Abstract
Counselling for gifted in Hungary has grown out of our vocational guidance practices and it is based on its rich theoretical and methodological approaches. Principally our work fits into the framework of Renzulli’s model.
Ever since ECHA-Hungary (1988) and the Hungarian Association for Gifted Children (1989) were founded there has been a strong pressure on a few experts to start a voluntary service for parents.
In the last two years, 34 families have turned to us for help. In most of the cases the childen’s ages range between 5-9 years so in this presentation only their problems will be discussed.
1. Parents are ready to promote the development of their children’s obvious high ability, but are not aware of the possibilities.
2. What sort of school, or class should a child attend who has the mastery of the 3 R’s at the age of 6?
3. Parents think their children should specialize at a very early age so that their talent is not wasted, on the other hand they feel the child should be left “in peace” to let his wide range of interests develop.
4. Parents are not able to cope with a great variety of problems; the child is stubborn, self-willed, impulsive, finds hardly any friends, the teachers make complaints etc.
Testing of the children happens only if it is absolutely necessary. Counselling means mainly giving advice to parents. They are uncertain how to handle “excellence” and “difference” due to the 45 years of forced attitude to egalitarianism and the "Prussian" tradition in our education.
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