Hello all, I have joined this forum as my son is gifted. We live in far north QLD, and there are not a lot of options for stimulating a gifted 2yo outside of the home. He is too young chronologically to participate in the activities he can do physically, and the activities he is allowed to do based on his chronological age bore him. Unfortunately due to insurance reasons, the fact that he can physically do these activities isn’t enough of a reason to let him do them.
A little about my son, I have video of him standing and crawling at 4 months, walking at 6months, running steadily at 12, he talks more clearly at 2 then the average 3.5 year old. He can count on his own to 10, can sing the alphabet and identify all the letters, and even names words that start with that letter when he sees it. He could kick balls, jump on the spot, and walk up and downstairs unaided all from 12 months. He can identify colours, and can even parrot words like president, rhinoceros, hospital, psychology and excavator well enough for strangers to identify them.
Having no groups that cater to gifted children is making what should be an enjoyable time in our lives, more difficult than it should be. I have noticed that when he knows he is different to other kids he tries to behave like them, when they fall over he will too, when they can’t talk properly he babbles and when another child is crying it upsets him.
I am worried about his schooling, as I see a lot of other parents are, and know that he is unable to enter into the Australian schooling system until the year he turns 5 (his birthday is in Dec), and that even if I find a school that is willing to accelerate him, there are not many that will do it for more than the one year, so he skips prep and starts grade one. The grade ones are learning and working on some things that my 2 year old is already into.
In America they have schools, with reduced numbers catering solely to gifted students with IQ’s of 135+ (eg Rainards). They also offer children that have been identified as gifted government funded tutors within the standard system, and acceleration to that of their social/intellectual peers, even if that is by 3 or 4 years. Why don’t we have programs like that available for our children – and how can we as parents of gifted children change that?
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