Posted by Dawn K on 8:50 Jan 8
Our son, Nathan, who is 8, has since one year old shown strong signs of giftedness. He has amazing verbal skills, hasn't really had to be "taught" anything yet, remembers everything, reads books, listens to audio books and history stories every day, is very passionate, very creative and so on. His comprehension skills are amazing.
So, here's the problem. We house church with a few other homeschooling families. Sunday, the children and Dads were playing some outdoor games -- games our boys were unfamiliar with. All of the families we meet with are quiverfull and have on average 8 children, we, however, have three sons (17, 8 and 6). Our boys only experience these sorts of outdoor games with lots of people on Sundays. My husband told me yesterday that he thinks our 8 year old won't make it in life because instead of following the game, he was trying to convince another boy that they should be the right flank -- whatever that means. Our boys love history and our oldest is a military history buff, so lots of this talk goes on in our house. These families are very laid back in their homeschool approach and really only focus on reading and math. My husband said Nathan reminds him of a cousin he had who was very smart as a boy, but is just weird and now only works as a security guard twice a week.
He also said he noticed Nathan trying to talk to this one boy who is also interested in Jonathan Park, but he talks too much and the boy began ignoring him. Nathan always talks -- even to himself.
I just cannot believe he can proclaim him a failure because of that! I find Nathan to be incredibly interesting. I was not brought up in a learning environment, and I'm sure I was never as bright as Nathan, but he is very much like me in many ways. I love lots of alone time, I never needed lots of children, and never felt like I fit into those sorts of games or athletic things either. I tried telling my husband this, but it doesn't sway him. He still thinks he has no social skills (yet can he converse quite well with an adult or child, pays perfect attention in our church meeting, often even wanting to add comments after the men are done teaching -- correlating another scripture passage with his teaching.
Please help -- I am so sad about this.