Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Were you a "smart kid?"

I posted a summary here. It just scratches the surface.

http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/18674/My_Recollections#Post18674

Since posting the above, I found out that my DW skipped first grade and that she won a lot of awards in middle school. She and her dad are have total recall of what they hear and read respectively.

How will it affect our parenting?

I think a lot of parents want to not repeat the "mistakes" their parents made. Both DW and I have discussed what we liked and did not like about our parents and we have decided to do what is best for our son rather than react to our childhood hangups.

While the GT side of things adds an extra dimension, but beyond putting our son in the right environment for him to be intellectually and spiritually challenged, GT does not change the need for a moral education and the need to hold him to high standards in his conduct.

As far as the impact of being GT upon raising a GT kid, the biggest impact is knowing enough to be able to learn with him and to know what he does not know, but would enjoy learning - assuming his interests turn out to be the same, and not having to default to the school system or others in selecting his curriculum and educational trajectory.

Yes that was me, out in left field... I was very much in my own world. I don't remember much about the school curriculum. It was so easy it didn't really register with me. I remember some flashes of insight. Those were always internal experiences no one knew I was having. I also remember playing with the focus of my eyes as I stared at the blackboard. It didn't occur to me that I was smart because I was never able to figure out what to say to kids who talked to me. They thought I was some kind of freak and told me I was stupid. I believed them because it didn't occur to me that they would have any reason to lie. I pretty much lived in my imaginary world of books, even when I was just walking around. Sometimes, I wouldn't be seeing reality and I would walk into a pole or something. Other times, I would come to and realize that I had walked a long way on autopilot.

Occasionally, something I was obsessed with would catch the interest of kids around me. I remember collecting the little cone shaped caps from the buds of eucalyptus trees. I was fascinated by the perfect cone shape and how they could nest inside each other. Other kids started collecting them, too, and it became some kind of weird fad.

At home, I spent a lot of time up in trees or on top of the swing set where I was out of reach and could watch the other kids from above. I often pretended I was a castaway on an island.

Yup, I was a smart kid. I read early and thanks to my mom, I was IDd using the old Stanford-Binet at age 4. I was skipped 2 grades in reading starting in K.

I was the classic teacher's pet perfectionist. I was bossy and uptight. A real goodie two-shoes. Control was very important to me, I suspect because I was not being sufficiently challenged in school. That perfectionism and lack of challenge bit me in the rear in high school when I got a B+ in Advanced Math and was ready to slit my wrists over it. *sigh* I'm glad to have all that behind me. Life is a lot more fun as an adult.

I did always have friends, but that's probably because I was pretty lucky in a couple of ways:

1) I was in a grade that just happened to have quite a lot of GT kids. I was definitely one of the smartest kids in my class--for better or worse--but being smart wasn't a bad thing because there were enough of us that it was seen as pretty normal.

2) In addition to my friends in my grade, I also had friends who were 1 and 2 grades ahead of me because of the subject skip and my involvement in lots of extracurriculars. (That was how my parents kept my sister and me challenged: sports, GT enrichment classes, Girl Scouts, art classes, French classes, church youth group, church volleyball, library classes, etc.) That broad friendship pool was pretty great for me. I never felt "stuck" with kids my own age if they didn't suit me. My whole school career, I always had lots of older friends who accepted me without issue.

I was never "popular," just reasonably well-liked and hard to pigeonhole because of all the stuff I was in. I laugh at how long my list of activities was in my senior yearbook--I had the longest list in the class! Everything from sports to drama club to academic competitions to student government. Just ridiculous! And since I was a bit of a chameleon, I fit in okay everywhere. I just never really felt like myself in high school. I only have one truly lifelong friend with whom I stay in touch regularly. I enjoy Facebook and my reunions more than I thought I would, and I talk to everyone (unlike a lot of people there), but I only invited a handful of school friends to my wedding. I always did my best to fit in, but I never felt like I FIT, if you know what I mean.

And for the record, DH was a GT kid, too. He went down the rebel track in high school, though. We laugh because we both wound up at the same basic place through VERY different paths! I wouldn't have even considered dating him in high school, as tightly wound as I was! And he was a burnout, so even if he would have made a play for me, he would have held out no hope of success with me.

Funny how life works out.

These are great stories! I didn't have friends in grade school either, the encyclopedia comments were in high school.
I figure I didn't feel too bad in elementary because I thought the pariah status was due to having less money than most other kids/families - probably not really the case but I guess I was lucky I could blame it on that. I do remember asking mom a few times about some of the snubbing, and sometimes she would say that the kids were probably just jealous. Probably not jealous of us being poor, right? hmm.

