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A few weeks ago, D.C. got its first measurable snow in ages. Out came the snowpants.
My youngest has an older version of this pair from Columbia. These waterproof pants come in a dozen colors and keep kids warm with synthetic insulation and thermal-reflective lining. The adjustable waist tabs and Outgrown system accommodate growing bodies so your kids can wear these pants for longer.
Columbia’s Kids’ Bugaboo II Ski Pants are on sale for $56.25 (down from $75) and come in lots of colors.
Sales of note for 4.18.24
(See all of the latest workwear sales at Corporette!)
- Ann Taylor – 50% off full-price dresses, jackets & shoes; $30 off pants & skirts; extra 50% off sale styles
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- Zappos – 29,000+ women’s sale items! (check out these reader-favorite workwear brands on sale, and some of our favorite kids’ shoe brands on sale)
Kid/Family Sales
- Carter’s – Up to 70% off baby items; 50% off toddler & kid deals & 40% off everything else
- Hanna Andersson – Up to 50% off spring faves; 25% off new arrivals; up to 30% off spring
- J.Crew Crewcuts – Up to 60% off sale styles; up to 50% off kids’ spring-to-summer styles
- Old Navy – 30% off your purchase; up to 75% off clearance
- Target – Car Seat Trade-In Event (ends 4/27); BOGO 25% off select skincare products; up to 40% off indoor furniture; up to 20% off laptops & printers
Anon says
Am I ok to think my kid is just ordinary?
He’s almost 10. He does well at school and on standardized tests (which I credit that to him being from a well-resourced family with two involved parents.) He can be pretty disorganized, and his focus isn’t great, but we’ve never gotten any calls from school – teachers love him. He’s in the 4th grade version of GT classes (“enrichment”) due to all above.
DH grew up in a pressure-cooker environment and thinks we need to send kid through exec functioning tests for giftedness and/or ADHD so he can ‘reach his full potential.’ I’m not sure I see the benefit. Kid is obviously is doing fine without the additional school resources he’d be able to obtain with some kind of official ‘gifted’ diagnosis, and while his focus could potentially improve with medications, it almost seems like cheating since he’s already doing fine.
AITA here? I grew up lower middle class and was a very similar kid to my son. I’ve done fine as a smart-but-not-gifted person who developed exec functioning skill sufficient go to a law school and end up in a director type role. But am I denying him something important?
Anonymous says
Your NTA and your DH is a little bit the AH. Your kid sounds happy and fulfilled.
Anon says
There is a degree of disorganization and poor focus that is due to being 9 (and especially being a boy). The kid’s personality also plays a role — my husband admits he would purposely *not* organize his binders and notebooks in the way specified by the teachers, because arbitrary rules annoy him to this day. So perhaps you can suss out if it’s a true struggle or just a lack of effort.
To your question, it’s great to accept your kid as they are and let them develop as they will! It’s a gift, truly. I put a lot of stake in “mother’s instinct” and if you aren’t identifying serious struggles at home or school, and in your gut think he’s a well-adjusted, happy kid, then let it ride. It would be a mistake to ignore obvious cries for help, and I suppose the only downside to an evaluation is money and time if you want to go that route. But there is definitely a culture of “diagnosis” and “giving every advantage” in pressure cooker communities, so it’s good to be clearheaded about it.
AwayEmily says
He sounds a lot like me. I was very smart as a kid but I don’t think met the criteria for “gifted” — like, I wasn’t speaking three languages by age 6 and doing linear algebra at 10. I went to a mediocre-to-poor public school, my parents never really pushed me (teachers wanted me to skip a grade and they refused), and the benefit of that lack of pressure both in school and from parents is that I am (I think) one of the most emotionally healthy people I know. Because schoolwork was easy, I got to spend a ton of time in high school and college just hanging out with friends, working on the school play, etc. I coasted through a very good liberal arts school, got my PhD at an Ivy, and now am a professor and just extremely happy with my life (prior to grad school I worked as a political consultant and also did quite well). I’m trying to give my kids the same experience — they go to a low-pressure public school and we try to keep things very relaxed. I think there’s a real emotional health benefit to just letting kids develop at their own pace and it sounds like that’s exactly what you’re doing. I think of it this way: if my kid is unhappy or struggling (whether because school is too easy or too hard), then of course I will intervene. But if they seem content and like they are learning and growing, then I’m gonna stay hands-off.
