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More Wordless Wednesday

When we saw Michael Phelps in the news and watched him perform at the Beijing Olympics, we saw a successful athelete. We heard about how he trained and even what he eats for breakfast. What we didn't hear much about were Michael's childhood experiences.

Michael's experiences in elementary school will sound familiar to many parents of gifted children. According to Michael Winerip in his New York Times article "ADHD didn’t keep Phelps from finding his focus — on the gold," teachers, starting in preschool, complained about Michael, saying he "couldn’t stay quiet at quiet time, ...wouldn’t sit at circle time, ...didn’t keep his hands to himself, [and] was giggling and laughing and nudging kids for attention."

Michael's mother told one teacher that Michael might be bored and was told in response that Michael wasn't gifted. Another teacher told Ms. Phelps, "Your son will never be able to focus on anything." That clearly wasn't true, not today and not even then. Like many gifted children, Michael could focus on things he enjoyed. According to his mother, "Michael excelled in things he loved — gym and hands-on lessons, like science experiments."

Ms. Phelps used Michael's interest in sports to encourage his reading. She said he didn't like to read so she gave him the sports pages of their local newspaper. Even if he read nothing more than captions under the pictures, he was reading. That is an excellent strategy and one I often recommend to parents of reluctant readers.

When Michael was nine, he was diagnosed with ADHD and put on Ritalin. His mother says she thought it helped a little, but Michael still did the minimum amount of school work required. After two years, Michael asked to be taken off Ritalin and his mother agreed.

The success story here is not simply one about Michael's record-breaking performance at the Olympics, although that is definitely a major success. It is also the story of the success that can be achieved when adults look at a gifted child, particularly one with ADHD, and see what that child can do, not what the child can't do. This is true whether the adults involved are teachers, coaches, or parents.