Right:
Lots of books in the house
Lots of family travel
Um … producing the genetic mix that made us HG …?
I guess sending us to a "good' school (but they sort of figured that then was their job done)
Mum's very quirky/arty and did lots of creative stuff with us, and always made an effort to look up answers to our weird questions even though her always looking up things in encyclopedias drove me nuts when I was a teen

Wrong:
It's like they never met me smile No idea I was gifted, I only figured it out a couple of years ago when my younger sister casually mentioned she tested HG in high school and it suddenly clicked that I likely was too and my own HG children hadn't just popped out of nowhere (derrr). Thanks a lot, parents. Even now my sister's the "smart one". When my kids do something amazing it's always "Oh, just like *sister*". Hello?!
In my 20s and 30s if someone commented I was intelligent I'd think it was cool that I gave off that false impression!
In high school I had zero work/study skills, failed or scraped through everything except for always getting 90+% in English which I ignored because it came too easy so obviously didn't count. I had the works: perfectionism, underachieving, imposter syndrome, asynchronous, low self-esteem, anxiety, bad hearing and terrible eyesight that no one noticed/fixed until I was 8! I feel quite sorry for young me.
When I left school my father suggested I become a pharmacy assistant - a job involving science, maths and dealing with the public - i.e., exactly everything I was completely terrible at. For criminy's sake smirk Thirty years later I'm still really quite bitter about that complete lack of understanding. Luckily I eventually took notice of my talents in English and became a writer.
Phew! Therapeutic smile

Last edited by AvoCado; 07/21/15 04:20 PM.