After my last post on homeschooling gifted children, several HOTM readers wondered what to do next. So you’ve preliminarily assessed your child’s personality and abilities, and you think she might be gifted. Regardless of whether her IQ is abnormally high or whether she would qualify for membership in MENSA, you have a hunch that a typical curriculum approach may not work with your child. As I indicated previously, if your child inhales lessons like popcorn on movie night, you may have already discovered that curriculum in a box is not your best option. Following this approach can result in fascinating outcomes such as, “Meet my seven year-old 6th grader!”. Further, curriculum written for a 6th grader is not necessarily even appropriate for a much younger child. Thus, parents of gifted children need to seek other avenues in order to keep them challenged and engaged.

Many parents begin to notice that their children may be gifted at a young age. If your child talks long before she walks, particularly if her vocabulary is as sophisticated as yours, you may have a good indicator. Early talkers often become early readers. Unfortunately, our society is not necessarily conditioned to respond positively to parents who try to meet the needs of their voracious early learners. One reader of last month’s post noted that people have told her that all her gifted four year-old needs to learn are her ABC’s. If you are dealing with a gifted child, though, is merely teaching her what she ought to be learning at an age-appropriate level your best option? The love of learning is a precious gift from God, and it is a parent’s God given responsibility to nurture it to the best of her ability. If your four year-old has mastered the ABC’s, then by all means move on to reading!

If she is ready for addition and subtraction, begin using her dolls or his Matchbox cars to illustrate the concept! Don’t be locked into society’s notion of what is taught at which age. You know your child best. I give you fair warning, though. You will undoubtedly be confronted with detractors who will accuse you of “pushing” or “rushing” your child. What parents of non-gifted children fail to grasp is that it is so often the children who are rushing the parents! For parents of precocious or gifted toddlers, it is often with bittersweet feelings that they begin to teach their child to read while other toddlers are still happily being read to (or chewing on books!). For parents of older gifted children, the pang of realizing that a semester’s worth of lesson plans may last one month is not an unfamiliar feeling. Such parents may have also experienced the dubious thrill of their offspring gently correcting *them* as they introduce a new math concept, perhaps one that was something of a challenge twenty years ago when first it reared its ugly head!

And so we return to the original conundrum: what is a parent with a child who does not fit neatly inside the curriculum box to do? Simply be prepared to graduate her student from high school at the age of 12? Hold her child to age or grade-appropriate learning only? Neither option is ideal. Instead, parents of gifted children should be prepared to feed their child’s appetite for learning in the same manner as they would stoke a fire on a cold night: eagerly and as needed. For young children, this approach means allowing your child to tell you when she is ready to learn.

• If your one year-old is speaking in complete sentences, don’t dumb down your own speech when you talk to her: use sophisticated language patterns and vocabulary so that she can continue to develop her verbal skills.

• If your three-year old indicates a readiness to learn to read – teach her.

• If your four or five year-old is bored with teddy bear counters and linking cubes, skip them! Dive into addition, subtraction and, yes, multiplication and division, too.

Take your cues from your child. I’m not necessarily speaking of purely child-led learning here. Some gifted children have to deal with the cross of laziness, so that learning style may not actually be the ideal one for all gifted children. Rather, I speak more generally of using your child’s aptitude and mastery of skills to let you know when he is ready to move on to something new, and *not* state standards or a curriculum’s suggested grade levels. Grade levels can be troubling enough for homeschoolers. They can be downright bedeviling for parents of gifted of children!

For older gifted children, very often the key is to find a curriculum (or to build one yourself) that engages your child on a deeper level than would the average curriculum. For example, A Beka is a very popular homeschool curriculum choice. Many students have been quite successful with this colorful, user-friendly workbook-based curriculum. For the average gifted child, though, a curriculum like A Beka is just not satisfying enough. It’s like serving a child chocolate mousse for dinner every day. It’s great for a few days, but soon he wants more.

It’s this sometimes insatiable desire of gifted children to demand more from their curricula which tends to exhaust their teachers (in this case, Mom and Dad!). Fortunately, there are curriculum choices designed with the gifted child in mind. A preeminent example is the Language Arts and Writing curriculum by Michael Clay Thompson. Math is more easily adapted to the gifted child. Simply allow her to proceed at her own pace. Rather than letting the curriculum dictate the pace to you (one lesson a day, four lessons and one test a week, for example), allow your child’s mastery of concepts to dictate the pace. If your child masters Monday’s lesson in five minutes, teach Tuesday’s.

Depending on your child’s age and other indicators, you will learn what limits to set. If, for instance, your child is doing ten math lessons a day, it may be prudent simply to skip to the next year of Math and then to fill in any gaps as they arise. For subjects like History and Science, choose a curriculum that allows you the freedom to branch out and explore — and then go crazy! Allow your child’s learning style and particular interests to dictate what you will study and how you will accomplish your learning goals. If your curriculum recommends one particular book for a spine, choose three or four additional ones.

When in doubt about choosing a learning path for your gifted child, turn to mentors. Not all of us are lucky enough to have a Titus 2 relationship with another homeschooling mom (or dad!), but all of us reading this post have Internet access! I promise that if you look, you can find resources to help guide you as you begin to craft a curriculum for your gifted young scholar. At the very least, remember three things:

1. God has gifted you with the right child for your family.
2. Expecting much from your child who has been given much by his Heavenly Father is not pushing him.
3. Allow the abilities of your child to guide you in your design of her curriculum plan. The younger she is, the more her desires should also play a role. As your child gets older, though, be sure that you are challenging her, even when she may not relish a challenge quite as much as she once did! Above all, keep those amazing minds engaged!

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.