DD10 was tested at age five with the WJ-Cog, and tests in the upper HG range (99.9%). She's in CTY (verbal) and in the gifted pull-out at her school. She's an amazing artist and can draw better than most adults. But, other than major sensitivities, to the point where I sometimes wonder if she's got mild Asperger's, I feel like she doesn't act like an HG kid. If I let her, she'd just watch YouTube videos of IHasCupQuake all day, with the occasionally foray into whatever current craft obsession that she also learned on YouTube (right now it's needle-felting).

I'm wondering if I have done something wrong as a parent, but she just doesn't seem to have much curiosity about the world. Has school done this to her? Is it puberty? Is it mid-August doldrums? Should I be exposing her to more?

Sigh.

At this age, DD mostly "acted" gifted in these brief flashes. Mostly, she was a moody adolescent girl first, and a PG person second. But it was always in there, and it's the foundation of who and what she is, and what drives her.

Obsessive interests are how it usually came out during the tween years-- she'd BINGE on information. Sometimes it wasn't what I wished she'd binge on. Pokemon and online RPG, for example-- but the rate at which she attained mastery, that was still the "tell" for her high LOG.

It's just that she didn't have adult TASTES. LOL.

Awesome response, HK. Totally puts my mind at ease. The bingeing is right on.

Hi,mine started out curious about anything factual but after discovering animal jam,minecraft,and youtube videos about silliest things they could come up with,she has wandered there and stayed there,along with her gifted friend and not so gifted friends.I thought she would mature herself out of it,but those people who narrate the videos are a lot older.

Thanks, Atticat.

It's really reassuring to know that I'm not alone! Same stuff: Animal Jam, Minecraft, Club Penguin, YouTube... the only saving grace of YouTube is sometimes she watches instructional videos and not gameplay vids.

Two gifted tweens in this house: bingeing is the name of the game.

Then suddenly they'll surprise me by knowing something non-pop-cultural, and I think "whew!"

I recently discovered DS12 can pretty much label every country on the globe. No idea where he got that--he says he becomes curious about things and just "looks 'em up." Wouldn't be surprised if there is a connection to Minecraft in there, somewhere. I don't ask questions, just relieved they aren't completely vegetating.

I think that there's a stereotypical expectation out there re what highly intellectually gifted people/kids act like, but the truth is - every child, every person, is an individual. My teen ds has friends who are in programs where you have to test above 98/99th percentile, and there are very few examples among them of kids who approximate the stereotypical expectations. They are all charming and amazing and bright young people, but they are also in many ways simply typical teenagers. I've also met kids who seem to be extremely high IQ based on behavior... who aren't.

As the saying goes.. you can't judge a book by it's cover

polarbear

What a relief to hear these responses! DD10 is obsessed with Minecraft videos (Pat and Jen, anyone???), and learning about Microsoft, of all things. She knows more history about Microsoft than an employee of the place. She is really into old Apple info as well - loves old Apple advertisements!! Yesterday I found her poring over Youtube videos from a guy who experiments with destroying IPhones... I showed her the "Today I Found Out" site, and she does look at that occasionally so she is getting in some good stuff.

If binge watching icarley and a deep love of shoes makes you HG my nine year old is there;)!

If there's something wrong with fads of craft obsession via youtube, I don't want to be right.

FWIW, I'm passing along the youtube cupcake link to my youngest dd - she and her group of very intelligent bright young girlfriends are all about cupcakes

And I hesitate to mention it... but.. has anyone here heard of "Miranda Sings"?

If you haven't, I don't quite know how to describe it, except that it drives my dh and I nuts, my teen dd and all of her friends love it, my teen ds thinks doesn't like it yet finds it hysterical that his sister likes it and it drives her parents nuts... and I run screaming from the room at just the thought of her turning it on. It's definitely on the cutting edge of breaking the old "high IQ" personality stereotypes lol!

polarbear, who loves fun skirts. Just because.

DD9 (almost 10) is the same, she tested 99.9th percentile for GAI on the WISC but if she had her way she would just watch stupid videos on YouTube all day long. I was reading about the new DYS criteria and I don't know if DD "deserves" that title even though she has the test score. She doesn't act "gifted" at all, but then she'll do something that astounds me, like whip together a 100 pc. jigsaw puzzle in 30 min without looking at the box cover, pulling 1 piece out of the box at a time rather than spreading them all face up.

DS8 comes across as more stereotypically gifted because he'll randomly start talking about something like fractals out of the blue, or 64 bit processors, or how World War I started. He is curious about a wide variety of topics, whereas DD has a few strong interests at a time, but acts bored by everything else. Maybe it's a "tween" things, or maybe it's just how it is with some kids who test as gifted.

DD10 was first placed OOD in a spec Ed school for third grade. As part of her program she was placed with the 8th graders for reading comprehension and given the opportunity to choose any topics she wanted for enrichment projects. She was so happy to actually have the opportunity she just said "I want to learn everything about everything!" and couldn't choose a topic but decided she would focus on history. Her teacher didn't know what to make of her - she knew she was sincere and had never had a kid SO enthusiastic about learning. It took most of the year for DD to acknowledge that the 8th grade group "moved painfully slowly." For 4th grade they moved her to 1-1 high school literature. We're hoping she has actual high schoolers to work with this year for the purposes of discussing the literature. She is really giving the teacher a run for her money working 1:1.

While all this was going on at school home time focused on an endless number of youtube videos all about fairies - building fairy houses, fairy traps, catching fairies, etc. Oh and dragons. She just can't understand why she can't have a dragon for a pet. (The risk of burning the house down was countered with research on ice dragons...)

