Kid genius help

Question

I am the legal guardian of a kid, after his/her parents were found incapable of taking care of him.

Okay from day 1, I saw that he/she couldnt make any friends and knew things normall a 6 year old shouldn’t know. I have a degree in chemistry and I started explaining things to him (he/she asked me to) and today I had a similar issue at work and, believe it or not, he/she showed me the solution and he/she explained it to me and I understood everything!

I don’t know how the kid did it, but it is definitely a genius. What should I do? Should I treat him like a normal kid or should we do i don’t have any idea.

Answer 1

You could be dealing with a gifted child, perhaps even a so-called "twice exceptional" child. See, for example, the book: Jan Davidson, Bob Davidson, and Laura Vanderkam (2005) "Genius Denied": https://www.amazon.com/Genius-Denied-Wasting-Brightest-Young/dp/0743254619/

There are tests for certain aspects of intelligence, for example WISC-V, the most recent among the WISC tests, or WPPSI. Gifted children could be hard to identify. Gifted kids are often bored in regular schools and, oddly enough, underperform, compared to average kids.

There are other numerous sources online that can help caretakers of gifted children, see below. There are also psychologists (specifically, neuropsychologists) trained in identifying and helping gifted children. They can administer tests such as WISC for a moderate fee. Some countries, as well as some states within the US have state-funded programs for gifted children. Other countries and states have less public resources for gifted children, often none.

Private schools or tutors could be an alternative, especially in places that have zero public options. Be aware that the gifted children topic in general may have certain negative emotional associations in the public discourse: a quick search for gifted children elitism fetched 536,000 results on Google, about a third of what rich children elitism search fetched (1,750,000), as of the time of this writing.

Good luck!

SEE ALSO:

National Association for Gifted Children: Resources for Parents: http://www.nagc.org/resources-publications/resources-parents

Davidson Gifted Database - articles, resources and state policy pages to help students, parents and educators pinpoint gifted information: http://www.davidsongifted.org/search-database

Davidson Gifted Database: Support for Gifted Programs vary greatly from state to state: http://www.davidsongifted.org/search-database/entrytype/3

The term twice exceptional, often abbreviated as 2e, [...] refers to gifted children who have some form of disability: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twice_exceptional

7 Myths About Twice-Exceptional (2E) Students, by Amanda Morin: https://www.understood.org/en/friends-feelings/empowering-your-child/building-on-strengths/7-myths-about-twice-exceptional-2e-students

Gifted education - Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gifted_education

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) - intelligence test for children between the ages of 6 and 16. The Fifth Edition (WISC-V; Wechsler, 2014) is the most recent version. [...] Children ages two years and six months to seven years and seven months are tested with the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wechsler_Intelligence_Scale_for_Children

List of gifted and talented programs is a list of gifted education programs located all across the world - Wikipedia (Note: some programs are missing on this page, but it is a good starting place): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gifted_and_talented_programmes

Answer 2

Just to add to Timur Shtatlands great advice;

1. Try to get gifted children to explore things which they normally would not try, for example, if the child really likes science, it is beneficial to encourage them to take up something in the arts, or a sport. Be patient, it might take a few tries before you find something they love, but this really helps development, as many children will end up with a single thing which they are in the best at and everything else, social skills, physical exercise, different subjects etc. gets left behind.

2. Celebrate success, but also celebrate failures as a learning experience, and try not to expect them to get 100% on every test, it is quite an easy pattern to fall into, and can lead to a lot of stress on the child’s shoulders, and they end up extremely depressed at any failure.

3. Encourage friendships with many different children, it is quite often very helpful for their social skills to meet children with varying interests, even if they only have a bit in common, as those friendships help with showing the child that everyone is good at something, maybe you do not value it as being important as much as they do, but it is to them etc. Also do not be surprised if they are making friends with children a year or 2 older, as they have a more similar maturity. That being said, finding a school/after school group with other gifted children is not a bad idea and allows growth.

4. As a continuation of above, an alternative to a school with a gifted program is one with multiple age groups in a class, as it allows extension much easier, and some children prefer to be around older students, I would advise trying this if you are still trying to find a school with a gifted program, it might just work.

5. Don’t stress, you will do great, just expect the child to develop faster, and to flourish. If you need more advice this website is a great place to look, but many times it only takes a minor adjustment (with repetition) to get the child back to their normal self.

Just for the record this was written by someone who could be classified as ‘gifted’ and went to both a multi-age/class school and a gifted one, and likes psychology so studied other students and themselves and enjoyed looking at the parenting styles of the 250 or so students at their school and how the student turned out. I guess you could say I have taken life as one big social experiment.

Sorry no references, just personal experience.