About 15 years ago, the exterior of my house needed to be painted. My neighbor couldn’t understand why I didn’t save some money and have my two teenage boys do the job. For some reason, my neighbor assumed that, because they were boys, they were born with the necessary skills to paint a house. I certainly hadn’t taught them how to paint and I knew they weren’t born with the ability. Yes, my neighbor made a rather sexist statement when he expected my boys to be able to paint just because they were born male, but it also made me think about other things we expect our bright kids to automatically be able to do.

 

We expect gifted kids to be organized, responsible, interested in school, and good at most academic subjects. We also expect them to be self-motivated, well behaved, and to value the same things that we value. Realistically, do we really expect them to automatically know how to take notes, write papers, and prepare for exams? Our students may be smart, but they are not born with these skills. They need to develop certain skills, including the ones just mentioned, to prove to others that they are capable.

 

So, whose responsibility is it to teach these skills to our children? I mentioned the Duke Gifted Letter in a previous post. The newsletter has several entries about this subject.

 

In Responsibility: Raising Children You Can Depend On, specific suggestions are offered for parents to:

 In Mastering Organizational Skills, parents are urged to:

Although kids may be born with native intelligence, they are not necessarily born with the skills that enable them to effectively use their giftedness.