Anon says
Your kid sounds like me. Some kids obviously could not function well in society without the supports that can come with certain diagnoses. But others – perhaps like your son? – just need to placed in situations where they realize the benefit of those skills. Why would he need to be focused and organized now, if school is a breeze? What benefit would it give him?
For me, getting a job as a young teen required me to up my organizing / time management skills. I loved earning my own money, and liked the challenging of arranging my schedule to be able to do that. It took some trial and error, but I learned all my exec functioning skills from getting a job when I was 14, not from a skills coach or meds. This won’t be true for kids who are truly and obviously gifted and/or struggle with ADHD of course, but that doesn’t sound like your kid (at least from what you’ve described.)
Spirograph says
NTA. I love your attitude about this. The only thing I want for my kids is to be kind, happy and fulfilled. They don’t need to “reach their potential” just for the sake of reaching it. It’s not necessary to optimize a child.
As someone who gets calls and emails from school about my kids for an array of things from lack of focus to fighting/attitude issues, I think if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. You will know if ADHD is actually a problem that is holding your child back. And as someone with a lot of opinions about gifted programs, if he hasn’t been identified for extra services beyond his enrichment class, he doesn’t need them. The point of those programs is to serve kids who aren’t well served in a traditional classroom, not to give a leg up to kids who already have the advantage of involved parents.
anon says
All of this! I have one kid who has ADHD, and another who is just a regular 9-year-old. Who, yes, is forgetful at times. There is a HUGE difference in what they need. After navigating the system to get the ADHD needs met and addressed, I am so freaking relieved that my 9-year-old has regular struggles, not things that need intervention.
Parents are under so much pressure to optimize their kids these days, and I don’t think it’s good for anyone. You sound like your head is on straight, OP.
What even does “full potential” mean? Not every kid can reach the tippy top, and it’s FINE. I was regular smart, not gifted smart, and I think I turned out okay without being on the gifted track. There is so much more to life, and so many other life skills to learn.
Momofthree says
If your kid isn’t struggling or presenting with any major challenges, I agree that I would leave it alone for now. It’s very expensive and time-consuming to find and attend programs for this sort of thing. Evaluation especially if there’s not an established need can be super expensive. Depending on your region it can also take months for a neuropsych evaluation. It’s important to add that just b/c he doesn’t need help now that he won’t ever need help. Maybe he gets to middle school & everything falls apart (hopefully not). There are also things that you as parents can do to help. I wouldn’t pathologize your kid for no reason.
Anon says
Where I live it seems like people do the testing mainly for their own ego, like it’s a status symbol to have an “exceptional” child. I was a gifted child who had a pretty typical experience with my school’s gifted program and it was fine but not life-changing. Sure there were smart kids in it, but we were averagely smart kids. I truly don’t think it matters much in the grand scheme of things unless he wants to fit into a certain school social group. It may sound ridiculous but if his friends are in it, or if you think he could stand to make some nerdier friends, then I’d be more inclined to test him.
Anon says
It sounds like he is in the school’s gifted program, she just hasn’t pursued private testing, which makes sense to me.
Anonymous says
You could ask your kid if he feels like some things are harder than they should be and consider if its worth helping him find some methods to help with those (doesn’t sound like he needs a full evaluation unless he admits to hiding a lot of struggles). I say that because from the outside I look happy and good at school, but there was a lot of anxiety under the surface to overcome my executive functioning problems. But if he’s happy and doing well, then you’re doing great and why change what’s obviously working.
SC says
+1. Apparently, several teachers suggested to my parents that I might have ADHD, and my parents left it alone because I was doing fine. And I was, until high school, when my lack of executive functioning skills made things too hard for me to cope. Still, I mostly pretended things were OK, got good enough grades on tests that turning most of my papers and assignments in late didn’t affect my grades too much, and developed an anxiety disorder from trying to work through my undiagnosed ADHD with no understanding of why it was so hard. I think I would have benefited from a diagnosis, some books that explained my brain chemistry to me, and some earlier executive function coaching. And earlier therapy for my anxiety.
I’m not saying you need to do anything now, but it wouldn’t hurt to check in, or to keep an open mind if your son is struggling later.
