Hi everyone! I was able to breathe a sigh of relief for awhile, but like we all know, our kids keep us on our toes … Big outburst with lots of crying last night with DS14. He claims he's surrounded "by idiots" and he can't take it anymore. He said he has been holding in his thoughts for years and he "hates" where he lives. He just can't understand people with no "common sense" etc…etc.. etc… BTW, another girl in his class is pregnant -that makes 3, yes, 3, who are 14- I know that has really been bothering him. My son is grade skipped, very well accommodated and supported at his school (and home) with online learning, AP access, as well as regular integrated elective classes…Well liked kid who is active in several extracurriculars, starter on two of his high school varsity teams. My husband and I are at a complete loss. Is this just common hormonal stuff? Does he have some serious emotional issues that he should be talking to someone about? I don't want my son turning into an intolerable, pompous brat He seemed better this morning Anyone been here before? Advice? Thanks!

This seems perfectly normal to me.

I'm not sure what the problem is here, unless he is actually telling the stupid people that they are stupid.

With respect to the pregnancy issue, one of the general rules of life is that life wants to create more life.

Pregnant 14 year olds accomplish this overarching goal.

No btdt. Have no teenagers yet. I think it sounds pretty normal for the age. As long as he has the social skills to keep on holding it in, just promise him it will get better in college. If he's grade skipped, it's only another three years, right? With college search and selection starting next year?
My father lives his life that way, always presuming he is surrounded by idiots and never taking anyone's word. I am sure eg saved a lot of lives as a doctor with that attitude, though it sometimes felt as if shouldering all that responsibility alone was killing him. It sure was hard growing up, we never could blame anything on anyone else.

Actually, I hear variants of this rant more or less routinely, from my NT adolescent students. Also, how much they hate teenage drama--in the next breath detailing some social media brouhaha that they were active in.

And "yes" to mon.

Concerned about the mention of pregnancies at age 14, due to statistical likelihood of pre-term birth, low birth weight, and lack of adequate family and financial support for the baby in its upcoming life. Is this what your son sees also? Is he operating from a place of moral sensitivity or existential angst, not uncommon among the gifted?

If he is not a contributor to a pregnancy and not taking risks with his future and the next generation's as well, then I'd say you've received great advice from previous posters, and would continue to focus on his future, not on the classmates surrounding him. On the other hand, if his outburst was triggered because a sexual partner became pregnant, then some may say planning for his future may need to include acknowledging responsibility for the life he has helped to create. If someone he likes but was not physically involved with became pregnant by someone else, some may say he was the lucky one, although he may feel disappointed in her.

Well, if the OP actually meant to say that her son had now succeeded at impregnating the third girl in his class and was STILL popular, I'd say "surrounded by idiots" is a fairly accurate description.
I am pretty sure that is not what the OP was saying, though.

I should like to amend my post by seconding mob and aeh - if he is serious about putting his classmates down that way, it might be a good time to teach a little compassion.

Remind him that although he can't avoid people he can control future exposure to idiots by getting the right job. Teenagers think nearly everyone is an idiot and of course sometimes they are right.

I would talk to him about his feelings if you can. Maybe he was very fond of the last girl who go pregnant and is worried about her.

Also is there a ddifferent school option. While this one sounds supportive 3 pregnant 14 year olds in one class sounds excessive.

Thank you for your replies! No, he does not know any of the girls. He doesn't even know their names. Two of them transferred into the district this year. He just seems so full of judgement and intolerance for anyone that is not like him, because you know, he's perfect! Lol He loves to debate why his views are superior and tends to look down at everyone else's views. He has huge moral sensitivities and thinks way beyond what everyone else sees, which causes him great inner turmoil. My husband and I saw a side to him last night that surprised us. DS was so full of anger and sadness, that people would actually choose to make poor or different choices than he would. I agree that there appears to be a lot of "idiots" where we live, but aren't there everywhere? Part of life is that you need to learn to deal with all types of people, and DS doesn't seem to be dealing with that very well. I feel like he's going to burst at school, screaming how "stupid" everyone is. Normal gifted teenager woes??? Books or other resources??? Thanks again

I think we all struggle, to one degree or another, with actually understanding other's views/choices before we dismiss them.

Maybe debate club type exercises would help???

Sounds like normal teenage brain development, which has binary thinking as one of its primary characteristics. This would be augmented in a gifted child, due to higher cognition and emotional sensitivity.

So, it's a phase. Continued teaching of empathy and perspective-taking would be helpful until it passes.

I'll let you know when it passes. I'm not quite there yet, myself.

We're still pre-teen in this house, so no BTDT. But it sounds like your DS is having a hard time seeing the world through other people's eyes. Yes, OK, some are idiots. But many are responding to their own realities in the best ways that make sense for them. And yes, it's possible that could even include pregnant 14 year olds - I am reminded of how often people on this forum have pointed out that if our children's behaviour makes no sense to us, then we have yet to get well enough into their heads to see the perspective from which, to them, their choices seem logical.

All that to say, can any of you who have lived with 14-year old boys perhaps recommend some good books for Cecelia's DS? Ones about people who make some bad choices, but help you see why they would choose as they do? Fiction might be easiest, but I would imagine there must be some good biography that gets into this space, too. Cecilia - could you suggest anything about your son's interests or potential role models, that might prompt some specific reading suggestions?

