Homeschooling My Gifted Child: Here’s Why It Was the Best Choice ~
Written by Colleen Kessler of Raising Lifelong Learners
Eleven years ago I began homeschooling my profoundly gifted son, and admit that I was a very reluctant homeschooler. But the longer I have homeschooled, the more firmly I have come to believe that homeschooling twice-exceptional and gifted children is the best educational choice we can make as parents.
I am not saying that homeschooling is the only way to meet the needs of your gifted kids. I have friends who have gifted children and send them to school, where they do quite well. I also have friends who teach gifted children in school settings, and I don’t want to discredit their passion. In fact, for over a decade and a half I taught gifted children in a public school system.
I believe, though, that homeschooling is the best way to meet a gifted or twice-exceptional child’s needs. I’d also like to note that, throughout my coursework in gifted studies, I came to the conclusion that the basic underlying tenet of gifted education – meet children where they are, wherever that is, and move them forward towards their potential – is best-practice for ALL children.
Homeschooling My Gifted Child: Why it Was the Best Choice
Why, though?
Why has homeschooling my gifted child been the best choice for me (and for YOU, in my opinion)?
Gifted kids tend to:
- learn basic skills quickly and with little practice.
- construct and handle abstractions easily.
- pick up nonverbal cues & draw inferences that are tough for children their age to see.
- take little for granted, preferring to know the “hows” and “whys.”
- be wildly eclectic and intensely focused in their interests.
- have boundless energy (causing many to be misdiagnosed as ADHD).
- relate well to adults, preferring to spend their time conversing with older children and grownups.
- be highly inquisitive.
- be interested in the unusual.
- want to explore their world persistently.
- observe deeply.
- be single-minded.
- ask “what if” all.the.time.
- to learn faster & with greater depth than age-peers.
Any of these characteristics can be a challenge, but a kid with many of them is set up for failure in a traditional classroom setting. There is simply no way a teacher can meet these needs while remediating for those who struggle, and teaching the typical students well.
Gifted students often get pushed aside because they “already know the material” and “will be just fine.”
But they won’t be fine.
All kids have the right to be met where they are, intellectually, and to learn something new every day.
You can ask your homeschooled kiddo about what he wants to learn.
You can choose to skip whole chapters in the math book if you see that your child has already mastered those concepts.
If your child struggles with his thoughts coming faster than he can physically write, you can be his scribe for awhile. Or you can hand over a laptop or tablet.
You can easily incorporate movement into the day for your child who seems like he is in constant motion — a mini trampoline is a lifesaver!
Lessons can be condensed to include just the most difficult examples of a concept. If those are answered correctly, why bother having your daughter do the rest of them? She clearly knows the material.
You can find online communities like The Learner’s Lab designed specifically FOR quirky homeschooling kiddos and their families.
Is your child intensely interested in science?
You can see that he visits the local science center, writes to a professor at a local university, joins a science class or club, finds books in the library that match both his interest-level and reading ability, and that he pulls all his knowledge together to share it with someone and solidify his learning.
During his first half-year of homeschooling, right after we pulled him out of first grade mid-year, Trevor did just that. He immersed himself — at seven — in the world of advanced astronomy. While he couldn’t read all of the books we found at his intellectual and interest level, I was able to incorporate them as read alouds. He pulled everything together into a lapbook so thick it has to be rubber banded closed, and shared it with anyone who stopped by.
Homeschooling works for gifted kids because their needs can be met in ways that are as unique as they are.
The hardest part of homeschooling your gifted kids, for you, will be getting out of the way and letting them explore freely and learn rapidly. Once you do, be prepared to watch them soar!
What’s Your Homeschool Mom Personality? Take Jamie’s quiz now and receive a free personality report to help you organize your homeschool based on what your personality type needs most!
Weekend homeschool links: April 16th
Hi Colleen, thanks for your article! I so enjoyed reading it and hope it helps others make good choices for their children too.
Perhaps this is nitpicking, but I did want to register my small disagreement with the idea that “all children have the right to be met where they are intellectually and learn something new every day”. To my mind, a right is something that parents have got to put first above everything else: like the rights to food, safety, clothes. But I don’t believe it’s a right to be met where we are intellectually, as adults or children. My concern is that parents may feel pressured by that idea into choices that don’t work for their family as a whole. E.g. educating parent develops depression/exhaustion and wants to put their child into public school while they recover, even knowing that they won’t be met at their intellectual level. If they think of that as a right, they will feel that they are failing their child on a fundamental level. I’d say rather that education at the right intellectual level is a huge benefit, but one that has to be weighed up against other benefits and factors, such as having a well parent. (Comparatively, an exhausted parent still needs to ensure food and shelter for their children, even if they can’t ensure a super-stimulating education.)
I apologise if this seems pedantic. It’s not meant to be; my heart just goes out to all those parents on the edge of a mental health cliff, and I am sad to think of one more label of failure being added to their burden.
Anyway, thanks for all your encouragements and wisdom you have to share with home educating families. You obviously put so much in to this and it is appreciated!
Hi Hannah,
I definitely see your point in regards to a right being a basic necessity for survival, and in this case, perhaps better wording would have been “an educational right.” And, I stand by that. We put money into our public schools via taxes (even when we keep our kids home to homeschool) and there are laws and expectations in place that all children should be granted an “appropriate education.”
Unfortunately, too often, our gifted kids are left behind in the school systems, and so I think it is an important discussion and expectation to have when it comes to educating a child — all deserve to learn every day. All children have an educational right to be met and moved forward intellectually.
Now… are there extenuating circumstances to this (like there are when it comes to just about everything in life)?
Absolutely.
Mental, physical, and emotional health challenges often take precedence to academics. But, I’d argue that in meeting the social, emotional, physical, and mental health needs of children and their families IS honoring them intellectually. When those basic needs are in flux, kids aren’t always able to achieve at high levels, so stepping back IS meeting their needs and rights.
The truth is, there are nuances in every facet of parenting and education, and one short post can’t address all those nuances. This post was meant to address the academic superiority of a homeschool (thus, individualized) education on a site that is homeschool-focused.
I hope and pray that parents on the edge of a mental health cliff are seeking the support and help they need from friends, therapists, and the systems in place to help them make transitions to schooling if needed. I’d also hope and pray that the children in those situations are getting their academic, social, and emotional needs met, too, so they’re not falling through cracks and suffering needlessly.
And, I’d encourage anyone reading this and thinking they’re failing by entertaining the idea of putting their children into a school setting while they recover (or just deciding to “deschool” a bit while they recover) to take a break from reading homeschool sites, participating in homeschool-focused groups, and instead, read up on trauma, healing, depression, and mental health in families. To find support systems that address the needs they’re currently facing. If anyone reading this needs helps finding groups, sites, books, etc. related to specific social, emotional, mental, or physical health challenges they or their kids are going through, post here or message me through my site or any of my social media channels and I’ll help you track some down.
Thank you for taking the time to comment.
Best wishes,
Colleen
Colleen Kessler’s latest post: A Homeschool Writing Program To Challenge Your Gifted Learner
Which curricula/program is that alphabet workbook in the second photo above?
Thank you!
Amy
Hi Amy! It’s the Happy Cheetah reading program. We really liked it. I wrote about it here: https://raisinglifelonglearners.com/happy-cheetah/
Colleen Kessler’s latest post: A Homeschool Writing Program To Challenge Your Gifted Learner
Hi. What’s a good homeschool for gifted student? My son is 5 years old.