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

Once my son was old enough to take the College Board's SAT, (age 12) it helped my sidestep a lot of these uncomfortable sitautions. I just said - He took the SAT to try and test into his summer camp and scored a _______. He needs _______.
Once folks hear something that they can relate to as different, it got a little easier to ask for accomidations. Not really easy to get them, but much easier to ask.

The optimist's reading on our situation: DS9 has in some ways gotten a bye in both directions. Even in preschool, other children were excusing his extremely odd behavior (later diagnosed as Asperger's Syndrome) as due to being "smart" because it was obvious to all of them that he could do things they could not. Really-- even four-year-olds had theories about him, because he warranted explanation. He still gets a bye from peers sometimes for this reason; the "eccentric genius" idea really does let a person get away with a good bit of odd behavior.

But it is also true that we have rarely had to explicitly discuss "giftedness" (a word I pretty much never use) because it is so obvious that DS's needs are so extravagantly unusual due to his disability. In general I need to do much less bragging than excusing ("pardon us, he's a little autistic"). Lots of people know about his peculiar math placement, kids used to stop him in the halls to quiz him, but it appears to be just part and parcel of the larger oddness of the situation. Whether he's disappearing to special ed or gifted pullout, who can tell?

The pessimist's reading: in some ways, he's a walking stereotype of both giftedness and AS, and that can work against him in multiple ways as people make unwarranted assumptions. And it can mitigate against genuine understanding, though we've worked especially with peers in school to help kids understand where DS is coming from, to great effect.

The silver lining of DS being so easily misunderstood is that we have been ignored by some people in our community whom I would not enjoy spending time with anyway, whether they avoid us because he's unusual or because we are probably horrible parents to be raising such an odd child or because the comparison to their kids makes them feel funny, I don't know. Probably not the latter. Those who can tolerate difference appear to like us okay, and we do all we can to cultivate relationships with them.

We all try hard to maintain cordiality... which requires great care.

DeeDee

Edited to add (public service announcement): Most people with AS are within the average range of intelligence: the HG+ folks with AS are as much outliers in the autism community as they are in any other setting. It *is* a stereotype.

Oh, this is priceless. I am convinced many have thought the same of my parenting skills when they meet our youngest.


And you can thank Boston Legal for both bringing awareness to this particular diagnosis and for promoting the stereotype all at once.

I don't think I brag, and I hope that my acquaintances don't think so either. There's a great deal of actual bragging about giftedness, covering as far as I can tell the range of actual ability from slightly slow to "ultrabright", and it tends to make people touchy and feed misperceptions of bragging. It might be helpful to identify activities that qualify as intentional bragging, and ones that might be identified as bragging though that's not the intent.

I use the word "intentional" to include subconscious motivations. I know that this can involve some tricky introspection, but if one's motivation on any level, in dropping into the conversation some fun or illustrative detail about precocious little Johnny or Suzie, is to achieve any sort of advantage over the other person, it's intentional. People sometimes don't think about these things consciously when they're doing them, and might not find them easy to admit even to themselves if brought to their attention.

For example, I think that it might qualify as intentional bragging to:

· Engage in one-upmanship, e.g. to respond to some other parent's mention of something their child has done, dropping into the conversation unbidden that one's child did a similar thing earlier/faster/better/more (there could possibly be exemptions, such as a milestones thread or other context where such statements are invited from everyone, but a persistent pattern of one-upmanship might still qualify as bragging)
· State in any mention of one's child that she is highly/exceptionally/profoundly gifted, or scored or was identified as such, when it doesn't add to the conversation, especially in response to another parent's statement about their child's unqualified giftedness (this is highly context-dependent, and for example this website should be pretty much exempt from this rule due to its intended readership)
· Mention one's child's specific score on an intelligence or achievement test, outside of an appropriate context (again, any mention on this website is probably completely immune, except for the aggravating factor of one-upmanship)
· Assert with certainty that one's child is highly/exceptionally/profoundly gifted without knowing for sure, especially if announced in an inappropriate context; aggravating factors might include an exceptionally shaky basis, such as heavy reliance on general statements from friends, family, doctors in the delivery room, etc. (This behavior might qualify more as unintentional bragging or behavior seen as such, and like the rest is context-dependent, but is just about guaranteed to be taken as bragging due to perception that the parent is the type to be pushy about a child's abilities.)
· Use cliquish language, e.g. "these kids" ("Anyone with one of these kids knows...", "These kids face challenges normal kids just never face" {said while shaking one's head}, etc.)

