Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Wow, great argument, not all children are gifted

I just found this blog and didn't find any other posts on it. This post in particular, No! For the last time, every child is NOT gifted!, articulates so clearly the argument so many of us have to make on a regular basis when we advocate for our children. I found it helpful and reassuring.

Most of the article I agree with, except for the 100% nature instead of nurture. There certainly is both a nature and nurture element to giftedness. As annoying as it is to hear someone claim that giftedness is all nurture, it is equally annoying to hear that nurture has nothing to do with the phenomenon. Now, certainly if you took an absolute perfect identical twin(as identical as possible at the moment of birth) and put them into two different houses that were not grossly negligent, and had no major medical catastrophies you would not get have a case of one with a 100 IQ and one with 150 IQ. However I think it would be entirely possible within 2 loving homes with different food, and enrichment have one with a 125 IQ and one with a 135 IQ. Therefore one twin would be identified as gifted while the other would not.

That said I agree with the fact that it is a shame that people scoff at advanced children, and assume that they must have been the result of a hothouse environment. I know that I personally push physical play more than academics, but my dd 2 1/2 excels at both academics and physical activities. She pushes herself at academics while I encourage physical play. Yet, I have suffered the comments that assume that I must have a hothouse child.

All things said I think it is a very good article. It does point some very real injustices.

Great blog. She makes a lot of good points in her posts.

I love that post.

Celi's blog is a wonderful blog with lots of great posts. This topic is a particularly important one, though. So many people assume that giftedness is something that anyone can achieve, and confuse being gifted with the fact that every child is a "gift" to his or her parents.
Gail www.giftedchallenges.com

You nailed it! This is exactly where the confusion lies. Which is why many people believe that every child is gifted in some way.

Thanks, Ashley. The term "gifted" is so controversial because it fuels so much envy and suspicion among those who don't have an identified child. Unfortunately, books like Gladwell's and others incite further controversy by creating an impression that anyone can be gifted if they just work hard enough. Families without a gifted child also don't understand the many struggles gifted children face and think it's all so easy!
Gail www.giftedchallenges.com

I must admit while I totally agree not all children are gifted I am not a big fan of this site. Among other things I find the author tends to repeat the same points over and over again, never really advancing. What she does say tends to be dogmatic and often self-pitying in the other direction. Gifted kids must be X,Y, and Z (based on her mostly anecdotal experiences with her son) Blanket statements like the "They are emotionally very sensitive.", "They have a strong sense of right and wrong." etc. There's no real exploration of the diversity of "giftedness".

What I find most troubling is that she casually violates her teenage son's privacy. Perhaps she cleared eveything with him, but the site is just full of sensitive details and photos and it makes me very uncomfortable thinking about what happens when his peers can click through and read the same material.

All people have gifts. Not all gifts are rare intellectual profiles in the top 2% of the population, the general working definition of intellectually gifted. Giftedness may exist separate from achievement.

Some children are kinesthetically gifted, musically gifted, or creatively/artistically gifted, as evidenced by achievement. Schools may invite them to try-out for possible participation in highly selective programs including varsity sports, travelling choir, 1st chair orchestra/band, lead roles in school plays, and opportunities to compete for top awards in art, Destination Imagination, Lego/Robotics, and Rube Goldberg, to name a few.

Some children are academically gifted, high achievers of average IQ, learning well those things which others tend to place before them, at the pace determined by others. The approaches which may be most effective in supporting these students to develop their potential may be quite different than the approaches most helpful in supporting the development of intellectually gifted pupils (cheetahs) in reaching their potential (as mentioned in the study in this thread).

Some may say that the encouragement to practice was an achievement-based idea of reaching one's potential or level of mastery, rather than developing a gifted intellectual profile. Others may say the ideas conflate giftedness with achievement creating a chicken-or-egg dilemma.

Similar things have been said about mindset, however one aspect or application of mindset is that gifted kids may stop taking appropriate risks in order to always be seen as "right" or "smart" or "making things look easy" and never be seen as "wrong" or "struggling" or "experiencing difficulty" or "expending effort" (as though effort was the antonym of gifted), and this may work against gifted kiddos as a fixed mindset and lack of resilience.

The article at this recent thread addresses a few highlights of differences between intellectually gifted children and high-achieving children of average IQ, who may often be combined together in classrooms for efficiency or economy of scale.

Thanks, Ben, I agree.

In particular, I found the post describing details about her son's underachievement to be in bad taste. Way too much information about someone other than the author who has to live with the consequences of what she wrote. He looked pretty young in those photos, and to me, it was too much.


TBH, I also fatigue of the line about how hard it is to be really smart. Yeah, I don't always connect with everyone, and there are other frustrations, but honestly...emphasizing this idea as though being really smart makes life so incredibly tough is a bit like a multimillionaire complaining about hard it is to keep track of all his money.

I can see that other people could see this phrase as example of a clueless person whinging about something that's basically a nice problem to have. You think it's hard being wealthy? Try poverty. You think it's hard being smart? Try being dumb.

Agreed.

