I know a fair number of you tested as gifted when you were younger. What does the gifted label mean to you, now, as an adult?

I've been thinking a bit about this and it is actually bothering me a bit, because according to my mom, I missed the cut off for the gifted program by 2 points. So, I guess I'm not gifted?

I've been throwing around the idea of taking the test for Mensa, and DH thinks I'm silly and wants no part of it. I feel like I don't want to join unless DH wants to join and can qualify.

I'm embarrassed to say I actually took their official online home test and got a score back saying I would likely qualify. I don't know if the home test is accurate. DH definitely has some gifted traits, but he does not share my love of analyzing everything.

Anyway, I had a truly horrible school experience. There are whole sections of my life that I seem to have blocked out. Old friends of mine and my family sometimes mention certain things and I vaguely recognize what they are talking about, but most of the time I have no recollection. My sister is convinced I've just repressed half of it. I had cancer as a teenager, so I know why that part is blocked out.

A few years ago, I started reading some of the gifted literature, and it was an "Aha!" moment for me. Everything they talked about was how I was as a child and how I felt most of the time. I finally had an explanation for why I never fit in, why my peers didn't like me and could never put their finger on exactly why, and why my friends regularly told me I was "too much", and made me feel bad about it.

(I use to attribute half of it to getting "INTP" on a personality test, but those tests aren't supposed to be accurate, anyway. lol)

Anyway, I feel lonely sometimes, but DH doesn't understand and I feel silly bringing it up. I need to have "deep" discussions once in awhile, but I have no one to talk to except people in online forums. There was one guy my DH was friends with when he was in the military. He didn't fit in, either, and people thought he was "odd" and "antisocial."

I completely understood him, and when I had to go to drinking parties (beer pong does not excite me), he and I would sit in a corner somewhere and end up having amazing meaning of life type conversations. I even called him on the phone, once, when I had to go to a party that he wasn't at.

But... I'm not gifted. I'm also obviously not outside of some sort of "optimal range" for fitting in. So I don't have a "reason" for all the years of agonizing over not fitting in, or having issues at school, or even for my inability now to choose just one interest to focus on.

I have no "excuse" for my intensity. I'm just "too much" and have a hard time finding friends. I only have a handful, and they are scattered around the country because I moved a lot after high school.

DH (my ENFP lol) gets along with most people and even though he never had a best friend growing up, he moved a lot and never experienced the bullying or things that I did. He doesn't really understand why I keep reading about giftedness or why I care. I don't even know why I care.

DD is definitely more advanced than other babies her age right now and that might also be dragging it up for me. And... I keep coming back to this forum.

We need some more smilies here! I'm looking for a hug one and it is not to be found.

My initial thought is two fold:

1) what test did you take that says you're not gifted? My mother, a few years back, gave me my old school records and I came across two pieces of paper with various test scores on them but which didn't indicate the test name or anything else specific. They were old dot matrix print outs from some school computer presumably. One, at the top above the achievement test scores, had one line that said "cognitive ability" or something like that and put me in the mid 80s. Another, a few years later looked like basically the same thing and had my "cognitive ability" in the 99th. I've taken an IQ test twice in my life and both times it was close to the second assessment not the first. Point being, if it was one of those group tests that many of us bemoan, who knows how accurate it was for you and;

2) scores are not set in stone. As has often been said here, it is a picture of one day. Can we really distinguish btwn two points difference? It's splitting hairs at that point. If you were very young, those scores are also not supremely stable.

Another thing to consider is were you in the 94th rather than the 95th or the 98th rather than the 99th? That also might make a difference. How high was the bar?

In re to the "optimal range," I'm not sure that it can be quantified by sheer #s. I'm someone, if I go off of the greater bunch of the data not that one group test from my early elementary years, who is right at the 99th point but really not above it. I've got a few tests that put me a hair higher and a few that put me a bit lower, but I'm not a DYS kid type of person. My dd12 is also probably right around the same spot. We're avg Mensa eligible material which doesn't seem that far out honestly.

None the less, other things come into play in terms of alienation in life. What does your community look like? If you've lived in places that mirror the avg of the nation, you're still trying to find that one person in 50 or 100 who is like you. That is harder than it is for most people. Personality matters too (I'm not suggesting that you have a bad one .) I suspect that my dd12 finds herself fitting better with the further out there people b/c of her personal drive and direction in life. It makes her appear even more gifted than she probably is.

