Gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (GLBTQ) youth have many strengths, with about 24% of boys and 48% of girls in seven metropolitan GLBTQ support groups identifying as gifted. Similarly, approximately 30% of 1,000 online GLBTQ adult respondents indicated that they, too, had attained gifted-range accomplishments. Parents of gifted…

Since 2012, the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation has supported educational enrichment in rural areas by awarding over $3.3 million in grants to six outstanding organizations operating in Iowa, Indiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. In this report, the authors combine the experiences of these organizations with findings from the…

Parents of gifted children play a powerful role in expanding their world and helping them discover what they love. When gifted children have impassioned, open-minded, and creative family members, they are free to discover what they love and who they are as people. For gifted learners, curiosity, passion, and interest are absolute essentials.…

Jerlean Daniel, PhD, executive director of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, describes what quality child care looks like and how parents and child care providers can work together to nurture young children's healthy development. Dr. Daniel shares information about what to look for in a child care provider, how to…

The enthusiasm for science displayed by students in early elementary grades is unparalleled. If not nurtured in elementary school, the spark for learning science diminishes. Unfortunately, the amount of time spent on science in Grades 1-4 has steadily declined since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. In 2012, the National…

This article discusses eight topics on the social and emotional development of gifted children. These issues bring to light some of the current thinking that can be helpful to parents, teachers, and counselors. Understanding what giftedness actually is and is not, how to identify it, moving from an entity model of giftedness to an incremental…

When a military family has a child with autism, they face all the emotions and challenges that accompany this diagnosis, compounded by the realities of military service: war, extended family separation, frequent moves, varying access to specialized healthcare, and other stressors that complicate and often work against effective treatment for…

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) -- the phase before primary education -- is increasingly acknowledged as providing the foundations for lifelong learning and development. This second edition of 'Key data on early childhood education and care in Europe' charts the progress made in the key quality areas identified in the Council…

Together, as parents and educators, we "must" instill in our children an interest to learn about the world early on. "Raising Global Children" provides the rationale and concrete steps you can take to open up the world to young people. Packed with practical information, hundreds of tips and dozens of real-life stories, this…

"Developmentally appropriate practice" (DAP) is a term tossed about by practitioners as if everyone understands exactly what it means. DAP seems self-explanatory in that it requires educators to use only those strategies for teaching and discipline that are appropriate for the age of the child. The basic tenet of DAP rests on the assumed knowledge…

Brenda Jones Harden, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Human Development, University of Maryland, College Park, describes how young children develop the capacity to modulate their emotions and behavior in the first years of life. A child's basic temperament has an impact on self-control, but temper tantrums are a normal part of child…

Ellen Wartella, PhD, a leading scholar of the role of media in children's development, responds to questions about the role of media in the lives of very young children. She discusses how technology is having an impact on parents and children and provides some context for how parents and caregivers can make informed decisions about using media…

In their last column, the authors described a Gold Standard School--a place in which all children thrive including the gifted and talented. The Checklist for a Gold Standard School, which is included in this article, highlights the main characteristics of such a school including a focus on continuous progress, talent development, policies that…

Each week, nearly 11 million children under age 5 are in some type of child care setting for an average of 35 hours. Parents, as consumers of child care, equate a child care license with state approval--a gold seal for those businesses to which a state grants a license. Child Care Aware® of America reviews state licensing policies, which include…

This article begins with a 12-year-old girl's story that serves as an example of how "caring coaches" in the schools contribute greatly in helping schools become hopeful places for children. Helping students become more hopeful is rewarding for the students, teachers, school psychologists, counselors, parents, and other caring adults. Twenty years…