So said dd9 tonight, after a protracted discussion in which she admitted to getting things wrong on purpose sometimes. The irony here is that she goes to a gifted magnet school. I think she is probably at the top of the class. (I don't know, though.) I asked her if the other kids in her class are also not "normal" and she said some are and some aren't, but would not specify further.

She also connected being smart to being sad (she has a depression diagnosis). She thinks being smart is causing her to think too much and feel lonely. FWIW, she actually has a lot of friends, including close ones.

These comments were made through storms of weeping.

Thoughts? BTW, she tested MG and *should* be squarely in the middle of the bell curve in her class. She doesn't really act MG, though.

Aw, the scores could have been low. Maybe she's really HG+

Is this new behaviour? I went through something similar in high school but I think it had a lot to do with feeling socially isolated. I was just sick of being in a world full of people who were not on the same page as me. I was tired of being weird and different. I hated my life. I just kinda slogged my way through it all.

If your DD is with like minded peers, though, I wonder if something else is at the root of the behaviour. Could something have happened that you don't know about? Or maybe it's early tween hormones interacting with the hyper-sensitivity that comes with G?

I would just validate her feelings - support her right to have them - and just nurture her through it. No feelings are ever wrong. Just be there for her and listen. If she feels heard and understood, she'll be ok

(Also, if you spend enough time just listening rather than actively trying to solve it, she may elaborate further and tell you what you need to hear to understand... )

Don't know if you have seen this or it would apply, but I really like James Webb's take on it.
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10554.aspx

Ditto. It wasn't until college that I started to find a critical mass of like-minded people, and since then it's been a lot better. I'm so sorry your DD is feeling this way. Unfortunately it does seem to be a common experience. Maybe she would find some comfort in hearing that??

FWIW, I also got things wrong on purpose in early grade school, more out of boredom than anything else, but that didn't last long. Fortunately I was adequately challenged in regular school so at least academic boredom wasn't an issue for me. Best of luck to you and your DD

Deacon Girl, thank you for that link. I see both of my DSs in there, but especially my youngest who is telling us he's lonely and doesn't have any friends.

FWIW, I am mildly skeptical that she is actually getting things wrong on purpose as in "I have read the question, know the answer is C, and am putting down A." I do think she is not really trying some of the time, though-- a la, "Who cares...why bother?" This whole conversation came about when I checked some HW and saw she had gotten two VERY easy questions wrong; conversation revealed that she clearly hadn't even read them. They have been doing a lot of on-grade standardized test prep over the last couple of months and I imagine she finds it stultifying.

I have never heard her say before that she doesn't want to be smart (we have downplayed "smart" and never made a big deal of it, but the cat is out of the bag at this point, which is reasonable at 9). So that's new. She was tired during this discussion so I need to talk to her about it a little more. It seemed clear that she was connecting her intelligence to feelings of sadness, dissatisfaction, and isolation that she experiences. She is a great idealist and also extremely eager to grow up. I do think she sees that other children don't experience the frustration, anger, and sense of devastation by the imperfection of the world that she does. So, some of the Webb link definitely applies...

Hoagies just posted this on fb:
http://www.twicegifted.net/id8.html

Ultra, I hope you will call your DD's professional (the person who dxed the depression?) and consult them.

I find it likely that if she already has the depression DX, she's casting around for why she feels sad, and her uniqueness in being gifted is just the thing she's found to blame-- it may not be any kind of rational cause/effect. Depressed people often seek to think out reasons for why they (biochemically) feel lousy.

To me, the solution for this and the anxiety you've been talking about on other threads is to treat the depression as thoroughly as you can at this stage; if she were my kid I'd probably explore the possibilities of meds (for relief) and cognitive-behavior therapy (for long-term skill-building and resilience).

DeeDee

Having peers who are on her level is so important. I was really lucky to find a group of peers my junior year of high school. There were 6 of us who hung out together and that was enough to make ignoring the rest of the class of 500 juniors so much easier. It was a pretty lucky situation that threw us all together, honestly. I would imagine most folks don't find that group until college, as is often stated here. My friends from that group are now a doctor, 2 lawyers, one runs a lobbying firm in DC, another used to work for the UN and now works for the pentagon, another is a paramedic who volunteers in 3rd world countries. Amazing people. I honestly feel like a bit of a bum compared to them, lol!

