What should you do with your gifted kids? Errr... nothing!

We were coming out of JG after dropping H off for his weekly EduDrama class when we bumped into another mom. She stopped us and asked if we were H's parents, then started asking about what enrichment programmes H is registered in. I don't know how or why, but somehow she has the impression that H is somewhat advanced for his age and wanted to know if we did or are doing anything special with him both at home and outside home.

We acknowledge that H is smart but we've never thought of him as being gifted. He's very inquisitive, likes to learn and learns very fast. But is that really being gifted? Kids are like sponges, no? They absorb just about anything and everything they're exposed to. Anyway, this mom of H's classmate is concern that she's not doing enough to groom her son's talent. He's 4, just like H, but is already doing multiplication (he's extremely good in maths). The mom is already sending him to all sorts of enrichment programmes - mental maths, reading, etc. So the question posed to us was "what else can we do? how do you make sure that gifted kids like ours don't lose their talent?"

I guess this is typical of most Asian parents. We want the best for our kids and will do everything within our means to give them a leg-up in life. Sometimes parents get so engrossed with enriching their kids with knowledge that they forget that there are other more important aspects to life. Is it really necessary for kids to be ahead in reading and maths? These are skills that can be picked up rather quickly once the kids are developmentally ready (some earlier, some later but they all get there eventually). If the kids are interested and want to learn more, sure, don't stop them, but never push them beyond their capacity just because you think they can or they should. The worst thing a parent can do is to take the fun away from learning. Focus should always be on the process of learning, not outcome. At the end of the day, we want our kids to enjoy learning, know how to acquire knowledge and how to apply the knowledge acquired. We also want them to be critical thinkers, to be confident and be able to articulate their thoughts and ideas. Otherwise, what's the point of having all these knowledge and ideas? These are soft skills that are important and much much harder to teach than academic subjects like language and maths.

Again I digress. So what should you do with your gifted kids? Well... nothing special. The fact that they're already academically more advanced than their peers means that you must be already doing something right. Just follow their cue - they will let you know when they're ready for more. For example, just the other day H asked me what is divide (in math) while playing with blocks. I'm not sure where that came from so I explained to him the concept of divide by using his blocks. That's what I mean by following their cue. I don't send him for special math classes, nor do I tutor him at home. What I do is I teach him math concepts whenever he asks and that's how he picks up math at home. And the same goes with other subject areas like reading, general knowledge, etc. What I do want to know, however, is how do you teach those other soft skills I mentioned like confidence, EQ, etc?