I, like you, find that my # of friends is limited. On my end, we moved a lot too but I'm sure that isn't all of it. Lonely is a hard place to be, though. FWIW, I have really enjoyed the people I've met through my local Mensa group but I'm sure that it varies from place to place.

SAT tests are IQ proxy tests, too.

And in any event, "gifted" to me is just a section of the human population with a certain level of "intensity" or "amplitude".

I only started looking at IQ again when I had to figure out what extremely low IQs meant for my job.

From what I hear, Mensa is hit or miss. I've never bothered trying to find out much about them.

Mensa doesn't accept SAT tests anymore. I think SAT tests are more of an aptitude test and IQ tests are supposed to measure intelligence, although obviously the two concepts are closely linked.
"Not fitting in" doesn't necessarily mean you are or aren't gifted. I know lots of of gifted people/kids who fit in, and some who didn't. Taking the mensa IQ test won't necessarily answer questions that you have about yourself- what if you bomb it? You can still be gifted.

The Triple Nine Society still accepts SAT tests through February 2005.

In any event, the SAT's probably good enough for government work, so to speak.

Giftedness is a continum, just like ingelligence, generally.

I don't think there are fixed "gifted / non-gifted" points.

But you know it when you see it. And personality comes into play.

Here's my thought: Let's say right now you were presented with a piece of paper that says IslandOfApples: you are gifted. What would that change for you? It sounds like you are saying in your head you would have a valid reason for your feelings of difference.

From my perspective that sense of validity of your feelings doesn't come from a piece of paper with an IQ score on it. Because of course there are a range of feelings that people x number IQ can have. Many will feel nothing like you feel. Some who have a totally different IQ will. Having that IQ doesn't take away the experience you had of feeling alone as a child and it won't make you less along right now.

If you feel discontent or loneliness in your life now that's what I'd focus on. A little bit of therapy to come to terms with your feelings might help. Putting energy into finding people you can connect with would also help. Most adults don't join clubs based on IQ - they meet around shared interests. What are your interests? It is very likely if you focus on your interests you will find ways to connect with people. Think about activities like: volunteering, book club, chess club, etc. Putting the same energy you put into online activities into real life activities is the road to building those in real life friendships that offer the possibility of real support.

I think it's safe to define "gifted" as a certain level of thinking power above the average. On a good day a current IQ test would mark that power at 130 or higher. People are complicated, however, so when you take that measurable thinking power and blend it into everything else that makes us human, especially our social and emotional needs, you get an infinite variety which explains the diversity of the gifted population. Throw in variables like motor skills, working memory, and processing speed, and it's obvious that each gifted person is totally unique and there are no manuals.

I like to imagine we are like those graphic audio equalizers on your PC, but replace the frequencies with different areas of thinking and feeling and personality. An average person has most of these on a similar level across the board. But as you enter the gifted range, the levels almost never go up together; things become asynchronous, so one person has a high working memory, but lower verbal, and vice versa. And just how in audio this brings unique, often distorted sound, so with people it brings unique gifts and talents but often at a cost of emotional and social problems during development. You can imagine what some of the so-called "idiot savants" might look like on such a graphic equalizer, with one or two levels at the top and then others at rock bottom.

In my opinion, working and long term memory are vastly underrated in measuring intelligence. Raw thinking power is like having a muscle car with no roads. If you're constantly having to rebuild the roads, look up the facts, then your muscle car isn't all that useful or fun.

I think that explains why the only people I've ever met who seemed impressively and universally intelligent to me all had a superior memory. I worked with one IT guy who had 40 certifications and remembered everything. He was a mellow guy, not intense or "giftie", but he just could remember everything. For all I know his thinking power could have been average but what does it matter? His brain was finely mapped with smooth roads and excellent signs, so even if he was driving a Honda Civic, the guy next to him with the muscle car brain was constantly popping his tires and having to repair the roads and squint at the signs his poor memory obscured.

OK, my analogy is breaking down at this point but that's because according to the IQ test I took when I was 17, my 8-yo daughter is smarter by 25 IQ points!

I grew up with a guy like this. He memorized the dictonary and won the national spelling bee one year.

He was intense and quite different.

I have a pet theory that I like to carry around with me (and I bookmarked on my computer before the hard drive crashed). If you think of a brain cell as being like a computer that is connected to other brain cells by ethernet cables, the insulation on the cables is called myelin. There's been some research that suggests that the the greatest impact genetics or your physical body has on intelligence is through the quality of this insulation. For some reason, I find this thought rather comforting.

