Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion What were you like as a child?

I'm new to the forum and I hope you don't mind I post about what it was like for me growing up. It's something that has always been on my mind but is resurfacing now that my 8 year old daughter tells me she thinks she is weird.

As a child I was definitely different, I could tell even at a young age. I grew up in a rural area where gifted wasn't really important but even if it had been I doubt I screamed gifted. Instead I was rather quirky. I can remember as far back as when I was 9 months old. I didn't talk til I was over the age of 4 and had to go to speech therapy. I had an obsession with school buses and I also was very fascinated with hospitals and the medical field. I started reading at a young age and never remember the process or struggle of learning how to read. I would also read anything I could get my hands on, encyclopedias, cereal boxes, Farmer's Almanac, history books, etc. My grandparents would always have a stack waiting when I would come to visit them. The library was my favorite place. When I was about 10 I checked out French dictionaries and French classical literature and began to teach myself French. Starting around age 8 I began drawing complex mazes and really enjoyed drawing geographical maps of imaginary countries, cities, oceans, etc.

In elementary school I was an average student and it wasn't until junior high and high school that my grades improved. I think it was because I was able to finally choose what I wanted to learn (geography, languages, art, and history primarily). I never needed to study for any tests and still managed to get A's in all my classes which for high school I didn't think too much of it but I was really surprised in college when other students didn't seem to get concepts right away like I did. I thought college was supposed to be challenging and it just wasn't for me, it was really no different than high school.

My thirst for knowledge hasn't ended, I still frequent the library to explore and learn about topics that interest me at the moment. I prefer conversations that have an intellectual or deeper meaning... philosophizing. I will think of things (make connections) and many times my friends/family will say they never looked at it that way or never even thought of those things (hard to explain but usually involving the bigger picture of life). I still can't seem to find satisfying friendships with others who share my interests of talking about real, meaningful subjects. My best friend is my sister because we seem to get each other. Although I would say she is probably the poster child for gifted. So we couldn't be more different from that aspect. LOL

I had never been a typical child and was many times called weird, even by my own family. I don't know what my IQ is (never tested) but I feel I can relate to others here because I have always felt different than my peers (still do) and never felt like I fit in.

Thanks for posting this. This resonated with my life experience as well. Where do you live?

I also thank you for posting this. I will be very curious to read responses. I was always weird. Never had any friends. After reading about traits of gifted kids - especially where the kids are never supported and end up as slackers, I realized that is me! I have been wondering lately what might have been. I might elaborate more later, but don't have time right now. Thanks again for posting this.

I think I've written about this elsewhere, but I was really extroverted and advanced but then the longer I was in school, the more introverted I became. I didn't understand why the other kids didn't know how to read or wouldn't follow the rules in games.

I was the only 3 or 4 year old actually doing the dance choreography in dance class. I read 700 books in 1st grade (or 2nd?) because the teacher would give us a little prize for every ten read and an actual book if we reached 100. No one came close to that.

My teacher didn't believe I was doing it, so she sent me home once with a few and I came back and recited the plots of all of them to her the next day.

I'd always read the entire reading book at the beginning of the year while I was waiting for everyone else to finish reading whatever story we were assigned. I did this even though I was in the advanced "A" reading group.

I wanted to stay in for recess and read, but they wouldn't let me. So I read under a tree instead. A little girl chased me around and hit me and I figured out she was just lonely so I negotiated with her and told her I'd be her friend and play with her once in awhile (1st grade?). So she stopped trying to hit me. And I played with her only when I couldn't get out of it. I usually only had one friend a year and didn't get along with a lot of kids.

In early elementary, I convinced an boy a few years older than me on my bus that I had a twin and I'd pretend to be a different girl every time. I think I even gave my twin a British accent. I don't know why on earth he'd believe me but I'm 99% sure he did.

I read under a desk the whole time and started writing a novel in 4th grade. I lost the notebook, though. My teacher in 4th grade called me "morbid" because I kept reading ghost stories. I remember always reading in my desk in 4th grade and she sometimes made me stop. I think she was mostly letting me get away with it because I had straight As, except in conduct. I always had Cs in conduct.

I didn't care about math, but somewhere in middle school I ran into something I didn't intuitively understand and I remember crying a lot to my dad. I think it was pre-algebra and I'd missed some days of school. After that I thought I was very stupid and just couldn't do math. I know now it isn't true. I learned it all easily and fast in college when I started from scratch.

