There is no question that every child is gifted. Some are intellectually gifted, and many are gifted in other areas which are also important. Any parent who becomes too proud of his child’s intelligence, or views his child’s intelligence as a reflection of himself is guilty of wrong priorities.

However, the reality is that intelligence, like ANY gift from God, is still a gift which God intends the child to develop and use. If a gifted program helps in that aim, it is a good resource. If it does not help in that aim, it might better be avoided. Gifted programs are certainly not all alike, and with a household full of gifted children (all five of the school age and above kids) identified as highly gifted, you can be sure I’ve seen both very good and very bad programs — and a range in between.

Gifted children often have special needs, as surely as a remedial student does. They need help combating boredom, learning to use their abilities, and in finding social acceptance. A program that increases a child’s isolation is clearly not doing its job. But children with special needs deserve to have those needs met, and all gifted programs should not be blamed simply because some of them are abysmal.

When I was in school I got bullied a lot. How very grateful I was for the one afternoon a week I was removed from that bullying environment and put with other kids who were more like me.

Crimson Mom – was it something in my post or in the comments? I didn’t really get an anti-intellectual tone from anything that’s been said.

I also don’t understand why being “smart” is almost always associated with academics, specifically math and science. As an arts and literature person this always annoyed me. I think we need to recognize the many different kinds of intelligence – someone may not be gifted academically, but they might be an amazing artist, or an outstanding athlete, or a whiz at working on cars, or have great people skills. God gives everyone unique gifts, because this world needs many different kinds of people.

On the other hand, I am troubled by the anti-intellectual tone I’m seeing in these comments. There is a resentment in our culture towards kids who are intellectually gifted that we don’t show towards kids who are gifted in other domains such as athletics, art, or music. Nobody complains about there being selective sports teams, orchestras, art shows, etc. But have a selective GATE program or honor roll and all of the sudden it gets bashed as “elitist” or worse. Frankly, it strikes me as a case of “sour grapes”!

God gives each child different strengths and weaknesses and we are all equal in His eyes. We should celebrate everyone’s gifts, whatever the domain. Carping about the intellectually gifted in a nasty manner (A) is not Christian and (B) hurts all of us when it contributes to underachievement by those who have the potential to give so much back to society. We need the sharpest minds among us to be out there searching for a cure for cancer and so on!

We started homeschooling when I was in fourth grade, and it took me several years to readjust my approach to school. I think ultimately it was healthier for me to get out of the classroom environment. Instead of doing just enough to be better than my classmates, I had to do the best that I could. Unfortunately, the SATs and such then reared their ugly heads. I did just fine, but I hate the competitiveness of it. I might have scored 150 points higher than my best friend, but she is leagues ahead of me in things like patience.

This whole gifted thing seems just wrong on so many levels. First, what standard are they using? Is it just good grades, or are they looking for the next Mozart? Then, my own experience of gifted programs was of them being extremely unhelpful. Maybe other schools do it better than mine did. Anyway, I’m rambling, so I’ll stop now.

I was in a Gifted and Talented program 5th-8th grade and took many “honors” classes in high school. Other than one of my classmates telling me I “should be shot” for getting a high score on the SAT, I really enjoyed the more challenging material and feel my life was enriched by it. I think Jen and everyone else here has excellent points about how competitiveness in parenting and academia is misplaced and even harmful. But please don’t transfer this criticism of a parenting style to criticism of enrichment programs themselves!

Intelligence is nice, but it ain’t everything. My aim as a father is to encourage my children to use the gifts that God has given them to the best of their ability. If they are considered smart, great. If they are average, great. If they are lower than average, great.

As far as Gifted & Talented programs go, I really don’t know how they are structured. I went to Catholic school before college, and had a different experience. For one, my K-8 school had everyone lumped into one class. In high school, one’s placement in honors, regulars, or essentials classes were based upon academic achievement, not some school psychologist. I was in almost all the honors classes available to me (English Lit. was my weak point).

Maybe there’s value in waiting to separate the kids until later. I dunno. My experience was a good one. No parents complaining to me that their kids were brighter (just my basketball teammates predicting that I’d be in Calculus 12 before I graduated). I will say that I did develop some sort of superiority complex mentioned by another commenter. However, that was quickly remedied when I took my first Calculus exam in college. I found out just how exemplary I really wasn’t.

Beautifully said, Jen!