And we’re off!! Another academic year has begun, and we are introducing a new study to our kids. The focus this year is based upon a book called Everything Counts. This week’s lesson is that details count. If you’re new to TriOpinion, Kay, Bria, and I are three generations of educators of gifted and talented students. We each cover the topic of the week in our own method. Kay reflects upon the evolution of the concept over her fifty-plus years of educating. Michelle helps parents of gifted children with the concept. And Bria writes directly to the gifted student (or adult).
This week’s topic is that details count. That they do! Details are the difference between an 88% and a 92%. They are the reason we gain or lose business, and they cause us to switch churches, hairdressers, and doctors frequently.
Highly gifted kids love to point out their parents’ and teachers’ “misses” in the details, but they often don’t care about their own. They know they understood the concept, so they are not highly motivated to prove it to anyone else! Highly-driven teens, on the other hand, care incredibly about the details and will delay completion to make sure the paper or task or job is done perfectly.
Parents of a gifted child often have another child who is highly driven. It is important to praise these kids differently. Your gifted child wants praise for his innovation and results, even if the method was not the way that had been prescribed. Your driven child wants you to recognize how hard he worked to do exactly what was needed. The result is going to be good… that’s a given. He wouldn’t allow otherwise. He killed himself to make sure of his success, and your acknowledgement of his hard work is his desired reward.
Each type of child must be taught to think of others when it comes to the details. The gifted needs to recognize that the path to the result does matter because sometimes it’s the path through which learning occurs rather than the result. The highly-driven needs to learn that perfectionism can cause deadlines to be missed and can generally irritate those with whom he is working.
We want our kids to both follow directions AND think outside the box. Easier said than done, so take the time to teach your child how to balance the two.
Michelle