Funnily enough, my friend doesn’t drive. I suspect that because she didn’t immediately “get the hang of” driving, she never bothered to learn. And she hates to fail. I don’t particularly like failing either, but I’ve had to learn to deal with it.

In retrospect, it’s probably fortunate that I am a total klutz and wasn’t good at sport; at least I know how it feels to be terrible at something.

What is the problem if a gifted child is not identified? I presume it’s a problem of the child being “bored” at school, and acting up as a consequence… Being a teacher is a hard job when you have a very broad spectrum of students - I guess there are 10% who always “get it”, 10% who will have great difficulty “getting it” and then the other 80% of students are in between. The problem is if you are focusing on making sure everyone understands, the bright students who immediately understood the point will become frustrated. It isn’t good if a child has absolutely nothing to do at school because they learn very quickly.

I used to be very much against streaming, then I went into a selective school (in the UK)…and very much enjoyed it. Perhaps there is something to be said for separating out people with different abilities.

However, some boredom is a natural part of life. I must confess that in some instances, I think “giftedness” is an excuse parents use to explain a badly behaved child - “He’s very gifted, but he’s just not being challenged, which is why he behaves badly in class.” I tend to think that if a child is gifted and imaginative enough, she will be able to create challenges for herself to a degree.

At one point my mother worked in a children’s toy store. Every parent came in and said “My child is very gifted for his/her age”. Mum used to smile inwardly the more she heard this. Not all children can be gifted. Not all people can be gifted.

There is no shame in being ordinary. I am a very ordinary women’s soccer player, but I am very proud of my achievements in that field because I worked really hard to get there, and had to overcome a childhood disability. Previously, I was very proud and did not like to do anything where I couldn’t be “the best”. I was certainly afraid of failure.

I failed to get Articles first time around. Although it was a disaster at the time, it caused me to totally reassess my life and to go down pathways that were very different. I can safely say that I would not be sitting here typing this post today if I had gotten Articles straight away. Further, I would not have met my husband, I would not have had my child and I would probably be slaving my guts away at one of the mega-firms, thinking that this was “success”. So failure can actually be an immensely productive thing…I’ve written a post on “The Horse Story” which shows that you should always “wait and see…” Failure is not necessarily a bad thing.

It’s hard, though, when you have your own child. If my child wants to do something well and to push herself, I will help her do that. But I don’t want her being afraid of failure, and I want her to know that I don’t mind if she’s “ordinary” (or for that matter, if she’s a “genius”). As far as I’m concerned, she’s exceptional for just being her.

I had already been trying to give my children specific praise (good on you for figuring out how to add those two numbers, rather than you’re so clever) but since I’ve read it I’ve been trying to praise effort, and it’s quite difficult.

I look back on my own education, and realise now that because I knew I was supposed to be smart, there were a few things I wouldn’t try for fear of failure - learning chess was a notable one.

So I think the most important thing with gifted kids’ education is to give them something they find hard to do early enough so that they get used to the idea that not everything is easy. Don’t know if that would have worked with your schoolfriend, though.

‘Gifted’ is a complex notion, and IQ is only one measure of it - and not one which is generally regarded as decisive any more. Children might be very talented at music or art but only register a mediocre score on an IQ test, and in fact this is one of the major issues - many tests designed to identify ‘bright’ students only weed out (for example) those good at the maths-science type subjects, which require thinking skills similar to those tested by an IQ-type test. Or, for instance, kids with asian heritage might underperform in a test that is culturally biased (unintentionally, usually) in favour of an anglo-saxon Australian perspective.

But I agree that the ‘everyone’s a winner’ mentality is b.s. - have you ever noticed that Australia is almost unique in the western world for not really having any of what are usually called ‘intellectuals’?

Perhaps a healthy middle ground is the best option - if a child is gifted, do acknowledge it but perhaps also drive home that this actually raises the expectations on them, rather than allowing them to do substantially less work for the same results as other students. Additionally, I don’t see that it is neccessarily harmful to acknowledge the reality that a child is above average, and indeed to explain that this may even create hostility and resentment amongst peers - this might equip him or her to deal with the almost inevitable problems at school rather than having to deal with unexplained persecution.

You also place a premium on hard work, which is generally pretty admirable - but I must say I have always thought that the students who really missed some of the best aspects of the experience at school and uni were the ones who worked like demons thoughout. Even if they cracked straight As or HDs, they frequently seemed under-socialised, apolitical, and lacking in exposure to contemporary culture - and my observation is that many struggle once they hit the workforce, too. So although it’s somewhat counter-intuitive, but I suggest one should be wary of creating too strong an emphasis on working hard. I guess what I’m saying is that arguably it’s far healthier for a smart kid to occasionally ride on their natural ability and enjoy the slack time this affords them to do other things (but maybe that’s just because that was my own approach…).