We’ve all heard how smart your child is. She does everything early. She have incredible verbal skills. She will have the best time in school because it will all be easy. She’ll be skipping grades. I wish my kids were that smart. You have it so easy. You must be proud of her. She’s such a little adult.

These are all things I have heard about both of my children. I know they are both bright. When Soleil made a mini solar system out of her snack in the toddler room at daycare complete with an asteroid belt, we knew this. Luna is bright as well. She remembered what Albino was a few weeks after we talked about it and told us about a woman she thought was albino.

We have normal kids. They play normal kids, they fight, they are picky with food, they get dirty, they push limits, they are normal.

And then they aren’t.

This weekend, while visiting my cousin, I spoke to her about some of the problems we’ve had with Soleil at school. We recently had a large issue to deal with and it is still around, and we are dealing. As I described other classroom observations, my cousin said "You realize these are classic GT issues".  I thought about it. I thought about my depression. And how I always worry that I’ve passed that on to her.

My cousin (who is a GT teacher) gave me two books to read. I arranged an appointment with the GT teacher at school who does meet with Soleil once a week. We talked about everything that I was concerned about.

Yes, Soleil is gifted, perhaps highly gifted. Yes, she has some social issues that are common with her type of thinking. Yes, she needs to be watched through the school system to make sure she doesn’t get lost. Yes, I need to keep up an open dialog with her classroom teachers and the GT teacher. YES she will have more opportunities to explore when she hits 3rd grade and the GT teacher works more with the kids.

This is very overwhelming. Most states recognize gifted children as "special needs". These children can receive an individualized education plan (IEP). However, Massachusetts is one of the few states that DOESN’T see gifted as a special need. The expectation is that they can work on their own or be given more work or help other students. This is not acceptable. I am very very lucky in that our town has one of the best GT programs in the state. But, this means she gets pulled out of her class one or two hours a week to work on projects that enhance her learning. Then she goes back to her classroom and doesn’t do her worksheets and writes Hebrew on them instead of draws dinosaurs.

I feel that this is a challenge. I have always known she is bright, but I never wanted to be that person who walks into school declaring their child is a genius and needs to be skipped ahead. Now, we have a whole new world to explore. A world where the rest of her friends don’t think the way she does. Where she feels left out. Where she doesn’t understand how she just insulted her friends when she thought that she was helping them.

Luna starts Kindergarten in the fall. We need to watch her as well.