Dr. Sylvia Rimm is a child psychologist, clinical professor at Case University School of Medicine, author, newspaper and magazine columnist, and radio/TV personality. Her advice column appears  regularly in 2e Newsletter. 

For free newsletters on gifted children, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to P.O. Box 32, Watertown, WI, 53094, or for more information visit  www.sylviarimm.com.

Read Dr. Rimm’s Articles for parents and teachers and submit family questions online at www.sylviarimm.com. All questions are answered. 

Q

My daughter is 6 years old and has been identified by her school as gifted. She’s bright, highly sensitive, and wants to know everything. She’s bored with school and begs to be homeschooled, but she wants to be homeschooled after going to “real school” all day to socialize. I have two younger children (3 and 1) and my husband and I would like to have a fourth child, so homeschooling seems like a very big challenge to me! 

My daughter is a sponge at school, but often doesn’t finish work or hurries to finish assignments because she’s been so busy watching or listening. She has many different interests, but keeping her on one subject for more than a few minutes is a challenge unless she’s interested in a topic. Then she can sit and absorb the material for hours. I observed her watching a program on PBS about physics for an hour, and then she said, “That is what I want to learn at school. Did you see him make that pipe sing by heating it up? That was amazing. Can we get a book on physics at the library?” I offered to find a book during our weekly trip to the library, but that wasn’t soon enough for her. She dissolved into a 2-year-old, complete with kicking and screaming because we wouldn’t take her that very minute.

This is a daily occurrence in our home. One minute we deal with a 6-year-old who wants to have a friend sleep over. Then we deal with a 25-year-old who wants to purchase some new books so that she can be homeschooled, but realizes that the budget just won’t stretch that far. Within minutes, our 6-year-old as 2-year-old returns with a screaming fit if I leave her alone in the room, and she says, “What if someone had tried to steal me?”

Please, where do we begin? What books should we be reading? What discipline techniques should we be trying? Should we homeschool? How do I teach her to be a child? What in the world do I do to maintain my own sanity and the sanity of her siblings and father?

A

Your gifted daughter is obviously very intense and strong-willed. She has much to learn about being patient. I wonder if you feel intimidated by her giftedness and find it difficult to say no to her, only because she’s so bright.

It’s wonderful to have a child wish to learn so much, but she can wait until you take her to the library to follow up about her physics interest. She’d probably love a set of encyclopedias or books that she could search through for her interests. As she learns to use the computer, she’ll be able to pursue websites more independently on the Internet. Encouraging her independent learning will certainly help.

Related to her speed and carelessness in school, you should explain that the quality of her work is more important than the quantity, and that she needs to take pride in the papers she completes.

It’s all right to tell your daughter that homeschooling is simply out of the question. Hopefully, the school that has identified her giftedness will also provide appropriately challenging curriculum for her. It would be good if you could spend a little time reading and sharing interests with her every day when the other children are asleep. Some of her moodiness and demands may only represent her search for attention after being dethroned by two other siblings.

Although some gifted children have uneven development, that is they may be intellectual beyond their age and emotionally at their age, it’s important to keep in mind that gifted children are primarily children and only secondarily are they gifted. They can trap you into thinking of them as being much more adultlike because of their advanced vocabulary or knowledge. Don’t let that fool you. Your daughter needs to be parented and needs limits like all children do. Her curiosity and interest in learning should be encouraged, but she can learn to be patient. I would suggest my books How to Parent So Children Will Learn and Keys to Parenting the Gifted Child.