Dd7 is wishing she was normal. As part of dealing with that we've been talking about the benefits/enjoyable things about being gifted. We've come up with half a dozen or so things and it's given her a bit of a boost, but it's been harder than I expected and I'm keen to know - what do you and/or your kids love about being gifted?
I know what I love about being gifted, and this is how I explain it to my daughter. It doesn't guarantee wealth or success, but it is an almost automatic ticket to the "smart, interesting people club." I have an awesome group of mom friends and old college friends, and friends from other places, and my daughter likes them and knows them, and sees how much I enjoy them and what they mean to me. And we explain that dad and I met because we were both in this same club. My husband is a dr., and his colleagues and college friends also tend to be smart, interesting people. We are talking about adults who are teachers, doctors, writers, theater directors, lawyers who are forging their own quirky professional path, social workers who also flip houses on the side, Jungian analysts, lawyers who work in human rights... My daughter knows, likes, and finds interesting, and I think she gets the value of this wonderful group of people that we know and the choices they have made to have interesting, meaningful, lives.
If you asked my DD8, she'd say, "Being weird!" By this she'd be referring to our generally Monty Python-esque behaviors and outlook on life (queue the ending to Life of Brian).
In addition, we've explained that being gifted means having the ability to learn things quicker than other people, so what that means is that if there's anything out there we want to learn, we CAN learn it, and we can become just about as good as it as we'd like, as long as we're willing to put in the effort it requires. For example, our DD loves gymnastics, but being aware of the costs of becoming an Olympic champion, and firmly rejecting them, she has set her sights on what she'd like to achieve in gymnastics based on how much she's willing to invest in it... and she's very much enjoying her progress towards those goals.
Most people are told, "You can be whatever you want to be," but that's not necessarily true, because not everyone can be a neurosurgeon, no matter how much effort they put in. But, barring any medical limitations, that's very much true for our kids.
It's a question that needs to be answered very carefully in order not to seem to be putting other people down, but for me it comes down to, as others have said, having choices. If I want to learn something new, e.g. in my case to switch field a bit in research, I can, and I have had the experience several times of switching into a subfield where others have been working for much longer than I have, and getting quickly to the stage of being able to contribute and hold my own. You could say that the upside of having to deal with things being boring at school is that you don't so often have to deal with things being boring as an adult.
One probably shouldn't underestimate the importance of being able to get and keep a well-paid job, either. Of course being gifted is neither necessary nor sufficient for this, but again, it's about the likely availability of choice.
...but it just strikes me as odd to defend to a child why a characteristic that concerns them is actually positive rather than having them work through what is bothering them and helping them to learn how to work with what they are given...
Yes. That.
I think the only thing that really boosts up my dd is when we have the most truthful talk, from my heart to her heart. When I reiterate that "you are wired differently" with a hug and complete acceptance.
I know others may disagree, but given a good childhood I do believe it is a guarantee for success. It is something that I feel very excited and relieved about for my sons.
I tell my eldest that other six year olds have six year old brains, whereas it is like he has a nine year old brain so he can do things that nine year olds can.
As presented gifted is really just a label. What alternative is she really looking for?
Does she wish she could be in a group with other people and not be able to understand what they are talking about?
Does she wish she wasn't curious about the world and didn't find odd topics interesting and fun?
Does she wish she could struggle in school and get Cs and Ds and be concerned about failing?
Or does she wish others didn't notice her being different?
Because one of the gifts of intelligence, is you can make any of those outcomes come to be; it provides choices that are multi-directionally. With less intelligence, those aren't choices.
I know others may disagree, but given a good childhood I do believe it is a guarantee for success.
OK.
I'll play.
What is "success"?
Who said recently that "a swiftly tilting planet" by madeline l'engle was great in how it showed the feelings of gifted children. I know it showed the wonder of adventure. Maybe a few books like that, books that are full of wonder in a alternate world, will remind her what awesomeness is. You don't have to tell her, but if she enjoys it you can silently chalk another point to the beauty of giftedness because not everybody seems to enjoy getting lost in a good book. I don't know why.
People badmouth competitions because of intrinsic versus external validation but competition can be fun if you're good at it and you'll hopefully be in competition with other kids who are nerds. The enjoyment a spelling bee provides is another quirky gift that's almost exclusively for the gifted. For some reason the enjoyment of nerd games is hidden from many other people.
I know it's not Christmas but maybe you can surprise her with an out of level science kit "just because". I'm sure any seven year old would throw themselves into a chemistry set with abandon for weeks and weeks. That's a true gift, a nerd gift, an unexpected present from your parents. Or just wait for Christmas. Science kits are nerdy benefits anyway.
