I need some advice, should I push him to be the best he can be, or just let him go as he is now?
Pushing your child too hard academically.
I need some advice, should I push him to be the best he can be, or just let him go as he is now?
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If he's ahead of most of his peers and isn't being challenged, he can grow bored and displeased with learning.
As a child who was similar to your son, my parents let me go in to the gifted program, and it was SOOO much better for me. Then, we we moved, the school put me in a normal class. It was elementary still. I acted out, didn't care, and this is when I started to dislike school. My parents fought to get me into the gifted program, (but they refused my teacher's advice to bump me a grade, but it's okay).
And as a (almost) neuroscientist it was good they let me go to those classes.
Rant aside. A bored child will act out and despise school.
One of the worst things about not being in a gifted program while I was younger was that my Academic expectations were very low. I never really learned anything and I had no idea how to study until a few years ago (I'm 21 years old). I didn't learn to put effort into my classes because I simply never had to. I work for MASMC now and it's a common complaint I hear: students who get in to college and just don't KNOW how to put effort in to their classes. It sounds like an easy thing; most people get it--but many gifted students do not.
While I always did well in school, my story isn't the only one. Many gifted students give up hope in school and do the exact opposite: they stop going to class and fail out or get their GED two years in because it bores them out of their mind and they can't stand going to school. They find that their classmates are idiots (in their minds), that the classes are slow and repetitive, and that their teachers are poorly informed. This mindset is even more common in males than females and I know a number of gifted male students who did VERY poorly in high school despite having exceptional exam scores, just because they couldn't bring themselves to care.
So I guess in the end, my advice is to not worry about it: if you truly believe you have a gifted child, trust me... He can handle it. And he'll thank you later. While I'm most experienced with gifted programs for high-schoolers, if you ever want any help or advice finding programs, feel free to shoot me a message!
I personally would lean towards encouraging him to join it, because if it doesn't work he can just re-join his normal class, but if it does work out then he gets to be in that more challenging program.
One of the worst things about not being in a gifted program while I was younger was that my Academic expectations were very low. I never really learned anything and I had no idea how to study until a few years ago (I'm 21 years old). I didn't learn to put effort into my classes because I simply never had to. I work for MASMC now and it's a common complaint I hear: students who get in to college and just don't KNOW how to put effort in to their classes. It sounds like an easy thing; most people get it--but many gifted students do not.
While I always did well in school, my story isn't the only one. Many gifted students give up hope in school and do the exact opposite: they stop going to class and fail out or get their GED two years in because it bores them out of their mind and they can't stand going to school. They find that their classmates are idiots (in their minds), that the classes are slow and repetitive, and that their teachers are poorly informed. This mindset is even more common in males than females and I know a number of gifted male students who did VERY poorly in high school despite having exceptional exam scores, just because they couldn't bring themselves to care.
So I guess in the end, my advice is to not worry about it: if you truly believe you have a gifted child, trust me... He can handle it. And he'll thank you later. While I'm most experienced with gifted programs for high-schoolers, if you ever want any help or advice finding programs, feel free to shoot me a message! less