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#001 Welcome to Our Gifted Kids Podcast!

#001 Welcome to Our Gifted Kids Podcast!

Welcome to Our Gifted Kids Podcast

Welcome to Our Gifted Kids Podcast – a hub for all things gifted.

This Podcast is about sharing the journey of actually parenting gifted kids and connecting with advice and support so we have everything we need for every member of our family to thrive.

If you’d like to be a part of this conversation and share your experience, where ever you’re at in the journey, or maybe you’re someone who works with gifted kids and would like to share your work or services get in touch at www.ourgiftedkids.com because this is all about building community!

Our Podcast can be found in all the places you find podcasts, so subscribe, review and leave me a comment!

Full Transcript

00:00:00 Welcome and hello. I wanted to take a moment to say hi.

Our gifted kids is here to start a conversation. So we started a podcast and I’m so glad that you found it today. This podcast is about sharing the journey of actually parenting gifted kids and connecting with advice and support. So we have everything we need for every member of our family to thrive.

00:00:25 It’s a place to get together, share our knowledge and celebrate our quirky community. As a parent of three, very different, challenging, awesome, gifted kids I wanted to talk about all things gifted because this is an important conversation to have as a community. We need to understand gifted kids better so that our parenting and our educating is responding to what these quirky kids need to thrive.

00:00:53 Not just survive, but grow up into happier adults. Leading lives that they love.

I’ve been where you are now wondering what to do and where to get help. I felt alone and isolated and ashamed of admitting that my kids are gifted. I felt like ‘one of those parents’, the ones everyone hates. Wondering what ultimate reality I’d just fallen into.

I found peace of mind when I found support through my own tribe.

00:01:26 Other parents of gifted kids, I could finally share my five-year-old’s obsession with the periodic table without feeling like a total twat and everyone understood. And everyone had their own stories to share –  who knew the periodic table was so entertaining?

I’ve learned some new parenting tricks that work with my kids. I’ve been able to resolve their education challenges and I’ve had the space and the energy to ask what does my family need so that we all thrive.

00:01:57 My kids, my husband, even me and our dog. What do we need for today?

What can we do now as parents that will help our kids grow up to be happy, emotionally grounded, confident, and resilient adults, brave enough to follow their own path. If you’d like to be a part of this conversation and share your experience wherever you are in that journey,

00:02:25 or maybe you’re someone who works with gifted kids and would like to share your work or services, send me a message at ourgiftedkids.com because this is all about building community.

We can be found in all the places you find podcasts. So subscribe review, and leave me a comment. Talk to you soon on the, our gifted kids podcast.

#002 What is gifted? Podcast

#002 What is gifted? Podcast

Today I’m speaking with Lynda McInnes, Principal of Dara School for gifted kids about What is Gifted?

Find out what Bart and Lisa from the Simpsons can tell us about being gifted! It might not be what you think!

In the episode you’ll hear:

  • There is no single definition of giftedness
  • Giftedness is also called highly abled
  • Children are usually gifted in particular areas but rarely in all areas
  • Using psychological assessment to identify strengths
  • Asynchronous development – being age-appropriate in some areas and gifted in other areas
  • Learning at their stage (not age) in each subject
  • Differentiation and the challenges of teachers to cater to variance of six years in a classroom
  • The importance of differentiating for gifted kids
  • Gifted kids need more than differentiation in the classroom
  • What Bart & Lisa Simpson can tell us about gifted kids
  • About starting a school for gifted kids
  • Gifted kids not fitting into mainstream schools
  • Finding your tribe
  • Gifted kids don’t have all the gifted characteristics

Hit play and let’s get started!

Memorable Quote

“When you have a relevant curriculum that’s relevant to that child then all their issues disappear… boredom, disruptive behaviour disappears.” – Lynda

“We’re falling behind internationally and …within our current context of education, it’s an inclusive education, so, all children of the same age are placed into the same classroom to do the same work then each teacher is expected to differentiate the curriculum so you can accommodate their needs…. the research shows… there are 6 years of difference in one classroom… how can a teacher do it?” – Lynda

Resources

Subscribe & Review

If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, I’d love to hear about your biggest takeaway in the comments.