Waffles says
How is your kid doing with friends?
So much of success in life is relational. If he has positive, genuine relationships with his peers, with whom he shares interests, it could be good to continue on his current path, because he is already strong, and getting stronger, with his group.
If, however, he has an extreme interest, which makes it obvious that he “is not like the others,” it probably wouldn’t hurt to single him out for assessment, because he already doesn’t fit with the group. Much of life is designed for the majority; if accommodations need to be made, they would help him connect with more niche communities and interests.
I think everyone knows many people with above average IQs who have established success, and many high IQ people who continue to struggle. A high IQ person is not necessarily a gift to society, even if he is labeled “gifted.”
Anon says
Not sure this is exactly what you’re getting at, but I have a kid who sounds similar and I’ve made the choice not to pursue any testing or diagnoses for her because it’s so elitist. There are no poor kids in my public elementary school’s GT program. The district pumped money into those programs to keep rich families from fleeing to private schools (which they’re going to do anyway, one the kids get to be high-school aged). I hear a lot about how the kids have to be in GT because otherwise they’d be ‘bored.’ So? Smart and middle intelligence kids get bored in school too. Find a hobby.
I’m obviously not welcome at the local PTA meetings.
Anonymous says
You sound like the nuts in California who want to remove calculus from the high school curriculum.
Anon says
What?!?! Anon@12:36, you sound totally reasonable to me.
Anonymous says
Gently…he’s ten. He hasn’t gone through puberty or had a job or gone to college yet. Your DH needs to relax. And American society is SO focused on meritocracy yet our mental health is in the toilet. Let’s focus more on creating kind people who willingly contribute to their families and communities and less on “achieve the biggest degree and make the most money possible”.
Anonymous says
Moms of boys with May birthdays, did you start kindergarten when they were five or when they were six? I have a son who will turn five in late May. Our cutoff for public school kindergarten is you have to turn 5 by August 31 of that school year. We’re also applying to various private schools in our area (Charlotte), and with some of the schools, they have a Pre-K program, and most of their kindergartens are 6.
Anon says
Absent any specific concern, I would definitely start at age 5. My July and Sept boys started K at 5 and not-yet-5; my April boy will also start at 5. He’ll be almost 5.5 and that feels so old/late to me, compared to my others. Both my kids are doing great – they have friends, they are in the G&T programming, teachers have no concerns, etc.
If our cutoff had been sooner, I would’ve been glad to keep my Sept boy home one more year, but I’m a big fan of abiding by the cutoffs. An older (smart) kid has more risk of being bored. (Again, absent any specific academic or social concern other than age!)
Anonymous says
This. It is also a whole lot easier to have a kid who went to K on time and isn’t ready for first grade repeat K than to have a bored kid moved up to the grade where he needs to be.
FP says
I have two boys with late summer birthdays and I pushed ahead (we are in a large city in the Southeast). I saw no real reason to redshirt them and I think it’s ridiculous that it’s so out of hand these days. At some point you have to think of the rest of the kids experience if your kid is 15-18 months older than them – it’s not fair, and the younger ones are the ones who are in the right grade. My boys will likely end up at our local all-boys prep school which starts in 7th grade and I’ve toyed with the idea of considering a redshirt at that point if the school recommends it, but for right now, they are doing very well and both performing ahead of their grade level in early elementary. If you do move forward with sending them on instead of redshirting, sports may frustrate them, but look for leagues which sort based on birthday. In our area that’s Little League and hockey. My kids ended up being on teams with kids the grade below, but they are fine with it and just know it’s because that’s how the birthday cutoff sorted them.
NYCer says
My kids go to private schools in NYC where redshirting July and August birthdays is ubiquitous. Most kids with May birthdays go to Kindergarten at the normal time (i.e., when they are 5), and June is probably 50/50. I would personally never consider keeping a kid with a May bday back, unless you had other very specific concerns. FWIW my younger daughter who is applying to K right now has two very close friends who are little boys with May birthdays, and both of them are going to K next year.
Anonymous says
This is wild as an NYC public school parent since the cutoff date for public schools is 12/31. So you get a significant chunk of 4 year old K students, and a May birthday would make you older than half the class.
