Homeschooling
Gifted Children
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gifted children
Homeschooling
is fast gaining popularity amongst many parents. With this
practice, there is no dearth of material, curriculum and
advice on homeschooling a child.
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However, not every
child is gifted. So if you are a lucky parent
who has a child proven to be gifted, then you must
take special care of your child.
Investing in best nourishing
the special gift of your child today would potentially
lay the foundation for a tomorrow of your child that
would brighten the face of your family and maybe your
country.
As a parent, this is
a lucky chance that not many other parents have -
try to make the best of this rare chance.
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Why prefer homeschooling
gifted children?
The first question
that would strike your mind if you have a gifted
child is that is the conventional school even
the right place to send your child to, or is homeschooling
a better option.
The answer to this is
that if you have an option to carry out the exercise
of homeschooling consistently for a number of years,
then homeschooling is definitely a better option.
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Why so?
That is because a conventional
school would have a class of children. Of course they would
try their best to take personal care of every child, but
they have their limitations. They would still have to go
with every child rather than moving ahead with your gifted
child and leave some other lesser fortunate children behind.
The whole class of students definitely progress at a pace
that is reasonable by their standards, but what is the impact
on your child? S/he would solve most of the problems at
school much faster than his/her compatriots and then get
bored very quickly as s/he waits for the others to catch
up. This is a complete wastage of his/her time, talent,
patience and energy. It is better avoided rather than faced.
On the other hand, if your
child is doing homeschooling, then you control the standards
of what s/he learns. S/he does not have to wait for her
classmates to finish a math problem or a grammar question
that is trivial by his/her standards. Rather, at his/her
own time and pace, s/he can jump from one problem to the
next and then end up with the feeling of an achievement
of meeting his/her desired goal. And often, a gifted child
would keep attempting to set his/her goals high, no matter
whether you push the other way.
How to go forward? Take
a modular approach
The next question is how to
go forward with the education of the gifted child. There
are some special courses available. However, the best way
to go is to take a modular approach and make the best of
the existing regular curriculums. As a parent, you are the
best judge to identify the subjects that your child best
understands and loves. Remember that while your child may
be gifted, s/he may not enjoy every subject equally. Remember,
gifted children develop in an uneven manner.
So you would have to identify
which are the subjects that your child loves and excels
at. These are the subjects in which your child would cover
more than his/her age group. For example, if your child
is of an age of grade 2, s/he may be able to understand
math of grade 5 if math happens t be one of his/her stronger
subjects. If that is the case, encourage him/her till the
level that s/he automatically takes to, but never push him/her
hard to go further. On the other hand, there would be other
subjects that your child may not really love. So in spite
of his/her gifts, s/he would not want to move high up in
such subjects. This is not a problem - just relax and make
sure that s/he is at the level of his/her peers in these
subjects. Proceed faster on the higher grade subject modules
that s/he likes more.
Avoid the most critical
mistake that parents make - strike the right balance
The biggest challenge that
parents often face while educating their gifted child is
that of identifying the upper limits at any given point
of time. The way that you would want your child to move
forward is a relaxed environment in which the child will
stick to the core discipline of education, be at par with
peers at the subjects that are not his/her primary interest
and move rapidly forward within his/her subjects of interest.
But when some parents see their child doing so well in some
areas, they tend to commit one or both of the two following
mistakes.
1. They pressurize the child
to move their standards up in other subjects too. For
example, if a child is thee grades ahead in social studies,
it does not mean that s/he will also love to be three
grades ahead in languages, and some parents fail to realize
that.
2. They pressurize the child
to reach yet higher levels in their subjects of strength.
If you child of an age fit to be in grade 2 is comfortable
solving problems of grade 5 in a subject, let him/her
do that and don't pressurize him/her to reach grade 6
right now unless s/he naturally takes to it.
The bottom line
As a parent, you are lucky
to be the proud father or mother of an exceptional child.
Feed the right intellectual diet to the talent and it will
reap you the best possible rewards in the longer run.
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