Resources for families of gifted children

Giftedness is easier to recognize than to define. It usually shows up as intensity rather than as neat achievement: a child who asks questions past the point of comfort, who reads years ahead and still cannot tie their shoes, who is furious when a drawing comes out wrong, who feels everything loudly. Development runs at different speeds in different directions, and that asynchrony is the part schools handle worst.

Our long answer to this question, the full trait picture, including the hard traits, and what identification does and does not involve, lives on its own page.

Is my child gifted?

A cognitive assessment is a picture of how a particular mind works: where it moves fast, where it lags, and what kind of work will actually meet it. Families often find the profile more useful than the number, because the gaps inside it explain the behavior at home.

For children aged six and up the usual instrument is the WISC-V; for younger children it is the WPPSI-IV. Testing runs a few hours, in more than one sitting for a young child, and comes back as a written report with an interpretation session. Our testing partner in Honolulu is Dr. Tolly Amaxopolous at Psychology Center Hawaii, who provides both assessments with detailed reporting. You do not need to be applying anywhere to book one.

The longer guide to gifted and IQ testing in Hawai‘i

These are the questions we would ask on a tour of any school, including this one. They are worth asking in the room, in front of the person who will actually teach your child, because the answers are specific or they are not answers.

• How are children grouped: by age, or by what they are ready for? What happens in the subject where my child is furthest ahead, and in the one where they are not?
• What happens when a child finishes the work early? Is there more of the same, or is there something harder?
• Who teaches math, and what do they know beyond the grade they teach?
• How many children are with one teacher at a time, and how often does that teacher sit down with mine?
• A gifted child is often several ages at once. How does the school handle a child who reads years ahead and cries when a drawing goes wrong?
• Is there anyone else here who thinks like my child? Who would they talk to at lunch?
• When a screen is used, what is on it, who set the work, and who reads what came of it afterwards?
• What does the school do when a child is bored, and what does it do when a child is stuck?

If you are just starting to work out what you are dealing with, these are where we would point you first.

• 5 Levels of Gifted, by Deborah Ruf

  A framework for the fact that “gifted” covers an enormous range. It helps a parent see roughly where their child sits and what that means for what they need from a school day.

• A Parent’s Guide to Gifted Children, by James Webb et al.

  The most comprehensive single resource for parents. Intensity, perfectionism, peer relationships, and the emotional side of giftedness that schools rarely address.

• Living with Intensity, by Susan Daniels and Michael Piechowski

  Grounded in Dabrowski’s theory of overexcitabilities. Essential if your child experiences the world with unusual depth: emotional, intellectual, sensory, or all of it at once.

We are not the only ones doing this work, and these have been at it far longer.

• Hoagies’ Gifted Education Page

  The most comprehensive directory of gifted resources online. Articles, book lists, testing information, and links to programs, organized by topic and age.

• Davidson Institute

  Focused on profoundly gifted children. Free consultations for families, the Davidson Fellows scholarship, and a database of research on high-ability learners.

• A Facebook group for gifted families in Hawai‘i

  A place for families in Hawai‘i to compare notes. One of the hardest parts of raising a gifted child is the sense that nobody else is dealing with it.

We write up what actually happens here: what the scholars are reading, what a lesson turned into, what surprised the teachers. Roughly monthly, and you can leave whenever you like.