My DD may have some unusual problems related to her asynchronous development, but there is little doubt that some of those "problems" are more about her relative rarity, and not really about "how much it sucks to be PG."


Which-- it doesn't. At least not until you crash into elements of the world that can't flex to meet you (at all).

Gifted children are still just children. They don't have much power and they are often treated unfairly.

Look again at the quote; she specifically cited how hard it is to be a gifted adult.

I'm grateful there are blogs out there like this, but.... I actually find them really depressing. As someone starting out on this journey all I keep seeing is doom and gloom, how my kid is destined to be a miserable out cast etc. I just can't believe it for her sake. I know she will have some social issues but I want to read positive stories about how people have got their kids to be successful and happy!

Just wanted to respond to Indigo's comments about mindset. I completely agree that many gifted individuals are underachievers, afraid to take risks, and have never learned to challenge themselves. Many never reach their potential because they have never learned HOW to push themselves. My concern with Gladwell is that his perspective has implied that, gee, everyone can be gifted if they just try hard enough. It disregards the concept of aptitude and innate ability as essential in the equation, but also sets up a lot of people for failure.

I do agree that gifted kids benefit from an environment where they will be encouraged to take risks and learn to tolerate failure.

Gail www.giftedchallenges.com

For an interesting critique of Gladwell and others, read James Delisle's latest book, The Dumbing Down of America.

There is no doubt that practise and effort and mental attitude are important to success but at the end of the day, innate ability also plays a role. I could train all day but I doubt I could beat Usain Bolt. How do I know (apart from the fact that running is not my strength)? There are talented athletes who train hard daily with excellent coaches, who can't beat Usain Bolt.

Practise will make anyone better, it might even make you quite good, but it won't make you gifted, as an athlete, as a musician or academically.

Agreed.While innate ability is a factor in ultimate level of achievement, there is much study and debate as to whether it is the largest factor or determining factor in one's achievements. Other factors under scrutiny of research include opportunity, mindset, SES, ethnic/cultural disposition toward achievement, personality. Coming full circle with the reasoning that achievement can be examined to retroactively declare the existence of giftedness, is a point used to justify hothousing and tiger parenting... essentially condoning these practices as a means to hone what can later, in retrospect, be dubbed innate giftedness. Possibly this is part of the slippery slope toward declaring that everyone is gifted: Each person finds a niche and a measure of success in life which then "proves" they were gifted all along? Possibly one's measure of success indicates the presence of other propelling factors such as opportunity, growth mindset, financial backing, environments/relationships supportive of achievement, and a buoyant/resilient personality, which took the person much farther than could have been predicted by any one factor (including intellectually gifted level of IQ) alone? Some may say it sets a lot of people up to be among the high achievers of average IQ, who outnumber gifted kids and fill the extra seats in "gifted" classes providing sufficient headcount so that classes will be held (as mentioned in the study in this thread):
There is a vast difference between identifying a person as gifted and identifying a person as selected for a gifted program.

Agreed, i could train all day at opera and may teach a level of competence, but i would never be a great opera singer and i would not insult great opera singers by claiming i could. I am.also 164 cm and dumpy so all the practice and good Lindsey in the world is going to turn me in to a sprinter or a dancer. I am quite happy to admire and support those who are gifted in those areas.

It can seem like doom and gloom at times, but there are great stories out there as well. Keep with it and you'll find your own. This last summer our DD13 went to JHU-CTY summer camp for the first time. She went expecting to enjoy the academics (and she did), but came back ecstatic at having met a camp full of kids like her. All of a sudden, she was no longer a nerdy outlier but one of dozens of "normal" kids.
Best of luck,
--S.F.

For those just starting out, you may wish to prepare with a solid foundation for creating your family's own positive story over the next decade or so, by dedicating time now to such efforts as:
1) reading all you can about advocacy
2) keeping records at home, possibly in a ring binder tabbed by year. Depending upon your child and your family's unique circumstances, this might contain such things as: reading lists, test scores, independent projects, enrichment activities, outside classes, documentation of any meetings with the school, etc.

I understand where you are coming from, but here are a few points to consider:

First, advocacy and the willingness to communicate publicly about a situation sort of implies that something went wrong... that there was a struggle. If DD's grade school had just said "sure, let's skip her a grade and talk about enriching her language arts... " I may never have started looking for help and, well, griping about how terrible things were. So blogs and lists like this kind of self select for people who have to fight the system or are dealing with issues.

Second, there seems to be an arc where the disconnect is greater when the kids are younger. They are more asynchronous in grade school. Their tiny bodies, motor skills development, and lack of life experience, make dealing with a powerful intellect more challenging. This is stressful for them and others around them. Often by the time kids get into middle / high school things are going more smoothly (or the kid has completely checked out, in which case the parents are dealing with different issues). There's a thread on this very board someplace about where all the parents of older kids go. So again you may not hear about success stories.

Third, being different from other people can cause social disconnect. But being different is also not a one-way ticket to "miserable outcast"-ville. Many people with learning or physical disabilities would argue strenuously against this position. I don't want my child defined by how other people relate to her. Sure, there are people who don't get her and react in ways that aren't kind or helpful. But many more are willing to relate to her in a positive way. The happier she is with who she is and where she's at, the better the social situation gets.

