Giftedness with Kandace / by Mandy Wintink

I recently started reading about giftedness in children. I came upon it somewhat by accident, more out of a curiosity prompted by many people commenting on Ashar’s unusual alertness since he was a baby, his incredible comprehension even before he was verbal, and always seems to be thinking. A few of these people suggested he might be gifted. So one day I googled it and became almost immediately captivated by what I was reading, mostly about the special needs of gifted children. 

It’s been almost 3 years of me feeling like very few typical resources have helped our family with our “issues", whether they were sleep challenges or emotional needs or boredom/stimulation needs or me feeling more inadequate than I could handle. When I happened upon the giftedness literature, I finally felt like the solutions offered for those special needs made sense for our situation and, actually, many were what I had already started to identify as being helpful for us. I felt like I found a home and people who could relate to what I had long felt — but unable to articulate — were unique challenges with our child. I finally found hope. But as quickly as I found hope, I felt more alienated from many people around me because I felt unable to share this new direction without the worry of me or my child being judged. I was even hesitant to tell Mike at first. I haven’t felt confident speaking about this to anyone short of my mom and Mike. And then… I took a leap of faith. A friend of mine who has children older than I, made a comment on a facebook post that lead me to believe that she might have a gifted child of her own. So I very hesitantly reached out and asked, point blank, if she had a gifted child. Turns out she does… and this is a conversation that followed. 

 

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