An interesting thing happened last night. I was at a school thing with DS6 and was talking to another woman. She had heard from someone that DS6 was taking math in a 4th grade class. She said to me "you must be so proud of him." and it caught me off guard. I paused and said "yes, I am." This may be odd but I have never considered the fact that my son is a PG child something to be proud of. While I am quite amazed and impressed by all the things he does and knows, I wouldn't say that I am proud of him being a PG child. It is not like he really worked to be the way he is, and it's not like I did anything to make him that way, he just is who he is. That being said, there are so many things that I am proud of...like when he really works at something and gets it, like when he doesn't give up on something when it is challenging even when he can't seem to get it, like when he is caring to others and shows compassion, like when he plays with his little sister and tries to teach her things...I could go on and on. He is truly and amazing boy, but I have never thought of being proud of him because of his intelligence. I have had a similar feeling when people talk about how happy I should feel because of how smart DS is. I hope that doesn't come accross wrong, but just something I was thinking about.

Thanks Shellymos,
I always look forward to your posts because of your gentle warmth. I got such a happy feeling reading the story of this little moment.

I mostly get the pride feeling when DS14 shows his character. For the PGness, it's just plain delight when our minds play together or I watch quietly in the backround while he does this with someone else, even better when it's a group!

On a heart level I connect with so many people, but when it comes to pure delightful mind play connection, that is a special thrill that I only get with relatively few people. Of course, we don't feel like 'a few' once we get together here or at events, do we?

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Thanks Grinity,
lol because the editing on my post was due to me trying to delete the post as I realized it was more of a random thought then a thread worthy topic.

I do wish that I got to see DS in more of the situations you describe. The few I have seen are really fun to watch. I do feel quite proud whenever he is kind or shows character and when he shows perseverance. For us I find it fascinating to watch as he shares stories and ideas, and how he starts conversations sometimes in the middle of something assuming that I was thinking the same thing (which since I am quite unlike him, usually I am not) However my brain is certainly being challenged and used more since he has come along. I am seeking out mind stimulating things and doing things that I never would have been interested in before. I feel like I can connect with almost anyone on some sort of level, but I do wonder if DS can connect as well because he is PG and doesn't have those peers around(or even parents) that are anywhere near that level.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I agree.

It's more of what you do with your gifts that we can be most proud of.

Last year my son won a 20" tall National Math throphy, which took little effort. I would say I was proud becuase it was his hard work in Math that helped him. But it's not such a big deal.

On the same day, he also recieved low key mention for taking the EXPLORE. He was the only child below 6th grade in the school. As a 3rd grader this took courage, a Saturday away from play and effort. I was very proud of this.

This was a great learning situation. It's more about what we get out of experiences on the inside, than others reccognition or prizes.

I feel the same way, proud when DS5 shows his character. I'm proud when he's brave, kind and considerate. He takes great care to make other kids feel comfortable when he's playing with them, always choosing something that they can enjoy because it's at an appropriate level for them, and never shows off. They all love playing with him because of his goofy sense of humor and great imagination.

One of my proudest moments was when I learned that when kids at his school were shunning one little boy at lunch, he went over to sit with him and loudly said, "Hey, who wants to eat with us?", which apparently made some others brave enough to come over.

I'm proud of him, too, when he overcomes something that he's found challenging. Without giving too much information, he has a tendency to be a worrywart, which impacts his life in some significant ways, but he's getting over it. He also is getting over his extreme fear of failure more with each passing month, and it's making him a lot stronger.

Even as a little aside this was so interestingly thought provoking because it oddly seems to highlight all the struggles pg parents go through. I think your reaction makes perfect sense - if she meant you must be so proud your son is trying something that challenges him and is hard and outside the norm - then yes, you are. If she meant, you must be so proud he is smart, that's just weird, yet people say it all the time. Does anyone say you must be so proud he's handsome? No of course not. Do they say you must be so proud he's nice. No of course not. (although they should because parents have such an influence on nice behavior rather than innate niceness). And it also seems to suggest if you really read into it that you think kids at their regular level are not worth being proud of. But perhaps its the word that is wrong - sort of like the difference between jealousy and envy - they are not exactly the same and there is a covetousness with envy which seemingly makes it a more pernicious emotion - yet both are about wanting what someone else has. Perhaps it is the suspicion that the asserter of you must be proud has some other thought in mind. Prior to getting on the testing for gifted school torture rack, we had DS tested and I remember wondering if this was about me based on all the stuff thrown at parents about giftedness - a need for a label - a need to say my kid is gifted, no not like you think your kid is gifted, better gifted?! Or at its worst that mom, was it in CO where the kid was PG but isn't now, where supporting a gifted kid comes off as some crazy M�nchhausen behavior.