Maybe this should be a diff. thread, but what about your parents? Were they gt in your opinion? Did this seem to affect how you were raised/schooled?
I clearly remember mom stating she was in private school for a while as a kid, got switched to public and hated it. She was delighted to go back to private school and she never, despite plenty of reasons, never sent any of us to public - all 7 kids, all 12 years, plus most of us ended up in private college! Whew.
Dear dad was clearly an egghead; id'd early on as retarded by some great teacher. he was bilingual, ukrainian and english and apparently his english writing wasn't up to snuff in 2nd grade. Later went on to a masters in electrical engineering, although chemistry was his first love. he had asthma and couldn't take the fumes.
Not a lot of (verbal) input from him on the education front except to go along with moms recommendations for private school come hell or high water.
The one major thing I remember from him is he actually cried when he found out that one of my sisters didnt get accepted to the college most of us had gone to or were planning on attending. Mom of course just calmly picked up the phone and spoke with the head of the school and explained how sis would do just fine since everyone else in my fam. had - my sis is one of those people who see numbers with color and gender, etc. Does fantastic outside the box & with numbers. The head of the college gave her a shot and she did just fine in college - weird college, of course!
Mom really had the gift of blarney and the balls to use it. Probably where all that tuition money came from! She was also always talking about problem solving - giving us strategies for solving math probs in our heads or relating stories of figuring a way out of a seemingly no-win situation. She just thought that was fun stuff to talk about.

SO...parents were different too...

I think I was lucky in some respects--I went to gifted magnet middle and high schools (amazing for now, much less way-back-when!). My high school friends (who all ranked single digits in class of >400 at the gifted magnet HS) and I had lively discussions about life, philosophy, books...though we grew apart a few yrs after we went away for college.

My mom & dad were only children, intellectuals, & loners who had trouble forming relationships. My sisters were/are HG as well.

I don't know if I've thought out a strategy for my kids to avoid pitfalls I experienced other than encouraging them. Actually, the older I get, the more I seem to channel my mom. At least I don't have the stuff-hoarding traits dad has...it's on the level of mental illness.

I was a "smart kid" as well. Never knew my exact IQ score since most of the scores I still have came from the standardized testings and those don't give IQ scores.

I always found school easy--and confusing in the early grades. I couldn't understand why the other kids didn't know the answers. It was very hard for me to be the only one raising my hand all the time. I was one of the youngest due to moving across states where the cut-off was Dec 1st to September 30th.

I read at the age of 4, was great at math and memorizing numbers. My childhood parlor trick was to memorize family, friends and relatives social security numbers and then recite it back to then the next time I saw them. Luckily I grew out of that one early--I think people would be afraid to give me that information now.

As far as friendships go, I had some but usually it was a two close friends. I think most people found me to be an acquaintance. Most days after school I would read, play on my computer, or as I got older work a part time job. I still have some mild social anxiety in large groups that I know was affecting me back in the school days as well. I was happy for the most part though. I loved my books and fantasy world. It kept me out of trouble.

DH, on the other hand, struggled in school. He is bilingual and reading and writing are really not his strong points. I would say he falls into the average student range.

Does this affect our parenting--absolutely. I don't want my children to go through school thinking everything is too easy--I want them to have some challenge. When I got to college--it was a wake up call for me in some aspects. Finally teachers expected more of me. It was wonderful.

Now with all that being said, I am debating taking the Mensa adult qualifying test. I am curious if I would get in. Has anybody done it?

My dad was definitely GT. No question. He was a math whiz from a very young age, and he wound up an engineer. I am definitely his kid. Even though I went the English path instead of the math one, I am all about logic. Dad and I disagree on politics, but we have wonderful, interesting discussions about WHY we disagree, and often we find that we have similar views at the heart, but he values one aspect of the issue slightly more, while I value another aspect, and that puts us on just opposite sides of the political divide. But we never have heated debates. Just interesting conversations. When does anyone ever have that with a parent about politics when they disagree?

It's pretty cool.

My mom...I really can't say for sure if she's GT or not. She is all emotion, so if she's GT, it's a very different sort of GTness. She is really creative, a doer, so my gut instinct is to say that she is GT. But she thinks about things SO VERY DIFFERENTLY (!!!) than I do that I'm not sure. We have a very hard time communicating. She doesn't understand logic, which makes her seem to me to be not GT. How can anyone not understand logic? So things that seem simple to me are absolutely incomprehensible to her. But then again, she has these great, creative approaches to the projects she takes on that seems to say that she is GT. Is that because she's not GT or because she has a different personality type and a different, more creative, less analytical sort of GTness? I really don't know.

Now that I'm writing about it, I wonder if the problem I have with IDing her as GT isn't the same problem I have with IDing my DS4 as GT or no. Both look very different from the rest of us in the family, both are highly emotional and tend to be artistic rather than logical. Hmmm...


Did my parents' GTness (or not) affect my educational experience?