I'm a teacher with little experience in gifted education, but I have run more meetings to determine eligibility for Special Education than I can count. I do tend to think of giftedness being similar to mental retardation, because both represent remote corners of a normal distribution, whose difficulties come about because they are so far from the norm.

I also think of cutoff scores as being a line arbitrarily drawn on a bell curve. There isn't a gap on that line that makes the people on one side noticeably different from the folks on the other. There are plenty of people who happen to be very close to it. The line doesn't have much meaning in the real world, in other words.

If a public school looked at a IQ 2 points higher than mentally retarded in this day and age and declared that student was not eligible because they didn't meet the cutoff, it would be in a world of trouble with state and federal law. For one thing, 2 points on a standard scale is a very small difference that might disappear if you happened to take the test on a different day. For another thing, they'd need to do another test whose name eludes me at the moment. I think it's called a Functional Assessment--the Vineland is one example.

Now, the laws for SpEd have always been stronger than the laws regarding gifted education, but having a single, hard-and fast cutoff score is just bad practice. Data from a variety of sources should be considered.

My older sister also missed the cutoff for the gifted class. She's a now a medical doctor in charge of training medical residents at her hospital. In the past, she's been chief of staff at a different hospital. If she was tested in this day and age, other factors besides a cognitive score--like her superior task commitment--would probably be considered, and she would probably qualify.

I'm going to suggest you google "3 Ring" and "Renzulli", and that you try to get your hands on a book called _Living with Intensity: Understanding the Sensitivity, Excitability, and the Emotional Development of Gifted Children, Adolescents, and Adults_ Daniels & Piechowski, ed.s

I can only monetize I.Q.'s of 70 or under. And trust me, that's a hard cutoff under Social Security's disability regulations:

"12.05 Mental retardation: Mental retardation refers to significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning with deficits in adaptive functioning initially manifested during the developmental period; i.e., the evidence demonstrates or supports onset of the impairment before age 22.

The required level of severity for this disorder is met when the requirements in A, B, C, or D are satisfied.

A. Mental incapacity evidenced by dependence upon others for personal needs (e.g., toileting, eating, dressing, or bathing) and inability to follow directions, such that the use of standardized measures of intellectual functioning is precluded;

OR

B. A valid verbal, performance, or full scale IQ of 59 or less;

OR

C. A valid verbal, performance, or full scale IQ of 60 through 70 and a physical or other mental impairment imposing an additional and significant work-related limitation of function;"

Hi Islandofapples,

I am perhaps towards the other end of pondering the questions you are now. Your experience sounds very similar to mine (even down to the Mensa home test) and I have felt for some time that giftedness has presented itself quite differently in me than in others. Now... let me just say that these are just my musings on things and I have no idea if there is any truth to them or not. Overall, I guess my theory is that giftedness might look quite different if you have had a traumatic childhood. I would love someone to do a study on it - I haven't been able to find one.

I too had a very traumatic childhood and difficult school experience. Someone who went through a similar experience to mine described their schooling as never really being present, which resonated with me - because you're too involved in just surviving. I was talking to a woman who runs a large children's welfare service in my state and she was saying there is more and more evidence suggesting that children who experience prolonged periods of trauma in childhood end up with their brains wired differently.

I have a dad who tested EG+, as did my daughter. My husband is smart, I'd say MG-HG. He can run rings around me mathematically, but doesn't see the connections between things that are obvious to me. I talk about it as being a difference between looking for answers and looking for understanding. He looks for answers, I look for understanding. I feel that it's the looking for answers that is typically viewed as giftedness, and that when the two are combined (looking for answers and understanding) you get what is typically considered HG+ (sorry this is a very simplistic explanation of what I mean and possibly makes no sense). I think in my case the looking for answers (which is kind of what education is I guess, and which I never had the brain space to engage with on any level until late high school) never really got developed. The looking for understanding, which to my mind helps you navigate difficult life situations, got over developed.

For a number of years after dd was born I would read about giftedness and find that so much of it fitted me, but my experience of interacting with other people who identify (legitimately) as gifted was that I was very different. I don't talk the same way, I don't think the same way. Yet even then I often find myself in the same situation as I do with my husband - seeing connections that they don't see (and they are often appreciative when I point them out, so it's not just that I'm connecting random and unrelated things!).

I think 'knowing' if you are matters more if you haven't identified as a smart person before you have your own gifted child, because it suddenly explains so much. I don't know that I'd test well on a real IQ test (the Mensa home one here is multiple choice and I'm a good test taker). But ultimately I gave up trying to determine if I was gifted by standard definitions or not and just accepted that my early experience has meant that I'll probably never really know how my thinking compares to others. My genetics would suggest that I am and I think in the important ways (intensity, curiosity, need for new knowledge, depth of understanding etc), I probably am. But in a slightly odd way. Hence the username

Sorry for the life story - I just thought I'd mention my experience in case it resonated with you!

