you might read yourself as an adult. And so one of our friends. Who was a teacher, although not, she was doing something else.

[00:07:40] She wasn’t actually teaching at that time, but she’d been trained in the UK. And apparently in the UK, they do a bit more work around training teachers to identify gifted kids. And so it was actually her who said to us you know, he’s gifted. Right. And we were kind of like, no, really? What does that mean?

[00:08:00] And really you think so we were kind of pulling our hair out by this point anyway. So we made the investment to get a psychological assessment and it is an investment. It was like $800 – $900, which is a lot of money for any family to, to pull together. So we went through the assessment process and I will never forget.

[00:08:22] I’m sitting down with that psych and my husband and getting the news that. He’s not just gifted. He was like super high. And, and it was kind of like when you get news that you actually can’t comprehend, you don’t, can’t comprehend it and you don’t really know what it means, and it’s quite overwhelming.

[00:08:40] And, and we just sat there trying to take it in from the psych, but really not knowing what the hell it meant. And we drove home. And at various times we were both laughing and crying because it was quite overwhelming. And we were like, what the hell do we do now? And the report from the psychologist had been really great because there were various recommendations with, okay, next step must be that we take that back to the school and they help us. Except we took it back to the school and the school. Were just not interested, despite having this document from a professional, an expert in identifying gifted children, that would just not interested. My grandmother may as well have written that for all they cared.

[00:09:30]And so part of the recommendations was acceleration. He was obviously ready. And capable of much more than reception. And as a parent, I was thinking he’s actually done 12 months of reception because he started early it’s midway through the year. And this particular school did midway entry.

[00:09:50] So some of his classmates because of their age had already, we’re moving up to grade one. And so we thought he’s already turned six. It seems reasonable that he would be accelerated into grade one now. And it was actually a grade one to three composite class which made it even better because I thought at least then whether he’s doing grade one work, grade two work or grade three work, you’re, they’re all in the same class.

[00:10:18] Surely that’s just going to make it easier for the teachers and better for him. Like it, to me, it just seemed like this great result. And it was clearly what he needed because he was not in a good place. Except when we spoke to the school, they refuse to accelerate him. And this is by six months. It’s not like I was asking for a whole grade skip or two grade skips.

[00:10:42]This was a six month shift within a framework where that already,a mid year shift was already happening with other kids and they refused it on the basis that his handwriting was only age appropriate. And they were concerned about his social, emotional wellbeing of not being with his classmates, which just dumbfounded me because.

[00:11:10] A, his classmates, some of them were moving up, so as far as he was concerned. He was going with them. He didn’t, he was like, I’m six, I’m going to go with them now. Right. And I had to explain to him that he wasn’t, he didn’t get it. And frankly, I didn’t get it either. And like, okay, his handwriting might be age appropriate, but he’s reading at like grade three level, what are you going to do for that?

[00:11:34] And, the best they could come up with was one hour a week. He could go sit with the other class, and the teacher had even said to me, prior to this, we’re struggling to find books for him that are appropriate because he’s young, but he’s reading at this advanced level and they just refuse to work with us.

[00:11:53] And even in that process, the deputy actually said, look, maybe you need to look around at other schools that will be a better fit for you. She actually said to me, at this school we really value our students experiencing life. We want them to, and I will never forget this. We want them to hold a rock and feel the rock can experience the rock and know that it’s a rock.

[00:12:17] And I’m just feeling like I’m in the Twilight zone. And I didn’t say this, but I’m thinking my son could probably tell you what elements are in that rock. Cause he loves the periodic table. Last week my son had said to me, he wanted to go to the sun and with two buckets of hydrogen, to collect hydrogen so he could bring it back with mixed with the oxygen to make water. I’m like he was well beyond holding a rock and understanding it was a rock he’s got that he needs to move on to something else. So the psychologist, what she said to us was. He learns really quickly. He, she described it as this funnel like we know a bottle, so we’ve all we all got this bottle and all the information goes in the top of the bottle.

[00:13:03] And some people have a really wide top and they can take a lot of information very quickly and retain it. And everyone’s a bit different. Some people their, the bottle’s hole is smaller. So they’re going to learn a little bit slower than the other person with the bigger hole or opening. I hope that makes sense.