For more episodes, you can subscribe, and to help others find our podcast please leave a review.

You can find show notes and more resources at www.ourgiftedkids.com

See you in the same place next week.

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Transcript

00:00:00 Today, we're talking about what is gifted and who would know better than Lynda McInnes, principal of Australia's only gifted school stay tuned. 

00:00:00 Today, we're talking about what is gifted and who would know better than Lynda McInnes, principal of Australia's only gifted school stay tuned. 

00:00:09 Hi, I'm Sophia Elliott as a parent of three gifted kids. I'm here to talk about all things gifted because I've been isolated and uncertain. And I felt like that parent, then I found peace of mind support and my community.

00:00:28 This podcast is about sharing that journey, actually parenting gifted kids and connecting with advice and support. So we have everything we need for every member of our family to thrive. This is the our gifted kid podcast. Welcome to the podcast. 

00:00:44 Thanks so much for your time today. One of our first conversations I'd like to have is just quite simply, what is gifted?

00:00:51 What does it mean to be gifted? I think the term gifted is probably being used over the years in a variety of different ways. There's no universal definition. And I think that's part of the problem when it comes to what does it mean? I prefer along the lines of highly able, so, what is a highly able student, how does that different from a,

00:01:16 what we would say to normal student, you know, you've got your students in your class, what do those students look like? How do they behave? Are all kids gifted? I think Some people will use that term quite freely to say that all children have a gift, but at the end of the day, we all learn differently. When you use that term gifted or highly able,

...continue reading transcript here...

00:01:41 what you're doing is characterizing a particular student has a particular trait in a particular way. So it may be that for example, take maths for instance. Cause that's my, probably my biggest passion when you've got a child that can actually do quite abstract maths thinking. And they're several years ahead of other students, the same age to me, that's the student.

00:01:41 what you're doing is characterizing a particular student has a particular trait in a particular way. So it may be that for example, take maths for instance. Cause that's my, probably my biggest passion when you've got a child that can actually do quite abstract maths thinking. And they're several years ahead of other students, the same age to me, that's the student.

00:02:05 That's highly able in a particular area. That's the student that's gifted. And so I gifted students gifted across all, Not necessarily. You can me have a real passion for maths, for instance. And that's where all of your energy goes in, but you might not be strong when it comes to the written word. So you may be average ability in,

00:02:32 in, you know, you, your written, your spelling, your grammar is a gifted students aren't necessarily gifted in all areas. They could be just in one particular focus. It could be in art for instance, that there are amazing at the art that they do, but not necessarily gifted in other abilities. Say there are a few children that would be gifted across every area,

00:02:59 but they would be very far. And few between My oldest son is very passionate about all things, science and space, but when he was in reception and even now he's very much age appropriate in terms of writing in English, which he considers to be quite boring. And initially at his previous school, that was quite a barrier for them to being able to acknowledge that he needed acceleration.

00:03:30 It was like he was already reading three years ahead of his peers, but he was age appropriate in his writing and storytelling because it was all about facts for him. I often feel like people struggled to see a child as gifted or highly abled when they're kind of age appropriate in some areas. Do you see that Quite often used to see that where teacher would say,

00:03:57 well, I'm not accelerating him in for instance science, because he can't write. There are other ways that you can assess the child. It's not just in written word. You could actually record them, ask them questions, you know, assessment, shouldn't all be about written, you know, and I think that just boils down to how different teachers assess different children when you've got,

00:04:22 you know, some of the teachers that we've got that are, you know, been around for years, they will assess children based on just general conversations that they're having at the time going, you know, they're able to recall facts, they're able to analyze those facts. So some children could give you the results of everything for the last 50 years on a particular football player,

00:04:45 for instance. But when you actually ask them to analyze and what does that mean? That's when that other level of understanding comes in and that's what you search for it. Are they able to make connections between what they're passionate about and other areas that they're just hamstrung? Yeah, no written words. Not part of their strength. Yeah. And that's okay.