Here's a story for you: DD11 was unhappy and stressed out by first grade. So we advocated. But when we couldn't change the system, we left it. And now she's both intellectually stimulated and socially connected. Her issues are of normal scope and intensity for her age (hormones, motivation, friend drama). She's generally a happy well-adjusted girl.

Mahagogo, I think there are far more positive stories than negative outcomes - the thing is, you most likely find more of the negative-sounding stories online because for the most part, families and children who are doing well are simply out in the world doing well, enjoying life, not needing support. I can tell you that I've never once thought of anything close to doom and gloom as related to my children's intellectual gifts. And my kids have challenges too (2e) - yet even with that, I've never felt "doom and gloom" loomed anywhere in their lives. They've had a great childhood so far and I have every reason to believe they will go forward to have happy adult lives, spending them in a way that they want and choose to.

I quoted SFrog too because my older ds just had the same experience with a summer CTY camp - he's 14, and it was his first. Part of the reason we sent him was reading the reviews of students who'd attended in the past, plus one personal parent first-hand account locally who said her dd found friends-for-life there. DS loved it. That doesn't mean CTY is for everyone, or that any other program is for everyone - I just offered that up as one example of what we *have* found - there actually is a *lot* out there for children who are high ability. And it's not all labelled "high ability" or limited to high ability kids. One of my ds' favorite activities is helping students with Special Olympics. He's also had classes with kids who were nowhere near gifted but still enjoyed them because the subject matter was interesting or the teacher was amazing or whatever. He has friends. People meet him and like him. He's pretty danged normal and not-so-noticable in a crowd. He's been blessed with an amazingly capable brain, but he's also been blessed with a wonderfully empathetic personality and I think that in the long run that will mean more in his life than the high-power brain cells.

I'll also add that, maybe I'm just persnickety about this, but fwiw I personally feel that it's lame to complain about being a high ability intellectual. There are things in life that present true challenges that can be extremely difficult to cope with, depending upon a person's circumstance - health issues, mental health issues, physical disabilities, poverty, lack of access to education etc. Those are things that a person might truly struggle with or need to worry about in a big way or might be huge hurdles to overcome. High IQ is an asset - and what a person does with it is what counts.

As a parent you may have to advocate harder than you'd anticipated or think outside the box for schooling etc - and you might not find the ideal answers or situation - but your child is still going to be ok and most likely be happy. And that's something to be optimistic about - not doom and gloom!

polarbear, stepping off my soapbox

In addition to what's already been mentioned about self-selection, one should also remember the old adages about tragedy selling newspapers. When we were children, my parents actually fielded inquiries from some news organizations hoping to put out stories on one of us. When it became clear that this child was rather normal overall (other than intellectual giftedness) and probably more psychologically-stable than average, the interview interest cooled quickly.

I will say that there has been some progress in this area, in the decades since.

As to this type of blog: those who ascribe their suffering to giftedness will feel validated, those who feel negatively about giftedness will feel the kind of comfort that comes from the downfall of the wealthy or famous, and those who are happy and contented probably won't pay any attention to them.

This.We did this. We advocated to the hilt, even hired an advocate, and tried our best. But our public school just is not set up to accommodate kids who are " ahead" of the others in early elementary, even though they try to differentiate. Not that they don't try - they just can't do it.


Now they are in a private school which they LOVE. I have great hopes that it will work out. ( It sounds like it should, anyway.) Right now I'm happy because my twins are happy about going to school, which is a big improvement from this point in first grade.


Edited to add - In preschool they were happy. And they loved the "specials" in their old school, and recess. They had friends, and were not "maladjusted" socially. It was purely academics that caused problems for us.

edited again because there was too much detail!

This (right back at you). And while the mismatch for us was academic, it started to make DD feel like a misfit and wrong and different in a bad way. And that was starting to affect her socially, when she has always been extremely socially skilled and happy, with lots of healthy friendships and interests.

Now she's happy academically and all the social stuff fell back into place. Our biggest worry now is that all the chatting and texting with her friends will distract her too much from homework -- a perfectly normal worry that we are happy to have.

wow - I feel I really touched a nerve with my comments. Please know I wasn't trying to minimise anyone's experience, or be especially dim (although I am often commenting at 2am after waking for the wee one). Personally I had a horrible experience with school I have never recovered from and I have already withdrawn DD from preschool because of gifted issues, I'm also really struggling with navigating the starting school process.

I did type out a very long response to explain where I was coming from but it wasn't in any way eloquent.

I just want to say I get it - I understand the self selection etc, I feel like a pregnant woman who keeps coming across every hideous birth story around and then later on hears all the positive ones no one bothered sharing.

Thanks in particular to aeh and polar bear - I appreciate your perspectives

I always love reading polar bears post.

Like others have said out local elementary school did what they could, and did a good job. They were just not able to accommodate. We ended up in a gifted private middle school 45th thru 8th grade.

Our son was happy and might have stayed happy breezing through but we knew he needed some challenge along with instruction.