Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy External vs. Internal Motivation

I would not be alarmed. At this age, she is probably trying to figure out how she feels about it. Many gifted kids may be good at both things they enjoy and those they do not. In addition, there are so many things that influence them, including friends and parents, and it is hard to figure it all out.

I'm of two minds on this.

I. On the one hand, she could be down-playing her accomplishment, trying to say "it's not that big a deal." Reasons of this could be things like (a) it's not a "cool" activity so she doesn't want to admit to being thrilled by it; (b) it means a LOT to her. So much that it's personal and private and she doesn't want to be pushed on it or congratulated or anything that would require talking to somebody else about the accomplishment. FYI - this is my son. We learned very, very early that if we do typical parental congrats, he'll just say "that's a Mom-love statement," and he'll even drop it if we talk about it too much; (c) well - she's 12. Nearly anything could be going on in the head.

II. On the other hand, this could be a sort of accolade-grab that she actually does NOT care about for itself. Certainly there are many kids who do this. Usually this starts because the kids are pushed by parents into a laudatory activity they don't really have any passion for. But they're good kids and capable so they excel and win. Then that cycle repeats and accelerates with the sort of icky potential that HK discussed. And it's frankly selfish - though I don't think the kids usually realize they are being selfish. It's just a path of least resistance they fall onto.

So - sorting this out probably requires a chat with her. I'd want her to understand that if she is in the II space, she's probably giving into social pressure in a way that hurts herself and others. If she's in the I space, counsel her not to downplay her accomplishments. Gracefully accepting accolades is a skill, and she can follow-up with "but goodness I'd really rather talk about something else. Are you done with your Christmas shopping [or some such re-direct]."

In any event to her - congrats to her! I hope she has fun playing music with other accomplished musicians. It's a soaring feeling!
Sue

Not so much disillusioned as pragmatic. I have to say that in many ways I do not coddle DD and she has had to undertake undesirable tasks as part of the tasks of daily living with just such preparation (for real world) in mind.

Helping them strike a beneficial balance can be more difficult in some ways when they are already consciously weighing everything.

That's an excellent point, Puffin. It really is partly an issue of this particular love not being quite enough by itself and the particular price being high. She makes me buy her tons of pop music scores that she plays around with sporadically but 7 hours of rehearsal in a single day (with 45 minutes for lunch) to achieve a "perfect" performance from everyone felt wasteful to her.

I don't actively encourage cynicism but at the same time I don't discourage it either: some of her classmates are so clueless and still think the world revolves around them and that they can have something just because they want it. We have actually had a related conversation and neither I nor DD felt sorry for the students who did not get in for the simple reason that they did not possess talent and/or did not practice sufficiently. This is not a lottery situation nor a Ivy League admissions situation with crazy ratios. This is more akin to the question of whether GT classes should admit students who lack the requisite intelligence and/or high achievement just because they and/or their parents was very excited and really wanted to do it. Believe it or not there were actually students who apply to audition and somehow thought it was okay to audition WITHOUT mastering the assigned pieces. WTH? I am not talking about a crazy level of practicing/preparation - DD only practices a couple of hours a week total although she has some natural talent.

You bring up some important questions about motivation. I totally agree that motivation should not come solely from external recognition. In reality though, there are interactions of so many considerations that it can be difficult to tease apart all the tendrils.

Again, these are some important issues that you brought up. Thankfully (perhaps?), DD is not a wunderkind in music so this domain at least isn't a danger. For DD in any case, I don't think socially prescribed perfectionism or imposter syndrome are concerns at this point. It really helps that she has a brother who has higher ability in most of the traditional academic domains but that that she has received her own share of recognition for actual concrete accomplishments. I have never tried to spare her feelings from reality and as a result, she knows that she is one of the brightest in her school but that there are tons of people out there with higher ability. After all, even 0.1 % of one million is 1000 people. She also really gets it that high ability must intersect with effort to result in any worthwhile achievements.

You are absolutely right. I think that she was trying to figure out her own priorities and that the trade-off issue took center stage.

Good point - she is swayed by her peers although in this case, it is likely her speaking.

That is an apt analogy. It was a brief conversation and I didn't want to grill her so you are onto something regarding grey areas and the intertwining of external/internal motivation.