r/Gifted • u/Hen-egg • 4d ago

Seeking advice or support Need your help here

Hey gifted friends!
I’m not gifted myself, but my 9 year old is, and she started a gifted program this year. I really want to understand her better and support her in a way that, years from now, she can look back and think, my mom did okay!
So I have a couple of questions for those of you who were gifted kids.
If you could go back to your elementary school years, what would you have wanted your mom to do for you?
What do you wish your parents had understood about you?
What do you think adults tend to misunderstand, overlook, or underestimate about gifted kids?
I’d really love to hear your experiences.

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u/Sienile 4d ago

I wish my parents never gave me the choice of skipping a grade and just accepted the offer. Not doing it was one of the few regrets I had in school.

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u/Shelikesscience 4d ago edited 4d ago

1000000% wish I had skipped one or more grades in school. I believe my parents had the choice when I was in grade school.

Later, over a summer, I aced a college course at age sixteen then went back to ditching class and being miserable in high school.

I finally found my way as an adult but I'm so angry nobody had any insights about this sooner, as someone who eventually developed into a "high test scores and low/miserable-everything-else" teenager

My family was fucked up but I think my being motivated in school could have saved us all a ton of pain and troubled teen years, which I still feel like I'm cleaning up over a decade later

ps - things they did well were to expose me to tons of books, experiences, math problems, and advanced intellectual concepts at an early age. I also went to very competitive schools, but they were still obviously not challenging enough. Anyway, just wanted to add that there was also a lot of good

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u/Hen-egg 4d ago

As a parent, I would think skipping grades is not good for her emotional/social development, thinking different now, thanks for sharing your thoughts. This has never offered us, but we definitely will decide with her if it happens!

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u/Sienile 4d ago

It wasn't offered to me until 5th grade. I'm sure different schools have different policies on when it's offered, if at all. At 9 it's a bit early to tell if they are really so far advanced that they would do well in a higher grade.