Is your kid super smart, intense, and also a bit odd ... like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole? Your child may be gifted— the term defining a person with an IQ of 130 or above. Join guest Jen Vail as she tells her story of homeschooling when public school couldn't meet her son's needs.
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QUOTABLES
Jen: " [Our son's giftedness] did not look at all like the stereotype that people imagine when they hear about gifted kids."
Jen: "People tend to ruffle a bit at the term gifted, because it implies that there's something better or that they have something that another child doesn't. ... These kids do have neurological differences. It is a quantifiable difference. Other parents usually take it as an attack on their own child. And usually the response is, "Every child is gifted." But it's not true. Every child is a gift. Absolutely. And every child has gifts. Yes, 100% do not discount or deny that. But in the neurological term for gifted, which is an IQ of 130 or above, not every child is gifted."
Jen: "IQ is not a measure of what a child knows. It's a measure of how their brain processes information. "
Ximena: "So many parents are scared of the academic part of homeschooling, but really it's the emotional part of homeschooling that is the difficult part."
TIMESTAMPS
02:26 Introducing the guest Jen Vail.
04:06 How Jen discovered her three children are gifted: the problems at school, the intensity.
06:15 When Jen's son's teacher told her he needed to skip first grade.
07:00 After the gifted diagnosis, his sarcasm, intensity, arguing, and not fitting in made sense.
08:18 Sometimes when kids cause problems at school, it's because they are gifted (and thus bored).
09:21 Jen discovers her kindergartener was reading at an 11th grade level.
09:30 The school was unequipped to teach Jen's son. He just sat in the corner with the thickest book he could find and read all day.
11:37 Why the term gifted tends to ruffle feathers and why every child is not gifted.
12:46 The resistance Jen faced when her son was identified as gifted.
13:18 What Jen's principal said to help her understand that homeschooling was the answer.
14:27 The homeschool style that Jen uses with her gifted children: eclectic and unit studies.
16:29 Challenges of homeschooling gifted kids.
17:42 How homeschool groups and co-ops can be hard for gifted kids.
24:21 The key to homeschooling gifted kids is getting out of their way and teaching them how to learn.
25:59 The humbling parts of homeschooling a gifted child who knows more about many topics than you do!
26:41 Combining kids in cooperative unit studies.
28:44 Asynchronous development: a key trait of gifted kids.
32:13 Let gifted kids have more control over their own education.
33:55 Your kids' giftedness is not supposed to be a reflection on you as a parent. It's just a difference that you're supposed to, as a parent, help facilitate.
34:29 Intensity, anxiety, and depression in gifted children.
Thanks to show sponsor BookShark. Request a homeschool curriculum catalog or download samples at bookshark.com.
