The first step in raising gifted kids is assuring they have the proper framework for success. I'm talking about the kids who get fed three meals a day, maybe play baseball or take dance lessons, whose parents check their homework and keep on top of medical check-ups. There are more than a million kids in our country who are homeless and many millions more who don't get enough to eat. There are millions being raised in homes where there is physical or emotional abuse, substance abuse, or neglect. These are tremendous obstacles to overcome and too many gifted kids in our country never have the opportunity to shine because they're just trying to survive. That's a far bigger issue than I can address here, but what I can do is highlight the three biggest obstacles I see on a regular basis when parents come to me concerned about their child's academic performance. These are critical in fostering not only academic success, but success in life.
#1 Don't kid yourself, sleep matters
According to the CDC, school age children need at least 10 hours of sleep per night while teens need 9-10 hours. There are a plethora of studies linked so you can read the them for yourself, but here's the gist. Sleep improves mental alertness and increases attention spans. We think and perform better when well rested. For students, this translates to better grades and more importantly, better understanding. Muscles are repaired, memories are consolidated, and hormones regulating growth and appetite are released while we sleep. Kids who don't get sufficient sleep have trouble focusing, show increased aggression, and an inability to concentrate--all signs of ADHD. When parents tell me their child has (or they suspect they have) ADHD, the next words out of my mouth are invariably, "What time do they go to bed?"
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Think I'm overstating? Then read about a study done by Dr. Avi Sadeh. Though his sample size is small, his results were dramatic and the research of others back his findings. The 6th graders he tested, dropped to the performance of 4th graders after only three nights with an hour difference in sleep. I have students who haven't gotten enough sleep since they were babies! Listen to this radio broadcast for a well rounded report on sleep and its importance for children.
IT'S TIME TO RETHINK BEDTIMES
I'm dumbfounded by my students' bedtimes and evening schedules and parents' laissez faire attitude about it. Exhaustion in kids often manifests itself in unusual ways. Sometimes kids get hyper when tired so parents think lack of sleep isn't an issue. "For some people — especially children — sleep deprivation does not necessarily cause lethargy; instead they become hyperactive and unfocused. Researchers and reporters are increasingly seeing connections between dysfunctional sleep and what looks like A.D.H.D." (New York Times).
Students who are "struggling or failing school (i.e., obtaining C's, D's/F's) report that they obtain less sleep, have later bed-times, and have more irregular sleep/wake schedules" than students who earn A's or B's. Students with poor sleep habits also have more behavioral problems at school (Wolfson and Clarkson, 1998).
Poor sleep habits can be long lasting. The Health Behavior News Service, part of the Center for Advancing Health reports, “Going to bed after 11:30 pm, particularly in younger adolescents, predicted worse cumulative grade point average (GPA) at high school graduation and more emotional distress in the college years and beyond,” according to the study’s lead author Lauren D. Asarnow, MA, from the University of California, Berkeley.
YOU CAN'T DO IT ALL
You may be thinking, "By the time I pick them up from after-school care, take my daughter to soccer practice and my son to his piano lesson, get home, eat dinner, and get homework done, it's already 8 o'clock. They still need to bathe and we haven't had any family time." Exactly. That's why you have to pick and choose. You can't do it all and it's better your children learn that now. Yes, you desperately want them to be well-rounded adults. Yes, exercise and participation in team sports is great for kids, so is music instruction, but they aren't going to be much good at any one of them if they're doing them without enough sleep. Maybe limiting sports to in-season teams and eliminating the club or travel team is the answer. Maybe music lessons once a week instead of two is the answer. Just understand that if you really want your children to reach their full potential academically (and avoid some of the other health consequences of poor sleep), their brains need to be well rested. Is school really your first priority or are you just paying that refrain lip service?
HOW TO DO IT
Some of you are saying, "I know sleep is important, but I just can't get them to go to bed on time." I get it, I really do. Some kids have sleep issues, some parents are exhausted themselves and still have laundry and vacuuming and dishes to do before they can flop into bed with their last ounce of energy. You need it as much as they do and there are some proven techniques that will help.
Some of you are saying, "I know sleep is important, but I just can't get them to go to bed on time." I get it, I really do. Some kids have sleep issues, some parents are exhausted themselves and still have laundry and vacuuming and dishes to do before they can flop into bed with their last ounce of energy. You need it as much as they do and there are some proven techniques that will help.
#2 Read, read, read and when you're done with that, read some more
DROWN THEM IN BOOKS
Place a high value and a priority on reading material. Years ago, my husband went from sales to teaching and took a $20k a year pay cut. I was a stay-at-home mom so our finances were tight. The only place we didn't compromise was books. We budgeted $50 a month for books. We couldn't afford bookcases, so we turned cardboard boxes on their sides. If one of my kids expressed an interest in spiders, I bought books about spiders. When one asked about Picasso, I bought art books (yes, even those well beyond his years) and children's books on his life and work. Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, authors of Freakonomics looked at research collected on 20,000 children and found that access to books was more important than even reading daily to your kids. Though there is obviously more to it than just having a room full of books on a shelf—they don't somehow telepathically enter your brain without you ever opening them—our anecdotal experience has been that when we ask our good readers about books at home, they always have many. I've never had a good reader tell me, "No, we don't have many books at home."