NYCer says
Private cut off is 8/31 with many, many redshirts. But yes, I do know that publics in NYC basically never allow redshirting.
anon says
June birthday, and my son will do two rounds of K – one at 5 at his current school, and then he’ll apply to K as a 6-year-old at the local K-12 privates. Standard in my community for summer birthdays, especially for boys. With May, it’s more of a toss-up and would depend on the outplacement office’s advice.
Anonymous says
But….why?
Anonymous says
In our area it is totally unheard of to redshirt a May birthday. Cut off is Sept 1. There are a number of July/August birthday kids who get held back but it’s really only if there are actual concerns, and I think between my kids’ two classes there may one June birthday held back where there were clear delays. That said I’m probably biased bc my mid August kiddo is currently in kindergarten on time. As mentioned above our thinking was it would be easier to repeat K than try to skip ahead again later. For this kid it has definitely been the right decision.
Anonymous says
It is so weird to me that boys are basically a full year older than girls in school these days. A May birthday is nine months after the cutoff date!
Anonymous says
In our district there are a lot of redshirted girls, too. Not quite as many as there are boys, but a surprising number. What’s really sad is that some of the parents lie to their kids and insist that they weren’t held back, even though their birthdays are obviously months before the cutoff. And the more parents who redshirt, the more pressure there is on other parents to do the same. All of this at the same time as the curriculum is being dumbed down.
anon says
+1. We’re in the SEUS where redshirting for pre-K at private schools is ubiquitous. My kid has a birthday in late April. In the 3-4 year old room at his daycare (which funnels to the private schools), he seemed SO far behind the other kids. It started to make sense in April when we started getting invited to birthday parties of kids turning 5. Oh–DS is a full year younger than half the kids in this class!
Anon says
My daughter is in K and had a classmate turn 7 in December!! (To be fair, this kid is an outlier and the next redshirted birthday that I know of is in early June.) She mentions this kid being smart sometimes and I’m always tempted to say “he’s not smart, he’s just an entire year older than everyone else!” I refrain, obviously. But this kid is clearly in the wrong grade. And I’m not pearl-clutchy about redshirting kids who are actually close to a cutoff.
Anonymous says
Holy cr@p. I turned 7 around December of second grade, and so did my daughter. No 7-year-old belongs in a K classroom. That poor kid.
Anon says
Agree. My kid’s birthday is just a few days before the cut-off date, and started kindergarten as a four year old (soon to be five year old). If any teachers had voiced concerns, we would have reconsidered. But with a May birthdate, why worry too much?
MD mom says
My DD has a late June birthday, and we started her at 5. She’s done fine, although there are quite a few redshirted kids in her class. DS misses our cutoff by one day (September baby), and we plan to have him tested to see if he is ready when he is almost 5. I was a relatively bright child in a shitty school, and I don’t want them to be bored like I was.
Anonymous says
I have a 3rd grade boy with a May birthday, a Sept 1 cutoff, and no developmental issues. (Athletic, regular bright, not three-standard-deviations exceptional.) We sent him on time. The oldest kids in the grade were only slightly redshirted with July or August birthdays.
We also sent my August daughter to K on time this year and she is fine (she is, ahem, sometimes the ringleader) as she has a lot of social interaction with brother and other older kids outside school.
Anon says
Many May boys are held back in our district, but our cutoff is even earlier (August 1).
Personally I would have sent a May birthday, absent a specific behavioral concern. I might have redshirted a July birthday though.
Anonymom says
Our district has an August 31 cutoff. Redshirting August birthdays is fairly common, July less so but still happens. I’ve never met a red-shirted kid with an earlier birthday, and would not likely redshirt myself absent a real concern. (And I “redshirted” (but hate that term) my boy with an August birthday.)
Anonymous says
OP here – thanks everyone for the responses. When it was first suggested to us (on an initial school tour months ago where the schools did not yet have any evaluation information about our son, just his birthdate), it threw me for a loop. My husband and I talked about it and looked into it more (meaning, we looked at what other private schools in other cities do as well as read articles about the value in red shirting a child) and actually found a school in LA that has entirely different kindergarten cutoff dates for boys than girls. So, we came around to the idea of doing a PreK year. Then, in a recent meeting with the school (now that they have his WPPSI scores, plus the results of the schools own in person “kindergarten readiness” evaluation), they said he’s actually ready for kindergartner, but we could choose Pre K if we wanted. The flip flop is what’s tripping me up.
