Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Parents of GT kids are isolated, too

Sometimes I think I am barely holding on to my sanity here. I am part of the sandwich generation and sometimes my sandwich is a little too much for me to chew. The top slice of bread is my mother who was probably gifted (the jeopardy contestant kind of gifted) whose IQ plummeted in one day during routine surgery, probably due to mini-strokes that also left her with extreme memory loss and dementia. The bottom slice is my son whom I am trying to homeschool because he is twice exceptional and our state does not require an appropriate education for twice exceptional kids. There is not one day that I don't think about my mother. I can't help but imagine what it would be like to be able to think and learn easily in the morning and later that evening be unable to remember what happened 30 seconds before so that reading or even following what is happening on television is impossible and there is nothing that can be done about it--for the rest of her life. My son and I visit her every day but she doesn't remember us. We know that these visits are really for my dad. We understand the stress of isolation and the effect it has on mental health.

The isolation I feel is hard to deal with and I think my son wonders if it is his fault since our community is not very "geek" friendly. He calls himself a geek, has no problem with other people thinking he is a geek, and I have heard some of his friends refer to themselves as geeks. They don't fit in with our sports obsessed community with no library, but a very nice football field, because instead of sports, they like to read, play musical instruments and do musical theater and play video games, and they seem much more knowledgable about computers than most of the adults where we live. My son's friends' parents are all teachers and engineers and he likes talking to them too. My son has more friends than I ever did.

But there is only one person in my community other than my husband that I feel I can really talk to and she is the mom of two of my son's gifted friends. She also happens to be a special ed teacher, so she understands both my son's giftedness and his disabilities and it is really weird that she seems more like me than my own sisters.

My son wonders if we are shunned by members of our community because of him--especially the homeschool group we belonged to for a short time. Yesterday, he referred to himself as my "NSDS" and when I asked what that was he said "not so dear son." He had been teasing me, as he often does, but he has been doing this a little too much lately. Everyone is telling me it is common for kids to tease each other and since he isn't in school he doesn't have anyone to tease except me or his sister who lives in another state who can just hang up on him.

Hi Lori,

When we discuss the issues of giftedness it is usually in the context of our children. There is some awareness and resources for adults but on the whole we tend to put our resources into thinking about our children rather than the generational dynamics and experiences. It is only now my son is grown and we are not so worried about money that I have begun to think about my own childhood in this context. And I've promised myself that one day I'll get around to really examining the topic. I'm planning on doing it through my writing, hence my recent foray into journalism so that I could improve my writing skills.

I think though that in generations to come, such as when the younger generation is grown that we might begin to see a more generational approach to the issues as having been raised with so much more awareness and information, they might be more proactive about dealing with giftedness from an adult perspective.

I know that I've definitely had some adjustments. Not just as someone who is the mother of a gifted child, but as a former gifted child myself. I say former because a lot of that identity gets stripped away as you grow up. I think the absolute weirdest adjustment for me was that I was always the "youngest" to do things and figure out information. But, I grew up. At some point, being the youngest, which was completely as much a part of my identity as many other things, was no longer part of who I was. That, I think, was one of the hardest shifts.

But, how do you talk to people about that? Even trying to think of how to open my mouth and say it, I can't fathom that someone wouldn't take it as partially bragging. So, there is a sense of isolation because some of the things I experience as not things that regular people have gone through.

Hi Rosie,

I think you mentioned in one of your posts that your gifted son also had dyspraxia so I think you might understand some of the things we are going through. I want my sensitive, gifted ten year old son with motor dyspraxia and hypotonia to grow up happy and healthy. I know that isolation can sometimes lead to depression and I want to protect my son from this if at all possible. Anxiety issues run in my family so I really worry about this. We still have the teen years ahead of us.

Since my son is unable to do sports in a sports obsessed community we don't have that connection with lots of other families with kids his age. He is in cub scouts but he feels very different from the other kids, except for one gifted kid his age, and the leaders are now asking me if I want him to go ahead and cross over to Boy Scouts after the first of the year along with his gifted friend. He has several older friends already in Boy Scouts but I worry about the physical challenges.

At holiday dinners with our extended family the discussion is often about the cousins who get a lot of attention for their sports ability. One of the cousins has received a lot of attention for his ability as a quarterback on our local high school team and has been interviewed several times on a local television station, but he is also very smart and one of the relatives recently told us that this cousin also aced the ACT. Relatives wonder why my son needs to be homeschooled if his cousin did just fine at the school.

My son doesn't feel like he fits in with his cousins. He is quiet around them. He knows they don't want to hear anything about what he is doing. It isn't socially acceptable to talk about musical theater or spelling bees in a sports community or even in your own family.

It is isolating for an only child at home to be homeschooled in a town where the school is the center of the community and in a neighborhood with no other kids. All of his gifted friends are in public school and busy with after school activities so he doesn't see them very much during the school year.

We really had no choice but to homeschool. I was told by several people at the school, including the principal (a relative of mine) and a teacher who believed my son was probably highly gifted that it was my duty as a parent to homeschool my son because it was just a small town school and they hadn't seen anyone like him before and didn't know what to do with him. When I asked if he could at least play on the playground during school hours with the kids he knew from Kindergarten, they said no because of liability reasons. I was supposed to keep paying taxes to support the school that refused to even try to come up with a plan for an appropriate education. I found out that there was no law in our state requiring an appropriate education for twice exceptional kids and I was just supposed to accept it and this was hard for me.

