Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy The fear of doing it wrong...

I just read a post by gratified3 that said:

"I guess I'm trying to say that I'm terrified raising these kids and if anything is vaguely working, I don't mess with it....I try really hard not to mess up "now" for what I fear might be coming."

I really identified with this statement. Balancing now and later and the basic fear of screwing up seems much more real and much more scary to me now that I have a sense of just how smart my son is. It all seems a lot harder, more overwhelming.

I know all parents worry about their kids, of course. (Re: the extreme cases of the "helicopter moms" who hover over their children everywhere they go!) I know that this may be my own perfectionism getting to me, and I just need to let it go. Of course, that's always easier said than done...

I guess I was just wondering how the rest of you who feel this fear of failing your kids--which I'm betting is a lot of us--are dealing with it. How are you balancing now with later? How are you balancing good enough with your own second-guessing? And how do you figure out in your own mind if what you're doing for your gifted kid is, indeed, good enough?

Philosophically yours...

No, J, I was actually hoping that you might respond, and I think your post is really thoughtful as well as thought-provoking.

When you write about protecting your kids from themselves as they grow up, I really know what you mean. As I read that passage, it also struck me that there's a lot of potential for depression and self-loathing and self-destructive behavior inherent in their situation. Most parents don't have to worry about those things in their young children! But we do. More protecting to do...

Friday night, I had my monthly girls' night out dinner. I got into a heated discussion with a former teacher and parent to two bright but not gifted kids. She argued that I shouldn't be home schooling (as if the decision weren't already made!). Along the way, she asked, "So his teacher isn't challenging him. So what? What's going to happen that's so bad if you leave him in school until he gets to the enrichment that starts in 3rd grade?"

I found myself almost speechless with disbelief. Two years without learning anything? Two years of boredom? Two years of acting out and feeling angry and frustrated? Two years to learn to disrespect authority because authority clearly doesn't respect him? And even if he makes it until 3rd grade with no help for his special needs without totally shutting down, is the little bit of enrichment he'd get that year going to be enough for him? (It's not!) So what then? I just didn't know where to begin to respond!

Those were the things I feared when he was in the public schools, so we left the public schools. Problem solved, right? Ha! Of course not! Now that we've begun home schooling, I just fear different things.

DS had a meltdown yesterday because his football coach yelled at him. (Not in a demeaning way; just in a loud "Get over there" kind of way.) Like the perfectionist he is, DS was really upset that his coach would yell at him. We're not coddlers, and we have never had patience with tantrums of any sort. DH and I told DS that the coach yells at all the kids sometimes, that the best thing to do is to hop to it, etc. At the end of the game, the coach came over and apologized, saying, "I didn't realize he was that sensitive."

Ouch!

Is DS too sensitive? I never thought of him that way before. If he is, is that somehow my doing? Or is that his natural way of being, and maybe it just means that football isn't his game? Is "sensitive" something to fear or to celebrate? Maybe football should be good for him because it might toughen him up in a good way? Or was he just touchy because DH hadn't given him enough breakfast, and DS was having low blood sugar mood swings?

I don't know! Great googly-moogly, I don't know!

It does seem like the decisions we make with gifted kids just resonate so much more broadly, maybe because gifted kids tend to react so much more dramatically to their surroundings. Small changes get amplified or something...

And I think you're right on about wishing it were easier--feeling that it SHOULD be easier, darn it! And grieving is the right word for that. It's like we have to grieve for the school system we wished for but that never came. The disappointment is horrible, and it signals to us that we have lots of work to do on our own that other parents don't have to do.

Along those lines, I think another part of the problem is that if you talk about your gifted kids--even about the problems you're having!--people think you're bragging or doing the "competitive parenting" thing. It's very hard to find people to talk with, commiserate with. I've found this forum to be very soothing in that way, since everyone here knows that we're not bragging...more likely we are complaining! And everyone here will understand, and perhaps even identify with our complaints! There's relief in that.

My mom always said, "It's nice to be smart, but it's smart to be nice." I thought that was one of the best bits of wisdom she could have passed on to me. I've tried to live it, and I've said it to my own kids. I hope it's having the desired effect for all of us! Our kids ARE nice kids. Like your kids, they are learning to be decent and caring people. They are people I like to be around--and not in a smothering kind of way--and they're kids that other people like to be around, too. Those facts give me hope.

We do the best we can, don't we? And then we expect them to blame us for whatever went wrong anyway! It just seems like things can go so much MORE wrong with GT kids! More blame for us, I guess...

Thanks again for your response, J. It helped me as I wrestle with all this weighty stuff.

K-

J, K, well said.
((applause))
I am so pleased that your kids won't go through what I allowed my son to go through, and that you won't have to deal with the difficult outcomes - loss of respect for athority, loss of respect for hard work, loss of respect for peers - that we are now in the long slow process of trying to reverse. It seems to be working, but it's a slow process.

I do think that our Perfectionism says that we should have all the answers and 'get it right.' Realistically I'm hoping that I can do well-enough by my son, that he can 'get it right' for my future grandchildren.

I agree that if we can keep character development first - which means reasonable educational fit for these (and maybe all) children - and demonstrate that we care and are making an effort, that that will be enough.

As for worries for the future, for me this goes right back to the existential questions we've always wrestled with - right? I consider myself lucky to be able to believe in a higher power who has more insight into the situation than I do. Then I can remind myself to do my legwork and turn the rest over. I also find the idea that today is the only day we have to be important. Yes, make plans and have goals, but 95% of my attention needs to be on today - work or play.

My hunch is that when it feels too heavy, remember who your supports are and go to them. We are all at the Frontier together - trying to figure out how to accommidate our children's special needs with very few social supports and fewer tools. It is so inspiring to see some of the parents here who have done so much with what little there is! Yippee!