ITA with MichelleC. FWIW, I have a 15 year old son and two daughters close behind in age. I don't have a book recommendation but if this was going on here I would talk to my ds to help him try to see things through other people's perspectives. I'd also really try to help him see that chances are those three girls didn't *choose* to be pregnant - and quite possibly didn't even choose to be careless. I think most of us (adults) can probably look back at our own teenage selves and find examples of ways in which we acted carelessly but didn't realize it simply because we were young.

polarbear

Boxers & Saints, Gene Luen Yang
The Schwa Was Here & Antsy Does Time, Neal Shusterman
Nation, Terry Pratchett

Have you read the article (https://web.archive.org/web/20160226175144/davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10135.aspx ) on Identity development in gifted children: Moral Sensitivity by Lovecky (Roeper Review, Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 90-94 December 1997)? What are your thoughts on printing it and discussing it with him? It might give him insight which is affirming while also explaining that his view may be rare in the population.

Books include:
Smart Teens' Guide to Living with Intensity
Emotional Intensity in Gifted Students

Web searches for Social Thinking, perspective taking, and theory of mind will help find other resources.

The Schwa Was Here for a 15 year old gifted boy? My DS15 & a current sophomore in H.S. read this book in if I remember right 4th grade. While it might be on topic, if I suggested my son read I wouldn't get very far.

I don't know the other books, but I can imagine my son enjoying the Terry Pratchett book.

Notes from the Underground.

Me too, I am afraid.

Ain't that the truth!

Indeed. I feel like I spend much of my life compensating for the idiocy of others. In a meta kind of sense, I mean. It can be quite depressing.

For me, learning empathy for "normal" people was not possible until I was able to get away from them. (For me, that happened when I went to college.) I believed in an abstract way that all people deserved empathy, but for an intense adolescent, it simply wasn't possible to actually feel that for the people who were making my life a living hell. I had to get into a situation where they weren't having such a direct impact on my life.

I think it has helped me to view others' illogical behavior as functional. That is, it may not make sense to me in my life, and it may not actually meet their own long-term goals for their lives, but it is -functional- in some way, in the short-term.

For example, when a child in need of mental health support yells at, insults, or otherwise sabotages attempts to provide them with counseling (peer or professional) support, it seems irrational from the outside (don't they want help?), but it might be behavior that is functional for them, because 1) in their family system, this behavior protects them from betrayal of trust (broken promises of support or intimacy); 2) acknowledging the need for support would mean betraying their own family system by admitting that it is flawed, and the need to maintain the illusion of a functional family system is higher than the need to resolve their own state of social-emotional conflict; or 3) they fear confronting their own internal social-emotional concerns, and are protecting themselves from having these exposed in an insight-oriented relationship. (Among other possibilities.)

Taking the position that there is some kind of logic behind other people's behavior (even if it isn't linear logic, or based on the same hierarchy of values as mine) makes it easier for me to work compassionately with a range of individuals. At the least, it becomes a kind of puzzle--figuring out what the basis of their behavior and decision-making is.

Yes-- to put that in lay terms; "what the H-E-double-hockey-sticks is s/he thinking??"

Only, you know-- not intended completely rhetorically and exclaimed out of pure frustration.

Puzzling over the motivations of others has allowed me to grow in my own metacognition, too, so that has been a personal bonus that I didn't anticipate.

To me, your insightful child is expressing what it feels like to be in the top percent for IQ. That realization comes in different ways at different times. It is very hard to understand why humans do the things that they do; it can seem to be that they are acting without as much thought as we know is possible by humans.

I thought the early teenage pregnancy story was a poignant example. For us, we see it as a societal issue that is trying to be solved. Around the globe, cultures struggle with such societal issues. When these societal issues continue on and even seem cyclical or impossible to resolve, you think, gosh, humans might be evolving more slowly than we would like.

I would just tell your child that, yes, different people think differently. That continues on throughout life. Also, I think it is okay to be emotional and have expression of those feelings. It would be stressful to keep it inside.

YES. I also had trouble understanding how anybody else thought, until I was surrounded by people more like myself; by the end of college I understood my classmates, then the broader world of the larger university where I went to grad school, and now I think I do okay with people in general. It's hard to be an adolescent in that clique-forming stage where no one around you is similar enough to form a clique with.
For my (younger) kids I try to give them talent search camps and the like so they have a chance to develop empathy that might transfer. Aside from that - It Gets Better.

My now 17 year old had to get out of the high school scene. She was crying a lot and boredom is dangerous for her. We went to some places that I really hope we never see again! I brought her home for homeschooling when she was 15. She now is still homeschooled but attends college and is soo much happier. She will graduate a year early from high school and be a sophomore in college. We do run into some problems based on her age but those snags seem so little compared to the troubles that she was having dealing with boredom and not having peers. When I was young I also left high school early (as you can tell from my writing:)) Everyone was against it. I felt pretty alone when I supported my daughter on this course. Now I would recommend it to anyone who has even thought of trying it. In college for the first time she really has been encouraged by her teachers to be who she is and to reach towards and embrace her intelligence. We had so few teachers through her public education that did that. Its like the school teachers are afraid to really recognize intelligence or something. The college teachers relish it! That alone has helped her to overcome her judgmental behavior because it is no longer so necessary as a survival tactic when surrounded by people so different than herself. Its kinda like an oxymoron...If that makes any sense:)