Met a mom last week with 3 kids under 3
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| Sat, 03-25-2006 - 9:59am |
A 2 year old and 17 month old twins. First she accomplished *that* through two surrogates! Wonderful what modern medicine can do.
Anyway, she doesnt work full time, she consults to several companies so is out of the home one full day then a few hours a day on other days. Sometimes for work, sometimes to go to the gym, etc.
She has a full time live in nanny, and two part time nannies. Essentially they always have someone with them and the kids. She feels she needs two to properly care for her three.
I immediately thought of all the comments her lifestyle would elicit from this board.
The day she and I met she had just come from a 2 hour session at the gym, and was then heading off to go do some shopping.
BTW, she's a complete rock star in industry, having 'retired' a year ago after a 30 year career that took her right up to the top of corporate America so she's definetly *earned* her right to do whatever the heck she wants.
But anyway, she feels she is a super hands on mom. I was curious what others would think?
MM

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i think that in many cases, the people that trained educators don’t “get” are the parents who will go to any lengths to assign some sort of twisted interpretation of “genius” on their child no matter the harm that this olympian distortion can cause.
another poster already pointed out that extraordinary ability is almost never present in more than one skill set—not by any means reason to push a child in a broad range of areas of study, nor too much for most families to well nurture *in addition* to a normal school setting. the implication that there are a large number of children in the world—much less in a single community—who are truly “gifted” in so many areas that they wouldn’t benefit as much from a normal classroom as any other child the vast majority of the day is in and of itself evidence that such a community would necessarily badly misunderstand child development and education. what’s more, just about any child of normal intelligence can be taught a number of skills at a much faster rate than is customary—a rate that is “normal” not because, as such parents choose to misinterpret, it is the outside limit of a “normal” child’s potential, but because, as educators know, it is the pace at which most children will tend to develop a skill set without that development interfering in development in other, equally if not more important areas or without undue and unhealthy pressure put upon the child. intellectual gifts are not normally particularly different than athletic gifts; parents needn’t force a child to quit school or other normal activities to foster them, and, it is not any more reasonable to condemn a school for not offering latin in lower el even though a parent thinks that they study of it would suit her child’s “gifts” than it would be to fault it for not offering pole vaulting even though another parent thinks it would suit her child’s “gifts.” a given school’s offerings might be considered insufficient by an individual parent, but that lack doesn’t necessarily reflect either what the school should provide nor the quality of what it actually does provide.
educators tend to get a bum rap in certain circles not because they have neglected the special needs of gifted children, but because they understand that there is a great deal more to nurturing and educating child—and even a “gift”—than meeting his or her parents’ desire for skipping grades, forcing academics, and otherwise feeding a desire for bragging rights and keeping ahead of the joneses. the fact that most educators understand that most children labeled as “gifted” could as rightly be called simply “bright and well (or in some cases overly) prepared” is to their credit—despite the damnations of the parents who feel that their children’s emotional, social, and the majority of their educational needs should be subverted for the sake of a gifted label that to their thinking trumps all else.
“getting” a child is about much more than treating him or her like a one-dimentional freak. it is to their credit and a credit to their training that most professional educators don't buy that bill of goods even in the face of a parent's hard sell.
there's nothing inherently wrong with homeschooling, but no parent of any child who actually is too gall-durn smart to be with his age peers in a school setting is going to learn that only after trying it out. a kid who is unfit to learn alongside his peers is going to be referred elsewhere by trained educators before he darkens their classroom door; a kid whose parents deem his peers unfit to stand in his epic shadow is another animal altogether.
I'm still unclear why you feel the need to try to educate me about how the academic world operates. But I continue to get from you the attitude I see in your on-line communities that you know better than absolutely everybody else, and that the gifted child is always being treated completely unfairly without explanation. Got it.
I feel no need to go into my background but suffice to say, you are not qualified to once again "correct" me about educating the gifted. Anyone who relies so heavily as you do on the on-line communities loses credibility with me. I've lurked on the boards, I've read the articles. All of their kids are not simply gifted ~ they are all highly and profoundly gifted. Yet, the schools always, always do nothing. That says something to me. The on-line communities base everything on the tests. That is completely misguided so I am not in the least surprised that so many of your on-line friends are disappointed and heartbroken. They are causing it themselves.
I have never seen your on-line friends say a positive thing about any school administrator either. It is just not possible that absolutely everyone has it in for these parents of allegedly gifted kids.
Recently, we learned that a relative tested THREE years ahead of his age level in both math and reading. Yet, he's autistic and deficient in so many ways. Would you have him skip a few years in school? Of course not. That would be hubris. And that is what is causing these on-line parents so much heartbreak.
Jennie
Jennie
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Yes, you misinterpreted. School includes all schooling.
I wouldn't pay a dime for tutoring for my kids from someone who is not or had never been affiliated with the schools.
As irritating as I am to you because I apparently know everything, is your thinking that you know who my friends are and where I spend my time on-line. Did I tell you where I was hanging out on-line? Did I give you the names of my cyber friends and acquaintances?
I never said I knew better than everybody else. I never said that the gifted child is always being treated completely unfairly.
I guess it is a character flaw of mine that when I see someone who doesn't understand a notion (homeschooling as a viable option for gifted children) that I want to help open a mind and give information to help that person make a more thoughtful evaluation of the notion.
Sorry. I keep forgetting that some people are happier with a closed mind.
Now I've gotta go prep my kids for their monthly IQ test.
<<...otherwise feeding a desire for bragging rights and keeping ahead of the joneses.>>
Thank you. You said what I've been unable to get across here! There is so much of the parent's ego tied up in the term "gifted." That's what can lead to the parent's hubris and eventual heartbreak. But they have no one to blame ~ they bring it on themselves. (Though certainly as you noted, some gifted children may fall through the cracks because of for example, arbitrary or capricious or megalomaniac administrators ~ but not every single time.)
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