[00:13:29] Well, that’s how she described it. And so for him, he’s opening his, is this, this big open bottle and everything’s pouring in, but he’s cool with that. He’s like, yep. Got it. Got it. No worries. Let’s move on to the next thing. He’s got this amazing memory. He’s going to learn fast. He’s going to remember.

[00:13:48] He doesn’t need to learn things over and over again. He’s probably good at the first time. So what he’d been experiencing reception was, and someone had described this to me at the time when you’re learning, particularly how to read, a teacher might go over something up to 30 times within that journey of learning that particular content and in different ways, but they said your son probably got it the second time. Maybe even the first time. So those other 28 times he’s bored out his brain. So that’s why he is feeling so disconnected and unhappy because he he’s. He’s just being asked to repeat content over and over again.

[00:14:43] And he’s not able to learn at the pace in which he needs to learn at all. He can learn it. So that was hugely devastating for us. We’d been a part of that school community for a number of years at that point already. My son had been to toddlers there and preschool there. My daughter at the time she’d been to baby steps and toddlers.

[00:15:03]She was. In preschool, I think at the time. And it just felt a huge betrayal that they were completely unwilling to work with us. And they were, they were completely unwilling to work with us.  We were saying, well, we’re having these huge issues with sleep and he comes home and he’s reading all this stuff, but they just looked as like, we were making this up and and it was like, we were doing something wrong and it’s like, well, why don’t you make your child go to bed? And I was like, it’s not like we don’t want him to go to bed. He’s, he’s obsessed. He needs this knowledge. He’s, he’s driven for it. And at one point they even put it back onto him and they said, well, he doesn’t go and get the hard stuff off the shelf and bring it to us.

[00:15:55] And I just thought, . Figure it out. He is obviously capable of more and he’s not happy. So go and get the hard stuff -he’s not engaging. Maybe it’s not hard enough. I don’t know. I’m not the teacher. I’m the parent telling you, I’ve got this report and I’ve got these problems and I need to be working with you in partnership to try and solve them and address them and support my son.

[00:16:19] But they were. Utterly unwilling. And we were very lucky. We live in Adelaide, in South Australia and we were very lucky that in Adelaide, South Australia, there is Australia’s only school for gifted kids. It’s called Dara School. And at this point it had only been opened a year or two. I think it may have even just been the second year of opening.

[00:16:44] So when we got absolutely nowhere with. The school we were at and not even nowhere, but we were all feeling very traumatized and devastated by the response that we’d got from the leadership and teachers. We applied to Dara and we went and had a look at a few other schools in the area. There was another school with a gifted program, but it wasn’t quite the right fit for us. So we applied to Dara and we were very lucky to get a place there. And within two weeks of him being at Dara, we suddenly realized he was happy. I think it was the end of week two. I suddenly looked at my husband and went, hang on. He’s. He has not been grumpy, like sad, picking fights, angry, frustrated this past little while.

[00:17:44] He’s actually been happy. He’s been tired when he gets home from school and going to bed, it happened so quickly at first. We didn’t even pick up on it. It was this sort of end of week two, we realized that he had changed and it was that quick. He had gone from this very disgruntled, frustrated, angry kid, to just the delightful boy that we knew and loved. And it really confirmed our decision to, to move him to this school and helped us to understand that how important it is. Not just important, but essential and integral. It is. For gifted kids, like our son to be able to learn at the pace in which they need to learn and and how connected that was to who they are.

[00:18:37]They’re just these massive sponges. But of course, being gifted, gifted kids, it’s not even a one size fits all. All kids are different. And they may share some characteristics. So gifted kids may learn more quickly. They may be, have a keen sense of social justice. They may have hypersensitivities and, be very sensitive kids.

[00:19:03]There are a number of characteristics that they can have, but. They don’t have to have all of these big lists. They’re all different as well. And they don’t have to be gifted across all areas. They may be gifted in one or two areas. It’s quite rare. I think for people to be gifted in every single area tested, and as, some people may be creative or it might be music, or it might be maths, or it might be science or English, writing.

[00:19:33] So everyone’s different, and so we went through this journey with our son and then. We were going through a different journey with our daughter. So my middle child is my daughter and she didn’t start talking until she was two and a half. And when she did start talking quickly realized all was not quite right.