Thanks, again, Deacon Girl.

We went through this as well with our eldest. With GT kids often being so involved in so many activities, they often get over tired making the emotion magnified. While I'm not suggesting that the whole problem can be solved with this,getting proper sleep helped the frequency and some of the intensity of the emotion subside with ours anyway.

Getting enough sleep is critical.

I base this off of my experience when I was younger.

Not enough sleep = really bad idea.

Is she in ongoing therapy?

Having peers is important, and the isolation that our children my feel due to the lack of peers for sure is hard on them. I think it is good that your daughter opens up to you. This gives you an opening to talk to her, support her. My son also has a lot of friends, but they are social friends, not academic peers. My 11 year old just realized that he will have to wait till college to find his academic peers. He actually asked me to confirm this yesterday, and asked if there are other options. Well, not where we live. So I mentioned summer camps and online classes as a way to find peers earlier. But until yesterday, I did not even realize he has been feeling the void and has been thinking about this. He hides his feelings and emotions so well that it scared me sometimes.

My eldest DS is a 2nd semester college Freshman this year. We too thought he'd find his peer group once he hit college. Once he hit Middle School it got a wee bit better each year and continues to, however, even as a Freshman in college he's often surrounded with people of his own age who don't have the sense of maturity, responsibility, or course load which makes for them having a difficult time to relate to our DS. Like I said, it continues to get better, however, it never is completely solved.

So what's the solution? A few years back I started working with him on what I call "Making your own world" In short, he can't depend on others to make his world or make him feel a part of a peer group, instead, he needs to work on seeking out and surrounding HIMSELF with those of like mind, maturity, responsibility, and emotional sensitivity. It stands to reason that when you're one of few you have to expect to work to seek others of similar mindset out, it seldom happens on it's own.

The thing of it is--she has peers, or at least, she's in the ballpark, for sure. It's much, much better than it was before she moved to the GT school. It may be that she is just conflating depression with giftedness, or it may be that she still feels different even from those peers, or...? We are still trying to find a workable therapist situation.

One thing I am trying to figure out is how to discuss depression with her. I think she feels alone, frustrated, and bewildered--I get a sense of "Why me?" I'm trying to let her know that other people do also feel this way, without making it sound too dire or hopeless.

When my now-11 year old said something similar to me -- he actually said he wanted to be average -- I focused on the "we are who we are" side of things. He's also unusually tall (5'8" at 11), so I joked that the only way to make him average would be to cut off his feet at his ankles and that clearly wasn't going to happen. And I wasn't going to cut out part of his brilliant mind to be average, either.

I have a book called "Smart Boys" and I plan to show my kid when he starts wanting to discuss smartness. It's a very broad coverage of giftedness, gifted research, how gifted kids from fifty years ago turned out (I know, just use your own family's stories), but it's got some good talking points. Some of the brightest people fifty years ago, everybody thought they were going to be world leaders, grew up to be middle management. That's worth discussing. A lot of people make comments in front of smart kids about them changing the world some day, you know. The book shows that research changed the way people thought about gifted people in just the last century, people used to say "early ripe, early rot", or else that smart kids would burn out early. A researcher named Terman had to prove that gifted people weren't only pasty stereotypes by studying tanned, outdoor, California gifted children. In other words the book has compiled all the trivia factoids about what people think about giftedness. I will be sharing this book with my son. There's a similar book anout gifted girls I plan to buy for my daughter.

Hmm. Her school may be guilty of this. They like to call them "gifted leaders," which I think is bollocks. I never say this sort of thing to her.

That book sounds very interesting (esp the one about gifted girls--I am going to hunt for it).

I heard the same kind of thing when I was a kid (about how one should try to be president, etc.) but had the impression it was due to the cultural influence of "The Little Engine That Could" and the like. Which I ultimately decided was very unrealistic and even unkind--we can't all be whatever we choose if we just try hard enough, and to tell kids they can is basically saying that if they don't succeed at reaching whatever goal they choose, they just aren't trying. I think it's healthier to discuss how everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and you should do your best with what you have without becoming a driven, bitter, disappointed grownup. Or at least try

You forgot underachieving.

