I read a great sign at Jimmy John’s this weekend. It said Do what you have to do when you have to so that you can do what you want to do when you want to. 

    Amen! That saying is going up on my wall today! Some of my students are getting a taste of the consequences for not doing that because they have not done enough to qualify for concurrent courses. No amount of pleading makes up for meeting the criteria. 

     Every year, I have to gently tell kids their limitations. Actually, I should say that I help them realize their limitations. My students won’t stand for others putting limits on them, nor do I. These are the self-imposed limitations. 

    I’ll use my own life as an example. I used to read voraciously. My local library had a Bookmobile, and I would sit for hours in a corner reading. I could walk to the library from my house, and I did… often! Then I hit junior high, and my literature teachers made me read their books. I didn’t like their books, so in eighth grade, I remember saying to myself: Fine. If I have to read their books, then I just won’t read on my own anymore.  And I didn’t pick up another book to read for pleasure until my second year of teaching.

    Flash forward twenty years, and God saw fit to make me a literature teacher.  He has a sense of humor!  As I am telling my kids my own history with books, I always ask, “Did my teachers wail and gnash their teeth and tear their clothes when I decided to quit reading?”  No, they could care less.  I wasn’t hurting them.  I was hurting me.  I gave myself limitations.  Limitations on ACT scores.  Limitations on college choices.  Limitations on scholarship opportunities.  

    As the parents of gifted, it is important that you help your children to see how they are limiting themselves when they live by absolutes.  And gifted children love to live by absolutes.  I have met very few gifted people who are not strongly opinionated… even about the most mundane of things.  We’ve got to teach our children shades of gray in their lives.  Sometimes we do this (as opposed to adopting an idea as our creed).  

    I have spoken of giving your child a vision of his future.  It’s just as important to point out when your child is making a decision that could limit his future choices.  But what if it’s the parent who’s causing the limitations?  I deal with this a lot… mostly in the area of where a teen may go to college.  Both of my children went to college in Chicago, and I have never regretted either decision. Not only did my kids get a really great education, they have had fabulous job experiences and they both met and married wonderful people from that area.  We didn’t have savings for college, and both picked private schools. Yes, we’re still paying student loans, but I still have no regrets!  My one reminder to parents in this area (because limitations placed on a child are totally a parent’s prerogative):   too many limitations can make a child secretive or ready to bolt. 

                                                                                           -Michelle