Or, alternatively we could just stand up and say, yup, I made that!!!

I think I went way off the tangent!

DeHe

That's how I feel. I'm just so proud to have kids and to be a parent. I like the nice things people say, oh your kids are super cute, etc...even if smarts is just a genetic lottery there's nothing wrong with being a proud parent, like if you knew a supermodel or athlete. Talent is cool, that's probably all they're commenting on. This is another case where you need to realize that no one else will see your children the way you see them. That goes for any kid. Unless you have a weird reputation or the other parent usually acts weird I would just take it as they were trying to make superficial conversation and offer an obvious compliment. Even if it doesn't reflect how you feel deep inside.

You put it so beautifully, Shellymos - this is very worthy of a topic, because it's something that we have to be silent about in front of friends who don't have gifted children.

I had something quite the opposite happen years ago, and your post triggered that memory. My oldest daughter had tested into the gifted program but after long thought and discussion decided against the more advanced track and chose instead to focus on art in high school. She took the AP English classes and ended up testing out of her first year of college math. I was talking with a mother whose son was in gifted classes with my middle child, and she said, "Oh, you must be so disappointed in your daughter that she didn't pick gifted classes."

I remember being confused by the comment, because I couldn't figure out why I would be disappointed with a daughter who chose art since that was where her passion was. She dropped a statistics class her senior year to volunteer in the profoundly disabled classroom. Now that? I was really proud of her for that.

I am proud of my middle son for having the courage to approach a professor to land a mentorship at the University in his field of interest while he is still in high school. And I am proud of my youngest for pushing so far past his own abilities to overcome dysgraphia.

But I am neither disappointed or proud of my kids because of their IQ. I am proud of them for the things they choose to do to become worthwhile, contributing human beings.

Now that would be a very proud moment indeed. How sweet!

LaTexican - yes I totally am not reading into what the woman's intentions were of saying "you must be proud." She clearly was just complimenting my son. It just got me thinking more about what specifically makes me proud.

ABQMom - that is so true. I am clearly much more proud by virtues and character things that you mentioned displayed in your daughter. For me helping someone in need, doing something kind vs. 100% on a test. That's a no brainer to me. Much more proud for acts of kindness. Not that I don't appreciate hard work and am not proud of him when he works hard and does well at things, I definitely am. But for me becoming a kind person of good character is much more of a priority.

So I was walking home from the library with DS this afternoon and he was chattering away, today about a robot organic cow which makes the milk and puts it in the lunchbox sized cartons inside of the cow and then the trucks back up to the cow and the cartons come out all filled one at time. A lady passed us on the street and heard him and turned around and said wow, he is so smart, and asked him, how old are you, and he said I'm 4 and I can read. She turn to me and said again, wow he is so smart - and with this whole discussion in my head, I paused possibly too long and said thank you!!!! Exactly like you shellymos but I didn't know what to say. But what was also interesting is that I sort of cringed inside that DS said he could read - the volunteering of the information. This has happened before and my response instinctively seems to be don't brag, as if he said I'm so handsome. So once home I asked him why he told the lady he could read and he said because he wanted her to know he could do it.

I think he is starting to really notice the comments from adults and seems to have chosen to wear his skills with pride, yes, let me tell you what else I can do. But he doesn't do anything like that with kids his age. But it really is awkward for adult and kid to be called out like that in a way that doesn't leave you a good way to respond. And again rather like the initial post she didn't say oh what an imaginative story, it was about the innate. But I guess in some way it is like saying oh, what a cute baby but somehow it feels like a complement wrapped in a, wow that's strange.

Hmm, not sure if its just interesting timing or that your post struck me more than I thought!! And good thing she didn't see the books we had in the bag!!!

DeHe

I think threads like this are very good for us to clarify in our own minds how we feel about our childs abilities. Often, our children can't distinguish when we are pleased with something, or proud of something. We have to know how to express our feelings in words to benefit our children and to respond to others.

I like responding with, "I'm pleased the school has provided opportunities for a great education."
Or, "I'm proud of you for making a good choice, treating someone kindly, working hard, etc."

And DeHe, 4 year olds are allowed to say those kinds of things! When someone comments, just laugh and say there's never a dull moment at your house! Your child will know you accept him as he is, and the stranger will agree with you.

lol, this happens to us a lot. DS just randomly says stuff that draws attention. Such as checking out at the doctors last week he announces "supercalafragalisticexpialadoshus has 14 syllables....and also 14 vowels" People just aren't sure what to say to comments like that. He used to read signs all the time in the store at 2 and we got lots of comments. Anyhow, I have gotten used to just nodding and/or saying yes. Just kind of awkward at times. You just never know what he is going to say at any given moment.