That's a "driven, bitter, disappointed, underachieving grownup".

I just sent links to my DW so she can order both books. Awesome suggestion.


I'd say it's all a part of the American mythos of being able to rise to your level of abilities and effort. Like all such things, it has never been entirely true for all people in all times and places, and it's less true now than any time since the outbreak of WWII. Still, there has always been enough desire to believe, and there have always been enough contemporary stories about the unique intersection of ability and effort with opportunity, that the myth has persisted.

I remember figuring out that and then realizing, "I have no achievable goals in life."

I just finished reading these two books on the subject of giftedness and depression:
The Disappearing Girl: Learning the Language of Teenage Depression by Lisa Machoian and If I'm so Smart, why arent the answes easy by Robert Schultz and James Delisle

Both have been very helpful in helping me to understand my HG dd who recently had a hospitalization for Major Depression. This was the worst journey we have ever taken with this child. We had no idea...her grades had been straight A, she was involved in all kinds of activities, she would do whatever we asked without disagreement... we never saw it coming. Looking back, we can now see the subtle, but explainable by reason of adolescence, clues. We have gone the route of medication and intensive counseling.

I do not mean to scare you, but just to caution you that in our experience, Gifted girls are clever at hiding the depth of how they feel and find ways to reason it away that seem plausible. If you are feeling like you need to seek insight into depressive behavior here, then I would suggest going back to your professional.

Yes.

I was casually-- and very prematurely-- discussing my openness to homeschooling DS, should he ever need it, with my father last week. He objected on the grounds of socialization, and I referenced my frequent anxiety and being excluded in elementary school after being skipped as a coumterexample of the dangers of inappropriate socialization. He said, "That's news to me." Even he couldn't see it, and he was my primary before and after school caregiver!

We have the "I don't want to be smart, why can't I just be normal" conversation fairly often in our house. I still don't have any good answers to it. Unfortunately, it degrades quickly into the "school is boring, it's melting my brain, I hate school" conversation and my own brain melts at that point. I begin to feel like drinking heavily and start wandering around the house muttering to myself about failing as a parent.

I think we've all had that conversation. The tactic we use is that everyone has strengths and for DS10 it is his wicked smarts. Part of it for us is an ongoing battle with perfectionism. He thinks that ND kids don't sweat over everything. His latest is avoidance, because you can't blow perfect, if you don't ever try it. Nautigal, I'll have that drink with you anytime!

I've dealt with this with two of my three kids. For my daughter, it was about inner thoughts and angst and wanting to turn off the deep thoughts. Getting her into a highly demanding physical sport was actually the one thing that helped. She climbed competitively for years, and the required mental focus turned her thoughts off while she was climbing a route and the physical exhaustion helped her sleep and turn off the worry after exercise. It also had the added benefit of endorphins and staving off depression.

For my son, it was about not wanted to stand out or be different from his friends. He underachieved all the way through midschool and high school and had a horrible time adapting to college. And his perfectionism got in the way. If he was "normal" no one would expect great things of him. He was surprised to find out that I really didn't care if he ended up solving some great mystery of life - I just wanted him to be productive, responsible, a good person and happy. Having the load of parental expectations removed has really helped.

Good luck - this is such a worry for us as parents, isn't it?

I agree with the physical activitiy...my dd has had surgery on her respiratory system. So that quelled activity for quite a while...I do think that contributed...but it was outside of her control...which is a whole new set of issues.

Some days I agree....drink heavily and admit I am the worst parent on the planet...until I realize that offers no solution or direction for my kids... then I "suck it up, Buttercup!"

The quote in the original title makes me think of an external locus of control. Smart and Normal aren't things to be they are labels applied by others and accepting those labels as truths is disempowering. I think I ran into the reference to Carolyn Dweck's book "MindSet" here which puts that notion into a nice context. Developing a stronger internal locus of control is significant for coping with depression and anxiety.