Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Slightly OT: Self awareness of giftedness

I'm wondering about people's experiences regarding when (and how) their kids started realizing that they were maybe a little different than the norm, and how they felt bout it.
DS5 has long been asked,among other things, to read to the other kids in daycare and preschool, and he seems to vacillate between being proud of that, and a little bit embarassed. He basically just wants to fit in. Beginning in Kindergarten he will be attending a private school for GT kids, so that will be somewhat less of an issue. But we still haven't really explained to him the nature of the school (although the word "gifted" pops up everywhere). We wish to make him aware that he has some special talents, but that this doesn't make him any "better" than other kids his age that can't do the things he can do.
I guess this whole post boils down to:
How does one foster pride in special talents without fostering elitism? And how young were your kids when you started to discuss this stuff with them?

I center this discussion around the idea that lots of people have special talents. One of our son's best friends is seriously agile and physically gifted. He was swimming and riding a bike without training wheels at age 3. At 8 he can walk around on his hands. I can imagine him in Cirque de Soleil, or the X-Games, or...something like that! Another one of our son's friends is quite possibly a musical prodigy; she plays a difficult orchestral instrument well enough to attract notice from international experts in this instrument. Our son knows that while he has certain strengths that others don't possess, the reverse is often true.

When he was reading at 2 and wondered why friends weren't also reading, I used the refrain of "everyone develops at a different pace." Now he's 8 and most of his friends are reading, so the playing field in that regard is leveling. Although his friends aren't reading the same books that he is - but they can all read the signs on the hiking trails, so he no longer needs to answer their questions about "what does that say?" and "read that for me." He's way ahead of them in math and a few other subjects, but just tends not to discuss those things with them. I have had to explain to him that he shouldn't say things like, "that's so easy!" when a friend tells him about his single-digit addition math lesson, because it's not "so easy" for his friend.

We homeschool, and that makes it a bit easier to avoid comparison situations - the kids tend to meet up for leisure time and do most of their hard-core lessons at home.

Tara

We were just dealing with this a few minutes ago...

DS received a letter from a friend. His friend is the same age but in preschool and still writes in large block letters. DS said, "Mom! He doesn't write very well. Look, he used all capital letters and no punctuation." I just said that his friend hasn't practiced writing as much as DS because he is in preschool. I always feel a little awkward though.

I had the big talk with DS7 last fall when I was attending a GT conference that had a kid component to it. He was seeing GIFTED flashed before him all over the place and I really wanted him to have a working definition of that word. And at the time, he was a bit OCD about having a textbook definition about any word that was new to him. I told him that this is something that made it easier for him to learn at school than some other kids. I didn't make it a better or worse thing. Just like someone else being good at sports or someone who is able to be a good friend to many people.

I know it probably would have made a huge difference in my old childhood to have this "label" and to know that there were other people out in the world that thought like me. I definitely felt like a bit of a freak in elementary school. And since this talk I noticed I really haven't had to keep him in check on bragging, although it pops out every once in a while when someone asks him if he knows how to read yet.

DD started to feel 'different' probably the same say she started with the preschool at 2.4 yr old.

By 3 she definitively felt different from others.

In her case this was not good at all, and I think this has contributed to her underachievement a lot.

Now I really do not know how to talk about the whole issue with her and how to get her out of the underachievement.

On a related note: did you see your kid/s as 'different' before your realized they were gifted? I used to think that, either DD was from another planet or the whole 'parenting books/web sites' were largely the biggest lie I have ever seen. When I read for example fun activities for toddlers I always thought 'uh uh this is not going to work with DD' (because she would do her own thing).

LOL, Isa! Yes, the parenting books and the milestones should probably have been a hint to us all that something was afoot, but so many of us (myself included) assumed the people who wrote those things were just nutty.

DS6 has been a chameleon kid for most of his life, so I didn't realize he was different except at a few select points in his life:

*When he internalized rules and followed them at around 8 months, before he could speak.
*When he was around 1yo and said "Bbb, Bbb" as he pointed at a "B" during a Kindermusik class. All the other moms (including the teacher!) jumped all over me--I felt really ganged up on!--for quietly (not bragging) saying to him privately, "Yes, that's a B." They insisted, "He didn't say that!" "That's ridiculous!" etc. This was just everyday behavior for DS6, so I certainly got the sense that this was really unusual behavior!
*When he spent the first few weeks of 1st grade making sure all the other kids did the right thing on their in-class assignments, but didn't get his own work done, was in trouble a lot, and was miserable in school, all of which was not at all like this rule-oriented kid.
*When I saw his achievement test scores, and realized they were not the scores of a kid who was MG, as I had assumed he was.

But he's always had interests that other kids could identify with--he just took them to another level--so he's always managed to fit in at least somewhat, to have a friend or two. He's also an introvert, so he's good at keeping himself entertained even in situations that are boring to him. That he acted out in 1st grade tells me just how incredibly bored he must have been. When I observed the class, I saw why...

Anyway, he talked about being the smartest kid in the class, which I hated to hear, obviously. Happily for us, when we pulled him out of public school to homeschool, that went away completely. I don't think he feels defensive and out of place anymore. We see lots of kids that he's probably smarter than, but he hasn't once made it an issue. I think that's a good thing and is a sign that he's in a better place emotionally because of HSing.

And when did YOU felt different from the others?

I remember feeling different since I started the school at 4 and all through my whole life - never knew why.... until I had DD and started to read about GT.

Me too! I felt different from preschool at 4 on through.

In college, I really didn't get why half the class was failing out of first semester calculus. It wasn't that hard, right?

And I thought parenting books and age recommendations on toys were just very conservative guidelines most people were ignoring!

We started at age 3 in preschool talking about how everyone develops at different rate - some are taller early, and some taller later - in regard to 'mouth speakers' since some of the kids there 'wouldn't talk to him' and he was taking to totally personally - but the teachers explained to me that they just didn't talk to anyone yet. I carfully avoided the question that some people eventually grow to be taller than other. I don't think intelligence is the kind of thing that you can line people up 'shortest to tallest' so maybe that's a bad analogy anyway.

Later I read books about parenting gifted children and tried to praise effort and interest, rather than the natual abilities, which don't grow character when being used. I think character development is the key challenge for all parents, and that a child's readiness has to be provided for out of decency. Two totally different things, but ignoring the readiness level will certianly mess up the Character Development!

While I was growing up, one of my favorite expressions was - "You play the hand you are dealt." To me it allowed me to make a positive judgement about anyone if I could respect how they made us of the opportunities that did come their way. The 'cards' of life are just not distributed fairly, although in real card games, one can usually have about equal 'lucky' and 'unlucky' hands. So I would suggest playing lots of card games and teaching your child to judge themselves on how they played, rather on the luck aspect. I think this takes a while to develop, but I love games like 'Set-back' for that reason.

Best Wishes,
Grinity