It definitely resonates with me!!! A lot of what you said is new to me, as I never thought of it quite that way. I didn't mention my home life, which was probably worse for me than school.

If ever I tell someone, "Oh yes, my mom was mentally and physically abusive, I was bullied terribly in school, then I got cancer as a teenager..."

(Oh, and someone mentioned here about group tests. I took one and didn't pay attention the whole time because I had appendicitis. My appendix burst a day or so after that. By the time I got out of the hospital, my mom made them retest me alone, and the gifted class had already been chosen and was full. That's why my mom seems to think they didn't really want to have to hire another teacher and open a second class for me. Maybe I was never meant to be in it.)

I like to think the universe or God or whatever gave me all this adversity for some reason. I just don't know why...

Well, anyway, I think my life story sounds ridiculous and that I sound like I'd be a basket case (or just lying) and I already did my very helpful year of counseling right after I got married (because I want to stop the "cycle of abuse" NOW and not put that on my family.)

But there was no safe haven for me to just be me, anywhere. Ever since I met and married DH, I feel like I am some other person - the real me- living some enchanted pretend happy life.

I've reflected on it before, and it feels like a switch flipped and I got thrown into an alternate reality where nothing that I remember happening to me really happened, and all that really exists is me in my new happy life with someone who loves me for who I am and actually allows me to be me.

My mom has also mellowed out as she has aged, and I have been cancer-free for 10 years and have a beautiful healthy baby girl (they said I might not have children), so it could be like my life before didn't really happen. I sometimes have a hard time accepting that my happiness could actually be a pretty permanent thing. It sounds very PTSD-like, actually.


"Overall, I guess my theory is that giftedness might look quite different if you have had a traumatic childhood. I would love someone to do a study on it - I haven't been able to find one."
and this^
I would really love to find out how a traumatic childhood affects things.

"I think in my case the looking for answers (which is kind of what education is I guess, and which I never had the brain space to engage with on any level until late high school)"

This is also a really interesting theory, because my parents describe me as such an insatiably curious young child, but I eventually zoned out completely in school (while getting A's, up until my parents divorced when I was 12.)

I was heavily into fiction books. They were my escape and they really got me through so much, I think. (That, and my dream to become a singer, which no one really supported until my dad did when I was 20.)

I definitely had no energy or support to do much else. I actually met DH right when I took an amazing community college class that awakened my love of learning again. For the past few years, I've been simply devouring information. I research everything and I write and create like I never did before.

I am a little sad that it took me so long, though, and a tiny part of me feels like I didn't fulfill my potential.
I was reading Outliers the other day, and he talked about a pg guy who came from a dysfunctional family, and he was showing how even a pg person could end up never becoming anything or fulfilling his potential if he didn't have the right sort of support system.

The guy he cited didn't have the skills to succeed in a college environment and was doing his own graduate level research that would likely never be taken seriously because he never got his degree. I'm obviously not pg, but that book (if at all accurate), really makes a case for how circumstances shape whether or not you succeed in some amazing way.

Hmm, I feel like I sound really pathetic in this thread, but I am pretty happy now, even if my posts talk about transient loneliness. I am just still trying to find my place in life and figure out how to make what I do with it meaningful.

Just found this paper on giftedness and attachment...

Well, I suppose you might say that's an example of the government holding schools to a higher standard of evaluation than it is willing to use for itself.

Hi Islandofapples, thanks for the great link I haven't got time to reply properly now, but will pm you in the next day or so.

(and no, you don't sound pathetic at all!)

I am really not sure what I think of that article. Perhaps I just have my back up as someone who was most strongly committed to attachment parenting with my 2E kid? I think Velcro baby describes her nicely. She was "disorganised" from birth, we would have ended up attachement parenting through necessity had we not already planned things that way. I really do not feel than that she developed her problems due to poor attachment. Though I can see that it would be entirely possible for poor attachment to cause issues I feel this would be the exception rather than the rule. I think the reality is that there are many gifted kids whose brains are "interesting" in other ways as well as their giftedness and that that is heavily genetically driven.

Well, I am reading another book right now - What Babies Say Before They Can Talk and he is also talking about the negative effects of babies that are not attached (well, their needs responded to.)