I guess what we're finding out further from that nasty blog post, and which many or all of us knew already, is that just about any mention of our children's attributes or abilities can be taken as bragging. I still think it might be helpful to identify the sorts of things that might be seen as bragging, so that we can clearly consider whether to avoid them.

One behavior that I've seen personally as a possibility for unintentionally coming off as a braggart:

· Mentioning a child's abilities or issues in a way that might be seen as insincerely bashful or falsely modest, even if the mention occurs in a proper context; that is, it might be best to be direct and matter-of-fact, especially since there are some people you just can't please on this subject

It might be useful to classify coping mechanisms we use in discussions with others, either in choosing the context for discussions or in the way we discuss giftedness, with mention of whether we feel that these behaviors are helpful or unhelpful. We began this in a freeform way in the other thread. Some examples:

· Avoiding reasonable perceptions of bragging, such as by restricting statements about the giftedness of one's child to the proper context (and other corollaries from points on bragging above)
· Downplaying the abilities of one's child, in order to put the other at ease. This is probably unhelpful, at least if one goal is to be able to discuss one's child openly at some point in the relationship with the other, and may be damaging to a child if who overhears or learns of such downplaying statements.
· Accompanying statements about the high ability of one's child with honest statements about challenges facing one's child that are also part of the proper context (if entirely out of context, these could be seen as false modesty or bashfulness). If chosen well, such words can help the other to see the reality of one's situation at the same time as they may quiet suspicions of an intent to brag.
· Telegraphing a lack of intent to brag, such as by statements that one values most highly a child's kindness, courage, assiduousness, or other good attributes besides intelligence. This could backfire if seen as insincere.

It might also be helpful to identify clues that the time isn't right for discussions about one's special Johnny or Suzie. Some possibilities that occur to me off the cuff:

· General anti-bragging responsive or pre-emptive measures, such as mention of some other child who's more gifted than one's child, did things earlier/faster/better/more, etc. These statements should be carefully considered to determine whether the person is open and trying to find common ground for discussion, or whether one has overstepped the bounds of courtesy in that person's view. They should never be met with any attempt at escalation, as they are probably in the nature of self-defense (when one shouldn't want to hurt the other) or bragging (where escalation is bound to result in hurt feelings for someone).
· Defensive statements about the other's child, such as that she hasn't been given the same opportunities as Suzie, had a bad testing day, etc., which might indicate that one has made the other feel bad about her child.
· The use, even outside of a discussion about one's child, of some stereotype aimed at minimizing giftedness, such as that all gifted people lack common sense. This could be a hint that the other knows of one's child already and is trying to head off a discussion of giftedness at the pass, or is predisposed to hostility on the subject, or simply is extremely touchy about it. I don't generally treat such things as invitations to an education on the true nature of giftedness, perhaps with the exception of a statement by a friend.
· Attempts to change the subject, even if polite and made in the absence of other clues.

I don't think I brag in person. I may sometime be guilty of too many funny-cute-slightly braggy Facebook updates about my kids.

We have experienced a lot of uncomfortable conversations with friends since moving DD to the gifted magnet school, so I'm pretty careful about it at present.

I used to do a lot of "Well, yes, she can...but boy, does she ever...." I have stopped that. I realized that duh, kids listen, and it wasn't a good message. FTR, this was always in response to "Wow--she can ____?"

I still say, when testing comes up, "Well, testing is really imperfect...so hard to tell...some kids are late bloomers...some kids don't test well..." (I do believe all these things. But I may be a little too quick to mention them.)

You know, I just tell it like it is. At 14 months, people are always asking about milestones. And I just state whatever the truth is. I know my answers surprise people and they might not even always believe me. I'm sure sometimes people get annoyed by me, just like the mom on BabyCenter...

I did witness my mother bragging about DD's signing, unasked. I thought it was kind of weird, and I don't know if I ever do that in conversation. Maybe I do, I don't know.

I do know one mom on fb poked fun at my daughter because her daughter has started talking and mine can only sign (I guess I deserved it, though. I posted "Eek! ;)" on a picture where my best friends 7 month old and that girl's baby were eating Cheetos together. Pretty rude of me. My bf and I always talk about nutrition and food, but that girl doesn't know that.)

I am also guilty of the "funny-cute-slightly braggy Facebook updates", but so are all of my mama friends. All of us are always posting about how our child is sitting, walking or talking or whatever. It is exciting when that stuff happens! I'm sure our non-parent friends have our status updates blocked by now lol.