It's almost summer. Do any of the gifted schools in your area have any kind of summer camp? I remember an old song "love isn't something you keep to yourself, you can't burry it, hide it, or store on a shelf.... love goes away if not practiced each day." I don't know if giftedness "goes away" or love either, but it's true that "smart" is not an object to be put on a shelf, it needs to be engaged to make any sense. Smart just isn't itself when it's in storage.
And that, to me, is what's great about being gifted. I guess I'm saying show her, don't tell her.
To me, "success" (in your work life, which is where a high IQ would come in handy) is happiness in your career. To have a career you love, rather than a job who have to work. With a high IQ, you are more likely going to be able to achieve your career goals.
I also believe that intelligent, successful people will end up with fellow intelligent, successful people- to which I believe will create a happier lifestyle.
To me, "success" (in your work life, which is where a high IQ would come in handy) is happiness in your career. To have a career you love, rather than a job who have to work. With a high IQ, you are more likely going to be able to achieve your career goals.
I also believe that intelligent, successful people will end up with fellow intelligent, successful people- to which I believe will create a happier lifestyle.
OK.
Then no, being gifted is not a guarantee of success even with a good childhood.
That's your opinion. My opinion is that it does provide a guarantee.
To disagree might suggest we have different definitions of a "good" childhood.
I hate to consult the tv for answers, but here is tv tropes website definition for stories about "wanting to be normal". If you're helping your daughter develop her charachter then you need to explain Greek pathos to her and tell her to be truly pathetic (in a good way, so everybody cares) she needs to actively dig for her epiphany and not just let the phrase become cheap.
http://inpraiseofargument.squarespace.com/teach-a-kid-to-argue/"i want to be normal"
When done well, this can be an interesting metaphorical exploration of how even the most blessed can feel isolated and abnormal. When done poorly, it comes off as cheap angst that will get tiresome.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IJustWantToBeNormalWell, there's my weird2 cents. Why can't I just give a normal answer for once. It's like I'm always talking in metaphors where it almost sounds like I know what I'm talking about, but I can never be sure.
Here's a recent forum discussion (from here) which equates this phrase as loosely related with grappling with existential depression, possibly leading in some cases to Dabrowski's positive disentigration:
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/152956/1.html
That's the direction we went with this. Did not attempt to convince her that it was good or better than the alternative. Instead, agreed that it's true that the world is made for the majority and anywhere you are different from the majority, it can create challenges. I couple that with everyone is given "gifts" (I don't use that word-I use characteristics) and it's their job in life to figure out how best to fit them together to do what they need/want to in creating their own path for life.
Thinking about and learning about things before they are taught is just a part of her. And I add that school doesn't teach all there is to learn, though sometimes it looks that way. So feel free to learn other things too, and use school as a place to get ideas. And just remember to dream and follow that dream.
I could go on and on, but it just strikes me as odd to defend to a child why a characteristic that concerns them is actually positive rather than having them work through what is bothering them and helping them to learn how to work with what they are given. Maybe it's my prior life in working with the disabled, but I sort of approach it the same way.
Strongly agree with MON. We do not pose "gifted" as "great"-- we pose it as a what-is thing, like having brown eyes or being right-handed. (And we avoid the word as well; it's just loaded.)
Everybody has been dealt a particular body and brain, and they work with what they have. Some features are typical, some are unusual; it is good to appreciate and know about what you have to work with and use it to improve the world and the lives of the people around you.
Surely your DD can think of some ways she can do that. It's not about the features, it's about the doing.
DeeDee
Top 10 job satisfaction traps for the highly gifted:
10) Topic and challenge don't always align.
9) Many jobs can be exciting and interesting to learn, but the well-learned job becomes routine and routine becomes boring and unsatisfying.
8) There is a very high probability (btw, a more defensible term than guarantee;) ) that you will report to someone less intelligent than you. And a similar probability that you'll be tasked with things that fail your intelligence sniff test.
7) Higher challenge jobs often have higher challenge social environments.
6) Sometimes once you know where the outcome is headed, you get bored and skip the middle steps.
...
1) Twenty years out of college you may be delivering pizza while still trying to define satisfaction enough to decide which profession you'll find satisfying.
1) Twenty years out of college you may be delivering pizza while still trying to define satisfaction enough to decide which profession you'll find satisfying.
This is why it's important to pick some sort of career track out of the career vending machine.
Wow. I don't know the gifted people you know, clearly. The gifted people I know are successful and happy in their careers. The ones that aren't have had my definition of a bad childhood.