It is making me feel a little bad, because we are also practicing attachment parenting and DD was colicky in the early months and fussy and very serious once I fixed the colic (got rid of dairy and soy.)

We are doing the best we can, but it feels like our best isn't good enough. I feel like she gets frustrated a lot and there is not a whole lot I can do to fix her problems (help her to communicate, help her to move / crawl /walk.) She's gotten happier as she's gotten older and more capable, though...

Might it not be possible that some gifted kids could simply be worse off if they didn't have the proper attachment? I mean, I think any kid is worse off if they get neglected, abused, or don't have their feelings validated.


I think some people get really irritated about this stuff because it is like "blaming the mother" or whatever, but, well, parents do have a profound effect on their children. We just try to do our best...

I disagree with many of the ideas proposed in the article. DD8 is one of the most securely-attached children I have ever met, yet she has ADHD, may be dyslexic, and was a very late-talker.

Yeah, I really don't believe that the data on ADD/ADHD supports the idea that it is caused by environment. It is very heavily influenced by genetics from the research I've read. I, too, didn't care for the statement in the article that,


Both of my girls were very verbal very early but my youngest does have ADD. I co-slept with both of them and nursed for quite some time (2.5 years with dd10, the younger one). I, too, went in the AP direction out of necessity with my oldest b/c she had very high attachment needs and cried constantly. I carried her everywhere and was highly responsive. By the time dd10 came along, that was the way I parented so that's how she was parented as well although she was a significantly more mellow baby.

The article has significant weaknesses. The authors use signs and symptoms that are characteristic of learning disabilities and neurologically-based exceptionalities (such as Asperger's) as indicators that a child has attachment problems, and then turn around and assert that attachment problems, not learning disabilities, are the cause of underachievement. They define securely attached children as being trusting, confident, emotionally regulated, socially competent and empathetic, which seems designed to label anyone with significant LDs, ADD/ADHD or autism spectrum traits as having "insecure attachment".

They go on to talk about how well-adjusted children are securely attached (What is a well-adjusted child? Why, one who is trusting, confident, socially competent, emotionally regulated and empathetic, of course...), and how most gifted children seem well-adjusted (and thus securely attached), but some appear to have social adjustment problems - which are, apparently by definition, signs of insecure attachment, not signs of an inappropriate environmental match or disability.

It is one of the most poorly reasoned papers I have ever read.

I didn't take the author to be meaning that ADHD and learning disabilities are always related to insecure attachment, simply that there are instances where they may be (though I didn't notice the sentence Cricket2 quoted above the first time I read it - in which this is not clarified, so perhaps they do - in which case I do think such a claim is ridiculous).

However, I wasn't reading it from that perspective, having neither ADHD or a learning disability - what resonated in my situation is the idea of an 'over developed' right brain. I don't know how much truth there is to theories about dominant brain hemispheres, but my husband and I often laugh when we come across trait lists for dominant hemispheres because I always tick every right brained box. Those traits definitely make it more difficult for me to communicate my ideas with other people and I have always thought that that seemed to tie in to my (very unscientific personal) theory about answers vs understanding that I mentioned earlier in the thread.

LOL So I guess I liked the article because it supported my theory (luckily I am not a scientist!)

Edited to include ** I should point out that when I talk about difficulties in communication, I don't mean I struggle to get along with others, just that I struggle to communicate my own ideas. I can get along with anyone - one of the benefits of right brain traits is seeing the bigger picture, so ultimately I can almost always understand where people are coming from!

You need some trauma to grow, but it sounds like you got a little too much trauma.

Trauma either leads to post-traumatic stress disorder or it leads to post-traumatic growth.

However, if you are generally happy now, I'm afraid that there is some risk that you may remain permanently happy.

Yay! lol

interesting question. And a good one.

Since we've been trying to figure out if DS8 fits into this category, I've recognized a few things.

1. What does this mean for me - I know my IQ, and does that somehow change the circumstance of my life, my confidence, my abilty. NO. I can't go BACK, but knowing what I AM helps me direct myself forward. So, knowing if you make MENSA maybe is the affirmation you need/want... however, if not making it, or scoring lower than you thought you might, what will that change?

2. Same thing for my son. If he's just super bright vs. MG... what does that mean? It means only that I should find appropriate challenges for him - doesn't mean he'll wANT them... all I can do is lead the horse to water.

3. Regardless of DS8 desires/performance, what do I want for him? MOstly, those things I want for him that relate to IQ are outcomes that have some of my baggage attached. Hard to say, but brutally honest.

