Giftedness is involuntary – a natural gift. It gives no cause for claims of elitism.
This is Russell Zachary Catilo Tan. He’s 6. He was born on November 15, 2013 at Thomson Medical Centre in Singapore. He is our first son, a beautiful gift from above. He was born healthy and very red. I delivered him via CS. I couldn’t breastfeed him when he came out since I didn’t have milk then. Over the few weeks since he was born, I managed to pump milk, though my milk supply was not much back then. I stopped giving him my milk when he was 6 mos old and but got him vitamins and supplements when he was about 1.
I remembered, when he was in my tummy, I always listened to Mozart playlist from YouTube and I ate the usual food minus the junk food except for the occasional Wendy’s Frosty I craved for, which my husband bought on his way home.
Moving forward, I could tell as a mother that he has something special. When he was about 2 years old, he used to wake up at around 2am. We always asked him to go back to bed to sleep some more, but he refused to do so. And so, I usually gave him activities (ipad, usually) to spend his time on while my husband and I go back to sleep. He learned to navigate the ipad at that early age, watching mother goose club and his favorite alphabet songs again and again. In this way, he learned to read by himself when he was 3. His early morning activities continued – we usually gave him jigsaw puzzles to solve and he will not stop until he completes the puzzles – from small 20-pc puzzles, to 100-pc puzzles. As he grew older, he showed interest in numbers watching his favorite Number Blocks and Number Jacks. At the age of 4, we gave him activities from Kumon books, starting with addition, subtraction, multiplication, and even division. He loved watching educational shows such as the outer space and the planets. He learned how to play the piano. He absorbed them all. He showed interest and somehow I even ended up researching for other materials to help him through. He is a fast learner and has a bottomless thirst for knowledge.
I knew that my oldest son is gifted. It was confirmed to us by an RTLB (Resource Teachers of Learning Behaviour) resource person who has done observations and assessments of our son’s behaviour and learning at school. His teachers advised us to seek help from RTLB due to some distracting behaviour that is not only affecting others, but also impacts his ability to learn in class since he refuses to form relationships with his classmates.
At first, I was so hesitant to get this done for our son even at the urgings of my husband. Sometimes, as parents, we couldn’t get how our son’s behaviour can be very difficult to manage, as he often ignores directives from us. We know that our son is different, but for me, it’s OK to be different as I am the one who knows him better from the start. So we gave it a go.
It was good that we discovered this early so we can do our best to help our child to excel. The NZAGC (NZ Association for Gifted Children) and QAGTC (The Queensland Association for Gifted and Talented Children) organizations support the gifted children and their families here in NZ. His teachers finally has a guide on how to handle his learning, and has initiating a program to help us to cope up with our son’s social, emotional issues, and to keep track of his performance and progress.
All credits to the following sources whom were also provided by RTLB.
It’s very easy to misunderstand gifted children as they often have some of the behaviours of children with ADHD. As we have learned about having a gifted child. I’ve learned about the characteristics and some traits of a gifted child.
* Have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge.
* Catch on quickly to concepts the first time they are presented.
* Are creative thinkers and problem solvers.
* Are very observant of everything going on around them at all times.
* Retain a large volume of knowledge.
*Enjoy challenging tasks that would often discourage their peers.
*Become so engrossed in their work everything else is blocked out.
*Never want to make a mistake – striving always for perfection.
*Enjoy playing thinking games.
*Use a large speaking vocabulary.
*Do work well above grade level.
*Get bored when the work is too easy.
You may also check here (https://www.giftedchildren.org.nz/what-is-giftedness) if your children have the signs of giftedness.
And this source will help your gifted child to overcome all these challenges and show you steps to help your child thrive.
The Three Musketeers' Corner 