Gifted Challenges "Beyond intellect: Exploring the social and emotional aspects of giftedness."

Where can I find a friend? How asynchronous development affects relationships.

"Gifted children, teens and adults thrive when they understand the social, emotional and cultural impact of their giftedness, when they feel understood and accepted, when surrounded by like-minded peers, and when they are not criticized for any delays in their social-developmental trajectory. As parents, we must help them navigate the path to adulthood, seek out activities where they can develop healthy social relationships, and encourage them to accept, work with, and appreciate their unique differences."

This blog gives some insight into the challenges that asynchronous development (a discrepancy in skills or development among gifted children) can have on our students and children, along with some great strategies to support them.

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Parent Information Sessions: Anxiety in Children

Please register your interest here if you will be attending one of the sessions.

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A word from the gifted

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Gifted Awareness Week

Gifted Awareness Week Australia 2018 – March 18th to 24th

ACCEPTANCE: Diversity and Equality

Gifted Awareness Week Australia was founded by the Australian Association for the Education of the Gifted and Talented (AAEGT) to raise awareness of the identification, support and learning needs of gifted children and to celebrate the dedication of individuals and educational bodies who are making a difference in the lives of gifted children and their families. Gifted Awareness Week (GAW) 2018 will be held from the 18thto 24th of March and is centred on the national theme Acceptance: Diversity & Equity.

Events being held to celebrate:

- GFSG Family Picnic
- Bright students who struggle at school - Gifted and Underperforming
- NESA -Educating gifted and talented students - An introduction
- Identification of Gifted Students UNSW

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What does it mean that we are a Newman Selective Gifted Education School?

Term 1 2018 parent gifted workshop slides from stmns

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Term 1 Gifted Education Parent Information Sessions

Please complete this google form to indicated which session you will be attending.

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Gifted Challenges "Beyond intellect: Exploring the social and emotional aspects of giftedness."

This is a very interesting Blog that has lots to offer - https://giftedchallenges.blogspot.com.au/

Perspectives about giftedness from a Clinical Psychologist, advocate, consultant, and parent, Dr. Gail Post

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WHY ARE SO MANY GIFTED CHILDREN ALSO HIGHLY SENSITIVE?

What are the typical signs of sensitivity? What are the benefits and the challenges of being sensitive?

Click here for this interesting article that will answer these questions.

"Highly sensitive people have a number of very sought-after traits, including soaring creativity, intense focus, careful conscientiousness, empathetic kindness, and the ability to understand the world around them very deeply."

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10 Facts You May Not Know About Gifted Children But Should

"The following is a list of facts, traits and issues many would not recognize as a part of giftedness in children. Why such a list? It’s time to banish the many widely-held inaccurate perceptions of the gifted child. The pervasive but misguided idea of the gifted child—the child who excels in school, is well-behaved, is a natural leader and is emotionally mature—is the elephant in the room and that elephant needs to leave.

We need the facts to prevail so that gifted children can have, as all children should, the education and support they need to grow up to be happy and thriving adults."

Click here for the full article.

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The truth about Gifted versus High Achieving Students

This is an interesting article examining the differences between gifted learners and high achieving students. It highlights some of the joys and the challenges in parenting and teaching gifted thinkers.

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The trouble with Gifted is that no one understands what it is.

"It never, ever occurred to me that my quirkiness was a part of my intelligence."

A great blog post that explores the many facets of giftedness.

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Characteristics of Gifted Children

Characteristics of Gifted Children

Every gifted/highly able child is different but some of the common characteristics are:

•   Humour: Keen sense of the absurd; understands subtleties of humour beyond age level
•   Great intellectual curiosity: Intense desire to know, do, feel, create or understand; sometimes described as a ‘sponge’ who absorbs knowledge easily and enthusiastically
•   Knowledge: wide general knowledge of topics beyond peer group level
•   Interests: passionate interests, sometimes fleeting but sometimes long-lived
•   Communication / Expressiveness: Extraordinary ability to convey meaning or emotion through words, actions, symbols, sounds or media;
•   Vocabulary: extraordinarily well developed oral language skills and vocabulary
•   Inquiry: Probing exploration, observation or experimentation with events, objects, ideas, feelings, sounds, symbols or media
•   Problem-solving: Outstanding ability to bring order to chaos through the invention and monitoring of paths to a goal; enjoyment of challenge
•   Sensitivity: Unusually open, perceptive or responsive to experiences, feelings and to others; has a strong sense of social justice
•   Intensity: Often feels very deeply and will be concerned about issues beyond what is usual for their years
•   Perfectionism: can set very high standards for him/herself –this can be positive but often becomes
• debilitating
•   Intuition: Sudden recognition of connections or deeper meanings without conscious awareness of reasoning or thought
•   Reasoning: Possess superior powers of reasoning, of dealing with abstractions, of generalising from specific facts, of understanding meanings, and of seeing relationships.
•   Imagination/Creativity: Extraordinary capacity for ingenious, flexible use of ideas, processes or materials
•   Memory/Understanding: Unusual capacity to acquire, integrate, retain and retrieve information or skills
•   Learning: Ability to acquire sophisticated understandings with amazing speed and apparent ease. Requires very little repetition or re-enforcement of new learnings
•   Concentration and alertness: Shows alertness and quick response to new ideas; Has a long attention spanwhich allows him/her to concentrate on and persevere in solving problems and pursuing interests (not
• necessarily school related).
•   Interaction with others: Can tend to dominate others or direct their activities. Can sometimes appear poorlysocialised with chronological age peers (a child’s social peers correspond more closely to mental, rather than age peers )
•   Sometimes has a fantasy friend 
• 
  
• Please note:
•   not all children will have all these characteristics
•   these characteristics may not be reflected in school performance
•   underachievement is quite common in gifted children which can make identification difficult
•   it is possible for a child to be gifted whilst having a specific learning disability 
• 
  
• Reference: http://www.gateways.edu.au/gifted-and-talented

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A very useful resource for parents and teachers alike - You Know Your Child Is Gifted When . . . eBook

Click here for the free ebook

"You know your child is gifted when . . . your 5-year-old gives you permission to use the dictionary during Scrabble. Or your 8-year-old solves your computer problems. Parenting a gifted child can be a mixed blessing. It helps to know what to look for, what to expect, and what other parents have experienced. This lighthearted introduction to life with a gifted child is a great place to start."

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10 Steps for Parents and Kids to Tame the Worry Monster

Do you have a child who worries or is anxious?
The beginning of a new school year can be a time when some children feel worried and may be anxious about returning to (or beginning) school. This article provides some practical tips to help battle the Worry Monster.
10 Steps for Parents and Kids to Tame the Worry Monster

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Scientists studied 5,000 gifted children for 45 years. This is what they learned about success.

"No matter how teachers and parents challenge kids to further develop these abilities, 45 years' worth of data suggests it's imperative that they do. The future of the world could depend on it."

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/09/scientists-studied-5-000-gifted-children-for-45-years-this-is-what-they-learned-about-success/

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Some of My Best Friends are Books: Guiding Gifted Readers from Preschool to High School

'Some of my best friends are books' describes: intellectual and emotional needs of both young and older readers and offers ideas for using books to address issues of identity, growth, difference and intellectual passions. The author describes things as;Typical and advanced reading patterns for grades K-12; How parents and teachers can give reading guidance and discuss books with young readers; A well-indexed annotated bibliography of more than 300 books for readers of all ages, carefully selected to promote intellectual and emotional development; Books that deal with themes such as Achievement, Aloneness, Arrogance, Developing Imagination, Intensity, Introversion, Perfectionism, Relationships with Others, Sensitivity, and Resiliency. There is also an index with suggested titles for each theme and the page numbers for short summaries of these titles.

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Emotional intensity in gifted children

This article by Lesley Sword explores and explains emotional intensity in gifted individuals. A number of traits of emotionally intensity are described. Strategies for parents are suggested to help their emotionally intense gifted children to accept themselves as they are.

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What are some characteristics of gifted students?

What are some characteristics of gifted students?

Gifted children show distinguishing characteristics from an early age. These traits are not exclusive to gifted students and not all gifted students possess all of them, but they may be present to a greater degree.  

(Source: Silverman, 1993 p. 53)

Gifted students may also display (negative) challenging characteristics.

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