Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Gifted teens and suicide

... have the supports and role models he needs to develop a healthy internal monologue and life habits as he grows up. I want to consciously model struggle and failure around personally meaningful goals to him as he grows up so that he learns how people--even outwardly successful ones-- pick up the pieces of a shattered dream, be it personal or professional, and pivot toward a new path.

I fully plan to have DH and I share with him our personal and professional failures when appropriate. He needs to know that marriage, work, health (physical, mental, spiritual) are the product of grit, struggle, and learning. When the passion in any of these areas inevitably wanes, success boils down to a sequence of small habits repeated consistently over time that center on a guiding set of values.

huge merit scholarship... Walking away from an award like that is easier said than done.

5. "Renewable" merit scholarships: Most schools and organizations tell scholarship winners the rules they'll need to follow and grades they'll need to achieve to renew their scholarships in future years. But only a few organizations give prospective, and, all too often, overconfident, students any statistics or warning of the odds of their receiving merit scholarships for all four years. Some officials in states such as Georgia and Tennessee warn high-schoolers that as many as half of the B students who earn Hope Scholarships drop below a B average in their freshman year, and thus lose their merit scholarships for sophomore year. But some schools have set much higher and tougher hurdles—GPAs of 3.5, or even 3.8—for other merit scholarships, and don't always warn the winners about previous recipients' records of achieving those kinds of grades over four years.