The Sun Chronicle, Attleboro 4/10/06

Cultivating a 'gifted' child
BY SUSAN LaHOUD/SUN CHRONICLE STAFF
FOXBORO -- About a dozen mothers are gathered around a horseshoe of assembled tables at the Sage School on Mechanic Street, sipping bottled water, tea and decaffeinated coffee and nibbling on cookies.

A third of the parents have children in Sage, a private school catering to advanced students. A couple have children in local public schools. One has traveled from Arlington. A couple more have children enrolled in a private school in Rhode Island.

What's brought them to this classroom on a recent Monday evening is that they believe they have high-achieving or ``gifted'' children. And they all have their own stories to tell.

One says her fifth-grader needs absolutely no help from them academically, but she worries about being as supportive as she can with his emotional well-being. Another says her girls have recently been `` diagnosed'' as gifted, and she's wondering what to do next. Many say they are concerned their children are not being challenged in school and wonder what resources are out there to help.

``I realize it's not a perfect world, but it's a loaded gun,'' one mom said of her child's ``gifted'' status. `` They're different creatures, but it's exciting and challenging.''

Diana Reeves of the Massachusetts Association for Gifted Education (MAGE) who along with Sarah Kelley, a counselor at the Sage School, are leading the group whose kickoff session was titled, `` Fostering Habits of Success: On the Journey of Life Remember to Pack First.''

Reeves, a Mansfield resident who has been involved with MAGE for 28 years, tells the mothers the class ``will move beyond justifying your child is gifted.''

A short time later, she calls on them to introduce themselves the way someone would at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting: ``Hi, my name is... and I'm the parent of a gifted child.''

In separate interviews, Reeves, who is also a teacher at the private Gordon School in East Providence and the mother of two grown children, and Kelley, mother of two young children, said the idea of the discussion group is to give support to parents who believe their children are gifted and to let them know they are not alone.

The series is meant ``to establish an environment where parents of talented children can receive support, guidance and professional advice through discussion with other parents and trained leaders and to develop parenting skills to nurture the selfconcept and emotional development of talented children and their families,'' Reeves said.

The series entails reading and discussing chapters from the book ``Guiding the Gifted Child: A Practical Source for Parents and Teachers,'' by James Webb, Elizabeth Meckstroth and Stephanie Tolan. The parents are assigned ``homework'' that consists of trying out a technique or suggestion made at a previous meeting and reporting back on how it succeeded, or did not.

There is also much sharing of frustrations and approaches on a personal level.

For many who attend the sessions -- the first series was held in the fall -- it gives them a unique opportunity to actually dis cuss and share with other parents of gifted children ways to cope with certain aspects of their children and their behavior, Reeves said.

While having a gifted child means they excel in some academics, many of the parents said the children also strenuously test their patience and wits because they are advanced.

One parent said when a child is diagnosed as gifted, people think that's `` wonderful news. And it should be wonderful news, but ahhh...'' Her reference was to the challenges it poses, and that sentiment was echoed by others.

And there is a stigma attached to the ``gifted'' label which often makes parents of those children defensive or sometimes hesitant to talk about the issues that arise.

``For parents who've made it to this group, there probably hasn't been a time when any one of them, in one conversation sometime, somewhere, where they could not get their concerns voiced because they've been told `there's no way your child could be this way, quote'' Reeves said.

``There's a real uneven profile in a gifted child,'' she said.

It's a myth, for example, that a gifted child exceeds in all aspects of academics. It's also false that a gifted child won't talk back. Some of the struggles parents of these children face is that they are dealing with a young child who verbally and logically are at a teenage level, yet they are still young children, Reeves said.

Discipline is also more difficult, she and parents at the discussion said.

One of the common concerns voiced was whether their child was being ``challenged,'' that they were not being held back intellectually and in danger of falling into behavioral traps that stem from boredom.

Gifted children can also be overly sensitive to what's going on in the world and are deeply fearful. ``It's a degree of concern that you would not see until they were young adults,'' Reeves said.

Parents indicated it is a fine balance -- meeting a child's academically advanced needs while simultaneously dealing with their emotions.

In addition to helping parents deal with the challenges of a gifted child, the series at the Sage School helps them become better advocates for their child's needs and more informed about the educational process. That, in turn, can also turn into advocacy for other children who are academically advanced within individual schools, the district, or state, Reeves said.

The women at this particular Monday gathering, who agreed to a reporter sitting in on one of their sessions as long as they were not identified, indicated that there are not many services readily available.

In many ways, it can be a confusing voyage. The mother of a first and third grader said that with gifted children, ``the demands are so different.''

``It's a relief to be able to listen to other parents'' who are dealing with the same type of issues, she said.

Parent comments from the previous session in the fall indicated having a forum for their concerns indeed helps.

In an article written by parent Robin Katz Sussman, who attended the previous session and is also attending the current series, one parent of a teenager said, ``It was very comforting and empowering to understand my child as a `normal' gifted child, rather than an `offbeat' normal child.''

As for herself, Sussman said, `` ...the group challenged me and the other 15 or so parents involved to reflect on their parenting styles and relationships with their children.

``It also provided insight into gifted children, as well as gave real hands on suggestions as to how to better communicate, motivate, educate and basically raise these fascinating, wonderful and sometimes complex beings in our lives.''

SUSAN LaHOUD can be reached at slahoud(at)(at)thesunchronicle.com or 508-236-0398.