I am an expat. Born and raised in Greece in the 80’s and soon left for studies abroad. I have been struggling in many situations to feel that I fit in. I have never been in a gifted organization since the term was not very known /popular when I was growing up. I always turned to education to feel engaged and it worked well until 5 yrs ago when I finished my PhD. Since, I found myself in the Netherlands for a job opportunity and I feel very alone since the people I interact with are very different from what I have been used to. I feel that having a group of people that you can be yourself around is very important. And since I moved here in the Netherlands, I feel that I had to change myself to fit in. I am now a mother and my 3-year-old boy is showing signs of being special too. The ggd nurse has made me aware of this organization and I want to help both myself and my son to get the support to grow and the strength to be himself. How can I get both of us tested?
Respons:
Response:
I’ll try to use English, it will not be perfect.
I read that you have 3 handicaps to live in the Netherlands. One is your an expat. Second is that you not speak the language or not good enough and third, you are gifted probably and that makes you an exception too.
So I would suggest to learn Dutch so your possibilities will be more, to make contacts and friends.
And you want to be sure you’re gifted. Then Mensa is the way to go. Apply for the ’thuistest’ and go for the real test you will invited for.
Testing your child, needs to have a good reason. Why? Does school asks for it? If not then don’t test the child because there is no valid reason that helps your child in live. You can present him as probably gifted(vermoedelijk hoogbegaafd) and he needs special attention for that reason. If school does want to test the child, you can arrange such test with the school as recommended by school. Then there is a valid reason to test and the results, if the test goes fine will benefit your child as specially at school. But be careful, IQ-test can fail utterly. This is due to the person who runs the test or the child is not motivated or in the right mood to be tested at all. So be careful with testing, you can jump low always but only high enough, if you’re in the right position and mood. Test results are not always valid and true.