Homeschooling Gifted Children

Posted by LauraD | 0 comments

All children are a gift from God, arguably His most precious gift. We who are entrusted with their care and their education have such a great and joyous responsibility placed upon our shoulders! Fortunately, we also have ever greater resources available to aid us in our quest to provide our children with the best in a quality home education. After all, there is a label and a curriculum for every kind of homeschooling philosophy and for every kind of child. Even with all of these resources, though, do you ever feel as if maybe your child has somehow fallen through the classification cracks?

Maybe this description sounds familiar: your child plows through math assignments as if they were comic books and rarely, if ever, needs a concept explained twice. He completes a typical year’s math curriculum in half that time, and you have a hard time explaining to people that your six year-old is in 5th grade math (and in 3rd grade in other subjects). On the other hand, this same child cries over the smallest things, can be brought to a full tantrum by something as innocuous as a shoe that doesn’t fit exactly just-so, and seems to be allergic to everything! All of these characteristics are common with gifted children, but each could also reasonably be seen in a child who does not technically qualify as gifted. If you think you might have a gifted child, but can’t wait until the end of this article to get some hints, my feelings won’t be hurt if you skip to the last couple of paragraphs. Just don’t forget to come back!

Perhaps a more reasonable question than “is my child gifted” is one that I have asked myself: “Why does it matter? I know my child is special; I don’t need a label to prove it.”

Of course, each family can truly only answer this question for itself, but there really are some good reasons for identifying your child’s needs, regardless of what they may be. First, and this may come as a surprise to some people (it did to me), giftedness is often classified as a “special need,” both in the homeschooling and in the public schooling worlds. Gifted children require special academic, and often other, considerations, in much the same way that any other special need student does.

It is only after a parent has identified her child as gifted that she can begin to recognize the unique curriculum needs and/or learning style of that child. After all, if your child gobbles up two or more years of math in one year and reads many grade levels above his own, a typical boxed curriculum is probably not going to work in your family.

Also, because many gifted children proceed through school easily able to master new skills, they may become frustrated when that gift temporarily abandons them. In these situations, knowing that you are dealing with a gifted child can be tremendously helpful. Rather than wondering why your usually bright and eager student wants to give up after only one attempt at a new skill, having previously identified your student as gifted can help you to be better prepared to help her over what is probably just a temporary stumbling block. For a gifted child accustomed to mastering tasks with ease, being confronted with an academic skill that does not come easily can be at the least frustrating, and can even be crippling. Knowing your child’s mindset can help you to help your child at these times.

Additionally, gifted children do not just manifest their special needs in the classroom/homeschool. Often, gifted children exhibit a high degree of sensitivity, both physical and emotional. They tend to develop empathy more quickly than their peers, which can be both beneficial and detrimental, since younger children do not necessarily have the emotional maturity to cope with a heightened emotional response. This heightened sensitivity even extends to gifted children’s higher likelihood of having allergies! Therefore, having identified your child as gifted may help in more than just curriculum development issues. Such an identification may, in fact, help you better to understand your child’s whole personality. Your six year-old may not be an overgrown crybaby! He may, in fact, just be emotionally unable to process the assault on his overly developed sensory perceptions. As with all child raising, patience is a virtue!

By now you may be wondering if you are homeschooling a gifted child yourself. What should you look for? There are almost as many definitions of giftedness as there are web pages that address that topic, but in general these are some defining characteristics:

• Gifted children tend to advance at a different rate than their peers, particularly in terms of working independently and exhibiting higher level thinking skills.
• Gifted children tend to be natural and self-directed learners who thrive on intellectual activity.
• Gifted children also tend to be highly creative when compared to their peers, particularly in terms of seeing relationships and associations between things.

As important as identifying what a gifted child *is* is identifying what he is *not*. Gifted children do not necessarily stand out as the brightest in the classroom. In fact, a significant subset of gifted children also have other special needs, such as ADHD, which can inhibit classroom success if not properly identified. Gifted children are also not better than other children: they are just different.

For the parents who want to provide them the best in education and home life, a gifted child can be as much of a perplexing puzzle as any other child with special needs. As with any such child, then, recognizing the particular needs of your child is the first step to providing him with the individualized plan for success that he needs.

Above all, rely on God’s guidance and trust that He has gifted you with the child who is right for your family!

Laura Delgado gave birth to four children in exactly 40 months, but cheated since the last two were twins. She now happily homeschools her 8, 6, and two 4 year-olds. She earned a Ph.D. in Political Science from Rice University, but finds that she uses her undergraduate Great Books education far more in her homeschooling pursuits. In addition to writing for various homeschooling publications, she creates educational materials for edHelper. For homeschooling helps and curriculum reviews, please visit her at http://livingasmartha.blogspot.com.