And very interesting about him throwing in that he can read too. My DS did that more around that age too. Honestly, my thinking is that when someone says they are smart they lump in all the things that people say they are smart about and sometimes just say that they can do those too. I am sure he has encountered someone in his life that has said how smart he is because he can read. Kids hear this stuff from people around them all the time. And chances are at that age they aren't bragging, just stating a fact. One time at 4 DS was doing equations with someone and when the person was shocked at all the stuff DS knew, DS responded "I am really good at math." The person jokingly responded "but not so good at humility, huh?" So then my DS wanted to know what that meant and why he had said that. I tried to explain that you don't have to tell people you are really good at things, you can just say that you really like those things. And he replied "yes, but it isn't just that I like it...I AM really good at math" And then I saw his point. It's tough because you don't want kids or people to brag, but why is it that if we have an area that we really do well in that we can't share that for fear of bragging. Now he usually just talks about how much he loves math, but sometimes he will throw in things like "I am in a 4th grade math class" or "well I skipped K" when someone is trying to figure out why he is in a certain class at his age or when they are commenting on his intelligence or books he is reading,etc. It isn't at all in a bragging way, it's usually when people are trying to do the math and are confused. He tries to help them out a little ; ) Nice thing about kids though as it comes across much better when they say they can do things than when we do.

Love that!!! It's both a non response and true! Excellent answer.

DeHe

The humility comment is interesting, it reminds of how when they are advanced in intelligence the assumption is that they are advanced in social stuff, same with when you have a tall toddler, somehow size means he shouldn't be throwing tantrums, a friend got that all that time. Humility is a pretty advanced social construct I would be really surprised if a kid displayed it! There is that fine line between the kid that everyone knows is bright and the kid no one can stand because they're showoffs! DS has also been saying I know everything because my brain is huge, because we had been joking around like that, but i think he realizes it was a joke because he only says that to us, and he followed it up with it's as big as a Woolley mammoths, I had to break it to him,theirs weren't that big, he was a bit bummed by that, lol!

"16 vowels, actually." (Each syllable has one vowel sound in it, but the last sound is spelled with 3 vowels.
supercalifragilisticexpialidocious )

And the answer to that response is "He's really into linguistics". DH got quite cross the other day when we had a somewhat similar conversation - his point being that "vowel" is an interesting concept when it refers to some of the sounds in our language but of almost no interest at all if it's just a label for 5 (or sometimes 6, because people do object to the absurdity of saying that "hymn" contains no vowel, even though they don't seem to feel the same about the the absurdity of saying that "said" contains two!) letters.

But if you're counting vowel sounds, rather than vowel letters, isn't it a tautology to say there are the 14 syllables and 14 vowel sounds? I'm trying to come up with a syllable that contains more (or fewer!) than one vowel sound, with no success.

ETA: Wikipedia says there's no vowel sound in bird (or similarly-middled words), at least according to some linguists, so there are arguably no-vowel-sound syllables. I think I take the dissenting side on that one, though.

I'm way out of my depth, but DH says yes, tautology by most definitions. (But since when have we objected to children announcing tautologies - or even failed to be impressed by them?!)

"Bird" definitely has a vowel in my accent! But arguably "button" might be an example of a two-syllable word where the second syllable has no vowel in my accent - but'n.

True enough! And with anyone else's kid, I'd have just said "Oh, that's nice" and gone my merry way. For my own, I'd have encouraged her to think about whether it was a tautology.

What vowel sound do you make when you say "bird" in addition to the R sound, out of curiosity? I just make the R sound.

There are probably a lot of words out there, e.g. "purpler", "rattling", etc., that contain syllables without any vowels / vowel sounds no matter how you define such things. I'm guessing intuitively, as an overly opinionated layman who's too lazy to do real linguistic research on the weekend, that there would be a lot of words with multiple vowel sounds in the same syllable too-- what about "quiet"?

I guess that, going by the school that think "bird" has no vowel sound, that "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" might be considered to have thirteen vowel sounds. It's all over my head. "He's interested in linguistics" seems accurate, though, and it certainly does look like an interesting field, in a nitpicky sort of way.

Trouble is, I don't speak IPA and whatever word I compare it to someone will say that differently too... Ah, internet to the rescue. At
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Bird
click on the Union Jack with speaker, that's close enough to what I say. [ETA: nb, it's not "in addition to" the R sound; I have a non-rhotic accent, that is, I don't say an R sound in "bird"]
DH says "well I don't know, depends how you want to define it!" - but says it's either a dipthong (one vowel, one syllable) or two syllables, each with one vowel. It depends a bit on accent again (most people will say "fire" is one syllable, and for some people, it's the same sound) but from the sound of it more on which definitions you're following today.
Yup!

