Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy DH geek factor concerns

"Athletic HS Record breaker" DH keeps making negative comments to me about geeks at DS's new gifted school. I keep telling him to embrace who DS is, notice how happy DS is with peers, he can be both intellectual and atletic, if you want him to be more athlectic do more with him, ect.

Any advise helping him embrace gifted school and peers?

He has not show this to DS but somehow I think a shift in attitude would be helpful. DH does embrace DS competing in Chess, Museum visits and other intellectual activites.

Hmm. Not much advice, but sympathy My DH makes some sideways comments at times about DS and friends. I've heard "these kids will never make it in the real world", etc. Also, the same situation with disappointment in athletic skills w/out actually taking the time to help improve them. Sigh. I think a lot of it is just fear. They probably remember "geek" kids getting picked on and bullied in school, and don't want that for their sons. They may think: if their son is a jock, nobody will mess with him. I catch myself engaging in this thinking a lot, too. Hence, I make ds take martial arts, and encourage lots of pushups!!!

I think something that has helped a bit regarding physicality (if not true athleticism) is having them work on other manly projects together. Heavy landscaping, building, moving heavy rocks. As far as school goes: seeing results helps some menfolk. IE scores, impressive projects, accomplishments. Yes, they can be both strong and intellectual! Think of all those spy movies where the guy breaks into a sophisticated computer security system and then proceeds to beat up about a dozen guys. And finally, for the friends: have them over and spend time with them. He may be surprised at how fun it can be to hang out with "geeks" !

I just came across this thread again. DH just commented last night about how DS is so much more accepted by peer at gifted school compared to his previous regular school. We have had lots of playdates this summer and DH has seen the difference.



I love that!!!!!

I think we all know that geeks have a much more positive outlook for success in their lives than most high school athletic record breakers. Typically no one cares to watch you perform athletic feats unless you're among the best in the nation. If no one cares to watch you, then there's no money in it because athletics doesn't accomplish anything of value. For example, if we really wanted basket balls to travel through hoops repeatedly, we'd build a machine to do it. Of course, playing athletics does have a positive effect on the participants who learn cooperation, discipline, and improve their health.


I want to give a warning that the vast majority of martial arts programs wont do much to help a student overcome bullying. There can be a placebo effect of increasing confidence, but otherwise, most martial arts are worse than worthless at helping someone in a confrontation. The best thing to do is to avoid any confrontation, of course, as even "winners" can end up in the hospital with broken hands, for instance. Also, suspension from school doesn't look good on your record.

You didn't mention which martial art your son is taking, but the most useful art for dealing with a single attacker is brazilian jiu jitsu, and it doesn't require much violence, as a practitioner can most likely apply a choke hold to an attacker, and render them safely unconscious without striking them at all. Famous brazilian jiu jitsu practitioners who partake in mixed martial arts include Royce Gracie, Roger Gracie, Ant�nio Rodrigo Nogueira, Fabricio Werdum, and Ronaldo Souza.

Alternatively, if the bullies are working in packs, a different approach is necessary. In this case, Muay Thai, kick boxing, shotokan karate, and kyokushin karate are the best alternatives. Famous Muay Thai practitioners in mixed martial arts include Anderson Silva, Maur�cio Rua, and Jos� Aldo. Famous kick boxers include Mirko Filipovic, Alistair Overeem, and Chuck Liddell. Lyoto Machida has had success with shotokan karate, and Georges St-Pierre started in kyokushin karate.

Your typical local karate or tae kwon do dojo is not a good place to learn how to fight.

This might be a good point to start a new thread on bullying and martial arts, since it has the potential to swamp the original topic.

Whenever I am tempted to make a prediction about a student making it in the real world, I remember our school psychologist who told my mom that my older sister would probably drop out of high school. My sister is not only a medical doctor, she's in charge of a radiology residency program.

And she did not make the cut for the gifted program in our middle school, btw

This joke always makes kids think and I use it when I hear kids making geek comments. They all know who Bill Gates is.

What do you call a geek when he is forty?

Boss.


Precisely. The parent has to step forward and make this happen.

Its very easy to be both athletic and a geek. Dad needs to step up to the plate.

be careful with this. some kids are just not into it or cut out for it. if the child is pushed into athletics and can't perform and/or just doesn't enjoy it there may be bigger probs down the road. you don't want the child to feel like he's letting dad down because he just isn't the little slugger pops always dreamed about. bad news.

DH is not athletic but we always saw a benefit in doing something physical or with a team. Team sports did NOT work! Track was great. Now he does Tae Kwon Do, don't worry - it's not to fend off attackers just for fun, self-confidence and discipline. He LOVES it and has become stronger and more confident and aware of himself physically.

My dad was looking for the little slugger grandkid and took a few years to really understand where DS is coming from. Now he fully supports and cheers on whatever it is DS does








[/quote]

[/quote]

Our issue is DH gets into battle w/DS with sports. DH really could help him, as he is talented in this area, but DH needs help with approach. DH is just too critical and hasn't yet learned another way. They do well skiing together but not so good with baseball, basketball and soccer.

I remember being stuffed into a baseball team for 6 years when I was younger.

The first 4 years were horrible. The last two were much better once I actually learned how to hit the ball.

My primary problem ended up being that I have absolutely no speed. I'm basically 100% endurance with only fair coordination. Not a good combo for anything but distance running. Skiing was ok for me, too.

My husband's attitude changed. He played football in the army. We have a lot of relatives whose kids play football and are good enough to get football scholarships. When I was pregnant with my son my husband and I picked out a name that we thought sounded like a good name for a football player. My husband was so ready to teach him all about sports, fishing, camping, fixing cars, working in the yard, all kinds of guy things they could do together.

But when our son was being born and that monitor showed that his heart rate slowed way down and then stopped we both forgot about any of that and just prayed that our son would live. When he started reading at two and talking a lot we were very very happy that his mild disabilities only affected him physically and there was a chance he would get better, but it was very unlikely that he would be able to do sports.

Thirteen years later he is getting lead roles in musical theater and doing well in spite of his mostly invisible disabilities. Because he loves to read about history, science, psychology, sociology, music, classic literature, technology, and is good with computers and video games, he looks, talks and acts like a geek but his dad is very proud of him.

Even though we are both very proud of him, it is not socially acceptable to be a geek where we live and this is hard to live with sometimes. One of the writers for our local paper wrote about this problem and said when she was in high school in our small town the band, choir and drama students felt like outcasts even in their own families. My son says he felt shunned by people in our community. The writer for the newspaper said she interviewed some people in our town who said they were very interested in the arts, but did not dare publicly explore them.

One family member recently posted something about Justin Bieber, saying he was "gay" and he said you could tell just by looking at him. Some family members think this about any boy who sings and dances. The family member who made the inappropriate comment is almost 40 years old. They use that word "gay" a lot here.