guess at who’s paper this is in front of them? Giving the kid a zero makes the point much more effectively- if you want a better grade, great, put your name on your paper. Take ownership of your work. Otherwise, sort through the stack of papers that don’t have names on them (in reality, after the first couple of papers there wasn’t a stack anymore).

You’re working on the assumption that the child wants a good grade.

What if the child is indifferent a good grade, because from his point of view, a grade is just a meaningless squiggle on the page? For younger children (or oppositional children), that will often be the case. In fact, some children children, there will be a morose pleasure in doing particularly badly.

For a younger child (or an oppositional child), the most important thing is their relationship with the teacher. They value the teacher’s good will and work to please the teacher. However, if the child begins to believe that he does not have the teacher’s good will, that particular motivation evaporates, leaving the child with no motivation to work, a very dangerous situation.

I was a bright and difficult early elementary student and then more recently have had the experience of parenting a bright and difficult autistic daughter safely through elementary school, so I’ve seen this situation from inside and out. I myself had a really dismal mid-elementary academic career, and I remember clearly how little grades meant to me at the time. I didn’t care about grades at all, but if there was a teacher that I liked, I did want to please the teacher.

 

[Xantippe]

Why should the teacher go through all these hoops?

Because they don’t want to alienate the child and they want the child to succeed?

What you’ve just mentioned does suggest that particularly difficult children do not belong in a 30 child one-adult class.

 

[pensmama87]

Because they don’t want to alienate the child and they want the child to succeed?

What you’ve just mentioned does suggest that particularly difficult children do not belong in a 30 child one-adult class.

Not that my opinion changes the large class size issue, but I’ve taught classes with 30 kids in them. IMO, no student should be in a class with that many other students (the exception I can think of would be a lecture style class that also had small group sessions - I had a few high school science classes like that.)

One class I taught with 30 kids I also taught other sections with 10 and 20 students. Guess which class was always behind, and the one I knew basically none of the students in?

If I got to decide (oh, don’t we all wish we got to control these things), class sizes wouldn’t be over 20 kids, and preferably 15 at the elementary level. But I know that school board and administrative politics mean that it’ll never happen. (Nope, we have to worry about not merging with neighboring school district with rival football team, and maintaining double the administrative positions with cozy six figure salaries. At least that’s the situation in some of the public schools around here - and we’re talking TINY populations in TINY geographic spaces.)

 

[Xantippe]

Not that my opinion changes the large class size issue, but I’ve taught classes with 30 kids in them. IMO, no student should be in a class with that many other students (the exception I can think of would be a lecture style class that also had small group sessions - I had a few high school science classes like that.)

One class I taught with 30 kids I also taught other sections with 10 and 20 students. Guess which class was always behind, and the one I knew basically none of the students in?

If I got to decide (oh, don’t we all wish we got to control these things), class sizes wouldn’t be over 20 kids, and preferably 15 at the elementary level. But I know that school board and administrative politics mean that it’ll never happen. (Nope, we have to worry about not merging with neighboring school district with rival football team, and maintaining double the administrative positions with cozy six figure salaries. At least that’s the situation in some of the public schools around here - and we’re talking TINY populations in TINY geographic spaces.)

Come to think of it, if the OP’s daughter is in a big class, a smaller class size might be really beneficial if she’s getting “lost” in the crowd and not performing up to her abilities. (There’s a book that I like a lot by Ross Greene entitled “Lost At School.”)

barnesandnoble.com/w/lost-at-school-ross-w-greene/1100630880?ean=9781416572275

I went to a normal public school with normal big classes and had very marginal performance from about 1st grade through at least 5th grade. Our daughter is in a small private school with smaller classes (it was generally somewhere between 10-15 kids per classroom in the lower elementary grades) and I think it’s been very helpful to spend her elementary years in an environment where every single adult in the building knew who she was and had a good handle on her quirks. (We do a yearly beginning-of-the-year meeting with every one of her teachers, usually run by her child psychologist, which has been helpful.)

 

[pensmama87]

Since we knew it was likely our children would attend public school, we not only selected by district but also by elementary school - our kids will go to the smallest one, averaging about 25-30 kids per grade (two teachers per grade, one kindergarten teacher splitting AM/PM).

I think small classes are really, really important regardless of intelligence or academic ability. If your teacher doesn’t really know you as anything but a bottom in a seat and a name on an attendance list, you’re definitely not going to be encouraged to reach your potential.

 

[jmcrae]

Isn’t the zero for no name a failure in terms of basic justice? The child did 99% of the work, and gets nothing for it. Next time, maybe they won’t do the 99% of the work that they did last time. That will show teacher! (And then, what is the teacher’s next move?) Also, little kids usually don’t understand the impact of numerical grades and don’t care at all. They do usually care about their relationship with their teachers, though.