00:05:13 Yep. So I think I quite often say, so what, So at Dara Dara school, Australia's first school for gifted children. What do you look for when you're interviewing students? What's the process? You know, the criteria you go through, What we do is we actually asked for a psychologist report that they've had, they've been tested so that we can actually see what,

00:05:38 what do the results that she's shy. I don't look at the final IQ product at the end. I actually break the data down and look at what, where are their strengths located? What does that mean for that student? Where are their strengths? Where are their weaknesses at the end of the day, it's about providing an environment. That's actually going to nurture that child to support them in their learning journey.

00:06:04 If a gifted child's, environment's not supporting them, then there are some significant problems can occur that become bored, disinterested. They have social issues. They don't relate to their peers. The list goes on. These children are the ones that actually end up dropping out if they're not looked after. So we're very mindful during part of that process that we actually look for.

00:06:35 Do they fit? You know, do they have areas that they are gifted in? Are there areas that they're not that's okay because we actually split up the curriculum in such a way, is that we allow them to Excel in the areas that they are and the areas that they're just they're age appropriate. They work at age appropriate curriculum. So it's not about pigeonholing a child into a year level.

00:07:03 For instance, you know, we could have a child that will describe a child at the moment. That's, you know, currently he's working at year six maths and his, you know, age appropriate. He would in any other school, he'd be in a year, two class. He's actually doing year for English curriculum year six, maths for him,

00:07:25 he's happy. He's content he's well adjusted. He's actually got friends within the classroom. And then not necessarily in his age group, they're all across different age groups, depending on what his interest is on any given day. So for me, that success of where he is at this point is happy to see him, you know, move on. Yeah.

00:07:53 Yeah. So I've heard you in the past, describe gifted children as children who learn more quickly than others. And as you've already said, they're able to make those connections. So you've been able to create that environment where they get to learn at their own pace in whatever subject that they do. Yeah. Yeah. And you're, you're seeing those results in terms of their happiness.

00:08:16 Yeah. And if they've completed part of a curriculum, we don't make them wait till the end of the year. It's about, they need to move. Now it's halfway through the year, let's move them to the next level. And we just keep adjusting those levels. So, you know, even within maths, there are four different streams. And in some,

00:08:33 some areas of maths, they may be exceptionally strong in our other areas. There may be some gaps that they haven't quite understood. So it's about supporting them, giving them the information so they can actually progress to that next level. Yeah. I know. I went, I've spoken to parents in that kind of early phase of wondering is my child gifted had that conversation where they'll say you,

00:09:01 my son, he loves maths and I can get him to eat his vegetables by say, right. If you eat that, I'll give you an equation to do, but in other areas it's very much age appropriate. And so parents, I think, doubt themselves and their interpretation perhaps, or where their child is at because at the end of the day,

00:09:21 a six year old is still a six year old. And some areas there always is going to be a six year old by in other areas, there might be a years ahead of their peers and gifted in those areas. So I think it's a real challenge for parents knowing that that's okay. You know, it's, it's not that every gifted child is,

00:09:41 you know, Sheldon Cooper from the big bang theory and just sort of genius excelling in all areas. So it's exciting to hear that you're offering something that will fit them. So why do you think that gifted children are so misunderstood? Because in my conversations with pretty much every parent I've come across with a gifted child, the stories, you know, are often very similar in that their child has been at a school or many schools.

00:10:09 And they've just, they've just not been understood. They've been labeled as disruptive or hard to engage, or their behavior is really, um, disruptive at home. And it just feels like there's a lot of people just not getting these kids. What do you think that is? I think when you have a relevant curriculum that's relevant to that individual child, then all the other issues disappear.

00:10:37 So, you know, they bought them all there. You know, this has captured me, you know, some boredom disappears, you know, disruptive behavior disappears. I know personally, if you heard the same thing over and over again, then you, you start to go on board. Um, a lot of teachers will come at the curriculum and they will teach different things that you get several opportunities,

00:11:04 but delve into it when a gifted child has done it once and they've got it, they just want to move on. But when you re constantly repeat the curriculum, which is what we do in the classroom as a teacher, to make sure that they have understanding or to get bored, you've shown me the equation. Yep. I've got it. Yeah.

