Accidental Genius

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Guide for Uncharted Territory
Review: "Accidental Genius" is a wonderful book to help parents of profoundly gifted children understand the way these children learn and process information. It helps to make sense out of the speed they need to go in their studies. The Kearneys also help those coming along behind them to better understand the dynamics of working with various academic bureaucracies. If I had read this book 4 years ago when I first started homeschooling my profoundly gifted son, I would have understood his frustrations in following a linear curriculum and I would have accelerated him differently. We are facing our 10 yr. old entering college full time and are very nervous about the prospect. The Kearneys' insightful book helps point out the pros and the cons of such a venture.

I applaud their heart-wrenching honesty as they tried to explain in their book the reasons for the path they took. All may have different paths in this dark and uncharted forest of giftedness, but I'm glad the Kearneys left a map to explain the terrain!

Rating:
Summary: GREAT! Describes the challenges of rearing the hyper-gifted.
Review: GREAT! Couldn't put it down. I think that this is a "MUST READ" for parents of highly gifted children and a sometimes-funny "GOOD READ" for all of us. Parents of gifted children are finding this book an "aha!" experience. In spite of being two of the most precocious children on record (Michael is at, or close to the reported precocity levels of William Sidis), it is astonishing (and a little frightening) to me how often the Kearney children were misdiagnosed or mishandled. When Michael was born toxemic, and prematurely, the Kearneys were told that he might be brain damaged and retarded. They went all out from Day One to stimulate his mind. They little imagined that they would be confronted with a super-prodigy-an "accidental genius".

To me, one of the striking aspects of Michael's upbringing is the fact that his parents are doing their level best to insure that (unlike William Sidis), he and his comparably brilliant sister, Maeghan, are well adjusted to the world. The Kearneys have evidence that there may be thousands of children showing up around the country with the kind of energy and rage-to-learn that has characterized Michael and Maeghan. The Kearneys think that their dedication to keeping their children supplied with fresh knowledge allowed a flowering of their children's minds that made possible their full mental development. They are very concerned that other children are, perhaps, being misdiagnosed, just as were Michael and Cassidy, Of course, our school systems may not be well-geared to accommodate children at this level of rarity, and yet, these are the children who on whom we are depending to light the world. For the parents of such children, I think "Accidental Genius" is a necessity.

Rating:
Summary: If you have a highly gifted child you should read this book!
Review: Kevin and Cassidy Kearney offer an easy to read, hard to put down, story of their experiences as the parents of accidental genius - two profoundly gifted children. The book details their struggles and successes educating their LE - Learning Enabled - children, through a combination of public, private and home school, and on to undergraduate and graduate college degrees.

Parents of highly gifted children should read their story, for ideas and commiseration, and especially for hope, while raising and educating our children.

Thanks, Kearneys!

Rating:
Summary: This book tells it like it is!
Review: My daughter entered full-time college at age 13 and graduated at age 16. This book gave the most accurate description of what it is really like to go through the acceleration process. Although the book details the personal experiences of the Kearny family, the reader should know that many families that accelerate will experience a lot of what the Kearny's write about. The first chapter of the book that is provided in the Amazon description is not really representative of the book. Once you get past Chapter One, the real story begins. The authors are painfully honest about their feelings and experiences; and do the reader a great service by sharing their personal stories. I have been through the acceleration process with my child and I believe that the Kearny's had a lot to do with the academic acceleration abilities of their children. They should be congratulated for thier enormous efforts and brilliant teaching methods.

The Kearny's are pioneers in the area of acceleration. There are now hundreds of accelerated kids attending colleges across the nation. If you are interested in accelerating your child, I highly recommend this book. You will encounter many of the same roadblocks and negative opinions from teachers and administrators. Reading this book will give you an idea about what you will encounter so you're prepared to deal with the negatives when they happen. The book also shares the joys of acceleration and shows how beneficial early college can be. My daughter and I would do it all over again and encourage others to think about it too. This book is a great way to start your journey. Give it a try!

Rating:
Summary: Sincere and Well Meant
Review: The Kearney's present an honest and heartfelt picture of their struggles to raise a profoundly gifted child. Unfortunately, they proceed to make recommendations based solely on their personal experience.

They wrongly assume that they are responsible for Michael's amazing mental development, being unaware that there have been many others like him, and that such prodigality is inborn.

They also equate learning with intellectual development and feel that by allowing Michael to learn as much as he wants and as fast as he wants, they have fulfilled his intellectual needs.

They also present their plan as the ideal solution, offering no alternatives for parents who may want something more substantive for their child than rushing through the educational system.

This has been an extremely controversial book in discussions among parents of profoundly gifted children. Those who wish to allow intellectual, emotional, and physical maturity a chance to develop in an integrated way are generally highly critical. Parents who are eager to see their children move as swiftly as possible through their schooling, possibly setting records along the way, and saving themselves money as a side benefit of college compaction, praise the book highly.

I see it as an interesting personal memoir that has become undeservedly influential.

Rating:
Summary: This book tells it like it is!
Review: This is a description of what the parents of Michael Kearney did in the first 11 years of their high IQ son. And it is just that. "And then....and then ... and then) It suffers greatly from the flatness of the (description of the) persons involved, the lack of emotional insight in Michael, the repetition in the actions (they fight a lot of the same fights with a different schools, they do a lot of brain stimulation at home), the lack of inspiration, and the fact that it describes only the first 11 years of this boy's life. Actually it's less a book about the boy, then it is about the parents. Beside that: it may look like a 200 page book. But since the space between the lines is twice as large as normal, it actually is just a 100 page book.

On the upside: especially Michael early years (0 to 3) are fun to read, because some of his progress is really incredible. And most important: the book ends with a large bibliography on giftedness.

But all in all, it's quite a lot of money for just a little bit of information.

Rating:
Summary: There's gifted, and then there's severely gifted...
Review: This is an excellent book about how the parents of two profoundly gifted children struggled to help them flourish in an educational environment that did not recognize their needs. Although there is quite a bit of literature about parenting gifted children, there is not much to read about the profoundly gifted children. The primary authors in the area of profoundly gifted children are Miraca Gross and Leta Hollingworth. This book adds the parent's perspective. What this book reveals is that most educators and psychologists do not understand children who deviate too far from the mean, and parents of profoundly gifted children need to become steely advocates for their children. The first two thirds of the book describe the parents' efforts to educate their children from infancy through (early) college. There are some very interesting differences between their two children that really make the differences between the concepts of giftedness and achievement very clear. The last third is general information about giftedness and the profoundly gifted.