So when it comes to literature and history very much a gifty. When it comes to fantasy and an imaginary world very much a little girl. Most of her friends are also gifted and it's the same with them. Sparkling brilliance in certain areas and "Really???" in others.

Ds8 too. He is watching some minecraft utube thing right now. I listen in with oneear. But he doesn't talk about it obsessively and he doesn't watch tv so i think it is cultural capital for school along with playing sports.

This is taking me back to the period when the same child was reading holocaust historical fiction and...Rainbow Fairies!

And, more recently, alternately reading Quo Vadis ("I love this book!") and obsessively playing Sims, making bead bracelets, etc.

Oh, no. The crafty stuff on YouTube is the redeeming part!

Oh, no. IHasCupquake is her username, but she's not about cupcakes. She plays Minecraft and other games. Very occasionally, she bakes cookies.

The tests which you mention were administered at a young age. If you decide to test again, the detailed subtest results may provide helpful information about any possible concerns you may have for potential learning differences or executive function issues.

Meanwhile enjoy your budding artist. She may just have a mild, mellow personality.

As far as the question of exposing her to more, this may be limited by time, money, and interests. Are there specific subjects, destinations, sports, or experiences which might be of interest to her and/or to your family, or extended family?

When considering whether school may have caused her to lose curiosity and drive, do you have reason to believe she may be underachieving? Has she discussed her school experiences with you? Does she have friends and intellectual peers in school and/or outside of school? Does she have great ideas but need adult guidance in how to use these ideas to establish goals and make a step-by-step plan to achieve them? Are there art classes, shows, and/or competitions she might enjoy participating in? Is she generally happy and healthy?

Gifted kids may not necessarily be farther along the traditional path, each may have their own path. This may both invite comparison and also make it difficult to compare/contrast with other kids the same age.

You ask if you've done something wrong as a parent, LOL, everyone has. Few, if any, lives are optimal, however kids and parents can be resilient and keep learning. For encouragement and reassurance in raising a gifted child, many find the book A Parent's Guide to Gifted Children helpful.

Sounds just like my HG+ DD10. She is perfectly happy spending the entire day multi-tasking watching you tube videos about the games she likes on her tablet while playing the games themselves on the desktop. Sometimes I worry about it until I watch her navigate her minecraft building like some kind of professional and realize she is learning valuable 21st century skills. Then at bed time she'll say something like that she wants to study philosophy because she wants to think about questions that have no answers! I think,honestly, that game life is more appealing to these kids because they have less limitations than real life, she can build much better things in minecraft than she can with her limited amount of Legos, for instance.

HG dS10. Gets bored if not constantly stimulated. Books and more books. But he is at a point where I have to help him find books. But those rubber band bracelets you make...he loves, legos he loves, instrument is a New love.

But if I would let him. Stupid Disney shows, nick shows and video games would be his steady diet until his head exploded. And you tube videoes about video gAmes. And he is definately ten years old in the whining department and bickering about nothing with his brother. If you just saw the things in this paragraph (and the crafts and legos) you would think I was crazy all worried about his schooling. But he has time to fit all of it in a 24 hour period with time left over. That is his super power. Fast processing.

Oh yes. sigh. My 12 year old and her friends all love to imitate Miranda. I finally joined in because there was no escaping it.

This thread is making me feel so much better. My kids are surrounded by a lot of very smart kids at their school (and their parents) and so what they do most of the time doesn't seem all that different to me and I keep doubting the test results. The bingeing though.. geez. Currently I live in a world of Steven Universe binge that ended up in a trip to the National History Museum to learn all about gemstones, the hardness of various gemstones, do we have a book on gems, etc. Also lots of drawings of new gem characters based on actual gemstones that are not characters in the animated series.

We went on vacation and my DD8 came home and began building the hotel where we stayed in Minecraft.

She also found some show on Youtube called Life Hacks for Kids (great crafty show for girls) where she made dog biscuits with flour and babyfood, iPhone radio speakers out of toilet paper rolls, etc.

We have not discovered Miranda Sings.

Okay I just googled Miranda Sings.. oh wow. She's hilarious.

My DD8 currently loves a youtube show called Katherine & Rachel.

My DD likes YouTube for Rhett and Link sketches, Paint songs and Jeromeasf and thediamondminecart videos and plays survival craft on her iPad. She still occasionally has flashes of profound insight and held her own amongst kids up to two years older at a recent CTY camp.

My ds12 and my dh have recently binged on the shows Psych and Warehouse 13. Monk is another favorite. Other than that, he shows absolutely no signs of being gifted, has no obsessions, and hates to read. Drives me crazy.

DS9 watches her gaming videos, as well as many other youtubers who make videos about minecraft and other games. His obsession is definitely gaming.

This thread is so reassuring! At the moment my dd11 is mindlessly obliterating her entire Minecraft world by filling everything with TNT and blowing it up. (And no, she's not normally so destructive.) But it's so mindless, I can't believe this is what a gifted kid would choose to do with her time. I guess I had more choices to do unsupervised things outside when I was a kid -- and I doubt that they were very "intellectual" either!

There are things to enjoy vicariously online, which may more closely resemble stuff kids did on their own in past decades and generations. On the prufrock press website, I recently came across their blog which mentions "Free, Astounding Science Videos Perfect for Summer Learning".

Possibly also fun as enrichment and after schooling. I've watched several of the Smarter Every Day videos and find them very interesting. However parents may wish to preview or watch them with their kiddos as there are some presentations which are definitely in the "do not attempt this at home" category. Like most free things, there are ads. The audiobooks sound interesting. Some of the videos may provide inspiration for science fair projects or research reports.

If the OP's question about acting gifted indicated wondering about the level of internal motivation for initiating a new interest, possibly all that's needed is a spark of variety like this?