September 2009

When Praise Goes Awry

Praise is a powerful tool that parents and teachers can use to motivate their children. Furthermore, children appear to thrive on praise. Yet both the research on the effects of praise and advice about praise can be confusing. Praise can have widely different impacts on different children; it can:

motivate children,
lead them to brag,
embarrass them, or
cause them to believe that parents or teachers have too-high expectations for them.

Websites for Building Financial Knowledge

Issues surrounding financial spending and saving have been dominating the news for months, and it doesn't look like they'll be disappearing any time soon. Yet explaining these issues to your child can often be difficult.

Duke Gifted Letter went on the search for free, online resources that will help you talk to children about financial issues and let them try their hand at investing.

Overexcitabilities and the Gifted Child

Does your child do any of the following?

Fidget a lot, or seem to have more energy than other children his or her age?
Have strong, unusual reactions to sounds or smells?
Create such a rich fantasy life that it is difficult for him or her to distinguish reality from fantasy?
Love nothing more than to think, solve problems, and ask questions?
Have intense emotional reactions, such that it seems like he or she is "overreacting"?

If so, your child may have one or more overexcitabilities.

English Language Learner Students and Gifted Identification

Among all the subgroups of students whose performance in school is commonly studied, English language learners (ELLs) are the least represented in gifted education programs. A variety of related reasons may account for this state of affairs, but the nature of gifted identification procedures is probably one of the more important causes. Awareness of this issue can help point us in the right direction to make progress in identifying children who would benefit from receiving appropriate gifted education services while they are learning English.

Gifted Program Administration: Mission Impossible?

As a district coordinator of gifted education for over two decades, I was continually surprised by the frequent exclamation, "I sure wouldn't want your job!" Although the reasons given for this utterance varied, the underlying sentiment reflected the perception of the difficulty of the many demands that confront an administrator of a gifted program.