Yes. My mom thought I was God's gift to intelligence. Not that smarts were all that mattered: it's her mantra (which I've adopted with my kids) that "It's nice to be smart but it's smart to be nice." I believe that, and we lived it. But I always felt pressure to be smart; accomplished; a star, not just a "regular" person.

That led to perfectionism. I felt the pressure to succeed--and I had a very strict idea of what would constitute success; it had to be an intellectual endeavor. I had to use what I had been given. I was always driven to succeed, without much thought about if/how I *wanted* to succeed. As I got older, I felt a real sense of confusion about my goals. It wasn't until I neared 30 that I made any serious moves to get over that and to be what *I* wanted to be in life.

Was that coming from them? Probably subconsciously. But I was also a people-pleaser, so I'm sure I took the ball and ran with it! They would be horrified to think that they pressured me. They were the king and queen of "You can be anything you want to be," so it certainly wasn't their intention to pressure me, and I don't blame them for any of it. But I am trying to avoid putting that sort of subtle pressure on my own children. I encourage mistakes and exploration. I never felt like mistakes were okay for me.

BTW, my mom worried a lot about my choice to homeschool DS7. She seems to be over it now, but she felt like I was rejecting her choices because they were wrong for me. I told her quite honestly that I think those choices are wrong for *him*, but I don't think they were wrong for me.

Sure, there are some things that could have been better for me. I wish I had been challenged more when I was young and I wish I had felt more okay about just being who I am without the (subtle and unintended) pressure to succeed in a specific way. But I KNOW that my parents did the very best they could do for me. I am grateful to them for that. And the best I can do is all I'm doing with my kids. I think that's all any of us can do.

Yes, I was a "smart kid" -- both me and my big sister were. We both were very early readers, both skipped second grade, both went to big name schools. Our IQs are within 2 points of each other (upper MG range). So not crazy smart, but smart.

The big difference between us was that she cared about school. Not that I didn't care, but I wasn't at all motivated to get that A - I was perfectly happy with a slackily earned B, so I didn't do homework, didn't study, got my B and was happy with it.

She was a "high achiever" who really did want to do well in school, studied, etc. She graduated valedictorian at our private high school, went to an Ivy league school, and just graduated with her Ph.D after doing her grad school work in Germany.

I graduated high school with a respectable 3.4, went to a pretty big-name state school, and am now an RN. Not as glamorous, just a different road. But I lament that I could have done better had I applied myself.

My father is definitely GT. I don't think my mom is.

My 72-year-old mother was the "smart one" in our family and self taught. Because of her vocabulary and her love of learning, she seemed smarter than her artist brother and her other brother that was our town's mayor for a while. She couldn't afford college, but became a legal secretary and later worked her way up in civil service jobs. She always knew all the answers, loved to watch Jeopardy, always read a lot, and loved crossword puzzles and was thrilled when she discovered that my then 4 year old son loved trivia games and was a word nerd just like her. She was not surprised that he could read at 2 1/2 and certainly didn't think there had to be something wrong with him because he could read early and was not very coordinated. She could also do mental math very quickly like my son, until the day she had routine surgery and had what doctors think were mini strokes that caused her dementia and left her with no short term memory and unable to learn anything else for the rest of her life, including her grandson's name even though she sees him every day.

My dad used to let my mother do most of the talking and I thought for years that she was smarter than him, but two of his brothers became engineers. I think he was just gifted in other ways.

I was usually one of the youngest in my classes, but usually made straight A's, except for PE where the best I could do was a B. People at high school reunions said they remembered me as one of the smart kids, but I was not as smart as my mother or my son and I was extremely shy and sensitive to the point that I did not speak at all at school, only at home. I think dealing with my anxiety was almost like having a learning disability, yet I did well on tests.

I was smart enough and sensitive enough to feel different as a child. I can understand a little of what my son is going through when he says he feels like he was being shunned by some of the kids his age because he is different.

I had only one of the overexcitabilities, where he has all five.

I think my husband is smarter than I am. He has most of the overexcitabilities but he is definitely not as sensitive as me or our son so I get blamed for that.

I was a "smart kid" too.

Unfortunately I don't think my parents or teachers had a clue what to do with me. I remember being alone a lot. Not really having friends in school, but rather acquaintences...

Fortunately, the adults pretty much stayed out of my way. So I was able to test out of high school at 16 and graduate from college at 19. Then I wasn't sure what to do with myself. By that time I was burned out on school and couldn't face grad school.

As a parent, I am more aware that my children are GT and have talents (artistic and design) that I try to help them develop. I should own stock in Crayola for all the art supplies I've bought over the years! And I don't focus solely on school for their intellectual stimulation and/or extracurricular activities.

That being said, I am frustrated by the limited educational options open to us here. Right now the girls are in a really good (read: willing to differentiate and challenge their students) small charter school. We have no idea what we'll do about high school and are dreading the possibility of having to pay college-level tuitions for high school.