I thought this post by Judith Warner on the blog she writes for the New York Times was particularly timely and a great read. She got over 40 responses all of varying opinions and weights. The post is called, “Stealing Childhood“–a provocative title for a challenging subject. It made me think a lot about what “Momstar” wrote about in her lastest post.
What does the notion of “gifted” really mean and what does it do to our kids? Does it create a two tiered system for our children to exist in—the smart one’s and the not so smart ones existing side by side given different words on the spelling test? And what does “gifted” really mean? I know that when I was growing up, this group of “gifted” kids were mainly the super smart, nerdy kids who didn’t play sports and studied a lot. While I think the definition has changed, perhaps the stigma has not. Beyond that, I had a friend say to me the other day, “Aren’t all of our children gifted? My goodness they’re starting school at 2 and the expectations by the time they enter kindergarten are far beyond where I was at that age!” So really where are the benchmarks and what criteria do we use to measure.
At Braincandy, we advocate a worry less, play more attitude. We believe that children are natural “creators” and “inventors” and need to be encouraged to develop their critical thinking skills by exploring the world—not by learning meaningless symbols they can repeat at will. There is so much time for our children to be pressured by the demands of school and society—do we really need to start this at age 5?
Posted on February 6th, 2006 by Sam
Filed under: Uncategorized
I don’t know the answer to what Gifted is, but I believe that as parents, if we listen at all, the kids themselves will let us know. Our obligation to them remains the same, regardless of how our culture labels them. We respond to who they are as people and what their needs are day to day. I think most parents get this. It’s common sense. And the ones who don’t get it aren’t going to see themselves in someone else’s cautionary tale. Luckily, we all know those amazing, wonderful people who’ve had maniacs for parents. Most of our children will survive our fabulous intentions for them. I hope!
Thanks for the intersting discussion.