Mostly what I want for him, however, have nothing to do with IQ.

I want him to be confident, free, a connection to his spirituality and feel safe within our household.

So, how important is being "gifted" - VERY in the small picture, minimal in the big picture.

I just think 'balance'.

For me, the gifted label has been important in terms of providing a positive label to undo a lot of negative labels I have been given in the past. If I hadn't needed that, then 'gifted' probably wouldn't matter so much. I'm hoping that as time goes on it will matter less and less.

I'm resurrecting your old thread a bit b/c I've thought about this comment off and on.

If this is too much of a derail, I'll start a new thread !

I believe that a lot of people with expertise in giftedness in children assert that it is important for gifted children to have intellectual peers. That is part of the argument for tracking gifted kids with other gifted kids in schools; it isn't all about academics.

I am wondering, then, why having intellectual peers would no longer be important when we are adults? I do agree that we don't necessarily have similar political, religious, or parenting beliefs just b/c we are all gifted. We also don't necessarily have similar hobbies, etc. However, I have found that I sometimes mesh better with other adults, regardless of age, who are fairly highly intelligent. Of course, I do have people I adore who are not brilliant, but I do find value in like minds based on brain wiring as well (which is how I see high intelligence -- different wiring).

Of course, as a Mensa member, I may be more sensitive to comments about adults not joining clubs based on IQ . Mensa has over 50,000 members in the US, so some of us have obviously found something other than bragging rights from joining. Most of my acquaintances, co-workers, etc. aren't aware that I'm a member, though. I don't go around wearing Mensa logo attire.

Mensa always struck me as a group for unfocused intelligent underachievers.

Otherwise, you would be getting sufficient intellectual stimulation from your professional peers and, therefore, not have a reason to join Mensa.

I'm not a Mensa member. I have thought about joining the Triple Nine Society - I noticed they have a LinkedIn group and I'm somewhat bored, in general. I don't currently belong to any high I.Q. groups.

Wow. That was harsh. What sort of career would one need to be in to get this intellectual stimulation you speak of?
I'm a stay at home mom. I don't even have professional peers and a lot of SAHMs don't. Are we underachieving? Am I supposed to magically find another mama on the playground who wants to have deep philosophical conversations with me while we watch our kids play on the jungle gym?

I was thinking about Academia/Medicine/Law. I wasn't trying to be harsh. After all, I'm an unfocused underachiever.

I was envisioning a Physics Ph.D. with a "Mensa Member" sign on his door. The rest of the faculty would be laughing at him behind his back. Not the best career move.

A lot of us would probably enjoy Mensa, then, I suppose.

I would argue that most adults do choose their associations in large part based on IQ, but they don't acknowledge it or even realize it because the overlap between IQ and what people find interesting is so great. How many low-IQ physics Ph.D.s do you honestly think there are? My son found most of the kids he knows around his age who might be considered "intellectual peers" by participating in a community theater group doing Shakespeare productions. The "shared interest" was also a filter that selected in favor of higher IQ.

I actually work in the medical field part-time. I'm an educator at a hospital along with my side interests . Maybe if I was a physician or hung out solely with the higher level clinicians, I'd find those intellectual peers there, but I'm not sure. I generally found that I had better luck meeting friends when I lived in the SF Bay area.

Our local Mensa group that gets together periodically has, of those I've met, a lawyer, a university professor, and other professionals along with single parents who aren't working in their dream careers, and those of us who fall in between somewhere. I'll freely admit to being someone unhappy with my current professional trajectory which is why I am doing other things I enjoy more in my freetime such as writing and website stuff for gifted kids.

Yes! and when you find out how, can you tell me?



I agree with this! And in connection with the quote above, a SAH Mom with not much time for other interests can find the world a pretty lonely place. (especially if you add in playground polotics)

Everyone wants people who "get them". Being gifted is about how your brain is wired and its pretty hard for people to get you if their brain isn't wired somewhat similarly.

I wouldn't say magically, but I would say that depending on where you live you may not find it that difficult to find bright SAHMs. It is probably harder if you live in a city where a lot of people have nannies or use child care.

I won't say it was magic - I worked at it hard - but I was able to find quite a few very bright SAHM to hang around with. They tend to gravitate to certain types of kids' activities. I realized I needed SAHM friends so I pushed myself to join organizations and ask people over for playdates.

How I managed this was to look for activities that would tend to attract gifted kids like my son, and then take my son to them. Like magic, the parents of those kids seemed to be a lot more like intellectual peers to me, on average. Choosing to visit the playground near the local university's married student housing was a good bet, too.