That's your opinion. My opinion is that it does provide a guarantee.
To disagree might suggest we have different definitions of a "good" childhood.
I'll bite next.
On the basis of what data could you possibly make such a claim (that, "given" - my scare quotes - a "good" - yours - childhood, and giftedness, success is
guaranteed)?
I suggest (a) that you are
- very likely to be falling foul of No True Scotsman (if someone isn't, in your eyes, successful, you then identify a way in which their childhood was not good, in order to rule them out)
- very unlikely to have remotely sufficient data (even if we allow that you can tell whether a given adult is successful or not, you don't typically know either whether they have been labelled gifted or whether they had a "good" childhood, and even if the group of people for whom you do know both is somehow large, I can't conceive of the life you could lead that would make it sufficiently diverse to justify a claim of a "guarantee");
(b) that you don't "give" a child a childhood; a child is a participant in the process that builds their childhood. Could it be that children who are able (both from who they are and from the situation they are born into) to build good childhoods are more likely than average to be successful adults? Of course. Is that anything to do with giftedness? Unlikely. Is it a guarantee? Of course not.
Who me, argumentative? Count it as another plus of being gifted ;-)
I can only go by what and who I personally know. My anecdata has proven to me that my friends who are gifted and successful have had, in my opinion, a good childhood. Those who I know that have had bad childhoods have not ended up successful (once again, my definition- not anyone else's). This is what I know to be true; I don't need strangers in a forum to tell me how to perceive giftedness in my life, and on my side of the world
I can't give you my opinion on your life in America, or tell you what you should think success is; I just know what my worldview is. I believe I wrote 'to me', not 'this is how it is for every person on Earth'
And, you may not "give" a child a childhood, but as a parent you can certainly give them a good one, or a bad one.
I have posted lots of links to research finding that IQ is positively correlated with success, but nothing is "guaranteed". If
squishys avoided using that word and phrased her observations in terms of tendencies, fewer people would be disagreeing with her, although plenty still disagree with me
.
Actually, Bostonian, I've read many of your posts on this subject and I have completely agreed. So you have one fan
"Guaranteed" is my word of choice since I really do see it that way. Once, again, in my life. With my friends and family. In my country where only 20% of people go to university.
Thanks for your responses. As I mentioned in my OP this was part of how we were addressing it, I wasn't just sitting her down and saying 'don't be sad - look at these shiny reasons not to be'. Dd's main issues are about connection and lack of a sure shelter to use one of Miraca Gross' terms. She's loved being quirky and different for the most part, but she's a couple of years in to her skip and it's now run out of juice socially - for now she just feels too odd.
So to address thisI have school meetings booked, I'm finding her a mentor in her preferred topic, we're looking at new extra curricular stuff to meet some new people, I've got her thinking about it being possible to have different friends fir different purposes and so on. But dd is so angry about her difference at the moment and while we have found the gifted label a useful one for proving context to her experience of difference and the parts of life that have been difficult for her (and each to their own on that one - I know some people feel passionately about never using the 'g' word with their children but it has been useful for us), giftedness is a wholistic thing in itself and comes with benefits too (we too discussed choices, along with humour, ability to access and understand exciting and great ideas, the great gift of not having to struggle with some life skills like general math and reading, about being able to problem solve at a high level). Dd was only seeing those bits that of being gifted that were problematic - that it is hard to find friends with common interests (and while I've let her know this can change as you get older, that doesn't help her right here and now), hard to stay switched on at school, having to be the odd one out all them time (one of the benefits of being a gifted adult is you can blend into the crowd sometimes if you want to - for dd, she's always the youngest in class, always the smartest in class - always representing 'something' for so many hours of the day and while 99% of the time she's happy being quirky and odd and is accepted as such, sometimes she doesn't have the emotional energy for it and she'd just like to be 'one of many'). So in amongst many other approaches to dealing with this particular rocky patch, I was looking to reframe her current thinking about being gifted. Thanks again to those who shared their ideas, I will share them with her.
