Home School Heartbeat Radio Program

Home educating a gifted child is not an easy task. Kathi Kearney joins Mike Smith this week to discuss the "ins and outs" of homeschooling gifted children on Home School Heartbeat.

Mike Smith:


Kathi, many parents feel intimidated by the idea of trying to homeschool gifted children. How do parents rise to this task?


Kathi Kearney:


Gifted children keep teachers in public and private schools plenty busy, too, and it's nothing to be intimidated about. But you should expect a gifted child is probably going to get through much more curriculum than you had planned on purchasing that first year. You may also find that they get intensely interested in one or two topics and really want to dive in and dig in and find out everything that they possibly can about a particular area. One of the things that is done in public and private schools for gifted children and seems to happen naturally for gifted children that are homeschooled, is if they are allowed to go at what is a normal, natural pace for them, you're probably going to get into some kind of acceleration -- either a full grade acceleration or subject matter acceleration. It happens to be a very bright child's natural pace, and actually what happens in conventional schools is we often end up keeping a child like that back.


Mike:


Thank you, Kathi, that's very helpful. And until next time, I'm Mike Smith.