Gifted Children

Diary - GERRIC Workshop July 1999

The Seminar

Since her talk was very wide-ranging, I'm sure each parent got a different message from it and, like me, found some sections not especially pertinent or helpful (maybe boring). However, overall, I felt encouraged that I hadn't been making too many mistakes with my son. She spoke a good deal on the "perfectionist" syndrome often found in gifted children. This has nothing to do with my son at all, but I realised that it said a lot about me. And indeed, perhaps my son avoids perfectionism precisely as a foil to my own. It's worth wondering about.

Looking around at the parents of these gifted kids, I am strongly suspicious that, yes, the parents are also gifted and I'm sure that many of them, like me, get a dual benefit from these programs for gifted children. In a sense, the program addresses the needs of two types of kid: the external offspring and the internal acorn/genius of the parent.

On the negative side - and isn't there always one! - I did find the GERRIC gathering a bit overwhelming number-wise. We were encouraged to "network", but I can't do that in a crowd. Some can - and good luck to them - but I function better in smaller groups.

Another resource very much promoted by GERRIC is the NSW Association for Gifted and Talented Children (or NSWAGTC). I haven't joined this group myself, perhaps for similar reasons to the above. That doesn't mean I disapprove of it: quite the contrary, I think it's great to see such efforts at collecting people and resources together. It's just not my own style and active involvement in such an association will never suit all styles of people. Other gathering places - like the Web right here - are useful for variety.

The Workshop

He was also chatting away excitedly when I picked him up at the end of the first day. He was keen to buy a soldering iron: this is another trait in Theo, wanting to acquire a new possession, essentially a new tool, whenever his passion is aroused. Usually it's a new piece of computer equipment or a new box of Lego Technic (eg, Lego Mindstorms is currently very much on his mind). But he also loves browsing in Tandy and Dick Smith's for bits and pieces of electronics.

Until now, I've been reluctant to allow him to use a soldering iron. But the teacher, AKA "Steve" or "the mad professor", gave the students permission to do so. That's what so excited Theo: a male authority, a father figure, told him he's old enough or man enough to use a powerful (for him) tool like a soldering iron. And I have felt that characteristic sadness mothers feel when their sons grow up that little bit more. But it is a sadness mixed with pride, a kind of happy sadness.

A lot of the value of this workshop relates to the fact that this is Theo's last year in Primary school and that he's being taught by a High School Teacher over these two days. So it fits in with this time of transition, this initiation into a higher level of maturity. There is also the value that, should Theo fail to obtain a place in a selective school, he can still look forward to quality teaching since "Steve" teaches at a non-selective "ordinary" high school. That, indeed, is a comfort.

Well, that's it for now. Do please send me an email if you have any comments on these pages. I'll try to post these up on a special page, so please indicate whether you would mind about that.