00:11:23 I've done a few practices. Let let's move on. The other part of this is within our classrooms at the moment, and I've just been reading some research. Um, that's being pulled out that we falling behind internationally and it's been, was explained that within our current context, that education it's an inclusive education. So all children of the same age, uh,

00:11:51 placed into the same classroom to do the same work. Then each teacher is expected to differentiate the curriculum through inclusion through that inclusive practice so that you can accommodate their needs as a teacher. Yep. That's possible when the research is that she's shown that from your, the least able to the most highly able, there are six years of difference in the one classroom.

00:12:20 Wow. That's huge. It's huge. Um, how can a teacher do it? Um, it's the next question. A lot of teachers have never been exposed to the differentiation or they see differ initiation as a lot of hard work. So they actually tend to teach content. Yeah. You know, the default is Australian curriculum says, I need to teach for this year level.

00:12:47 So this is what I'm going to teach. Even though the Australian curriculum, diversity document talks, um, very much about how you can actually use different year levels. It is an art in itself. The other part of problem, I think, is as a teacher, you know, we do our three or four years at university. We are not exposed to gifted it.

00:13:13 Yeah. It may pop up in a lecture where somebody might mention it, but how do you cater for them? How, you know, and trying to understand these children is another minefield. I know when I did my training as a teacher, it wasn't mentioned and I was in a classroom. And I could tell that I had students that with high abilities and I had students that were struggling.

00:13:39 I felt as a teacher, that I was failing. Some of these children as the Australian population has become increasingly multiple cultures. You know, you see also in your classrooms now you have English as a second language as well. So, you know, I've got highly able, I've now got, you know, students with a disability. I've got English as a second language and I have other children.

00:14:06 Yeah. We're demanding a lot of our teachers, aren't we And central format. And some of these classes, you know, it can be 30 students and trying to cater for all of those students can be problematic. Differentiation is one way of managing it. When I realized that there was six year levels in one class, um, just horrified me because My mind,

00:14:29 I mean, I've got three kids. I couldn't imagine teaching a class with 20 little 30. And, um, yeah, my understanding is that a lot of the universities within Australia in their teaching courses, they may do an elective for gifted education, but there really is very little, you've got to go and do a master's in gifted ed if you really want to get across the subject.

00:14:52 So, and that's where I went in the end was how, how am I going to accommodate these children? So I actually went on and did a master's degree in gifted education, which opened my eyes up, um, around how I could differentiate what their characteristics, what and what these students required from me as a teacher. You know, I changed my headset.

00:15:13 You know, I put the student at the center of the universe and everything that I do needs to evolve around them, which made an enormous amount of work for me. But as I've gone through my career, it's become easier and easier to deal with those. But the other part of the problem that I've faced, you know, having a master's degree in gifted education is one thing.

00:15:37 It's getting your fellow colleagues to understand what these students need. Uh, so you know, administration in most schools will be, yes, we cater for them. We do it inclusively. We do it in the classroom. You know, you should be happy with that. These children need far more. They need a teacher that actually gets them and understands them.

00:15:58 And there are some exceptional teachers out there. I'm not saying that all teachers, you know, it's that exceptional teacher that really gets really, what is the curriculum? What is this child need and trying to program that's where you problems when you've got six years of difference in a classroom, it's extremely difficult because the concept that you're trying to teach can't be done globally.

00:16:24 It has to be done very individually. So, you know, at the end of the day, you know, with the lack of administration support, lack of teacher training, what we're getting in our classrooms are misconceptions. Teachers just don't know how to deal with them. They see that, you know, putting them in an into a special program is a reward,

00:16:49 but they need to behave. So in order to get into that program, they actually have to behave the end of the day. They're a child and they board Absolutely. I came across this as well. It's that kind of idea that, Oh yeah, that students, and actually this was in my son's previous school. They said, Oh, we do have,

00:17:08 we've got an English program for highly able students within English. And they do a class for an hour a week. And I just felt like as a parent, my child is not gifted for an hour, a day or an hour away. Like they're just 24, seven gifted. Like what would they be doing the rest of the time? And I must have gone to at least six primary schools in our local area.

