iPhones, Gifted Kids, and Homeschooling – New on Hubpages

Here’s a sampling of what I’ve been writing about lately on Hubpages.

How I Love My iPhone, Let Me Count the Ways – Ever since I got my iPhone six months ago people have been asking, “How do you like it?” I am here to tell you all the reasons why I LOVE it, and all the ways it has made my life easier.

When a Gifted Child Flounders in School: One Mother’s Story – Sometimes it’s difficult to know whether or not a child is gifted, especially when teachers are treating your little genius as a problem child. Since I started writing about gifted kids and how to identify them, I’ve received several messages from parents looking for advice. I got permission to share this one because it’s a great example of what a lot of people go through.

How to Choose an MFA in Creative Writing Program: Cost and Benefit – I’ve toyed with the idea of pursuing a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts (MFA) in Creative Writing. But every time I try to wrap my head around it, I can never quite narrow down what it is exactly that I’m trying to accomplish. If you’re struggling with the decision too, here are some things to consider.

Should You Homeschool? A Step-by-Step Guide to Making the Homeschool Decision – Homeschooling is becoming a popular alternative to the traditional school environment for many families. There are many advantages to homeschooling, such as customizing education to your child’s individual needs, having flexibility over scheduling, and achieving more influence over children. However, there are also many drawbacks and the decision to homeschool should not be taken lightly.

Gifted Children on Vacation

If you haven’t been over to HubPages lately, I recommend you check it out. For the last couple of years we have been busy building excellent content and just yesterday I was so excited to find this article on how to become a mobile notary for my friend who is looking for extra cash.

Last week I published firsthand accounts of my recent experiences at Silver Dollar City and the Titanic Museum, both in Branson, Missouri. And even though a lot of people think ten years old is too young to think about college, I’m busy looking into all kinds of opportunities for my gifted child. The lastest articles are about academic talent searches (and how to get into them) at Johns Hopkins University and Duke. Plus, I’ve started the mother of all link lists for gifted and talented resources.

One of my favorite HubPages authors is Marye Audet, who writes about all kinds of things, but I love learning how to ‘live off the land’ from her homesteading articles, like this one on how to make laundry detergent.

Help, My Kid is Gifted

A lot of my writing comes out of subjects I’m interested in. As my gifted son gets older (and ever more gifted, especially as smart-ass-ness) I’m reading a lot to learn the scientific side of what makes him tick. If you’ve got the same curiostiy, check out these articles I’ve written for HubPages:

How to Know if Your Child is Gifted
All About Duke TIP
Indigo Children 101
Battling Perfectionism in Children
How to Approach the Endless Questions of a Gifted Child
How to Recognize the Gifted Pre-School Child
Gifted Child Resource Guide
Giftedness: Bestowed or Earned? Fixed Mindset vs. Growth Mindset
Gifted Children and Attention Deficit Disorder
How Gifted Children Are Assessed
How to Choose a Summer Camp for Gifted Children
All About SIG: Summer Institute for the Gifted

Buy a Timer For Your Gifted Child

Forget about saving up for that Ivy League education. The best investment you can make for your gifted child is an inexpensive kitchen timer. What is it about a smart kid that makes it nearly impossible for them to complete a simple task within a reasonable period of time? Yesterday, after an hour of shouting and checking the status of the 28 math problems my son had been assigned, I sat him down at the kitchen table and set a minute on the timer for every problem he had left. 18 minutes for 18 problems. I thought it was a bit harsh and there was no way he’d make it under the buzzer, but I was out of ideas and that trick bought me 18 minutes of not-throttling-my-child.

He finished with 5 minutes to spare. So, for those of you who aren’t gifted at math, that’s 60 minutes for the first 10 problems (without a timer) and 13 minutes for the last 18 problems. My kid may be a rocket scientist one day, but it doesn’t take one to figure out he needs a timer. Later in the evening he was so happy he asked if we could use a timer all the time. Does this mean I’m not such a Mean Mom after all?

Ask Me

A while back I started an advice column at HubPages. I call it Ask a Know-It-All Mom: Parenting Advice on Everything. Readers ask questions in the comments and I respond. I’d love it if any of you would ask questions!

Go ahead, ask me anything!

What else is new at HubPages?

All About SIG: Summer Institute for the Gifted
Dad’s Guide to Packing a Diaper Bag
Parents’ Guide to AR Books and Tests: What is Accelerated Reader?

Cater to Your Children’s Strengths

Have you heard of the ‘strengths’ movement? (Why everything today is a movement I don’t know, but that’s a post for another day.) Apparently it’s catching on that we should actually encourage our children’s strong areas and get over it when they’re bad at something. Say, for example – spelling. I was skeptical at first. Was this one of those touch-feeling, Johnny’s-good-at-kickball-because-everyone’s-good-at-kickball-and-we-all-get-a-blue-ribbon kind of philosophies? But no.

Strengths are defined in three key areas:

• Activity Strengths, the tasks that make you feel engaged and energized.
• Relationship Strengths, the things you do for and with others that make you feel valued and competent.
• Learning Strengths, the unique ways we approach and understand new information.

Those areas are extremely different. Every child is unique, but schools sometimes don’t want to (or can’t) deal with this. I have been told by an elementary school principal that the goal of our system is to get everybody through it in the normal range – meaning no one is below average, but no one is above either.

What if kids were allowed to fall below in some areas and excel in others? I don’t know if that’s practical, but what if? That’s the way it is out here in the real world. Check out the Parent Bloggers Network today to find out what other bloggers are saying.

Duke TIP Deadline Approaching

If you have a gifted child at home, you’ll want to find out about the Duke Talent Identification Program (TIP). This program opens up all kinds of opportunities for children who test above the 95th percentile on school administered standardized tests and/or score over 125 on certain intelligence tests. The program starts in 4th or 5th grade and the deadline to register students this year is March 15th. You can fill out the form online and pay the $30 fee by credit card. All you need on hand is the child’s social security number and test score. Once you complete the online application, Duke verifies the score with your school.

Why?

As far as I can see, this program gives you access to a lot of resources like camps and supplementary curriculum you might never find out about if you were not on their “list”. However, their big selling point is advanced level testing. By seventh grade, they can test at the 12th grade level. When gifted kids take college entrance exams early, they receive information about university level resources available to them based on their scores. If you have a high-scoring child, this can be invaluable both academically and financially.