Trinity

Your responses brought tears to my eyes. They are so right on. Thanks!

J, your comment about not pushing for calculus but for character is exactly it. I never said, "My son is not being challenged. He needs hard work so that he'll be a genius." I said, "My usually cheerful and pleasant son is not being challenged, and it's affecting his character." Why is it so hard for people to understand that bored, frustrated kids generally wind up miserable and unpleasant, at least until they find challenging work and people who are like them--usually in adulthood? It seems obvious, so why can't other people see that?

The growing disrespect you discuss, Trinity, was painful for me to see happening in my son. He talked of being the smartest kid in his class--at age 6! (A discussion about the way that would be received by others followed...) And he *hated* 1st grade, the kid who adored half-day kindergarten and loved to learn. He even said some not-nice things about his teacher once, which was TOTALLY not like him. I never once heard him say anything disrespectful about any adult before. But the disrespect was growing. That was when I knew we had to take action.

I'm still quite worried about the sensitivity issue. I may wind up starting a thread about that, after I've thought things through a bit. As someone highly sensitive to criticism myself, I find it hard to know how to teach him that a little constructive criticism is okay, even good. But also as someone sensitive to criticism, I know that it's one of the best things I can help him to learn. I'm hoping that giving him work that's challenging to him, that he sometimes gets wrong, will help. Aside from one math class late in high school (which I'm ashamed to say actually drove me to contemplate suicide...over a B+...), I never really got that challenge until grad school. By then it was too late, I think. I want DS to bump up against hard stuff much earlier so that he'll be more resiliant. I don't want him to fall apart or get rebellious or think about ways to do himself in every time he's not 100% perfect or someone in authority criticizes him.

Then I look at the subject of this thread--a subject line that I wrote!--and I have to laugh! Teacher, teach thyself, right?!? Ha!

Then, too, as I look back at what I've written, I worry that I'm trying to exorcise too many of my own personal demons in my son. He's very much my son, very much like me--for better or for worse!--but I worry that instead of using my experiences to help him, I'm actually just trying to fix my missteps through him. I know all parents are prone to that error to some extent, since our experiences are all we know. But again, the resonant nature of gifted kids strikes me as problematic, or potentially so. He may be like me, but DS is NOT me. Am I doing it wrong for him by looking at him through my own lens? So little has changed for gifted kids in the past 30+ years. So many of the concerns I'm having are the same ones my mother had for her gifted kids when we were children. But am I inappropriately projecting the "sins" of the father (and mother and grandmother!) on the son? I guess the fact that I'm aware of the danger there is half the battle...or at least I hope so!

Please forgive me for my babbling on so self-indulgently. I just feel so in the thick of things right now! Self-doubt is weighing very heavy on me, more heavily than usual. Big choices, big fears, big worries...Who knew that taking a child out of public school could dredge up so much? I'm sort of hoping that I can purge my system of all this GUNK if I write it down here, where people get it. Your posts make me feel better. It's nice to know that, as Trinity writes, we are in this together. That helps.

Bless you both!

K-

K -
Thanks for sharing. this stuff is BIG! When DS11 ended the year with a "C" in Language Arts (the rest "B"s) I worried that I had made a mistake with the gradeskip (for about 30 seconds) - until a friend said that a "C" around this age is protection against High Scool or College Suicide for a B+. I hope you didn't contemplate for very long, but it does happen. No wonder we are scared.

BTW, I think the football is wonderful if he will keep with it. DS also hated to be corrected. I picture it as - he had learned not to trust anyone but himself, and NOW we are telling him that he can't even trust him? How much for insecure can a kid get? I think that homeschooling allows you lots and lots of chances for him to get used to overcoming difficult challenges. Then there are the academic competitions when he gets a bit older. I figure that I am always looking for the edge where he can work hard and succed after a little delay. In the begining the delay was about one second. Now he may have 5 minutes of complaining and then burst ahead and do what looked impossible. It's a process. Messy - yuck! But they do grow and mature.

Best Wishes,
Trinity

There really isn�t anything that I can add to your comments here, as you all have so eloquently expressed what most of us hope for and worry about! Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings here.

Kriston,

Extreme sensitivity is quite common in very gifted children and may be most noticeable in gifted boys (as compared to other boys). My son is also very sensitive. This issue was definitely amplified when he was younger. He has learned to recognize this sensitivity in himself now, which helps him to more objectively evaluate his initial internal response to a situation, and then adjust his outward reaction based on this self awareness.

We do not allow him to gripe about coaches, teammates, teachers or classmates until we are in private. We often lead him to the conclusion that his perceived �slights� and �injustices� are not as severe or malicious as he believes and are often unintentional. In some cases, his conclusions are correct, however, he is not allowed to confront (a teacher) regarding mistreatment. These parameters seem to work well for him. He knows we will not dismiss his feelings, yet he must wait to vent until we are alone.

Good thoughts, delbows. My son is very rule-oriented, so "laying down the law" about what's acceptable and what isn't is smart. I'll steal that, thanks!

I'm also glad to hear that sensitive DS may simply mature into his sensitivity, given the appropriate parental guidance. That helps me lots!

And, Trinity, my suicidal thoughts were extremely limited and were never full-blown tendencies. A mental exercise only, and only in that one situation. Perfectionism run amuck. I just couldn't imagine myself being at all if I wasn't the "perfect" straight-A student. Sad. You're right that getting a C in grade school would probably have been doggone good for me! As I hope not getting everything right all the time will be for DS.

Assuming I can keep ahead of him, of course, so that I can give him something hard! He's racing through the work I planned for him like I can't believe. As I am an English-type person, I wonder how soon it will be before he's beyond me in math! Not long, I fear. Argh!

More to fear, but altogether different!