Anon says
In my experience, schools skew in favor of red-shirting borderline kids, so if they say he’s ready, I’d send him. And I say that as someone is not as anti-redshirting as others here.
Anonymous says
Were redshirting our LATE July boy but I wouldn’t if he was May (cutoff is August 31). DH and I were late birthdays (within a month of cutoff) and we felt the social immaturity during elementary school.
Anonymous says
We are probably not going to redshirt our 8/5 birthday boy (district has a 9/1 cutoff), but we haven’t fully decided yet. He’s already one of the biggest in his preschool class, and he can read, so those things point toward sending him. On the other hand, his social skills could use work. We’re looking into a social skills summer program and planning to ask his teachers and OT therapist what they think when we get closer to the deadline.
Anonymous says
We’re redshirting in MAY now? This is nuts. That is a full quarter of the year BEFORE the deadline. Send your kid.
Anon says
What is the Venn diagram between parents who redshirt and parents who want their kids pulled for gifted programs? :P
Anon says
Not a lot of overlap, in my experience. People who think their kids are gifted are more likely to push emotionally immature kids ahead a grade level because “otherwise they’ll be sooo bored.”
Anon says
By push ahead do you mean just follow the cutoffs? Send your kids when the district says to send them, barring a major issue.
Anon says
No, I agree starting on time is not “pushing ahead.” I was referring to several parents I know who tried to get fall birthdays who missed the cutoff into the grade above because they claimed their then 4 year olds were “gifted” and would be bored in the correct grade level. I’m all for grade-skipping once a kid is well into grade school and clearly working way ahead of grade level, but I think pushing to start a 4 year old in K early because they’re “gifted” is silly… it’s highly improbable that these kids are all genuinely gifted and even if a kid is academically ready for K at age 4, let them be kids longer! There’s nothing wrong with another year of playing make believe and running around the playground in preschool.
It may be regional. In our football-obsessed area, redshirting, especially extreme red-shirting (spring birthdays) is most common among families who highly value athletic achievement and (as a broad generalization) that demographic doesn’t tend to be very concerned with academic giftedness.
Anonymous says
When I was a kid the cutoff was in December and it was very normal to start K at age 4. I am very happy my parents did not hold me back. I would not have enjoyed another year of noisy boys running around the preschool classroom yelling, K was already boring enough at age 4/5, and I was so ready to be done with high school and out of the house at 17.
Anon says
It’s always been pretty regional, I think. The cutoff in my district was August even back in the 1980s and that was normal in the Midwest.
I’d be reluctant to red-shirt a kid because of their birthday alone, but am very in favor of moving deadlines up so all kids are 5 at the beginning of the year. I think the structure and behavioral expectations of kindergarten are tough for many, if not most, 4 year olds. My kids loved having additional time in their play-based preschool and weren’t bored in kindergarten, despite testing as pretty high-achieving. There’s a huge range of where kids are at in K (moreso than in other grades, because of the variation in prep at home and preschool or lack thereof) and good teachers make sure the class is engaging for everyone. Maybe there are some exceptionally gifted kids who can’t be taught in traditional kindergarten rooms, but there’s no way every parent I know pushing to get their kid into kindergarten early has an exceptionally gifted kid.
Anonymous says
Where we are, a lot of overlap. It tends to be the clingy SAHMs who redshirt and who then push for their overaged kids to be identified as “gifted.”
Babysitter question says
Bay Area mom. What is the going rate for an experienced babysitter? Do you tip someone setting her own rate, and if so how much? Thank you
Abby says
I don’t live there but visited in November and used a nursing college student recommended by my friend, and that babysitter charged $22/hour for a 6 month old baby, however she was asleep the entire time. Also I don’t typically tip babysitters.
Anonymom says
How many kids, and how old? We pay $30 an hour for two kids with an experienced sitter, and I consider that close to a steal (we are in SF, kids are 8 and 5). Rates for one kid are sometimes closer to $25, and are often higher if kids are younger. I do not tip.
SF Childcare says
I’m also in SF and agree that this is a steal. I think something like $25-30/hour for one kid and $35/hour for two kids is more typical. FWIW, I have a little bit more insight into nanny rates, which I see around $36/hour for one kid and $42 for two.
