Awesome suggestions above (and aeh - no words, but as mom to two teens - thanks for the appalling joy of this story!)
As a society, we're incredibly confused about how we feel about intelligence. It's simultaneously denigrated and worshipped, which sends really mixed messages to gifted tweens and teens at an already-terribly confusing time of their life. It sounds like maybe both of you are getting sucked into the evil void of equating smart with value? I think especially when a kid's IQ makes them noticeably different and separate from their peers, it can be pretty easy for that IQ to become one's identity, and who we think we are readily morphs into our self-worth. So it's remarkably easy to get to IQ=value, but it's a pretty toxic place to hang out. There's a lot of anxiety in making your self-worth dependent on something you didn't earn and can't control.
So I spend a lot of time with my kids talking (indirectly) about value, and what makes people good and why, what they do, how they contribute to society. I've been quite explicit that my kids get no more credit for their intelligence than they get blame for their LDs. Both are luck of the genetics, outside of their control, and as earned as their height or shoe size.
What matters is what we do with it. Do we add - or subtract - to the happiness around us? What do we choose to do with those gifts? Gifted isn't who we *are*, but it can be a powerful tool in helping us become who we want to be.
I still read a lot to my younger, and the older is a news junkie. So we are always looking at examples of really smart people in books and real life who worked very hard to make the world a better place - and lots who didn't. We talk a lot about what matters is the choices we make, how hard we work, what we do with our strengths and weaknesses, the responsibilities they give us. You (my kids) were born with some huge advantages (and disadvantages). Who are the people/ characters we admire, and what do they do with their abilities? How do they handle their weaknesses? (Hint: it's not by whining and complaining and blaming others when things go wrong
). This all sounds pretty heavy-handed, but while I've had a few explicit conversations (especially with the kid who is way more extreme on both Es), it mostly flows pretty naturally in talking about what we're reading on an ongoing basis.
On a different note, 'The Manipulative Child" used to be frequently recommended here as an awful title but extremely helpful book.