[00:19:59] And she was assessed as having a severe speech impairment. And we. Of course put a lot of energy into getting help for that. And speech therapy. And we went through that process of, are there any other developmental issues or anything else going on? And so we undertook a few years of speech therapy and when it came to going into kind y  the speech therapist recommended a speech and language kindergarten that South Australia has. So within Adelaide, I think there are four kindergardens that within the state system that offer an intensive speech and language program. And so we applied for that and she got in and I mean, that’s probably another story, but. That was amazing. It was just an amazing program and an amazing experience for her.

[00:21:00] But as a part of the application process, she had to undertake a cognitive assessment. So she had to be assessed to ensure that the developmental issues were only around speech because this program was only for kids who just had that speech impairment. Not other developmental delays so that assessment actually indicated as well that she was gifted and obviously, because she was not verbal as such they didn’t test the verbal components, but they tested a range of other components and she scored exceptionally high in those areas.

[00:21:41] So we. It wasn’t that we were surprised because she was obviously a bright kid. She had always been a very keen problem solver and why she couldn’t speak until, two and a half. We always said she didn’t need to, because there was no problem communicating, she could always communicate with exactly what she needed to.

[00:22:03]But, but it kind of was a surprise. Or I’m not really sure what the word is, but. I dunno, it’s just not something you expect, even though we had been through it with our son, it’s just not something you expect. And so it was a surprise, but not a surprise. And what that meant for us was it actually made a whole lot of sense because while she had been having these challenges with speech, we could see, she was a very frustrated kid.

[00:22:35] She obviously had a lot going on in her brain and she wasn’t able to communicate it. Whilst at the same age, my son was probably. Talking nonstop because he’s, he just was born talking and communicating and talking about his ideas. Well, she didn’t have that. She wasn’t able to communicate her ideas and express her interests.

[00:22:59] And in very early on, when she was able to, she actually said, I’ve got a different voice in my head than what comes out of my mouth. She indicated she had stuff going on. And so for her, I think she pushed all of that cognitive ability into the only thing that she could control was being independent.

[00:23:20] So she is a very strong-willed determined, independent child because all of that ability highly abledness got pushed into doing it myself. Which isn’t to say that was easy because if she was unable to do it herself, she would get frustrated, but she would persist. But if you dared help her, even now, she totally, melt down because she had to do it herself because it was so important because she had nothing else that she could control.

[00:23:55] And now yeah. She’s now going to reception at Darra, and we’re very grateful for that opportunity for her. And we know that this is actually going to be the first time that she will experience, just that stretching of her abilities. Just that brain stretch, where she’s going to be in a place where.

[00:24:22] They know who she is and that she’s, she’s, she’s outside of the box. Her kindergarten was brilliant, they were lovely. But it was a very focused around the speech.  And she’s just desperate to do more. She’s desperate to read. She’s fallen in love with numbers and it’s just.

[00:24:44] A huge relief to see that all coming together. But they’re very different people. My son, I would say is in your face, gifted, he opens his mouth and he’ll talk to anyone. And adults in variably say like, how old are you? What grade are you in? And more recently he just kind of goes, well, I’m not really in a grade I’m seven, but I do some grade four maths or grade three maths and grade four science or grade two, we just do what we need to do at my school.  But there, but that compared to my daughter, I think because her speech has been such a and a challenge. Most people have seen the speech challenge first.

[00:25:35] So when they’ve seen her The first, she’s in this, Oh, your, the speech delay box. And she’s more subtle, and she’s, at home, she’s an extrovert. She doesn’t talk any less than my son given the opportunity. But in public she has had to problem solve and she’s problem solved by just not talking.

[00:25:55] And so she’s unlearning that. She’s it’s lovely to see her come out of that shell in public, and that people have seen this delay. First. They’ve seen the, the challenge first rather than see actually there’s this little girl, who’s an incredible problem solver and very thoughtful and sensitive. And.

[00:26:22] And yeah, they’re very different kids. And so I also have a third child now he’s only three, so we have not had him assessed in any way. But he is just like his brother and sister and developmentally in some ways is actually hit some milestones earlier, which is a little bit scary. And he’s actually a bit of both his.