Collinsmum, without looking at your location, I always thought you were brittish. Now to imagine how you would say "bird" I looked and then imagined the scottish terrier from Lady and the Tramp singing "my Bonnie, Bonnie, bone in the back yar-rrd.". So I heard "beay-rrd". Lol, i am such a redneck.

I confuse matters by living in Scotland but not having a Scottish accent - d'ye think we're far enow off topic yet?

It's just the holidays, we've probably been hitting the eggnog a little early.

"Quiet" has two syllables to me. I asked DD, and she agrees.

And how many in "fire"?

We both say two.

Oil changes across the mason Dixie line.

Of course. The idea was that possibly the first syllable would have two vowel sounds ("oo" and "eye").

I don't hear two vowel sounds there, any more than I do in "why."

lol. Good point about the vowels. Funny thing is that I asked DS tonight how many vowels he had said it had and he said "16" I guess that I wasn't paying much attention to that part as I was checking out at the doctors. And I also had to google how to spell it as that word is not typically in my vocabulary and the googled spelling was clearly wrong. I should have noticed it since DS was spelling it out loud to me all the time at a young age. Not sure where he actually got the spelling from...

Not to my ear-- I'd divide it as QUI- ET, the two vowels being the long I in QUI and the short e in ET.

I hear the qu as equivalent to kw-- not a vowel at all.

DeeDee

lol, I am from NY but lived down south for 4 years. It's pretty funny how much variety there can be on how many syllables there are in words depending on how they are pronounced. Funny story (yet completely unrelated) was when I went to a subway in TN and the woman at the counter kept saying "white or wheat?" I kept hearing her say "water wait." I was very confused and said " uh....I will have water." by about the 3rd time she said it my friend was cracking up and had to translate for me.

Ha! Shelly, I think I've had that exact same conversation!

Reminds me of when my mother heard a Canadian lady at a yard sale say she was looking for pants for her husband to "hack a boat in".

Yup. I sure am glad I'm from California where we all, like, talk, like, perfectly normal and stuff. I just, like, have a hard time understanding all them foreign speakers from other states and whatnot. Like, totally!

Love teasing my good Canuck friends aboot their idiosyncrasies.

And just so this relates somewhat to the original post, we are extremely proud of our son -- but not for his giftedness. We consider ourselves blessed (or cursed, depending on the day) for his gifts, and are proud of him when he applies himself to overcome whatever challenge he might face.

Of course, as I wrote.


That's certainly one way to hear it. I think another is as a long U sound; I've driven myself silly trying not to produce a long U sound when I say "quiet", and can't. I'm sure there are plenty of others I could easily come up with ("ai" comes to mind from long-ago days as a Scrabble player), but these things seem to be arguable by nature. And I'm sure a linguist would pop out of the woodwork to announce that "ai" is a diphthong.

kyoo-ee-et? I can't figure out how to say quiet with a long U.

GoogleDictionary says ai is either a long I sound, or a two-syllable word said like ah-ee.

The more I think about it, the harder it is to pronounce a word naturally, or to figure out which sounds I hear, and which are artifacts of an artificial pronunciation!

Koo-eye-ette. I can only imagine it being screamed thusly in a movie perhaps.
Words are always too funny if you think too closely about them.

Every time you say it, you're saying it with a long U sound (U as in "tube"). That sort of sums up my confusion about why the whole system of deciding which vowel sounds are separate has to be so messed up.

I would have thought that it was completely natural to decompose vowel sounds into their component vowel sound parts-- so "queue" would be composed of one consonant sound and two vowel sounds, roughly "k-ee-oo". This would lead to considering some letters to actually contain more than one sound, like long I-- which it actually does, to listen to it, "ah" and "ee", with a graduated transition between them. I would have considered something to be an atomic-level sound if one could make it without having to move the mouth to change the sound during utterance.

Yes, I know. That's one reason I chose it. The "ah-ee" is actually on there with a different pronunciation that stresses the boundary between the two sounds, but that doesn't mean that the one-syllable sound doesn't have those two sounds, though they're blended into each other. And unless you artificially introduce a hard break between the two sounds, the transition is always there, even if you give longer time to the sounds in isolation.


One fun thing for me is that pronouncing a word out loud enough times can make it sound alien and even wrong.

luoconu, if I say quiet like the guys from car talk would, is that about right?

The "w" sound is a semi-vowel, the "ai" a diphthong and the "e" (I can't work out how to make a schwa/upsidedown e on this keyboard)the neutral vowel. Or so I learned at Speech and Drama classes as a kid :P