One of the pediatricians he saw at a military base wrote "seems to be high IQ" in my son's medical records but none of the pediatricians he saw at the military base recommended OT or PT for the hypotonia until we demanded to be referred to a developmental pediatrician and an OT. He didn't get any OT until he was almost 10 and I didn't think one OT session every two weeks for three months was enough to really help my son, but that was all our insurance would pay for. The OT did give me suggestions and told us what to work on at home but I find it hard to make him do some of these things, especially since he also gets migraine headaches. Spinning on a tire swing is not something you want to do when you have a migraine.

My son and I both felt even more isolated when we didn't fit in with our local homeschool group.

So when my son and I see my dad also dealing with isolation as he takes care of my mother without ever taking breaks, even when he is sick, it does add to our sadness and feeling of not fitting in with our community and even our extended family. My son has learned a very hard lesson about people. Most people tend to avoid people who are not like them in some way, even family and church members, even so called homeschool "support" groups and it makes me sad.

The sadness and anxiety that I feel sometimes take away from the energy I need to help my son overcome issues that are a result of his dyspraxia and sensory issues. Luckily he learns very well on his own thanks to the internet and educational shows on the History, Science and National Geographic channels and lots of curiosity that I was once told that he needed to learn to stifle.

I think my son needs to know that there were other people in our family and elsewhere who were gifted and lived through difficulties and went on to become successful adults, but I think his dyspraxia has made it harder for him because nobody else in our family has it.

We would like to hear more success stories about twice exceptional people with dyspraxia who were able to work around the issues that my son deals with to become successful adults.

Hi parents, I'm new here. Glad I found it and found this thread. The very reason that I went online and searched for a gifted forum is exactly what this thread is talking about: I just can't talk about my kids with other parents. If they talk about their kids achievement at parties it's alright, if I mention my kids I can actually feel the uneasiness among other parents. And I don't brag! I just reported facts like what activities they were doing. So I just don't talk about my kids anymore. And on our local parenting forum (our town actually has very good schools and a well-educated population), any mention of "giftedness" by anyone would attract negative comments instantly. But how many people actually want to brag about their kids' giftedness? For me, I often only feel desperate and helpless when I look at my son's school situation, which was simply miserable last year and only a bit better this year. But of course I can't even talk about my frustration and my son's frustrations with anyone because that could also be taken as bragging. Then on the other hand anyone can talk about how good his/her kids are at basketball or tennis without getting looks.

Hi Lori,

Yeah, the dyspraxia is difficult- at least during childhood. We ended up working around it in homeschooling but people can be so cruel. I remember a swimming carnival for the Scouts. My son and I only went because I was a Leader (Joeys). My son could not swim and it was a 50m pool. My son dog-paddled the entire length and considering the asthma he suffered from, severe dyspraxia etc was a huge effort and I was touched by his dogged determination to do his best.

I was standing by some parents and heard them say how 'unfair' it was to the other team members to have someone like that in the team. As a mother it broke my heart to hear that kind of discrimination.

We could not afford to belong to sporting groups and very few people understand dyspraxia. No one seems to want these kids involved in their team anyway and I didn't want him exposed to abuse because of his disability. Unlike your son (or myself for that matter) my son was very extroverted and very much knew his own mind. This made him darn near impossible when he was little but later on was an asset.

As for problems as an adult, I can't speak for other occupations of course, but in the programming industry handwriting can be pretty much non-existant.

We were very isolated as a family and it is only since my son has got his last job that he's really been 'included' socially in anything. I know this is one of the things he loves about his job.

As for me, I'm still waiting for inclusion! I look back over 18 years to when I was near my son's age and what we have lived through and wonder what it will take for this society to value my input. It is not a pleasant place to be and I would not wish it on anyone. So yes, I understand your isolation.

For a few years I was really frustrated with not being able to adequately express the position I was in to people who had not been through it themselves. But in validating myself as an individual (as I decided to do recently) I am finding the words now pouring out of me and I'm able to express myself much more clearly. I am yet to see whether this will actually lead to any lessening of my social and economic isolation although this thread is certainly a good thing!

Hi Playandlearn,

It is the kind of hostility you are experiencing that sees parents of gifted kids come together for support. Every parent has a right to the occasional brag, it is normal for mothers! There would be something wrong with us if we didn't feel proud of our kids. It is a pity these other parents don't have the insight to understand that. They probably think it is like bragging about how much money you have in the bank. It isn't, it is just the same maternal bragging they do but about what our children are doing. It is just that what our children are doing is different. It doesn't mean their children's exploits are any less wonderful. Praise is free after all, and only limited by our generosity of spirit.

Welcome! You have come to the right place. You will find much more understanding here I am sure. However, I would also encourage you to find some people in real life you can share things with as well. I don't have many, but a few that I know I can say things to that they aren't going to give me any uncomfortable looks. I do at times resent the fact that I can't talk about my kids like others can, but I've become more proactive in finding people I can share things with either on-line or in day to day interactions. I do want to share the heartaches of not knowing what to do, and school struggles...but I also do want to share how amazing he is at times because I am proud of him and who he is (whether I want to say I am proud he shared with his sister, or I am proud of him for his ability to do math problems...either way I am proud and want to share). I held back long enough.

Hi, thanks. I really hope to get useful info. and get a sense of community here. I do want to have someone locally that I can talk to, but so far not much luck yet.

Our situation is tricky because we are in a very good school district, there are lots of smart kids, and kids at the public school that my DS8 goes to are, on average, way above grade level. In fact the curriculum and pace at his school is pretty much the same as the private, gifted school in town. Therefore, the school district doesn't offer a separate, gifted program based on the rationale that too many kids would qualify for the program. But my DS8 still stands out, he is still bored at school, especially in math. Last year was horrible for him, this year the 3rd grade teacher is more understanding and willing to give him extra challenge so for the first time since K he now thinks that maybe math is worthwhile. Now my goal is to try to make this situaion last, I'm still looking for options, and I'm sure this forum will be a big help!