[00:26:44] Yeah, my, my oldest son loves rules. My daughter is very much like rules are optional. She sees them more as guidelines. And if you give her two options, she’ll come up with a third. Whereas my oldest son, if you explain the reasoning behind something, he’ll  even if he doesn’t want to do it, he’ll begrudgingly accept. It’s reasonable to ask him to do it. Whereas my daughter’s like, I don’t care if it’s reasonable and not, if I don’t want to do it, I’m not going to do it. They’re very different people. And my youngest is it’s a mix of both. I don’t know. He’s still unfolding.

[00:27:17] We’re still getting, he’s still, we’re still discovering the kind of person who’s just got. There’s a wicked sense of humor and he. He loves to get into mischief. He’s he? He’s you give him a 60 seconds un supervise. He’ll have that bag of flour on the floor or the whole hummus tin. He is, he loves to explore is pulled something apart or he’s yeah, he just is a bit intense.

[00:27:52] And. And different again. So what I’ve learned as a parent and even in meeting a lot of other parents and gifted kids is this giftedness expresses itself in very different ways from child to child. And so I think that can make it more challenging to understand and and perhaps to identify children and.

[00:28:19] And my motivation behind doing this podcast and website is through that whole journey. We’re in a place now where we’re on top of it. I went and  sussed out a new  preschool for my youngest recently. And it was just right, this is third time round.

[00:28:39] I’m not pulling any punches. I walked in and like, it’s like this, he’s got two older siblings. They’re gifted. He is most likely gifted.

[00:28:47] I need you just to see where this goes and run with it and give him opportunities and know that he might not be engaged with something because it’s too easy. Not because it’s too hard. So you may have to go harder or find a different way to really see where he’s at with things. But my gut feeling right now is he’s really ready for more. He’s really ready for more and I need some help from you as an educator too, to help me give him more because he comes up with stuff all the time and I’m just like, Oh my God, I should be used to this by now, but there’s never getting any used to this. My kids are always saying stuff and I’m just like, Oh my, Oh, well, what, what was that?

[00:29:32] Where did that come from? So parenting gifted kids is really tough and you can feel very alone and it’s easy to think that you’re slightly bonkers. We even tried at one point and, getting my oldest son a mentor at one point a tutor. And I was like, this seems weird, but let’s get a high school science teacher.

[00:29:59] To do some tutoring in science, let’s start at grade eight, and he was like six or something at the time and let’s see what happens. And so I found this lovely teacher who came to our house and the first time they came over, I was in the kitchen and they’re sitting at the table and I’m kind of thinking to myself, what am I doing?

[00:30:23] This is ridiculous. What is this teacher thinking? Oh, I hope I’m not wasting his time, but I just had this gut feeling that my son was just desperate to engage with more, he’s either got all this space content in his head and he was desperate to do something for it. And so the teacher says to him, okay, so we’re going to talk about States of matter.

[00:30:50] Can you name the States of matter for me? And my son’s like, Oh yeah, sure. So you’ve got gas, you’ve got solid. You’ve got liquid, you’ve got plasma and you’ve got, and now I can’t remember what the fifth one was. But he said it was this kind of molecular atom thing. Now demonstrating my ignorance for the fifth state of matter there.

[00:31:15]But it was well beyond me and the teacher kind of went, ah, okay, well, let’s just focus on the first three for now. And I thought, no, he’s going to be fine. And sure enough, they did a number of months of tutoring. And at no point did I see my, my son break a sweat? He just loved it and he was all over it.

[00:31:32] I mean, there are a few new things he learnt, but nothing was a challenge or particularly difficult. And as a parent of the gifted kid, I don’t say that to brag about my kids. Or to make anyone else feel inadequate about their kids. It’s like, this is the challenge and this is the asynchronous development of gifted kids.

[00:31:51] So that means so he is totally age appropriate for his handwriting and for English. Because they’re his least favorite subjects, but when it comes to all things space, I don’t even know where he is at because we have taken him to like lectures at universities and stuff, and he’ll sit there and absorb it.

[00:32:12] And I’m not saying he understands absolutely everything, but he can walk away and have a conversation and  demonstrate the understanding of connections. And that just blows me away. And it’s like, this is one of the challenges that we have is how do you help him as this young person engage with content at this much older level, but it’s still in an age appropriate way.

[00:32:37] It’s really tricky. And so you find yourself doing wacky things like getting a tutor to do grade eight science  and these are just, that’s just one of the many challenges. The they’re very sensitive kids and they’ve got a real compassion and empathy for the world and others, and they need to be around people that they can connect with.