I'm pretty opinionated in real life and on Facebook and I know a few people have blocked my updates (including the Cheeto mama, a long time ago.) or unfriended me if they don't like what I say or do. Who cares? My real friends are excited with me and tend to be interested in what I'm interested in.

I've also noticed that a natural parenting group I'm a part of on there (we all had babies the same month) is full of very bright children. DD was ahead of most of them in some areas, but some of those babies are starting to talk in sentences at 14 months and DD just has signs. She is barely talking. (Starting to worry about her hearing, actually...) I have two other friends that I found out were gifted in school and they also have bright babies. I tend to talk with them the most.

In "real life", I hang out with a group of natural-minded parents, and many of them also seem to be very bright. I went on an outing the other day where I was having a normal small-talk conversation with another mama and she was quoting statistics to me about the average age of weaning worldwide <3. Awesome. I'm not 100% sure yet, but I think we may fit in pretty well with them all.

I'm never out to make anyone feel bad or inferior (though I do feel bad when I realize I've done that), but I won't apologize for who I am (and who my family is) or moderate my opinions to a large degree to please an audience.

If the subject is milestones (or whatever) and you're being honest and matter of fact, I don't thing it's bragging, though other people's insecurities may lead them to claim that it is.

I, too, thought that Slaton's post was pretty obnoxious and that it said a lot more about her than it did about other people. But to be fair, I've seen and heard some pretty stunningly vulgar bragging.

When I was in high school, one of our athletes was very, very talented and was scouted by universities all over the country. The school and his parents bragged about him to the point where the poor kid had no idea that there were better athletes than him out there. He couldn't handle not being number one when he got to college, and it took a terrible toll on him.

I've seen blogs that go on and on about my-profoundly-gifted-child, post constant updates about what the little darling has accomplished, and include real names and photographs. IMO, and others may disagree, this is vulgar and may end up damaging the child, who has no say about what mommy is revealing about him or her. And it may come back to haunt the child if others are put off by mommy's bragging. Plus, it makes things harder for other gifted kids and their parents, too.

So yes, Joyce Slaton's blog post was crass, but that doesn't mean that some people don't have a valid point about being tired of someone raving on and on about their gifted little darling.

This thread is ironically popular at the same time as "The Ultimate Bragging Thread", so I felt inspired to step inside and post an update.

All parents like to "brag" about what their child is doing because it is exciting and amazing to see children doing new things, seemingly out of nowhere. The difference, here, is that we're made to feel like we are bragging and being rude just because our kids do things earlier than most others. Which is why we have bragging threads on these forums lol.
But we all know this already.

Nobody gets offended or irritated if someone with a slower or disabled child gets excited when their child hits a milestone most other children that age have mastered... in fact, I don't think most people get irritated when anyone posts about their child doing things right on schedule.

I agree that Slaton's post definitely said more about her than anything else.

I have learned to talk about loose teeth and growth spurts rather than first words or spelling bees. It's funny though. My dd was accepted to a hard to get in ballet summer intesive in new York and people are so supportive. I'm amazed. These same people don't want to hear that she does all her homework on Monday. Even if they ask. I think it's because their own children don't rake ballet. I don't know.

Perhaps I'm wrong on this, but I think this is the thing.

A person can say anything they want, with well-hidden intentions or well-meaning intentions, or skewed intentions -- they could say it with the right words and right tone, or they could say it with the wrong (because they are imperfect) word and wrong tone. And they can say it at the right time or the wrong time. omg.

I'm always surprised when other people, later, after hearing someone say something, will then report (to other ppl) on what that person's intentions were. Like as if they know or could see into the heart.

Many of us *are* intuitive, so maybe we can get a "sense" of things. But will we ever really know? (Unless the person spelled out their intentions.) (I think only if you go back to the source and have an honest discussion with an accepting attitude of the other person. Not with a a lot of other possible attitudes that one can bring to a conversation.) But still -- this is assuming honesty. Also assuming a deep understanding of the self -- as we all have multiple layers/reasons/issues when we speak.

So... ... I challenge that it is up to the receiver/hearer to take what they want from what someone said.

Next time someone sounds like they are bragging and consistently does so, I suppose you can come to some conclusion about the person -- but only for a period of time -- as I do believe people can change.

And perhaps, you can offer a little bit of 'grace' and acknowledge them and reassure them that they are doing well.

sappy nappy