It deters your second child and your gifted daughter from hiding their abilities for the rest of their lives. Gifted children are expensive and time-consuming. They usually need less sleep than you do, ask more questions than you can answer, want 100 percent of your attention 24 hours a day, have obsessive hobbies, are unstimulated by the school curriculum, react intensely to everything, endlessly long for a best friend who understands them completely, hold perfectionistic standards for themselves and you, want to know the meaning of life when other children only want to know how to tie their shoes, and keep their bedrooms in a condition you can never show company. In order to be the perfect parent, you need unlimited funds, unlimited patience, an encyclopedic mind, and someone to sleep for you. But don't despair.
Gifted children grow up even better with imperfect parents than with perfect ones.
No matter what schools you put them in, it is their homelife that determines what they do with their lives. Gifted children really enrich your family life. They have a great sense of humor and their development is so remarkable that they're exciting to watch grow. They grow up fast, so enjoy their childhood while you can. This article is reprinted with permission.