Is a Gifted Kid Lurking Near You?
An Extended Checklist of Characteristics for Giftedness
Here is a lighthearted list of questions that parents who suspect they have a gifted child skulking about might want to tape to their refrigerator door for reference.
With all due Respect to Jeff Foxworthy, You Might Have One of Those Gifted Kids If…
If your kid remembers a promise you made about going out for ice cream from three years back, you might have one of those gifted kids.
If your kid makes a silly joke at the dinner table when you have invited your boss over, you might have one of those gifted kids.
If your kid acts like the foreman of a construction crew at sandbox time, you might have one of those gifted kids.
If your kid’s kindergarten teacher sends home a note concerned that your kid called her a ‘pedagogue,’ you might have one of those gifted kids.
If your kid couldn’t help but to notice that big brother missed his turn once to take out the garbage over a five-week cycle, you might have one of those gifted kids.
If your kid frets that while he won the blue ribbon at the science fair he didn’t also win the best-in-show award, you might have one of those gifted kids.
If your kid focuses on a project so intensely that she misses the lunch bell at school, you might have one of those gifted kids.
If your kid auditions for enrollment into a clown school pretty much every day at school just to keep the other kids amused during the boring parts of class, you might have one of those gifted kids.
If when your adult friends visit they spend more time talking with your kid than with you, you might have one of those gifted kids.
If your kid starts laughing ten seconds before you get to the punchline of your joke, you might have one of those gifted kids.
If your kid thinks being called a ‘geek’ is a compliment, you might have one of those gifted kids.
If your kid regularly writes letters to authors asking them to explain something fishy in their books, you might have one of those gifted kids.
If your kid keeps asking questions about things you have no idea at all about, you might have one of those gifted kids.
As a corollary to the above, if your kid’s favorite word is ‘why,” you might have one of those gifted kids.
If you notice things that were missing from around the house all of a sudden appear in a gigantic thermodynamic equilibrium contraption out in the garage, you might have one of those gifted kids.
If you have stopped asking your kid’s opinion on things because the answers are sometimes too weird, you might have one of those gifted kids.
Finally, if you have to keep a dictionary tucked away in your back pocket to secretly check on words your kid uses from time to time, you might have one of those gifted kids.
If you would like to share any of your “You Might Have One of Those Gifted Kids If…” experiences for publication, please drop a line to Suite101 Gifted Education feature columnist Douglas Parker by clicking on the “Contact me” icon and signing in at: http://www.suite101.com/profile.cfm/dougparker71
