Introduction Despite the rather tongue in cheek' title to this page, this is often a process that many of us parents find ourselves going through -- the process of confirmation/disaffirmation of our child's gifts and strengths.  Even though we may have the formal results of some testing telling us that our children are gifted, or see many of the traits commonly associated with giftedness in our child, we may dismiss these findings and downplay our children's very real abilities because our children aren't exactly like the stereotypes we ourselves hold in our minds.   At times I have gone through those 'gifted checklists' and thought, yes, no, yes, no...  So with that in mind, I would like to present you with some of the ways in which our members' children are not stereotypically gifted.  Myths and stereotypes about gifted children are pervasive and it is hoped that by presenting these stories that we will be able to acknowledge that not everyone fits the mold.  Please find below some quotes from our members about their own gifted children.  Gifted children are not always good at: Puzzles and Mazes Puzzles: she really isn't a fan of them - building toys either. We recently got her to do some Harry Potter puzzles and lego, and she did enjoy them (because of the subject matter and we did do them as a group - dh and I did them with her) but all in all, they are not activities she would do on her own. She has received puzzles as presents that have never been opened ("naaawww, I don't want to") When looking for puzzles for my daughter, this is perhaps the only toy area where I make sure that the suggested ages are very much adhered to and that she is at the top of the age range. daughter-yes, sons- never liked them or were particularly good at them Neither of my boys like puzzles. Reading She started "reading" signs at 3, but then stopped completely. But her reading has really taken off just in the last 8 months or so. While I haven't quite figured out exactly what is going on with my daughter's reading, I know that she has little motivation in this area. Speaking none of my children started talking at a particularly early age but when they did speak it was properly and with a good vocabulary (almost like a 'I'm not going to do this until I can do it well' attitude) I'll second that one! My eldest won't string together more than a few words for people he doesn't know very well. The first time he did the WISC he had just met the tester and his verbal scores were so low (especially comprehension) that I got the impression she was quite concerned. My guy was talking the "norm" at 18 mos to 2 years, but then was silent for a long time, then around 2.75 he started again. He is soft spoken and pensive, not at all chatty, except to me and DH. My son hardly spoke a word prior to 15 months old and when he did, he sounded like he had a mouthful of marbles.  Gifted children do not always: Require Less sleep Always been a big sleeper - Still sleeps almost 10 hours a night. She could be a night hawk though - she'd rather stay up late and sleep until noon - and this has always been her natural schedule. But we are mean parents and make her go to bed early  We do let her read for a little while though (but 9:00 on a school night is lights out!). She is very difficult to wake up for school.... She is definitely NOT a morning person (again, a trait she's had since birth) Up until DD was almost 3, she slept 16 hours a day!  She still needs 12 hours of sleep a night at 4.75 years old. Like doing academic work I have learned here that AD has "got to want to". But all in all, she's quite content learning what she needs to know and that's it. The exception here is creative writing - there are days when AD could write stuff all day long. But mostly I find we just have to expose her to stuff, and follow her lead. Even if she shows a great interest - it usually stops after a while, until she finds a need or desire to know more about it again, then she wants and needs to find out more. Otherwise - forget it. I suspect that as she gets older, she will be difficult to teach (if she hasn't got an interest in a particular subject at that time). AD definitely has her own agenda.... She also likes to find out stuff on her own - now that her reading has taken off, she can do more of this. Drive to learn/thirst for knowledge- waxes and wanes in all of them, I'm the only one in the family who consistently shows this trait Exhibit Perfectionism Oldest daughter is not a perfectionist, but her younger sister is, so is DH but that is another story dd is, ds isn't [a perfectionist] My son is not a perfectionist, he could care less if something he does is wrong! He is happy as long as he doesn't have to do too much work in order to finish the task, IF he bothers to finish it at all. He is not self critical either. He will almost always freely admit he is wrong and drop the subject after that. Meet developmental milestones ahead of schedule She was average or even below average. Still is. She's 7.5 and still can't ride a bike. (But, she does have balance and coordination issues and vision problems). None of my children (three in total) ever has met any physical milestone ahead of schedule.