READING TO THEM = CONNECTIONS
There is ample evidence that reading to your child is beneficial. Susan P. Folk at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville consolidated a vast body of research in her 2006 abstract Can Freakonomics Be Right? The Importance of Early Reading. She notes that "book language differs in intonation, pitch, stress, juncture, and even syntax from normal conversation." It's important for our little ones to hear multiple uses of language and if we want them to be academically successful, that "book language" is vital. She quotes a report from the National Academy for Education which states that reading aloud to our kids is "the single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading." More than the language acquisition and bonding inherent in reading to your children, the knowledge gained from the content within the books cannot be overstated. Learning is about connections. The more connections kids can make between ideas, concepts, and facts, the more they'll remember. “'No learning experience is in isolation,' says Alison Preston, a psychology and neuroscience professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Rather, learning is often built by using information one already knows that’s related to new information (Lavine, 2014)." When you read to them about the water cycle and then they hear about it again in school, they can tie the new information to what they've already learned. They're solidifying what they know, not learning entirely new information.
What can you do to cultivate good reading habits?
Place a high value and a priority on reading material. Years ago, my husband went from sales to teaching and took a $20k a year pay cut. I was a stay-at-home mom so our finances were tight. The only place we didn't compromise was books. We budgeted $50 a month for books. We couldn't afford bookcases, so we turned cardboard boxes on their sides. If one of my kids expressed an interest in spiders, I bought books about spiders. When one asked about Picasso, I bought art books (yes, even those well beyond his years) and children's books on his life and work. Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, authors of Freakonomics looked at research collected on 20,000 children and found that access to books was more important than even reading daily to your kids. Though there is obviously more to it than just having a room full of books on a shelf—they don't somehow telepathically enter your brain without you ever opening them—our anecdotal experience has been that when we ask our good readers about books at home, they always have many. I've never had a good reader tell me, "No, we don't have many books at home."
READING TO THEM = CONNECTIONS
There is ample evidence that reading to your child is beneficial. Susan P. Folk at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville consolidated a vast body of research in her 2006 abstract Can Freakonomics Be Right? The Importance of Early Reading. She notes that "book language differs in intonation, pitch, stress, juncture, and even syntax from normal conversation." It's important for our little ones to hear multiple uses of language and if we want them to be academically successful, that "book language" is vital. She quotes a report from the National Academy for Education which states that reading aloud to our kids is "the single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading." More than the language acquisition and bonding inherent in reading to your children, the knowledge gained from the content within the books cannot be overstated. Learning is about connections. The more connections kids can make between ideas, concepts, and facts, the more they'll remember. “'No learning experience is in isolation,' says Alison Preston, a psychology and neuroscience professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Rather, learning is often built by using information one already knows that’s related to new information (Lavine, 2014)." When you read to them about the water cycle and then they hear about it again in school, they can tie the new information to what they've already learned. They're solidifying what they know, not learning entirely new information.
What can you do to cultivate good reading habits?
#3 Foster a sandpaper personality
GRIT
This has been a popular adjective for success of late, debated, some say debunked, but is it really all that important? The short answer, yes! I know, I know, it's being ground into the education world, simultaneously hailed and derided, but through the years my husband and I have come to realize the value in "grit" because our hard working students produce consistently, our gifted students . . . not so much. Gifted kids are taught to be lazy in elementary school. It's not intentional, but they're often forced to spend hours on curriculum they already know, they finish homework in minutes, and are they're infrequently challenged. As parents, we look at their glowing report cards and are satisfied. The problem is that elementary schools often function on a standards based curriculum. Report cards merely show mastery, so once a gifted kid has shown mastery, that's all that matters. They may be labeled advanced, but what if they're beyond that designation? My kids rarely dropped below 90% on any standardized test they took. There was no measure to show them advancing. There is no focus on growth for our brightest kids. Most gifted kids pick up on what they're learning quickly and easily. If they are conscientious, they'll do their homework, if not, there will be one line on the report card for "Turns in work regularly" and not much more is expected of them. |
In middle school, when homework counts toward their grade, it's not uncommon to see a drop in marks for "gifted" kids. You might hear comments like, "Middle school is so hard!" When I press my former students for details, it's usually not all that difficult, they just have to do it. It's the quantity of work and getting used to having multiple teachers that's the issue. The truly gifted kids often don't find any of it daunting, just boring. They may not get their work done for a host of reasons including curriculum that doesn't interest them, a tendency to become absorbed in some other intellectual pursuit, or a feeling that what they're doing is busy work.
