Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion What were you like as a child?

Well the scroll came off, I just submitted this post twice the first time the scroll would not come off. I did nothing different and the scroll came off? Oh well

I can relate to wanting something different from where you currently find yourself. I'm curious if you still enjoy any of these things from your childhood?

Lol. I thought I was pretty good at hiding too, having practiced so much in my childhood, but I was with my sisters-in-law this weekend and I heard one of them referring to me, "Yeah, she's the intellectual one."

I've had this from my inlaws too!

I don't play the violin anymore, it became impractical after I finished high school. But I still have a lot of the other interests. I still love baking and cooking, I knit, crochet and sew, I like to create little bits of art for my house. I'm not always very good at any of it, but I keep on trying. I do have secret dreams of turning it into a business some day, but I don't know how or when.

Sorry for the thread hijack everyone. Discovering my child is gifted has brought back many painful memories for me, as you can tell!

hug

My childhood wasn't painful, but I did hope that I wouldn't have gifted kids so I wouldn't have to go through it all again - I call it my gifted baggage. The baggage has gotten lighter over the last several years, as I've discovered my kids are gifted and have worked to improve their experiences over my own. My parents worked hard to give me a good experience, but they didn't have the internet or a forum like this to help them out!

I've found that I'm much happier looking back on my childhood as I've worked to improve my kids' experience. I've reflected a lot on my own experience as I've read posts on this forum. And I've used some of the advice I've gotten on this site to help me talk to DS7 and better frame his thought processes in relation to kids around him. Things I wish my parents had known and had been able to discuss with me. I'm waiting to see how things play out with DD4 as she enters K next fall, but I feel like I have the tools now to help her when she needs it.

Kikiandkyle, hopefully as you journey forward with your DD, you can help her have a better experience and start to feel more empowered and less regretful about your own. My mom could have written your post, and she made sure that I had a better experience than she did. I appreciate it immensely. Your own painful memories give you a lot of insight to help make your DD's better. It can give your past, and your present, a higher purpose.

This has been a useful thread for me on a very basic level. Hearing the resonance of shared experiences has helped me better understand my own kids and helped me make peace with the idea that maybe I didn't fail as a mom despite often not understanding what my kids were going through.

acculady & deacongirl - I think I may fall into gifted in written expression but otherwise, I think it's likelyjust above average, not gifted. And I think my ability to adapt, play the game, and "fit in" made my life in school so much easier than it's been for my kids. I don't have, at least in my own opinion, a lot of the telling points of gifted traits, so that's where I'm coming from. As a mom, especially with my first child, it made it very difficult to empathize and help a child who not only would not "play the game" to make her life easier but at times seemed incapable of "just fitting in" at school. With my next two kids, I'd learned a bit more and stopped trying to "fix" my kids when they were little and spent more time advocating for a better fit for them at school.

kikiandkyle - I've spent over two decades as a stay at home mom. They have been such a blessing to me and my family. Don't spend any energy at all on regret of what you didn't do in the past. Savor your place in life now and start finding ways to nurture yourself creatively, whether it is through taking a cooking class, starting a blog about cooking or some other topic, or delving into organic gardening and joining a local group with similar interests. Start a degree online if your kids are still at home; a friend of ours just graduated with an engineering degree he earned one class at a time.

I've found creative ways to blend being at home with finding some professional satisfaction by starting home-based businesses as well. The first was freelance writing, and you don't need a degree - just some time to learn the ropes and the ability to research info, interview, and put it together. Have you considered pitching articles to publications that cover topics you like to read about and have some expertise in? I'm now running a tech startup that is still based in my home, not only does it save money on costs, it lets me be home when my kid is out o f school. Find what you're passionate about and find a way to blend it into your current life.

My wife does the same thing.

These days college doesn't actually require study skills. Or at least much in the way of study skills.

As I keep saying, it's more of a high school degree.

Why did you "fail miserably"?

I'm planning to have a long conversation with my parents who are coming to visit in a few weeks about this topic, as I figured out I need to sort out some of my own "gifted" baggage before subjecting my little ones to anything.

In kindergarten, I remember being able to read and baffled about why the other kids could not. I read anything I could get my hands on and raced ahead. I went to a magnet school with a mixed group of students (i.e. poor neighborhood kids and bussed in non-neighborhood kids). My school's windows frequently sported bullet holes but I never once felt unsafe during school hours on school grounds. I wouldn't have walked anywhere else...

I do know that starting around 3rd grade I got to leave my classroom a few times a week, to go to the gifted program. I enjoyed this but can't recall anything specific we did. I also got to see the ??school psychologist? where I did things like play puzzle games and look at ink blots. My parents were concerned about me socially. I was pretty introverted and preferred books to people. Despite this I usually had good friends to play with in elementary. Outside of the pull out times, it was boring. At a certain point there wasn't much in the library I hadn't read. I remember during these years my parents got me an encyclopedia and I often would sneak a volume into bed at night and read from it.

Middle school I had a very tough time socially, got teased etc. I had some academic challenges too perhaps tied to the social changes (in the advanced reading group I quit doing my work for a while, which spiraled into a bad grade, trouble with my parents etc). What I remember I loved about middle school was the 6 person advanced humanities group. We studied Latin, Shakespeare, etc. So it wasn't ALL horrible, but I struggled. I know my parents were worried I would not get into the HA/GT HS where most but not all students skipped a grade upon entry. I did get in, but only after not skipping. Thankfully my parents persisted with me and/or the HS as I got in eventually.

I loved the HS. It was a very unique environment (public, by the way). I did not have to worry about being weird as there were a lot of kids far stranger than I was. Everyone was expected to go to college, and a decent one. Work was challenging but for the most part very achievable. I did have to learn study skills there. I had a few minor academic bumps but ended up shocking the heck out of everyone and even myself senior year as I got some prestigious awards that year - until then I had been seen as a middle of the smart/gifted pack kid. I also took my first college class while in HS. After graduating, I spent a year in France before going to university on delayed entry (already admitted so no academic benefit whatsoever). I wanted to do the year abroad but not miss a year of school, and it helped my parents financially a bit too.

College seemed more a continuation of HS academically versus a new level. My university had a lot of kids that went to special public HSs, private or prep schools, like I had. Some were brighter than others, but we all were within a few stripes of each other so it was a great environment. I loved it, graduated w/Honors. Many classmates went on to grad/med/law school right away. I did not.

Now many years later, I'm finding my way to career #2 and presently in grad school. I guess it was inevitable.

But there are things I want to understand, so if at all possible I can head off any challenges with my own kids who are very young still. Like some others have mentioned I guess I shouldn't be surprised to be wondering if they are gifted but by the same token, it puts a whole new spin on what I think they may experience in school.

I failed college before because I have a hard time focusing on things I'm not interested in. If I can't see the point in learning it beyond to pass an exam, I can't get motivated. My daughter has the same problem. I feel like a bit of a hypocrite telling her that she has to do things she doesn't want to sometimes, when I don't like doing them either!

The irony of failure #2 is that I was kicked out for failing Statistics 3 times, while I was busy managing the finances of a company with annual revenues exceeding €1m, assisting my clients with their complicated cross border financial transactions and overseeing my team of 3. I didn't need to know anything in that entire class to do my job, but without it I wasn't allowed to stay in college.

Most recently I dropped out before I even took a class. The day after I enrolled I got yet another $1k+ medical bill in the mail, and that was before I found out my insurance was not going to cover the $1500 we had to pay for my daughters psych eval.

Life just seems to get in the way I guess, but that's what happens when you have kids. My time will come in the end.