Raising Your Child to Be Gifted: Successful Parents Speak!

Rating:
Summary: Not for Gifted Children at All
Review: James Reed Campbell takes the term "gifted" and applies it to the characteristics of high achieving students. Although Campbell's repeated point throughout the book is communication between parents, children, and teachers is useful, he ignores the characteristics and academic and emotional needs of gifted children. He recommends strategies to parents that will inevitably set students up for debilitating perfectionism, disappointment, and failure - as he recommends the parents setting their children's life goals and directing their children to reach them. He recommends pressuring children into achieving these goals and doesn't take into account circumstances under which gifted children do not achieve to their potential. Campbell considers giftedness a condition that can be reached through hard work as opposed to it being a natural ability. As a school district gifted specialist, this would not ever be a book I would recommend to parents of gifted children.

Rating:
Summary: Not for Gifted Children at All
Review: James Reed Campbell takes the term "gifted" and applies it to the characteristics of high achieving students. Although Campbell's repeated point throughout the book is communication between parents, children, and teachers is useful, he ignores the characteristics and academic and emotional needs of gifted children. He recommends strategies to parents that will inevitably set students up for debilitating perfectionism, disappointment, and failure - as he recommends the parents setting their children's life goals and directing their children to reach them. He recommends pressuring children into achieving these goals and doesn't take into account circumstances under which gifted children do not achieve to their potential. Campbell considers giftedness a condition that can be reached through hard work as opposed to it being a natural ability. As a school district gifted specialist, this would not ever be a book I would recommend to parents of gifted children.

Rating:
Summary: Not Just for Parents of "Gifted" Children
Review: This book should be required reading for all parents. Although children are born with inherently different talents, this book teaches you how to work with and maximize your child's potential. There are wonderful summaries of each chapters and concrete suggestions to enrich your child's education--things that don't take a lot of time, just persistent effort on a DAILY basis. Anyone can do it. I have the most important pages copied and posted on my refrigerator at home and in my briefcase at work so that I can review. Rather than a book to be borrowed from the library to read once, this book is one that I review on an annual basis just before the start of the school year. Buy your copy today. You won't be disappointed. The things in this book are best applied after reading Mary Sheedy Kurchinka's Raising Your Spirited Child so that you understand how your child's personality affects learning and behavior.