Yes, all of that. I would also suggest taking the lead in starting conversations on nonparenting topics - on books or whatever - it may not be most but you will find moms who are very happy to escape conversations about sippy cups. If you hit it off be prepared to invite people to meet you at a children's museum or to come over for a play date.

I would also suggest looking for friends in other places too. Taking classes in something that interests you can be helpful. As far as hobbies, I've noticed a lot of brainy women knit. It is a hobby that lends itself well to chatting. "Stitch and B*tch" groups are a great place to start. Check out the regional forums on Ravelry.com too.

You had me there! LOL!

Imagine a world where you could wear Mensa logos as easily as others wear their sports team or fancy country club or vacation logos.

You know, I really want to create more things. My mil and her mother both knit and I didn't (still don't) get it because they never did anything else I considered related - like cooking, cleaning, or gardening. I have no idea how to knit. I signed up there anyway.

Islandofapples I taught myself to knit from videos online. Knitting got menthrough a very tough few years. Both through keep hands and mind busy and through creating something. I really miss it, but my hands have not recovered enough from my last pregnancy to knit again. I am trying to get organized to quilt now, but it takes a lot more space to quilt, and makes a lot more mess. Knitting is so small, portable and tidy, so easy to stop instantly and put away because parenting calls.

And knitting is not about house keeping or chore like tasks. It's creative and mathematical.

That said I would consider gardening a chore, while others find it deeply creative and fulfilling but would consider knitting something you did only to make necessary items and so a chore.

Some links that demonstrate that knitting is mathematical and about making more than needed objects:

Hoagie's Gifted knitting links

Thanks, I'll keep trying

This was kind of my point. Mensa struck me as a catch-all for those who didn't find a group such as the Shakespeare group or go into the physics profession, etc.

Given that one of my interests is in the realm of economic analysis (theoretical) and macro-trend stock trading (practical), I don't have an in-person group in my small metro area. Lots of people to talk to, but, given my topsy-turvy look at the market (I like bear markets better than bull markts), you just aren't going to find many people except online.

If I went to NYC, I would find plenty of such people. And it would be a group that was pre-selected for I.Q.

I used to crochet a lot even though I worked full time before my son was born. I created my own patterns for making things like finger puppets and dresses for my daughter. I liked making filet crochet pictures. I never really thought about crocheting and knitting being mathematical.

Yes, I've had some amazing conversations with random moms in the park. Usually they were interested in finding out more about gifted testing & schools for their own child that they suspected was gifted too!

I found this interesting: When DS10 was born (he was my first) I was exclusively breastfeeding and joined a breastfeeding support group at the local hospital. I became friends with 3 other moms (we are still friends) and each of us were different ages, maybe a 10 year age span, from different backgrounds from blue collar to upper middle class to wealthy. All 4 of our children (that were the babies in that group) are gifted. Differently gifted ranging from 135-160 on WISC testing. 2 were identified as gifted early (before age 2) one was tested "for the heck of it" because the mom was curious (135, goes to regular public school, no services or gifted acknowledgment) and the last was ID'd in 4th grade after a rocky road in elementary school (and my pushing her to test, she tested in the mid-140s and is much happier in school now that she is getting enrichment) DH said "how can all of these kids be gifted, is it the breastfeeding?" I figured the 4 of us gravitated to each other because we were similar in the IQ dept even though we appeared to have so many outward differences. Also, the fact that we all were interested in breastfeeding, finding support groups, etc. If we were strangers pushing our kids on swings at the park we would have probably had some interesting conversations As far as activities you are right. Anyone go to Music Together? I met a lot of other intelligent moms at activities like that too

My hands to better with crochet than knitting...any luck there Mum3?
I hate it when my hands misbehave!
Grinity

That is an interesting thought Grinity, but given doing my DDs hair in the morning, taps, hand writing etc are still problematic (after 18 months) I don't think I could even crochet.

This is similar to my experience, but not just IRL. My online parenting groups have seen a similar phenonmenon. Those of us who have stayed together for 9+ years have a remarkably high rate of children who are gifted in some form or other.

((sad face)) Oh dear! Sending good energy for quick and steady improvement...Do you think some kind of medical attention might be useful?
((hugs and more hugs))
Grinity

I have low tone and EDS hypermobility type... Not much to be done about it. With any luck I will stiffen up again, perhaps when I finish breastfeeding things will shift a bit.

