Home School Heartbeat Radio Program

How do you homeschool your gifted child when he or she doesn't seem to be motivated to learn? Kathi Kearney offers some suggestions on today's Home School Heartbeat with Mike Smith to talk about homeschooling the gifted child.

Mike Smith:


Kathi, I understand that gifted children often become bored with subject areas outside their primary interests. From your experience working with gifted children, tell us how homeschooling parents can motivate their intelligent but reluctant learners.


Kathi Kearney:


Often what happens to gifted children in school is that they learn to underachieve because they're not given material that's challenging enough. When they come out of a conventional public or private school to homeschool, they may bring some of those habits with them. The most important thing to keep a gifted child from underachieving is to give them material that is at a challenging level for them and not work that's too easy. If they have work that's too easy, they learn bad habits. The second important thing is to give them material that they are interested in or that they can connect with a particular interest or passion of their own -- not that they necessarily need to study just that, but they need to know what are the connections between the interests and the talents that they have and all of the other areas of study and endeavor that are out there.


Mike:


Kathi, thank you for being with us this week. As for me, I feel much more informed about the gifted child. And until next time, I'm Mike Smith.