Advocating for your gifted child

The best advice I ever received about advocating for your gifted child is to just be persistent. Teachers and administrators will say no repeatedly and give tons of reasons for why they can’t possibly accommodate the child, even though they have no pedagogical reasoning. Educational institutions tend to stick to what they’ve done in the past. But the practices of the past have largely ignored gifted students, and every child deserves to learn something every day at school. This cannot be negotiable.

As “just” a parent, I have found that my voice and perspective of my children is often discounted at the schools unfortunately. I’ve been called a Tiger Mom, accused of trying to play the “GPA game” because I’ve asked that my child be allowed to take extra AP classes, told I was “making up” or exaggerating my child’s abilities so they could get special treatment, counseled that I should just let them “be kids and have fun” and questioned why I was even concerned at all because my children were doing just fine in their classes. It can at times be exhausting, demoralizing and overwhelming to be sure, but it is also motivating and exciting to be an advocate for change and improvement. For example, after pushing for one of my children to be allowed to take an advanced math class and encouraging other parents to request the same class, our middle school added the advanced class to the course list and opened it to all interested, qualifying students. Advocating for expanded and diversified curriculum options benefits not only your own child, but every similar student who will come after yours.