You might also take a look on Urbansitter and see what kinds of rates sitters are establishing.
Anone says
similar to the first post, my 1st grade daughter has picked up on really wanting to be the gifted program this year. she knows all the kids that are in it, she finds our highly regarded public school boring and thinks it’ll be more fun to be in it. Test results came out today and she didn’t get in. she’s very smart and bright, but not gifted in the traditional IQ sense I suppose. she’s asked me 5 different times when results will be available, so how do I best position this for her?
Anonymous says
In our district, a lot of kids “fail” the screening in K and first grade and go on to be retested and identified as gifted around third grade. I’d tell her she can try again in a year or so if she wants to. If this is something she really wants, she could do some workbooks with problems similar to what she’ll encounter on the screening test; Critical Thinking Co. is good for these workbooks. Don’t come at me, y’all–I know the screening tests they use in public schools are not diagnostic tests, I know you’re not supposed to prep your kids, I know GT programs are evil and elitist, but if OP’s kid wants to participate this can help her reach her goal.
I would also find out what the gifted program actually consists of. In our school district, there is no separate programming for gifted kids. The gifted kids are grouped together in one or two classes that are mostly “regular” kids, and the gifted programming is push-in. They also put kids with pushy parents in these classes to “observe” them for signs of giftedness. If your school is like ours, you can probably request to have her placed in one of those classes and she will get all the programming even without being identified. It’s worth a conference with the gifted coordinator.
Your daughter might actually be the type of kid that GT programs are currently aimed at–bright but not “different” in the way that gifted kids are. Or she might be the type of gifted kid who doesn’t do well on the screening tests because they are only aimed at finding “bright” kids. For example, some gifted kids tend to overthink the simple questions on the screening tests looking for the trick answer.
Anon says
Is there some objective metric to meet, or it is the top proportion of the grade? If you live in a well regarded district, I’m assuming that a lot of kids are a relatively high socioeconomic status, have family support, and are “smart”, in terms of being set up for success and therefore easily able to grasp the concepts in first grade. It may just be a lot of competition! (Though I wouldn’t frame it to your daughter quite like that.)
First grade is also quite young for this, unless parents are pushing for it as sort of a status symbol. Growing up our elementary schools selected in grade 3, and our current district does the same; I think that’s a better age to be able to differentiate “smart/gifted” from the group of kids who are just advantaged and had books read to them and maybe have an edge at testing.
Anon says
Yeah, I will die on the hill that gifted identification in K and 1 and maybe even beyond is meaningless and has everything to do with the parents and nothing to do with the kid.
Anonymous says
How does the school message it? I’d use their messaging.
Also, my kid is highly gifted in the IQ sense. She’s the only kid in her entire grade of 80 kids. How are schools filling full programs of G&T kids when it’s like 1-2% of the population? Is the program like “gifted & also “just” bright”? (I say that as a non gifted person!)
Anon says
I assume it’s “smart” aka is the top 5-10% in the grade. However many students the program can handle, they can set the metric accordingly. A lot of curriculum teaches to the average, so there is benefit to giving the “smart and bored” kids an outlet. Definitely they are not all technically IQ-level gifted.
Anonymous says
The answer is that 1) most districts are not using IQ tests to identify gifted kids, partly because of the cost and 2) they are taking the top 10-15% instead of just the ones who are actually gifted. Our society denies the reality that giftedness is a learning difference that requires a different style of teaching that is both faster-paced and deeper. Instead, school administrators try to avoid giving the gifted kids who have a “natural advantage” anything extra, and focus the resources meant for them on meaningless craft projects for a larger group of kids with noisy parents. Sometimes I daydream about becoming the plaintiff in a lawsuit demanding a free and appropriate education for my exceptionally gifted (99.9th percentile) child who is absolutely miserable in public school.
A-non says
This. My kid and I are both gifted and neurodivergent. He does exceptionally well at private school because the classes are small enough and the teachers are good enough to go VERY deep, answer difficult questions without getting mad at the kids (yes this happens in public school, I was 100% the kid asking too many questions) and challenge them in ways beyond ‘here’s another worksheet’. We also both have dyscalculia and his school spotted it and adopted their teaching style accordingly to better explain the ‘theory’ of math to keep him engaged and offer lots of drills to help with things like formulas/times tables.