Some of the things that I love about being gifted:
1) confidence
2) continuous personal evolution
3) independence
4) I'm not afraid of being different, and because of that it doesn't bother me that my kids are different
5) arrogant people don't intimidate me (this has come in handy in the past)
6) materialistic people don't intimidate me
7) my insight
8) I've actually been able to acquire wisdom as I've aged
9) I learn fast
10) my ability to figure out why people think and behave the way they do
11) my ability to see the big picture and the details at the same time
12) my ability to engage socially and yet remain unaffected (comes in handy
)
Etc etc etc... it could go on and on, really. There are so many blessings that accompany giftedness
[quote=Nerdnproudshe'd just like to be 'one of many').[/quote]
It sounds like your dd is feeling socially isolated. I don't know if this would be helpful at all, but as you are trying to find ways to help your dd see the positives in being gifted, another thing you might do (which has *nothing* at all to do with your dd being intellectually gifted) - is to help her see the special and interesting things in the other kids she spends time with. I have a 2e ds, and there have been times in his life (and particularly at school) where he feels *very* very different and has a tough time seeing the "benefit" of any of it. His teachers have always tried to emphasize how alike he is and how "everyone" has something (both positive gifts and challenges) - there have been times I've felt his teachers just don't "get it" - yet in reality, it's helped him to see that while he's different, everyone truly is different in their own way. His way may be more challenging than some of the other kids, and his brains may dig deeper or see more complexly etc than the other kids, but at the end of the day - those other kids do have something to offer and having a high IQ isn't the only "gift" out there.
I'm not sure how old your dd is, but if she's in early elementary, I might try to approach the issue by doing the same thing I'd do with any of my children if they were lonely and having a tough time finding friends - get her involved in something after school that focuses on a non-academic activity she enjoys, or arrange for playdates with a few of the other kids from her class. If she's older, it's a little trickier but there are still things you could do to try to help her meet new friends, and help her take the focus off of "her".
The other thing that focusing on a non-academic activity can help with is taking the pressure off of feeling like she "has" to be gifted or has to be a certain way because she's smart - I'm not explaining it very well, and it might not be an issue for your dd, but sometimes high ability kids just want to be kids, yet they feel there's an expectation on them from parents and teachers because they are smart.
Best wishes,
polarbear
To me, "success" (in your work life, which is where a high IQ would come in handy) is happiness in your career. To have a career you love, rather than a job who have to work. With a high IQ, you are more likely going to be able to achieve your career goals.
I also believe that intelligent, successful people will end up with fellow intelligent, successful people- to which I believe will create a happier lifestyle.
OK.
Then no, being gifted is not a guarantee of success even with a good childhood.
Yes. I absolutely agree.
That's your opinion. My opinion is that it does provide a guarantee.
To disagree might suggest we have different definitions of a "good" childhood.
David Foster Wallace, Aaron Swartz...I know there are others.
Wow. I don't know the gifted people you know, clearly. The gifted people I know are successful and happy in their careers. The ones that aren't have had my definition of a bad childhood.
You know, I think that could be construed as horribly judgemental of parents who did the very best they could for their kids with what they knew.
Read up on existential depression in gifted individuals (this actually *can* propel people to get their actions in line with their values which IMO leads to greater happiness--if the person is supported well through it--see Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration).
Existential depression in gifted individuals
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10269.aspxMany of the people I know who are the most successful are bright high-achievers with great executive function who learned to work hard because school was challenging enough without much differentiation. I know many gifted underachievers who in no way had what could be called a "bad" childhood, even if they were poorly served by school. So I feel completely confident, and it seems clearly supported by the literature, that giftedness is in no way a guarantee of success.
CCN thank you so much for your great list - I will share it.
Polarbear - you explained yourself beautifully and gave me an 'aha' moment. While dd doesn't really do any academic extra curriculars other than music and the news ones we're looking at are things like drama which are more her bent, what we haven't touched on with her is your lovely idea of what she does have in common with her friends and how everyone is different. I love it!
I don't know how what I write has anything to do with anything. But, I guess, as usual with public forums if we all don't believe the same thing then we are wrong, but to try to tell me my idea of what success means to me is wrong really takes the cake.
I don't know how many times I have to write that this is my world view; It doesn't matter to me that the people you know that are x,y,z. Success and its reasons for it are so unique to the individual. You can show me a million studies, but until there is one definition to every human being, then studies in this area are useless to me.
I don't know how what I write has anything to do with anything. But, I guess, as usual with public forums if we all don't believe the same thing then we are wrong, but to try to tell me my idea of what success means to me is wrong really takes the cake.
I don't know how many times I have to write that this is my world view; It doesn't matter to me that the people you know that are x,y,z. Success and its reasons for it are so unique to the individual. You can show me a million studies, but until there is one definition to every human being, then studies in this area are useless to me.
Some people might feel that placing the blame on parents if a child doesn't grow up to meet the parents' definition of success and calling it a result of bad parenting takes the cake. Obviously every gifted kid (and non-gifted kid) is unique. However there are some common experiences of the gifted that many parents find it worthwhile to familiarize themselves with.