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Support for gifted children & their parents

You will find resources for gifted children scattered through many Mensa websites and Facebook groups around the world. The resources listed below will give you a starting point.

Extra information for gifted teens is here 

 

What value can Mensa add for gifted children?  

  • "Mensa offers valuable opportunities for gifted children to play, learn, socialize, and collaborate with peers who think and learn like they do - a need often unmet in regular school settings. Additionally, Mensa serves as a supportive community for parents of gifted children, enabling them to discuss both the rewards and challenges of raising High-IQ children with others who understand and share similar experiences. It also offers resources and support to parents navigating the complexities of giftedness, often a topic not extensively covered in professional training."

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Parents of Mensa children can apply for their own Mensa site login.

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Australian Facebook groups for parents of Mensa children & for adult Mensans with sub-18 year old children:

 

Random fact: Did you know that nearly 43% of Mensa members in Qld are under 18 years old? 

  • Child membership is a rapidly growing section of Mensa membership in Australia.​​

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Mensa International - gifted children

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Mensa Foundation

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Five signs of a gifted child  

  • Terese Moodie-Bloom, Administrative Director of Mensa International, discusses the five signs of a gifted child.

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Australian Child Mensa Conference

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Gifted Education Adviser:

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National Gifted Children Coordinator

  • From 1/7/2024 Amanda Rogers

  • gcc@mensa.org.au  

    • Report from Ronald YU, National Gifted Children Coordinator. from Sept 2023 TableAus - here.

    • Report from Ronald YU, National Gifted Children Coordinator. from Sept 2022 TableAus

      • Here, I would like to report my duties and different events and activities I have organised in year 2021–2022.
        Regular Duties
        As my regular duty, I help to moderate the Facebook pages. Until now, 951 members have joined the Australian Mensa: Parents (members) group and 1,003 members have joined the Australian Mensa: Parents (public). In 2021–2022, I have replied to more than 309 emails with enquiries regarding Mensa admission, gifted children support, gifted children events, and requests to join Mensa Parents (members) FB group. Also, I received many ‘thank you’ emails about my gifted children events and my assistance. Thank you so much for your appreciation and I am sorry that I can’t reply to them one by one.
        In addition to the regular duties, I have organised different gifted children activities and contacted different universities, research institutes, tech companies, and education institutes to provide more resources and opportunities for our young members.
        AustCyber CyberTaipan
        Since 2019, I have been leading Team Mensa to participate in the cybersecurity competition CyberTaipan 2019–2020
        and 2020–2021. CyberTaipan is a national cybersecurity competition organised by CSIRO Digital Careers, the Australian Signals Directorate, and Northrop Grumman. Guided by our technical mentors James Davies from Sydney, Sam Lau from
        Brisbane, and Andy Wong from Canberra, we have recruited six brilliant young Mensans across different states, forming a
        team of representatives from QLD, NSW and ACT. With the leadership from our senior team members Adam (specialising
        in Windows Server), Ayden (specializing in Linux systems), and Elenor (specialising in Windows system), with excellent technical support from junior team member Anica, Nicholas, and Chi Lok on feedback, research, and cryptography, all six team members worked collaboratively and operated as an effective team to protect the critical systems.
        Because of our collaborative effort, Team Mensa won the championship in CyberTaipan 2020–2021, outperforming
        142 teams with a total of 545 highschool students across Australia.
        Following the huge success for TeamMensa in CyberTaipan 2020–2021, we have recruited and formed four teams for
        this competition in 2021–2022. This year, technical mentors Chris Barnett from Melbourne and Ivan Leeson from Brisbane
        together with volunteer Eliza Murray have joined our team. With the help from Chris, Ivan, James, Sam, and Eliza, we
        have formed a Mensa CyberTaipan club to recruit more than 48 young Mensans to join our trial session to test candidates’
        ability to learn and solve problems collaboratively. From the trial sessions, we have selected 21 participants for the
        training club, forming three teams to join the CyberTaipan competition this year. To facilitate training of the team members,
        four squads have been formed and led by our senior team members Adam, Ayden, Elenor, and Zack. Until now, our technical
        mentor team and senior team members have organised more than 12 training sections, developed two virtual computer
        images in Windows and Linux system, one Slack channel, one Airtable system, and one Nuclino system so that the team
        members can learn, communicate, and work collaboratively to improve theircybersecurity skills and knowledge.
        CyberTaipan is open to anyone between 12–18 years of age.
        CSIRO Bebras Challenge
        A collaboration with the CSIRO Education & Outreach, the CSIRO Bebras Challenge offered interesting and interactive computational thinking challenges to students from Year 3 up to Year 12. With help from WA Gifted Children Coordinator Amanda Rogers, about 100 young Mensans have participated in Bebras Challenge 2022
        Round 1. Thirteen young Mensans have achieved full scores and are listed in the Honour Roll, which makes Australian
        Mensa the single institute with the highest number of students having full scores in Australia in 2020, 2021, and 2022.
        Mensa Minecraft Server
        With the help of Joerg Henrichs and Jonathan Nagy, a Minecraft server has been established as a platform for young
        Mensans to connect with each other virtually. Our aim is to provide a safe and enjoyable environment for young
        Mensans to get together and be creative.
        Contact different universities, research institutes, tech companies, and education institutes
        In 2021–2022, I have contacted CSIRO Education & Outreach, CSIRO Digital Careers, the Australian Signals Directorate, Northrop Grumman, Google, and CSIRO Data61 to provide more resources and opportunities for our young members. This year, I will explore the potential collaboration with them for different webinars, seminars, workshops, and STEM education tours.

