Do you believe your child is gifted--certainly more talented than the kid next door? Are you proactively positioning your young child for college honors, a professional career, and well-deserved fame? If so, beware! You could be unwittingly pushing your kid to fulfill your own dreams of grandeur and success. Because a typical day may be crammed with advanced academic assignments, after-school piano lessons, art classes, and soccer tournaments, many of these talented children are careening off the fast track to success. Under so much pressure and stress, they are crashing and burning before they reach adolescence.

How can you, as a parent of a truly gifted child, walk the fine line between supporting your talented kid and projecting your own needs and desires?

Written with wisdom and a healthy dose of wit, this practical guide shows how to avoid the negative effects of "Achievement by Proxy Distortion" (ABPD) and protect kids from being overscheduled, overworked and overpressured. Filled with a wealth of interviews and insight from noted experts in the field of child development, this enlightening book includes directions for evaluating a child's abilities, suggestions for monitoring a child's mental and physical health, and information for understanding the financial and emotional commitment needed to support the development of a child's talent. Most important, the authors present guidelines that will help parents separate their own needs, ambitions, and dreams from those of their children.

Using the author's Seven-Step Program for Encouraging and Protecting High-Achieving Children, parents can

• Establish if a child is truly exceptional
  
• Select classes, schools, and camps that nurture high-achievers
  
• Learn to deal with over-the-edge instructors
  
• Weigh the cost of sacrifices made in the pursuit of excellence
  
• Watch for red flags of ABPD behavior

Exceptional children need exceptionally balanced guidance. The suggestions outlined in this book will help parents learn how to nurture their talented children and support them as they strive to reach their full potential.

Give Your Exceptional Child Exceptional Support

Are you pushing your kid to the breaking point? Don't fall into the trap of pressuring your gifted child into achieving your own unfulfilled longings for glory and success. Living up to those dreams has its price. Your kids could be cheated out of a normal childhood as you enroll them in an endless series of classes and lessons in your quest to see your offspring reach the top.

Keeping Your Kids Out Front Without Kicking Them From Behind is a commonsense guide for moms and dads of talented and gifted children. In this practical book, Dr. Ian Tofler and Theresa Foy DiGeronimo--experts in the field of parentin--present their Seven-Step Program for Encouraging and Protecting High-Achieving Children. This innovative program offers guidance for establishing healthy boundaries between parents' ambitions and the needs of their talented children, and clear-cut instructions for helping children balance achievement with happiness.

"This book provides the third voice that parents of gifted chidlren really need to help make the difficult everyday decisions. How much study or practice is too much versus too little? How much pressure or competition is an incentive for a child's mastery, and how much is too stressful for a young talented person?"
--Beth Samberg, program director, ACE Educational Services, SAT preparation course, Los Angeles, California

"An excellent book for all parents to read! It fills a void especially for parents with kids in sports."
--Joan Ryan, author, Little Girls in Pretty Boxes

"A concise yet richly developed book on a critical topic for this century, by a well-respected psychiatrist."
--Ron Kamm, M.D., vice president, International Society for Sport Psychiatry and fellow of the American Psychiatric Association

Introduction.

AN UP-CLOSE LOOK AT PARENTS AND CHILDREN.

Debating What is Best for Our Children.

From Benign to Abusive.

A SEVEN-STEP PROGRAM FOR ENCOURAGING AND PROTECTING HIGH-ACHIEVINGCHILDREN.

Step 1: Define and Evaluate "Talent" Why Evaluate Talent?;
Six Points of Talent Evaluation;
Advice from the Experts.

Step 2: Selecting Classes, Schools, and Camps that Cater toHigh-Achieving Children Evaluate Four Motives for Special Training:1) Improvement of Skill, 2) Supportive Environment, 3) EliteExposure, 4) Resume Building; and Advice From the Experts.

Step 3: Beware Abusive Instructors Avoiding the Win-At-Any-CostInstructor;
The Burden of Star Makers;
Understanding The Verbal Batterer;
The Danger of the Parent Substitute;
Beware the Sexual Abuser;
Advice from the Experts.

Step 4: Weigh the Cost of Sacrifice Childhood Sacrifices;
Parental Sacrifices;
Sibling Sacrifices;
Advice from the Experts.

Step 5: Look Beyond the Talent Into the Future Look Beyond theTalent;
Look Where You're Going;
Beware the Downside of Competition;
Watch Those Social Skills;
Minimize Chronic Stress;
Nurture Your Parent/Child Relationship;
Advice from the Experts.

Step 6: Beware the Red Flags of Achievement by Proxy DistortionBurnout;
Over-training;
Depression;
Psychological Pain and Illness;
Eating Disorders;
Substance Abuse;
Answering a Cry For Help.

Step 7: Take a Good Look at your Parenting Style AutocraticController;
Narcissistic and Needy;
Financially Hungry;
Overly Competitive;
Frustrated Wanna-Be or Has-Been;
Living in Denial;
Untangling the Roots of ABPD;
Encourage and Support.

Epilogue.

Chapter Notes.

IAN TOFLER, M.B., B.S., is a Harvard-trained child and adolescent psychiatrist in practice in Los Angeles. He is the inaugural chair of the Sport Psychiatry Committee of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. THERESA FOY DIGERONIMO, M.Ed., is coauthor of How to Talk to Your Children About Really Important Things and How to Talk to Teens About Really Important Things (Jossey-Bass, 1994, 1999).