Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Do You Brag (Or Do Your Friends Think You Do?)

Okay, I guess I wasn't clear.

The schools in any US state I've ever lived in have used the term "special ed" to describe kids who were slower learners.

I checked the Wikipedia. Here's what it says:


I was making my point in the context of this thread, especially in the case of statements being taken as bragging. I could see that saying, "My child is in special ed" or "I have a special needs child" could be taken as veiled bragging or as an attempt to make a cognitively wealthy child appear to have the same very difficult challenges as kids who are cognitively poor and traditionally labelled as special ed. To me, this just seems a bit insensitive.


"My child needs special education. It's so difficult."

"Yes, us too. It's difficult, and school is a real challenge for some kids. Where does she go to school?"

"Oh...the magnet school for highly gifted kids."

cf

"We really need some help with financial planning. It's so difficult."

"Yes, us too. Costs are high and it can be a real challenge for some families. Is this for paying for college?"

"Oh...we need to set up a trust fund for our kids."

I know that gifted kids face problems. But they just aren't in the same league as someone with a significant (or even mild) developmental disorder.

I was thinking more about the education definition of "special education needs",because school is a large chunk of your life, not what to tell the neighbors. I wouldn't try to get sympathy from the neighbors for having a gifted kid. That's silly.
Although your mention that someone online could "make an example" of your mommy blog has had me thinking for days. I don't want to be made an example of. But it seems like so many moms have mommy blogs. I'm probably going to quit thinking about it soon. The thought has got some airtime in my head. The Well Trained Mind forum has so many moms that have a blog. Hopefully that ping pong ball will pop out of my ear soon because I'm tired of watching it go back and forth.
Re-reading to find out how this thread got from there to here. @colinsmum, googled it,-that's those people's own immediate families. Will read more tomorrow. Now I want to know how this thread got from there to here.

Just on the sports thing, I think the difference between talking positively about sport - or, say, musical - prowess compared to giftedness is that the effort for reward is obvious. Everyone knows that to be a great sports star or an outstanding musician requires a massive amount of effort. This is not so apparent with intelligence (I am not saying that honing intelligence in to something meaningful or useful doesn't require effort, just that it doesn't look like it requires effort and in fact you reap many benefits of intelligence without having to work at it).

Most people are quite happy to let the sports star spend their day in the gym, in the pool, on the track etc, etc. They have no interest in do those things themselves and so there's no threat. Same with music, dance, art, etc it's apparent how much effort is involved and most people simply aren't interested in dedicating that amount of effort to any task. So the fact that someone else wants to - and the fact that what is produced by sports stars etc is usually perceived to be of value by the broader community - that talent is viewed positively (this is my theory - happy to have holes found in it).

But if you're smarter than someone then that's much less quantifiable. You haven't put any effort in to being smarter, it's not clear what that actually means, there is no apparent broader value to your smartness (unless you're a Steve Jobs or a Bill Gates - ideally you will have flunked out of college) and frankly it's all a bit threatening. And with your smartness you want to do boring things like stick your head in a physics text book or study Greek mythology or - quick intake of breath - maths! Just for fun! That is just plain weird and probably unhealthy... (unlike sport - then you're a role model, given the obesity crisis and all...)

A gifted athlete has the same experience as a gifted student. It doesn't look like effort for them to hone it, because they have physical advantages that their competitors don't. And since playing sports is fun for them, they pursue it naturally.

It's only when a gifted athlete competes against other gifted athletes that effort begins to become a major factor. It's their spelling bee.

I second that. My DD is not a particularly gifted swimmer; she's probably the equivalent of "very bright." But that's enough advantage for her to be speeding through the leveled classes faster than the average kid, and she picks up on new strokes apparently effortlessly. She gets far more reward, with far less effort, than most of her classmates.

Btw, do you (all) actually find it to be true that it's more socially acceptable to announce sporting achievements than academic ones? Thinking about the communities I'm in, I don't think that's actually true, as such. I think what is true is that in many sports there are a lot more opportunities for children to share their enthusiasm in a way which is social and not individually competitive - and then it's socially OK to talk about your child having enjoyed such a thing. E.g. I think in my circles these would be fine:

"DS is really enjoying the football club at the moment" [assuming the football club is team oriented and not too good!]
"DD has joined the choir and loves it" [provided the choir doesn't have a famously tough audition to get in!]

while these would be dodgy:

"DD had a great time at the swimming gala" [sounds as though you're trying to set up a boast about how she won gold; you might get away with it if you continue "even though she came last in every race"!]
"DS did 100 pressups last night at home" [to some people, especially those with little knowledge of DS or pressups, this will sound like a request for "Wow".]

Now, if your child's enthusiasm is for maths, say, equivalents of the second group are easy to come by, but equivalents of the first group are pretty rare. Thinking about true things I could say about my DS, in the first group I can only think of

"DS is loving the school maths puzzle club this term" [I think this is OK, although there are people so insecure about maths that any positive mention of it seems like bragging]
"DS is really looking forward to the Science Festival" [see, it only happens once a year, so I have to put it that way; scraping the barrel here!]

whereas the second group contains a bunch of things I'll say, but only to my friends, or here, because they involve things he's done individually at home, or things that had an element of individual competition.

So you end up with fewer acceptable things you can say, but I don't think it's directly because of different acceptability of brags in the two areas; rather, it's because of the social normality or otherwise of getting together to do the two kinds of thing for fun.

Does that sound right to anyone, or are the really differences e.g. between US and UK conventions here?

I tend to agree. Some parent asked me if DD (not a good chess player) would be at the school chess tournament, and I said no, in part because she had a swim meet that same weekend. And that was clearly the wrong thing to say - I felt I had to immediately follow up with the details that it was an informal thing that the swim school did for fun, with no times kept and everyone getting a ribbon.

We have a colleague who talks about his kid's soccer talent, but it's clearly a parent-brag in a context where parent-brags are appropriate. None of us have similarly-aged, or similarly-interested kids, and it's brought up as the kind of thing you really can't share anywhere else, because it would be bragging.

I do agree.

IMO the difference is that academic skills are high stake for all kids, whereas sports is only that high stakes in *some* cases.

But I am 100% sure that the same sensitivities around "bragging" will show up if you put together a bunch of parents of kids involved in the same competitive sport. Isn't the insane sports parent its own stereotype?

It might be even worse in that context, because the competition is much more explicitly set up to have a winner and (many) loser(s).

I think it just depends on who you are with. I wouldn't hesitate to "brag" on my child's academic achievement at work, but I probably wouldn't in other situations.

Huh. I wouldn't worry at all about saying my kid was in a swim meet or chess tournament, given an appropriate social context. I have a friend whose child is competing statewide in gymnatsics and I don't expect her to act like it's not happening. I wouldn't say this, though: "DS did 100 pressups last night at home." Participation in a group event (that other parents might even want to know about for their kids) is small talk but random statements of accomplishments are sort of weird, IMO. I wouldn't say "DD went to the swim meet and won gold in 3 events!"