      • Conclusion

      • Finally, it is my honour to be the National Gifted Children Coordinator of Australian Mensa. I am glad to work
        with our volunteer team of State Gifted Children Coordinators, Amanda Rogers (WA), Sally Clouting (VIC), Claire
        Jensen (NSW), position vacant  (QLD), and Laura Parsons (SA), Gifted Teenagers Coordinator Joerg Henrichs and Vice Chairman Liam Filson and Chairman Jean-Marc Genesi. In the coming year, we hope we can organise more interesting events, across different states, to foster intelligence for the benefit of our brilliant young Mensans.

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Queensland Gifted Children Coordinator:

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Gifted Teenagers Coordinator

  • Joerg Henrichs - Reports to the National Gifted Children Coordinator - Details clarified by Joerg on 21/12/22

  • gtc@mensa.org.au

    • This is the address of the Gifted Teenager Coordinator (GTC) position. This can also be used by a teenager to request access to the discord server (but also for anything else), I will make sure the MTC gets informed in this case so they can greet the new member.​

  • mtc@mensa.org.au   

    • This is the Mensa Teen Committee. This is the committee that runs the teenage discord server and tries to organise events. Teenage members that want access to the discord sever should use this email address. I do receive a copy of these emails and will verify membership status, but ideally this allows the teenagers to manage membership more autonomously.

    • Victoria B 16/12/22:  Emails to this address go to the 4 Mensa Teen Committee members and Joerg (The Gifted Teenagers Coordinator).  "With Teens there is a Mensa Teen Committee which has a few teens who look after Teen Discord and come up with some activities for Teens throughout the year".

  • Discord is a chatgroup facility with multiple "rooms" with both text and video capabilities. A chat group facility has been set up for Australian Mensa teens.​

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Australian Mensa School Affiliate Coordinator

  • Teresa Wong 

 

Bull Bequest & Gifted Students Fund Coordinator

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Gifted Children:

  • giftedchildren@mensa.org.au   

  • I am not sure what this email address is for but maybe Ronald Yu knows the answer. Possibly distribution email point for Mensa children?

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Support for gifted children

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Useful contacts and websites for Gifted Children

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Australian Mensa Facebook group for parents of Mensa children

  • We have a group for parents of gifted children members of Australian Mensa. This is a secret group  (966 members). This Facebook group [search Facebook for ‘Australian Mensa:  Parents (members)’] exists for the parents of kids who become Mensa members, since children at this age do not necessarily have access to social media. This group was set up to keep the children in the know via their parents, facilitate discussion and support parents with gifted children. Contact National  Gifted Children Coordinator gcc@mensa.org.au, with your child member’s details and ask to be added to the group.

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International Mensa Facebook groups for parents of Mensa children

Look under social-networks-within-mensa where you will find Facebook Groups for Mensa Parents such as the following:

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For some more resources for gifted children within Mensa go to the Mensa Mission page - for example

  • Gifted Youth YouTube channel

    • This Mensa International Gifted Youth YouTube channel has just been created by our Gifted Youth Committee. Its aim is to provide a source of interesting topics to inspire and enlighten gifted learners and educators alike.

  • Links to Mensa Gifted Youth programs worldwide

    • The inspiring examples of the work being done globally to identify and nurture giftedness in children and young people are too numerous to mention here, but please feel free to click on the following links to read more about the various Mensa Gifted Youth programs happening around the world. N.B.: ** denotes non-English language information. 

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Other Groups for M Parents
 

Mensa Bright Kids:


Homeschooling Mensans:


Mensa Parents: Pregnancy to Preschool


The following groups are listed for completeness, we are unsure how active they are:
 

M-Parents: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1672985046281553


M Parents of Babies: http://www.facebook.com/groups/mensa.pob


M Parents of Young Children: https://www.facebook.com/groups/mensa.poyc
 

M Parents of school-aged children (4 yrs. to 10yrs.): http://www.facebook.com/groups/mensa.posac/


M Parents of preteens (10 yrs. to 13 yrs.): http://www.facebook.com/groups/mensa.popt/


M Parents of high-school-aged kids (13 yrs. to 18yrs.): http://www.facebook.com/groups/mensa.pohsak

Non-Mensa Gifted Children Groups & Links

 

Australian Gifted Children Association

Australian Gifted Support Centre Services

The International Gifted Consortium (IGC)​

  • https://giftedconsortium.com/    

  • "Through targeted Research, Advocacy, Education-Outreach and Opportunities:  We’re connecting with all stakeholders, facilitating collaboration across disciplines, creating a world-wide Ambassador network, empowering Family, Educator and Professional Peer Cohorts, conducting and disseminating research and TOGETHER educating the world on what it looks and feels like to be gifted through the eyes of the highly and profoundly gifted child."

  • "Giftedness needs to be better understood. It is a state of being with identifiable characteristics driven by intense sensitivities, keen awareness and innate understanding. Giftedness is commonly misconceived as academic intelligence alone. Many highly and profoundly gifted children are not being properly identified. In fact, many are being misidentified, leaving their affective, physical, moral and cognitive development unattended and at risk."

  • "Mission: To collaboratively understand, identify and support the unique social, emotional, physical, cognitive and altruistic development of Giftedness, through the lens of the highly and profoundly gifted through targeted Research, Advocacy, Education-Outreach, and Opportunities."

  • "Goal: To provide a universal 'voice,' resource and support network for highly and profoundly gifted youth, their families and the greater community worldwide."

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In Qld outside of Mensa, there are these:-

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Facebook groups of potential interest:

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