00:17:35 And all of them, I asked, what do you offer gifted students? Most of them had no particular program at all. One of them had a gifted program and that was it. And, and I got varying responses when asked the question, you know, do you have any gifted students? One principal says we have students with many gifts. And then I just felt like,

00:17:58 well, that's really not the question I asked. And, and other schools would say, look, we do have one or two gifted students. We don't have a particular program, but we, you know, we try and differentiate as much as possible. So at least they were honest and upfront about what they could offer, but it was really challenging.

00:18:17 And I definitely felt as a parent that a complete lack of confidence that my child would be supported in the way they needed to be supported. And that's, it's really quite confronting. It's pretty scary. And, you know, we were just very lucky to have Dara on our doorstep here in Adelaide in terms of gifted kids though, I've heard you in the past talk about Bart and Lisa.

00:18:41 So you're not getting out of this conversation without telling us about Von Lisa. So what's the deal with the same sentence. Uh, people quite often, you know, ask me about, you know, defining what is a gifted child. And quite often go to my default, which is Baton Lisa. She asked the question, which of, which of the two is gifted and everyone's going to say Lisa,

00:19:03 right. Everyone says Lisa. And I actually say, Lisa's a high achiever because she puts all that energy, getting, you know, everything right. And she's out to please, everybody she's always studying, always studying, you know, but on the other hand, it's the one that's gifted. And when I sat down and I watched many, many episodes,

00:19:27 part of course, I spent many hours, you know, watching Bart episodes with my son and started to compare my son to Bart. I could see what was going on, but on the other hand is the one that's gifted. Um, you know, like quite often say, you know, he must have had ADHD, um, because he's hyperactive,

00:19:50 he's always getting up to mischief. He's, you know, out and out, bored with life in general and makes his own entertainment. He's always thinking outside of the square, there's one episode where they show him, you know, he's thinks he's going to Spain. So he gets on the airplane. And by the time he gets off the airplane at the other end,

00:20:13 he can speak fluid Spanish, which is not bad for someone that, you know, we would consider as the naughty child in the classroom. He's the gifted one in the classroom. He can turn on when he wants to. He turns it on when he wants to there's another episode where they put him on medication and he actually turned into what he called himself,

00:20:34 was the super geek, you know, and started to wear glasses and could answer questions and whole range of things. You know, he turned into this, you know, amazing genius, but the bottom line was he could see how unhappy his sister was. He had this and gifted children have this strong sense of social justice. And he actually got really sad and very upset because the limelight was now on him and not his sister.

00:21:08 So in his wisdom, he actually stopped taking the medication reverted back to the bar that we know and love so that his sister could have the limelight, you know, in his eyes, ill always do what he always does and it'll always get what he always wants. Um, you know, to me, that's the gifted one. Yeah. I love that.

00:21:30 I really do. My youngest is three and that's sometimes feel like he's a bit of a Bart. You know, if, if this, if the silence in the house, it's always like, well, what is he up to? You know, he's the first one out of all of them who will be taking something apart or deconstructing something or just carnage,

00:21:53 he just gets into it. I think he gets a bit bored and he just looks for trouble. You know, it can be quite challenging A bit like my son, um, my son's now in his thirties, but you know, going through school, he, I never saw him do homework. Just did what he wanted to do. He got twenties for,

00:22:15 you know, in his sys he did it all in a matter of couple of weeks because the assignments were all Jews. So let's just throw this together, have a raid. Yep. That's good enough. And submit, you know, he then went on and decided he'd be a motor mechanic. And I thought, interesting career path, he was bored.

