So I had an interesting conversation with my middle schooler recently about growing up with giftedness and intellectual intensity and what it means for middle school and high school. Long story short he asked a question that, while I came up with the "right" answer for him, I am not sure I truly know the answer. For those moms who passed down their gifted and intellectual intensity gene..what do you do as an adult that fuels your giftedness and intellectual intensity while also balancing the time and energy needs of the curriculum development, teaching, driving etc. that your intellectually intense and gifted child(ren) need?
I'm reporting out from the pre-school parent perspective, so it's a bit different. At this point we both have intellectually stimulating (and highly analytic) careers that luckily, give us great flexibility.
So, when we aren't working we read, watch documentaries, go to museums, play board games, design science experiments for out DD4, we write fiction together, we both will take random classes for certifications or degrees or just via coursera (or the like) to learn new things. Since DD4 is an only child we involve her in A LOT of these activities (and what we can't we do after bed-time).
We travel, we cook, we spend time with our friends who are similarly minded and our DD4 gets to play with their older kids. They all seem to learn from each other, which is really cool!
I'm sure these things will change as she starts to bore with her parents incessant need to watch Discovery Channel movies with her, and read excerpts from books we dub "science for the masses", but we integrate teaching into the every day. We take an interest in her interests and learn more to accommodate (I really did not know anything about dinosaurs until DD took an interest and I started reading DH's paleontology texts).
I'm not sure how this model will hold up in middle school and beyond, but I'm hoping she appreciates having parents who understand what it's like to be different than everyone else your age!