[00:33:03] So that’s a little bit of a story about our family and our kids. And. And hopefully just sharing a bit of understanding about why, it’s a couple of years later, I’ve met a lot more parents and gifted kids and over and over again, I hear these stories that just devastate me. Like they just break me like this, so sad.

[00:33:30] And I just feel like we need to talk about this. There needs to be a narrative around. Gifted kids and we need the community to understand them. So we don’t have this taboo about talking about them because there is absolutely a taboo and there’s a lot of misunderstanding. And I hear that all the time from parents or that a lot of educators just don’t know enough.

[00:33:57] Recently I was talking to someone and their four year old had, was at a very prestigious expensive school. And yet they had just broken him. They treated them as though he was naughty.  And the thing that I struggle with is this idea that kids even at this young age, don’t know that they’re different because they do, my son at five, I was observing him one day in the playground and. I could see him desperate to engage with his peers. And at the time it was all about Googleplex and planet nine, and he was trying to talk to them about these topics.

[00:34:40] But of course, no one else was interested. And I was just watching him bounce around the playground from one kid to another desperate, to connect, but unable to connect and no wonder he was sad, and he was a popular kid. Like lots of people liked him, but no one could. Engage with him on those things.

[00:34:59]Which why now at Dara, I, you know, I love, I love hearing the stories. And another mum was saying I think there’s a couple of weeks after her son had started  and. He’d come home. And he was talking about black holes. He’d learned all about black holes that day. And the mom was like, Oh, that’s awesome. What class did you hear? Did you learn about black holes in he’s like, Oh, no, it was one of my friends. It was at lunchtime and she was just like, that’s brilliant. And they do, they they’re in this little community of like-minded peers.

[00:35:34] So they’re not all the same age. They’re all. Lower primary or upper primary, but they’re all interested in the same things, within reason. But they’re able to connect and if they weren’t talking about black holes or talking about black holes, or my son will often say, Oh, the human body, Oh, that’s such and such as a topic.

[00:35:55] Go talk. Yeah, I’ll need, let’s talk to such and such about that, and they recognize each other’s. Deep interests in things. And he’ll be like, Oh, I’m, The all about space and such as such as a space person too. And it’s just accepting of each other’s passions and intense, interests in things.

[00:36:15] And may obviously talk about Dara a bit because it have been a big part of our experience, but I think there’s also, I’ve learnt a lot from that experience. And I’ve learned a lot about the necessity to find your tribe. Find that community of people where you can safely tell the stories and someone gets it and they’re not going to be offended because they’re feeling like you’re bragging about your kids or anything like that.

[00:36:41] And so these are some of the challenges.

[00:36:42] Our challenges are different than no less hard. It’s not all sunshine and daisies because your kid is gifted. It’s parenting is hard, full stop parenting and gifted kid is also hard.  And it’s not a competition, it’s not saying parenting gifted kids is harder than parenting a kid who isn’t, it’s not about that.

[00:37:03] It’s just parenting is hard, full stop. And it’s important for us to have a safe place to talk about parenting gifted kids, because there are some quirks and characteristics that mean that there are. Particular challenges with this group of people, with these group of children and as parents, I think we need that support of each other.

[00:37:28] And we need to be able to talk to the experts who work with gifted kids to get that help. And so what I want to do in this podcast and website, and it’s going to develop over the next 12 months is to bring those resources together for parents. So I look forward to talking to you more in future podcasts.

[00:37:48] So we’re going to talk to some experts about all things gifted and provide insights into gifted kids and some support and ideas for parents. And also just have that narrative with the general population about when it used to be gifted so that we can have those conversations more.

[00:38:10] I don’t want to say safely, but more easily without fear of repercussion, we don’t want to be that tall poppy that constantly gets chopped down and we can’t even talk about how difficult it is or get help because we feel like there’s not that place for us, that safe space to have those conversations.

[00:38:29]Thank you very much for your time today. If you’re someone who works with gifted kids and you want to get in touch, please do I’d love to talk to you and share what you have with our community. If you’re a parent, you’ve got particular questions or a story that you would like to share, get in touch because, I want to see what the big issues are.

[00:38:52] For us, so we can talk about them and connect with people who can provide us with some insight and some advice. So thank you very much for your time today. And I look forward to talking to you more next week.