Parenting Practices to Support Gifted Children

Parents in New York City and elsewhere are concerned about school programs for gifted students. However, parents should remember that they, too, will have a lasting educational effect on their children. In some areas of talent development (music, for example,) it is often the out-of-school activities that have the greatest impact on students. While educators, psychologists, and researchers have multiple techniques for identifying gifted students, parents often lack access to those techniques. Yet, parents do have access to a powerful strategy, “identification by provision.” Parents can provide a child or teen with varied experiences, observe the effects and continue when the child responds with enthusiasm and success. Gifted students, often quite unique, may have gifts in language acquisition, reading, writing, mathematics, science, music and art. While no child or teen will be gifted in all areas, good parenting practices can be focused on the individual child’s abilities. In this Parent Letter, parenting practices, programs and references are offered as a starting point. Many of these suggestions have come from other parents who have shared them with the author. Do share your resources by visiting the link under the Share Resources section at the end of this letter.

Language skills

Parents and family members are the essential teachers when a child is learning one or more languages. Researchers tell us that, in early childhood, no school or program has a greater impact on the child’s development of oral language skills. Bilingual parents can provide good linguistic role models by continuing to speak their dominant language to their children and by developing a social network that includes that language. For monolingual families, immersion programs, language videos and CDs, (such as the BBC Muzzy series), can be the first steps in learning a second language. Older students can attend summer residential programs such as those offered by Concordia Language Villages. To learn more about multiple language development, parents can read Raising Multilingual Children by Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa.

Reading

Parents should establish the home version of DEAR – Drop-Everything-And-Read time. Turn off televisions, radios and CD players and provide children with the valuable gift of quiet, uninterrupted reading time. Until children can read, parents should read to them daily. Generally, young gifted children can listen to stories or read to themselves for half an hour or more. Proficient readers, even in early elementary school, enjoy much longer reading periods, up to several hours in length.

Becoming literate is an essential skill, and gifted children usually attain literacy skills earlier and to a much more advanced level than children of a similar age. Finding appropriate material is a challenge. Parents of gifted children have recalled favorite books from childhood and asked their most trusted friends and relatives for recommended reading materials. Their children, as early as second grade, turned to their closest friends for book suggestions. Sound advice about gifted readers can be found in My Best Friends Are Books: Guiding the Gifted Reader by Judith Wynn Halstead.