The real shock comes when they get to high school and the homework isn't just a part of their grade, but in advanced classes, incorporates critical material that is given only a cursory mention in class. Time and time again we've seen gifted high schoolers, suddenly faced with having to work for the first time, being completely flummoxed at the prospect. In Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate classes, the pace and difficulty of the material frequently means they can't absorb it as quickly and thoroughly as they did in elementary and middle school. This can be a frightening experience for gifted kids. Some shut down believing they just aren't as smart as they thought they were. Some manage to hang in there but their grades slip. The transitions for those students who are hard working, those with grit, isn't nearly as difficult (even if they aren't labeled gifted!). They are used to working hard. They're used to struggling with content and frequently, with asking for help. Gifted kids sometimes feel it's a sign of weakness or lack of ability if they have to ask for help.
Parents who have stepped in to take care of issues that arise with teachers in the early grades aren't doing their kids any favors. When a student is absent, has had trouble with an assignment or when a teacher has lost homework that a student has turned in, parents are often the ones emailing or calling to fix the problem. They're sanding smooth the path their kids are treading without handing the sandpaper to their kids and teaching them how to do it.
Though they use different terms, the Brookings Institute recently came out with a study on "drive and prudence" which they define as follows:
The real shock comes when they get to high school and the homework isn't just a part of their grade, but in advanced classes, incorporates critical material that is given only a cursory mention in class. Time and time again we've seen gifted high schoolers, suddenly faced with having to work for the first time, being completely flummoxed at the prospect. In Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate classes, the pace and difficulty of the material frequently means they can't absorb it as quickly and thoroughly as they did in elementary and middle school. This can be a frightening experience for gifted kids. Some shut down believing they just aren't as smart as they thought they were. Some manage to hang in there but their grades slip. The transitions for those students who are hard working, those with grit, isn't nearly as difficult (even if they aren't labeled gifted!). They are used to working hard. They're used to struggling with content and frequently, with asking for help. Gifted kids sometimes feel it's a sign of weakness or lack of ability if they have to ask for help.
Parents who have stepped in to take care of issues that arise with teachers in the early grades aren't doing their kids any favors. When a student is absent, has had trouble with an assignment or when a teacher has lost homework that a student has turned in, parents are often the ones emailing or calling to fix the problem. They're sanding smooth the path their kids are treading without handing the sandpaper to their kids and teaching them how to do it.
Though they use different terms, the Brookings Institute recently came out with a study on "drive and prudence" which they define as follows:
People with drive are able to stick with a task, even when it gets boring or difficult; they work hard and don’t leave a job unfinished. Drive includes not just the ability to work hard (industriousness) but also the ability to overcome setbacks and to keep going (resilience).
Prudent people are able to defer gratification and plan for the future; they can make sacrifices today in order to ensure a better tomorrow. The better developed a person’s character strength of prudence, the less they suffer from what economists call ‘present bias,’ the tendency to under-weight future utility. They can both plan for the future and exert self-control in the moment to reach their long-term goals. |
DON'T CURL YOUR KIDS
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We desperately want our children to succeed. We want them happy. We hate to see them frustrated and upset, but when we continually swoop in to save them from adversity, we aren't helping them learn to deal with adversity on their own. Metaphors for this parenting style have included helicopters and snowplows, but parents often remind me of curlers. If you've never watched it, one member of the team slides a stone down a lane of ice at a target. The "sweepers" on the team rapidly sweep in front of the stone as it travels to smooth its path and influence where it ends up. Sound familiar? That's what many parents do. They frantically sweep out any imperfections in their children's paths. They minimize their obstacles, provide a smooth and even surface, while aiming them at their target—Stanford, Harvard, Yale. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work that way. Your child has to learn to deal with life on his or her own. The sooner they learn, the better. |
Kids who never experience adversity, let alone failure, are often stymied by their first serious challenge and that often comes in the form of an advanced class in high school. They may not fail, but parents are often stunned and mystified when Johnny gets C's and B's instead of his usual A's. That little umph Johnny needs to boost his grades up to match his intellectual abilities is grit. It's not giving up when things are difficult. It's understanding that you can be "gifted" and still struggle. It's learning how to study for the first time in your academic career. My son was one of these kids. As a sophomore, staring his first non-A grade in the face, he said to me, "Mom, what do you mean I have to study? I do all my homework." Going over your notes, asking for help on a difficult concept, re-reading a chapter, these were all things he'd never had to do before. In fact, he'd never even considered doing them. He didn't know how to study. I was stunned. I had always believed that because he sailed through elementary and middle school, he would breeze his way through high school too.
Though there's quite a debate on whether grit can be taught, I think intuitively, as parents, we know it can and it starts with us—early. Modeling, as always, is important, but there are other things you can do.
Though there's quite a debate on whether grit can be taught, I think intuitively, as parents, we know it can and it starts with us—early. Modeling, as always, is important, but there are other things you can do.