00:22:35 He could pull a car apart, put it back together with his eyes shot. You know, he would help the lecturer when he went to trade school, sitting up all the PowerPoints, uh, locking everything because he'd actually completed the two weeks or three weeks of trade school in the first week. And what do you do for the next two weeks? So they put him to get to work,

00:22:56 doing a whole variety of other things since then he's gone on now, works in it. Um, how long that career path will last, we'll find out he's just who he is and becomes bored. I look back on my career and I've probably had five career changes, so I'm not going to question my son says I too, get bored very quickly.

00:23:24 Um, so yeah, I think it's just part and parcel now being gifted. And so, you know, were you just bored one day and you decided to create a school for gifted kids? Is that how that came about, Came about through the injustice, as you spoke about your own story, where you've been to schools and, you know, the kids were bored.

00:23:48 I noticed, and many of the students and I was actually a coordinator of a gifted program that the teachers just didn't get them administration wouldn't allow them to accelerate because it didn't fit the timetable. Was it a bit of inconvenience? And I just kept shaking my head going, there has to be a better way of educating these children. Um, and I remember talking to a colleague,

00:24:14 um, in the staff room and she said, well, why don't we do something about it? So we started talking and we came up with this brilliant idea, why don't we start our own school? And from there, we just actually started to talk to people, our rec. And within three months we held our first committee meeting. And that was back in the October, 2013.

00:24:39 And the idea was born before long. We had a committee probably 12 working really hard on what were the needs that we had to achieve to be able to open a school, a curriculum we could do, um, policy we could do, but it was the most important thing was we actually needed a physical site, um, having no money. Um,

00:25:05 how do you get a site? So it was, you know, digging into people's pockets to be able to rent a space, to be able to take the next tick off the next, you know, the next step saying, we now have a physical dwelling. We've now completed all of the paperwork. We've now done all of the curriculum, what next?

00:25:25 And that's how the story sort of in a very quick nutshell was born. And it was, I think, predominantly teachers in the beginning. And then it was teachers and parents, and which is unheard of, uh, you know, two different sets of groups of people to actually come together and work towards a common goal. But the vision was very strong that we wanted to achieve a school where these children could thrive rather than just survive.

00:25:57 Absolutely. And I think that's the thing for me, thriving is just crucial today. It's one of my core values and it's, it was devastating to see my kids, you know, not thriving and certainly not getting what they needed. And I talked to a lot of parents where, you know, the glaring inadequacies of the current system, breaking children,

00:26:22 breaking their souls and making it very challenging for families to figure out what to do and what steps to take, uh, talking to a parent recently of quite a young child and about four or five who had already been to, I think was about five. And I'd already been to like three different schools, you know, and then they were trying to homeschool,

00:26:47 you know, just been in and out of different, um, educational institutions. And it just hadn't worked. And another parent whose child just had been bullied basically, you know, and said to his mom one day, why am I weird, mom? Why my weird, what can I do to be normal? How do I become normal? And one of the things I struggle with is this idea that kids don't know that they're gifted,

00:27:15 that they're different because they do they're in the playground with their peers and they know that they can't connect. You know, one of the I'll never forget when my son was five and just observing him in the playground. And at that time, his favorite topics was Google Plex, the number and planet nine. And cause he, you know, he had,

00:27:40 he'd gotten onto space by this stage and I could see him kind of bouncing around the playground, trying to talk to other kids about, you know, these concepts and just kind of every time he tried to engage, it would just bounce back because they just weren't interested in planet nine and just desperate for that connection. But there was just, there was no connection.

00:28:04 And you know, it was very obvious to me that he realized that he was different. You know, you can't second guess I think the experience that they have for themselves. And it's just because they're younger doesn't mean that that's any less difficult, that sense of not belonging and what I love and have loved, you know, the out time at Dara has been hearing,

00:28:26 uh, when your kids come and their parents say things like, uh, you know, after a week or so I think one child said, mom, thank goodness we've found. I found a school full of normal people because they've just found their tribe. They found people that they connect with, uh, or, you know, think just that sense of being somewhere that they belong.

