It's great to have a place where my kid is normal.
Yes! I think that's the piece that is so important. It's only where the challenges that accompany parenting a gifted child are "normal" that those challenges aren't met with skepticism. I've often found that people are receptive to a point, but that the understanding is limited, so the ability to empathize is limited. None of us want to be one of "those" parents, but the very act of puzzling out a problem we are having (especially when the problem is, "my kid has already met and exceeded all the grade level standards, and the school doesn't see this as a problem"), is seen as...I don't know...disingenuous maybe? Covert bragging?
Maybe all gifties should be born to parents who are 100% confident about parenting decisions 99% of the time. Unfortunately, I fall more into the category of 90% confident 80% of the time
(and that is perhaps a generous statistical guesstimate!). Meld that with a processing style that is primarily oral (including espeech and other expressive writing
of course)and I need a community with the stamina to let me talk out all of my unanswered kid questions.
Hmmm....as I write this I am thinking that we have fallen into an all-or-nothing description of our interactions with other parents and friends. I talk about my kids IRL too--but it is usually about those aspects of their lives with which there is a lot of common ground--the "yay!" of watching DS go through an entire baseball inning without stopping to draw intricate designs in the dirt (of course with a ball sailing over his head unnoticed); DD's hurt feelings when she isn't chosen as a lunch buddy; our camping trip and the fun DD and DS had rock hopping in the river and skipping stones; the awesome books we are enjoying for read aloud...
Those conversations are easy to have IRL, mainly b/c there is an easy reciprocity in the sharing and an ability to appreciate, empathize or sympathize with the ups, downs, and oh-so-funnies. It's just that there is this one part of who my children are that I also need to talk about, and I need to do it here, where my kids' experiences seem more "normal". Where I can learn from the experiences of others who have wrestled with the same questions and challenges; where I don't worry about a mental eye roll (Although now that I think about it, maybe that should be an icon!)and I don't feel a need to "balance" my child's strengths with a weakness when I talk about them as people. I'm thinking that perhaps saying we are "proud of" our children is an inaccurate use of language. Maybe what we're really talking about is admiration. I admire many of the things that my children do and say, just as I admire many of the things that others do and say. The difference is, that while it is socially acceptable to discuss what you admire about others, it is socially suspect to discuss what you admire about your own child. Except here. So again, thank goodness for here!