It’s extra work for the teacher to figure out which kid it belongs to, and that’s if he is the only one who doesn’t put his name on - if there are two or more in the group who do that, then there’s no way to know whose work is whose. In the real world, not putting your name on your work means you don’t want to accept credit for it, so the teacher who awards a zero on the papers with no names on them is actually teaching a valuable life lesson.

 

[babochka]

There could be any number of reasons. I do remember when I was in the 6th grade, making a decision that I wanted to get a particular grade (I could have gotten straight As) and answering exactly the right number of questions incorrectly to be able to get it. I remember that the reason was that kids in my class were getting beaten up for being “brainiacs,” and driving up the teachers’ expectations (after all, if too many people get "A"s, they assign more difficult work).

I did something similar, although my reasons weren’t as good. I was just lazy. I decided what was the minimal acceptable grade in a particular class (usually A for English and History, B for Math and Science) and I worked just hard enough to achieve that grade. That meant I didn’t do a lot of homework. :imsorry:Occasionally, this strategy backfired and I would not quite achieve the minimum acceptable grade that I’d decided upon.

As for handwriting issues - I have a son of above-average intelligence who cannot write. Occupational therapy has been amazing for him. It has opened up my eyes to so many other issues that he has with gross and fine motor control that I’d never put into place. This might be an area to consider having her assessed.

 

[pianistclare]

Funny. Georgia mandates that school limit class size to 20. And we’re still at the bottom of the barrel in education.
But yeah, small classes are fun, and in our Catholic school, I knew every kid by name. If that continues into Middle grades, the school dances are awful. Nothing like dancing all night with someone who’s basically your sister.
And in addition, *sometimes, *everybody knowing your business is also detrimental. Teachers gossip/complain just like the parents do.

When I taught class, if had a rule: I f I can’t read what you said, you didn’t say it.
No, I didn’t jump through hoops. I would write long examples of what the correct answer should look like…if I could read the wrong answer. But if I can’t read it? It’s a zero.
They got the picture pretty quick. I didn’t mind type written homework. The school insisted on cursive , but I allowed printing if it was all the student could do.
It spoke more to the fact that little time is spent on penmanship anymore. There’s a rush to get computer time though.

 

[pensmama87]

Funny. Georgia mandates that school limit class size to 20. And we’re still at the bottom of the barrel in education.
But yeah, small classes are fun, and in our Catholic school, I knew every kid by name. If that continues into Middle grades, the school dances are awful. Nothing like dancing all night with someone who’s basically your sister.
And in addition, *sometimes, *everybody knowing your business is also detrimental. Teachers gossip/complain just like the parents do.

That’s true. That’s why it doesn’t bug me if middle and high schools are larger, after kids can have the close-knit environment (hopefully) in elementary, get a group of kids (also hopefully good influences) they feel close to, then move on to places where they can maintain a little more privacy. Like stepping their way gradually to bigger ponds (or is that swimming?)

 

[Gordon_Sims]

My first question is, “Then why are her grades not reflecting that???”

I was earmarked as gifted several times in grade school. I don’t think my parents or teachers really had any idea about what to do with me because I was bored all throughout grade school. I was the kid who wouldn’t study, would then finish the test in half the time as the other students, ace it and spend the rest of the class reading. Without any guidance or challenges I developed very poor work habits which made the adjustment to high school rather difficult. I also had a string of bad teachers who made me lose all enthusiasm for school. As a result, I struggled tremendously throughout high school and despite all those results from my standardized and IQ tests, I was lucky to get average grades some semesters.

One piece of advice I’d give is that if you have the opportunity to challenge your daughter, let her take it. I was given the chance to enter a program in grade school that would have allowed me to take college courses and have a bachelors degree before I entered high school. It was a free program and, if I remember right, was only offered to something like 20 kids in the city. My parents were worried about how it would affect my social development so they turned it down. As a result of my struggles through high school (I didn’t regain my work ethic and figure out how to study at a high school level until my senior year) I essentially disqualified myself from any meaningful scholarships with my 3.5 years of poor to average grades.

Also, if your daughter isn’t geared for a certain skill or pastime, don’t push it on her. Not every gifted child is a _________ prodigy, so if she can’t figure out that instrument, foreign language or whatever, don’t have her take lessons for years on end expecting her to finally get it. Help her figure out what she is good at and enjoys and foster that.

 

[Xantippe]

But yeah, small classes are fun, and in our Catholic school, I knew every kid by name. If that continues into Middle grades, the school dances are awful. Nothing like dancing all night with someone who’s basically your sister.

**Funny! Sad!

Our kids’ school will probably be like that.**

 

[Xantippe]

Also, if your daughter isn’t geared for a certain skill or pastime, don’t push it on her. Not every gifted child is a _________ prodigy, so if she can’t figure out that instrument, foreign language or whatever, don’t have her take lessons for years on end expecting her to finally get it. Help her figure out what she is good at and enjoys and foster that.

But it may be quite a number of different things. It might not be a deep interest in a single thing, but a strong interest in a number of subjects.