My 13-year-old son has mild hypotonia and fingers that bend way back. I wondered if he had EDS when he was diagnosed with scoliosis but he does not have hypermobility in all of his joints. Nobody else has this in my family.

I think he could probably crochet for about five minutes if I taught him how to do it. After five minutes, just like with handwriting, I am sure his hands would hurt and it wouldn't be any fun. Not having that stiffness in his top finger joints makes it harder for him to hold on to things and he tries to compensate by holding on tighter but it doesn't work for very long. Cutting steak with fingers that bend back like rubber is especially difficult. The physical therapist told him to try squeeze balls to strengthen muscles but I don't see how that could possibly fix the problem.

My son doesn't think it is worth learning to do something when he can only do it for five minutes without pain. He thinks it is a better use of his time to do things where there is a chance he can do it well.

Lori, the squeeze ball can help by selectively strengthening and bulking up the flexor muscles in the hands, essentially using the flexors to partially splint the fingers by increasing the resistance to hyper-extension and decreasing muscle fatigue by increasing strength. I'm so sorry your son's physical therapist didn't do a good job of communicating WHY this would help.

Thank you. He is adding the squeeze ball to his daily work out.

DS10 has been a member of Mensa since he was 4 or 5. I always think we'll have some interesting Young Mensans thing to attend or that I'd feel bad to cancel the membership. I know other parents that have purchased the Lifetime Membership for their child. DH thinks they should be solving the world's problems, instead they focus all that brain power on a Sudoku Special Interest Group, Crossword Puzzles or Watching Old Movies SIG... lol

And of course saying "this kid's in Mensa?!?" when he does something questionable is kind of worth the price of admission! lol

You want to find a REALLY interesting and under-identified group of gifted underachievers? Hang out with us artists. Everyone I know in the arts is brilliant, crazy and could have used help as kids - the kind of help we get for our kids when we have them tested, label them gifted and get them into programs that challenge and enrich them in their education! All of these people I mention fell through the cracks, were labeled weird, became slackers...it's a shame! Of course, DH has a theory on that one too. If they had the meds in the past that they have now we may not have had all the wonderful paintings, scultpture, poetry and music we've had through the centuries!

so to me the label gifted can mean saving a kid from falling through the cracks and becoming a slacker/underachiever and/or depressed individual.

Theraputty and squeeze balls made a HUGE difference in our son's hand and finger strength and endurance. It is very easy - something a person can do while they watch TV even. The theraputty is nice because it comes in different colors for increasing strengths so you can tell you are getting stronger.

Ok, so I know this is an old thread but I thought I'd update it, anyway.

I actually went and took the Mensa test! My husband told me to just go do it and the testing price was very low this month so I did.

I missed it by 1 point on the Mensa Admissions Test and their conversion chart put my IQ at around 131, but I need a 132. (There was a second short test that I did worse on. My hypothyroid brain fog started getting to me around section 5 of 7 of the first test and was full force by the second.)

Sucks having gifted "problems", but being on the wrong side of the line.

Anyway, you guys were all right! It didn't actually change anything for me, really. It really doesn't matter if I'm 97th percentile or 98th. I do feel a little relieved knowing where I stand for some reason, though.

It seems I could have or should have qualified for my school's gifted program when I was younger, though.

I'm glad I took it and if you are thinking of taking it (a few told me you were), you should just go for it.

Thanks for the update, Islandofapples! Sounds like an interesting journey for you.

If you are only off by one point, keep taking the test until you win!

Yes, the ability to distinguish by a matter of one point is pretty slim, so I'd say that you're either there or so close that it shouldn't matter.

Unfortunately, Mensa only lets you take their test once in your lifetime. You can still take any other test they accept as proof of "prior evidence," though if it was something you really wanted to pursue later.

I have to give you kuddos for gathering up the courage to go and test. I'm much too much of a wimp for that and just used prior evidence !

I would use the GMAT.

That test is pretty easy and Mensa only requires you to get 95th percentile.

Oh, I can't believe I never replied.
They have a "culture fair" test that has 3 sections. You need to pass only 1. The proctor recommended I take it because I was so close and it would give me another chance. I may do that in the future... we'll see. I want my hypothyroid "brain fog" to be under better control, though. My spacing out probably cost me that 1 point!

I have found the same at ballet. For some reason it seems like the kids who get into ballet are both different and highly intelligent. And smart/gifted kids do tend to come from gifted parents...have had many great conversations there.

I'm sticking with my GMAT idea.

And, when you are done, you have completed the first step in what could quite possibly be an exciting new career in Perpetual Studenthood!