My childhood was pretty good and relatively happy.

In elementary school, I didn't have any problem being "gifted" and it really didn't have any impact on my academic achievement, since tests were easy, fun, and I generally got higher grades than my peers. I got to go to another school periodically and spend the day with the other gifted kids, so it was like a weekly field trip. I was annoyed that I didn't get to skip a grade, which was what I wanted to do. I don't remember why I wanted to do that.

In middle school, I was finally in the same school as the kids in the gifted program, so I could spend more time with the people I enjoyed being with. I kept my good elementary school friends. So, this was one of the high points of my life.

I got to move for high school, which was somewhat traumatic for me, although since my father was superintendent (which was why I had to move) it made things both worse and bettter. Took me about two years to really feel comfortable and then I was fine.

Although with respect to high school, my overall purpose was simply to "win" with respect to grades, meaning that my only goal was to get better grades than anyone else. This was only an issue in high school because my parent (particularly my father) were convinced that those grades were all that mattered, because those were the grades that determined class rank. I had lots of fun with friends, activities, such as band, school plays, travel, debate, etc. Unfortunately, I got overloaded and basically burnt out.

I also went through my "life has no purpose or meaning" period during late high school, so I kind of remember that period as some sort of existential despair period.

I really didn't have an interested in being in college, but I figured that the last thing that I wanted to do was to have to work in a job. However, I was pretty much exhausted from high school, so I went from doing everything (including playing computer games and reading fiction) to doing nothing except playing computer games and reading fiction. Since my parents essentially provided all of the underlying structure in my life, I pretty much did nothing because no one was making me do anything. I had a full scholarship, which I had to keep a 3.2 (?) to maintain, which I did. It was difficult for me to form friendships, socialize, and get involved in college activities because looking back on it, I was very immature for my age and lacked fundamental social skills.

I never really ended up with a "thing" that I have an interest in doing with myself. Went to law school to avoid work for another three years and to try to get some sort of "elite" degree that would serve as a ticket to wealth. At the time, I figured that you needed several million dollars in the bank to accomplish anything of value. Got a job and realized that I was no longer in a position to play computer games and read fiction all the time. By that time, my work ethic and whatever time management and organizational skills I had were long gone, being that I had spent the last 8 years doing what amounted to "nothing". It's quite overwhelming to go from doing nothing to being expected to perform at a relatively high level.

At the same time, I got married and immediately started having kids, which adds it's own stress.

This was all colored by the fact that my mother died of cancer and my father had a stroke and I got fired from my family for a bit when I was in college/law school. So this has something to do with my situation, but it's more my lack of psychological resilience and poor coping skills than anything else.

At this point, with respect to my kids, I'm not sure that putting in effort or doing well in school means much of anything because you kind of end up in the dull, gray world of adulthood, where you simply endure life. Childhood was fun. Anything past age 17 was not so fun. I think that's mostly because I never developed any idea of what I wanted to go do with myself, durable social or career networks. I often have approximately zero interest in your career or your day to day life.

My life is functional, but I have no interests, friends outside of my family, real underlying purpose, or any direction. I spend much of my time bored. Being that I practice law, I also spend much of my time angry.

One moral of the story is that college and professional degrees don't really accomplish anything on their own.

Another moral of the story is that you should not let your kids play computer games and read 100% of the time when they should be out actually living life, even if they are in college.