Spirograph says
Depends on the district, but yes, probably they are bringing “just bright” kids, especially if they need to fill out a whole class. The program I was in as a kid pulled from three large elementary schools and we had 5 kids in the one-day-a-week enrichment class from 3rd-5th grade. We got another influx in 6th grade, which I think brought us up to 10?
Our current district creates a full-time classroom of “gifted” kids starting in 3rd grade. They still pull from several elementary schools in the district (so some kids have to change schools if they want to participate in the program), but I strongly suspect not all of those kids are gifted in the true definition, because statistics. My mom taught gifted classes in a similar district and I know for a fact her classes were filled out with kids who were just bright.
OP says
sorry to clarify this is not a whole class. it’s a pullout 2x week for about an hour each time and that’s it. I’m not sure how many kids are in it. in kindergarten, I believe less than 10 got in out of about 80. there’s probably an additional 15 or so that’ll get in this year. they seem to do a battery of tests similar to CoGat
Anonymous says
10/80 or 25/80 makes it not a real gifted program. For comparison, exactly 2 out of around 125 kids in my kid’s kindergarten class were identified as gifted.
Spirograph says
Yeah, the definition of gifted is two standard deviations above the mean in IQ. 130+ and <3% of the population.
10 out of 80 is definitely getting padded unless you happen to live in an area with a very high per capita genius population (Lake Wobegone?)
Anon says
What is your Cogat cutoff? Our district requires a 140+ and a good number of kids hit that number, but we’re also in an affluent area with highly educated parents.
In the end I don’t think anyone needs to worry about whether the tagged kids are actually “gifted” as they generally are all kids that need an extra challenge over the standard curriculum. It’s public education, not Mensa. Flag the kids that need more and try to differentiate. Kids who are “highly gifted” and far outside the norm are unlikely to have their needs met by public education regardless of the test threshold, as that’s not who public education is set up to serve.
anon says
Just want to offer a bit of encouragement to any new mom or mom to be to get help with mental health if you think you might need it. When I had my first child, I had severe postpartum anxiety. I had a long history of depression and anxiety, but wasn’t taking medication at the time – I thought I would realize if I was struggling postpartum, but I didn’t. I thought my off-the-charts anxiety was rational and normal. It took a conversation with my husband about my fear that coyotes would get into our house and kill my child to realize that I was borderline delusional with anxiety.
The second time around, I started medication before I even gave birth (Prozac), since I could tell anxiety was starting to emerge. We bumped the dose up slightly, although I’m still on a very low dose, after I gave birth. My experience is light-years different – I’m actually able to enjoy my new baby in a way that I couldn’t initially enjoy my first child. I feel like it took months before I really bonded with my first because I was in such a bad place mental health wise and was so sure he was going to die – this time I feel safe letting myself connect with him and love him.
So if you are pregnant or a new mom and have any risk factors for PPA/PPD, I want to really encourage you to get treatment even if you aren’t 100% sure you *really* need it. You may find that you need it more than you realized, and the difference it can make in your happiness, your health, and your relationship with your baby is incredible.
Cb says
Absolutely. My anxiety manifested in hypervigilance and peaked at about 18 months and was centred my child falling off a sheer drop. I thought this anxiety was really rational at the time, and that no one was taking my concern seriously (because why would my child be on the railingless veranda at the business school?). A short course of anxiety meds really helped.
Overnight pullups that don't look like pullups says
I’ve seen a few posts over time about overnight pullups (with fun colors/patterns so they don’t look like diapers/pullups) – can someone jog my memory on the good brands? My 3 year old is still in overnight diapers but has been in undies for daytime since last May and I’d like to get her something so she can be self-sufficient getting everything on at bedtime and off in the morning. But it can’t be normal (white, diaper brand) pullups b/c we did those very very briefly at the start of potty training and those are “for little kids” now in her mind :)
AwayEmily says
My kid (who just graduated to no-night-pullups last week, hooray!) liked Goodnites. He was VERY particular and those were the only ones that met his exacting standards.
Anon says
Tell her that she wasn’t ready for it but can try again next year, assuming they allow that.