Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Do You Brag (Or Do Your Friends Think You Do?)

Yeah, I got that whole "big words" thing as a kid. Of course, being dirt poor and an undersized boy didn't help me in social circles, either. I never had more than two friends at a time before 8th grade.

Ultimately I found social success by consciously blending my "big words" with foul language and slang (go figure... check the nickname), and embraced an absurd sense of humor. In this way I still came off as smart, but not too good for people.

DD7 is doing reasonably well for herself socially with two of those three accommodations, the missing one being the foul language, so good for her. Of course, she's also not undersized, a boy, nor dirt poor.

Thank you so much for all the thoughtful, honest conversation. It's been wonderful to share a bit in each of your experiences.

And now, based one something that happened yesterday, I am going to start bragging more.

Yesterday my youngest came home and started telling me a story about something that happened at school, how one of the boys in his class was making fun of him for being dumb. My son's comment? "And he's one of the smart boys. Not like me."

Not like him? He really thought that. He thought that because of his dysgraphia and dyslexia and the challenges he has due to the learning disability that he wasn't one of the smart ones.

I realize that we have had to focus so much on what he has had to overcome, that we haven't done a lot of "bragging". That coupled with the self-censoring that came from raising two other gifted kids.

So from today forward, my kid is going to hear me brag just a wee bit more about his successes so he stops believing he's not smart or capable of great things.

The word "brag" can be used in different ways, and I'd say that there is bragging that might be all right depending on context, and there is bragging that always reflects poorly on the bragger, just as there are good and bad sorts of pride.

brag
1. to use boastful language; boast: He bragged endlessly about his high score.

boast
1. to speak with exaggeration and excessive pride, especially about oneself.
2. to speak with pride (often followed by of ): He boasted of his family's wealth.

pride
1. a high or inordinate opinion of one's own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority, whether as cherished in the mind or as displayed in bearing, conduct, etc.
...
3. a becoming or dignified sense of what is due to oneself or one's position or character; self-respect; self-esteem.
4. pleasure or satisfaction taken in something done by or belonging to oneself or believed to reflect credit upon oneself: civic pride.

I think it's crucial that high-ability children have a proper sense of their own abilities and good self-esteem.

Yes.

This is a very different project from making sure the neighbors know what amazing thing little Johnny just did.

DeeDee

I find that my DD seems to be very confused about her ability level WRT others. She sometimes says she is not good at anything. This may be her digging for reassurance--I don't know. She knows that she gets straight As and that virtually every school paper is a 100%, so it does seem that she must know she is good at school, but I think she regards her success as soemwhat suspect somehow. Anyway, yesterday we were discussing how hard she is working on an athletic skill and I casually brought up the fact that I loved seeing her work hard on things because I've noticed that a lot of school things come easily to her and don't require her to work all that hard. She immediately agreed, with a sort of relieved tone in her voice.

Confession: she goes to a gifted magnet but I still haven't really explained to her what the word means.

It's hard with the 2e kids. I ran into this with DD9 who also is dyslexic and dysgraphic. She periodically asks me questions trying to figure out how she fits into her gifted class. She asks me if I think certain kids are smart. She then asks whether her being able to grasp a math concept (or whatever else) more quickly than those kids means that she is smart too. I told DD that she is very smart but the things that she is incredibly good at are not honored in elementary school, i.e seeing complex patterns, spatial reasoning, etc.

We've also run into an incredibly rude parent who still can't understand why my DD is in the gifted class when DD reads at a lower level than this woman's kid. Oh, I admit it was so tempting to brag about DD's IQ scores to her but I kept my mouth shut. I just smiled and said that obviously DD's strengths lie in different areas.

On a brighter note, DD9 recently had an achievement that high-achieving, hard-to-live-up-to DD11 has not done yet. You better believe that DD9 got lots of recognition from the family for that one.

This topic has been difficult for me. With my first child, I was really quiet and did not say much at all! I think my silence was partly due to not understanding what was going on. I did not know anything about "gifted"... I was also silent at school until 4th grade when things fell apart. I think my silence was detrimental to my first child, both in school and her views of herself. With my second I do not want to do that! So I try and "brag" so that my child can hear me tell of good things she has done. But ultimately I see it as practice for how to talk about this stuff for when she starts school and I need to advocate. I am not the most social person and do not always know how to state things gracefully. So I think at times my bragging falls wrong. At times I have to really work up the courage to say anything at all. So of course by that time I have missed the socially correct time to say it and it really falls awkward. I guess I am also not willing to hang out with people who will not allow me the room to brag. So in some ways its a great way to find out who I want to hang out with at this point in time. I really appreciate my friends who I do not feel like I am bragging at all with and that sense of competition is not there. I am not sure how that happens at this point except I think often they have kids who are also gifted and know it. Don't know though.... funny in a few years it won't matter anyways as it seems that its okay to brag about what your kid is doing in college:-)

A friend and I were chatting about this very thing recently. I would much rather my child be getting B's and working his hardest than smooth sailing A's that mean he can do work he was capable of 2 - 3 years ago.

There is only false self-validation in being able to show that you can do something that you already mastered ages ago and then receiving high praise for that.

Real self-worth/achievement comes from overcoming obstacles... and feeling proud that you learnt something from your experience. IMO of course

I disagree. I think there are community norms about what to discuss in what context, and that these do not exist only in one person's mind, but are mutually agreed on between persons.

DeeDee