00:28:50 Yeah. I've heard many, many of those stories over the years where someone said, I've actually got my weekends back. I don't have to go and find your, you know, as you put it a tribe for them to connect with, they've actually got everything that they need here. A one parent said, my child comes home, exhausted, wants to go to bed early.

00:29:16 I don't know whether this is good or bad. And they said, you know, it took me a couple of weeks to work out that their mind was being stretched. It was being exercised. They were actually making connections. You found a friend that they can have a play date with where they argue over the periodic table. You know, things that haven't even been taught within a normal system.

00:29:42 But know here we are discussing the intricacies. You know, it reminds me of, um, talking about the playground where add on playground duty as a teacher, yet you, you watch them and they play and they do a whole variety of things and you get you to your normal things happening in the playground. But this one particular day, um, I had two children.

00:30:06 They had been arguing over the correct generic name for jellyfish. And so there's me with Google on my phone, looking up to see who's right. I gotta, I've got to settle this argument. Well, in the end, what I discovered was both of them were right. That the scientists were even out on this same argument. I love that we then wrote an email to both of the scientists that were arguing,

00:30:34 coming up with what their thoughts were so that the students could actually converse through my email to the scientists about how the jellyfish should actually be named. So that was, you know, from a playground incident to actually conversing with a scientist. Um, I never thought I'd even be doing that, but Hey, here we go. You know, and I got home and I tell my husband,

00:31:03 you know, some of the stories that happened during the day and he just says to me, well, you will have a bunch of Sheldon Coopers at your school. This is what's expected. So how do you find the answers? And I said, it's called Google. Okay, go yet. Thank goodness for Google. I think. Yeah. You know,

00:31:21 and I think that's a particularly sore point for me because, um, our experience at the previous school was very much of really lack of understanding. And we, we sought to accelerate, um, my son at that school just by six months, because just due to his age, he had started reception six months early. He had, so he had completed a year of reception halfway through the year.

00:31:46 Uh, he was already of his peers and he was actually depressed. Wasn't diagnosed depressed, but if you've ever seen a five year old with a complete lack of joy or a complete lack of being able to find joy in his life or laughing that went on for a number of weeks because he just felt that disconnection. And he was desperate to delve in deeply on those issues that he was really passionate about.

00:32:19 And he would come home from school, which I think he then just saw as a place to go and play. Uh, and he would spend four or five hours absorbing, like you'd just inhaling books on space, um, before eventually getting to sleep. And I think that depths of misunderstanding was other, one of the conversations I had with the deputy was about this acceleration request.

00:32:47 And she said, no, well, we didn't want to do that because he was only age appropriate with his writing. And they were concerned about his like social, emotional consequences of accelerating him. And they didn't say that he was already suffering the social emotional consequences of not accelerating him. And she actually said to me, you know, at this age we really want our students to experience life and learning and to be able to hold a rock and know that it's a rock and feel that rock and really understand the context.

00:33:21 And I just thought, we're talking about a child who wants to take two buckets to the sun to collect, um, hydrogen, to create water. It's like, he could probably tell you the elements in that rock and it's sad, but I keep hearing stories like that grave misunderstanding from a lot of parents and which is why, you know, I've been very keen to start this podcast just to start having that narrative and dialogue about what is gifted out.

00:33:51 So that parents out there and kids out there feel less alone and isolated. Because another thing that parents say when they do find out tribe is, is just that sense of relief of being able to talk to other people who understand those quirks and those crazy moments of having a gifted child and just being able to connect without it being seen as, I don't know,

00:34:19 gloating because they're so ahead in their reading or whatever it might be, but that's just who they are. And so just very quickly as we end, I think I'd like to touch on what a asynchronous development is, because I think that's a word that parents might hear, uh, and, and just important for them to have a good understanding of, we have kind of touched on that already,

00:34:43 but that's, that's basically the terminology for like being age appropriate in one area, but perhaps really advanced in other areas, Synchronous development can cover not just your ability, but your, a social, your maturity. It could have disability thrown in there as well. So, you know, necessarily, yes, I'm six years of age. My maturity might be a few years ahead by sets of social stuff,

00:35:14 justices strong. I could be a student that's brilliant at maths, but not necessarily in English. And I could have a disability thrown in there as well, where dysgraphia, which is, you know, Paul poor writing skills. Um, so they're not necessarily doing everything at a six year old. So it's scattered across, you know, multiple year levels and that tends to lead to what they use that term as asynchronous development.