I was tested for gifted and my mom thinks they kept me out because the district would have been required to hire a new teacher and open a second class if I got in. I got my scores back awhile ago and they were added together wrong, but either way, it seems I missed by a few points.

I was looking at some standardized test scores from 4th or 5th grade and I think they placed me at high school level for almost everything. I don't know if that is even accurate, though?

I started talking back to the teachers by 5th grade and when they opened up the advanced middle school classes to anyone with a B or better, I just gave up entirely. The promise of those classes (by my mom) was the only thing that kept me making A's during elementary. My mom kept telling me it would get better in middle school if I worked hard and made it into the highly selective class.

Anyway, there is my story. My husband and I are very set on homeschooling our child(ren) and my DD is hitting milestones much faster than either of us did.

Funny, I was just thinking about this earlier today before seeing this question. I was pretty oppositional ("C"s in conduct also would have described me!). But when I look at the environment I was in, it doesn't seem like a surprise. One of my stongest memories is taking a reading test in 4th grade and scoring at the 12th grade reading level. The teacher hauled me to the principal's office and accused me a cheating (teacher said, "I couldn't score that high on this test, so this kid MUST have stolen the answers."). Of course, I didn't cheat. That teacher loathed me, and I returned it. I spent most of my recess time in side that year writing this sentence: "I will learn to remember to raise my hand before I speak in class.". Argh. That was the worst year, but in general I remember school as just being so DULL because it was so slow.

I read for hours every day (including when I should have been doing schoolwork). And spent many hours practicing and perfecting my skills on my musical instrument. I actually don't remember doing homework hardly ever, even in high school. Don't think I had to. But I honestly did not have any clue that I was signficantly smarter than everyone else (I would have just said that I read faster, and was "weird") until I was a senior in high school and was told I had the highest SAT score in our county, then won an automatic scholarship for an ACT score in the top 150 in our state.

College at a top university was a shock to me, as I did not have good study skills. Really, I never did develop them, even there I was mostly able to get pretty good grades without a lot of self discipline. (which I have since developed -- have been thinking about going back for another degree, wondering how I would do now. Or would I just revert back to my old habits?)

I had one sister 5 years younger than me and one sister 9 years younger than me.  I had a lot expected of me.  One step dad from age 2.5-5yrs, and one step dad for a grand total of six months at 9 yrs. old.   We moved practically every 6 months.  I was in 13 different schools (from moving) by the 6th grade.   Always honor roll, always obedient, except when I was stubborn.  They stuck me babysitting a lot at the church because I was responsible and engaging.  The church, as a whole, was our whole life.  The Pentecostal church zealously teaches that Christians are alien on Earth, ambassadors, Citizens of Heaven and that knowledge, wisdom, and understanding are gifts from the Holy Spirit dwelling within you.  I would choose from 1 to 3 playmates  in my class every time we moved.   The Queen Bees would try to introduce themselves because I was something new every time I moved, I would ignore them and befriend the outcast because they still liked to PLAY and the socialites weren't very active that way.  (climbing trees, etc).   
My mom tried her best, kept us off welfare, kept us together, kept us in church, sheltered us.  You do the best you can with what you know at the time, right!

Glad to hear I'm not alone I live in Colorado.

I can see how that can happen. My biggest problem was I would be determined to learn something or accomplish something and I would do it (i.e. teaching myself French, or learning to play an instrument). I would live, sleep, breathe, whatever it is at the moment that interested me until I mastered it, got bored, and then I'd quit and move on to something else. Looking back I really wish I would have followed through more. So I too wonder what might have been.

You reminded me of something... I too would read the entire reading textbook in advance in school. I also would lock myself in my room and read for hours. My mom always said I was in my own 'little world' and used books as a way to bribe me or punish me. I would spend hours in the library looking up stuff, I wish I had grown up with google.

Another weird thing I would do while in college is I would buy textbooks at the college bookstore that weren't for my particular classes but interested me. Textbooks on psychology, international relations, political science, etc...


Reminds me of when I convinced my sister I was adopted and lived in an orphanage like in the movie "Annie"... lol

I wonder this too. I've been contemplating going back to school and getting a different degree but worry about being much older and out of school for so long. I also never really developed good study skills and how that may hinder me now that I have been out of school for 12 years.