00:35:47 You know, it's not a once age fits all. Yeah, Yeah. That no one, one size fits all yeah. Appropriate. Yeah. Well, well, thanks for that. I think we've covered a fair bit of ground there. Probably my last question actually might be just for you, what would the difference be between, because other terms that,

00:36:10 you know, we hear as parents, when we go through the assessment process is, you know, gifted Molly, mildly gifted, highly gifted, profoundly gifted. What does it all mean? And what's the implications of those terms? Lots of terms are used and bounded or around this no universal recognized term, but when it comes to psychologists, they'll actually use an IQ rating.

00:36:38 And in that IQ rating, they talk about, you know, disabled average, mildly gifted, profoundly gifted is sort of just ranks you across a spectrum, I suppose to say, where you are in the scheme of things, a bit lucky year level, um, you know, you might not necessarily be profoundly gifted in all areas. You might be gifted in one particular.

00:37:06 So profoundly just refers to a very high IQ, whereas mildly gifted, you know, you're just gifted, you know, you just made it over that magic number of threshold and each psychologist's report has different, different wording that goes with it as well. So I think, you know, we've got the term gifted, then we've got all these other terms that pop up and I think it's just a minefield.

00:37:34 Yeah. It can get very confusing as a parent because when you do Google those things, I've noticed that, you know, it depends what website you go to. It'll give you different names for different levels or IQs or numbers. But I mean, I think at the end of the day, you know, if you're assessed in that area, it's indicating that your child is learning differently to the general population and therefore requires something a bit different in how they're educated and parents sometimes.

00:38:07 And quite often, when you talk to a gifted child, they articulate things completely different. They'll come up with different solutions, um, different ways of doing it may be a very long convoluted way of coming to the end product. Um, but it's what works for them. And it's about their logic, their understanding. One thing I have sort of had to recognize over the last sort of year or so is,

00:38:34 so I've got three children, two have been assessed as gifted, and my youngest is three. So he's not had any assessment yet, but he's developmentally very similar to the other two, but they all express, I think that sense of that giftedness very differently. My oldest is I feel quite in your face gifted, you know, people will talk to him and inevitably kind of go,

00:39:01 how old are you? What grade are you in? You know, you're telling me about, I don't know, black holes or space link or whatever it is. And whereas my daughter has always been far more subtle. Uh, I mean she has had some speech development challenges, but even still, she sort of expresses herself differently. And obviously they're all very different people.

00:39:27 She's very much a creative problem solver and yeah, I don't know how else to say. It's just, she's just a lot more subtle than her brother, but, but yet they're, they're all gifted and have scored highly in that regard. But I guess it's just emphasizing that it's not even a one box or one size fits all amongst gifted kids. They're all going to be very different people,

00:39:52 aren't they? Yeah. And I think that's one of the hardest problems is, you know, you can't say if you, if you have all of these characteristics, then you're gifted. Um, you could have some of these and a few of those. I mean, it's all over the place and, and it depends on the area that you're gifted in.

00:40:10 It also depends on, you know, your upbringing, whether you've been bullied at school, whether you feel confident, you know, there's a lot of social issues that come into play as well. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Uh, well, Linda, thanks so much. I think we've dived pretty deeply there into what he's gifted and hopefully that our listeners find that really helpful.

00:40:33 Uh, and I look forward to having some future conversations, uh, certainly about Dara and, and that journey. And, um, also about some of the myths of being gifted. So thanks so much enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way. I'd love to hear about your biggest takeaway in the comments for more episodes, you can subscribe and to help others find out forecasts.

00:40:56 Please leave a review. You can find show notes and more resources ourgiftedkids.com and connect with us on Facebook and Instagram. See you in the same place next week.