Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Active Threads

AI Overview
The quote, "The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts," originates from Marcus Aurelius's Meditations. It encapsulates a central tenet of Stoic philosophy, emphasizing that our internal world, particularly our thoughts, significantly shapes our experience of happiness and well-being. This quote suggests that by cultivating positive, rational, and virtuous thoughts, individuals can influence their own happiness, regardless of external circumstances.

Here's a more detailed explanation:

Stoic Philosophy:
Marcus Aurelius, a Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher, wrote Meditations as a personal journal, reflecting on his own life and the principles of Stoicism. Stoicism teaches that virtue, reason, and living in accordance with nature are the keys to happiness and that external events have no inherent power to make us happy or unhappy. Our reactions to those events, shaped by our thoughts, are what truly matter.

The Power of Thought:
The quote highlights the idea that our thoughts are not passive observers of reality, but active shapers of our experience. Negative, pessimistic, or irrational thoughts can lead to suffering, while positive, rational, and virtuous thoughts can lead to a more fulfilling and happy life.

Control Over Internal World:
One of the core principles of Stoicism is that we have complete control over our internal world, our thoughts and judgments. External events are largely outside of our control, but we can choose how we respond to them. This quote emphasizes the importance of taking responsibility for our thoughts and cultivating a healthy mental landscape.

Practical Application:
This quote serves as a guide for daily life. It encourages individuals to be mindful of their thoughts, to challenge negative thought patterns, and to cultivate positive and virtuous thinking habits. By focusing on the quality of our thoughts, we can improve our overall well-being and experience greater happiness.

I wish I knew some Danish to be able to find suitable puzzles in your son’s native language.

I’m so sorry that your young son has experienced school trauma. I’m not sure my advice is going to be useful as we haven’t experienced the same, but I thought I’d at least reply and maybe something might be relevant. Please note that I am in Australia, so there may be differences in the education systems between countries.

In our experience, in the early years, the home is the primary source of learning, through informal chats about every and any thing, access to books and other learning resources (including in our household, unlimited access to the internet) and excursions.

I hope this won’t be discouraging, but we seldom found it useful to approach teachers to ask for our kids to be accelerated/extended. In our experience, teachers prefer to make their own assessments of the level of each child’s capabilities. To do so, some of them have said they gauge kids by raised hands when they ask questions, so even if seldom picked, encourage your child to raise their hands whenever they believe they have a correct answer. I was incredulous when my eldest’s eighth grade maths teacher, despite my daughter having been first in every single exam and test (with perfect or near perfect scores), commented that she never knew if my daughter understood the content taught in class because she never had her hand up.

Whilst we quickly learnt to stop making demands of teachers and the school, we also supported our kids not to have to do ‘busy work’ that provided no learning value or stimulation. I politely and firmly stated this at parent-teacher interviews. This resulted in positive negotiations whereby my kids were ostensibly engaged in the same activities as their classmates, but we were able to substitute the content - for example, my son who mastered the multiplication tables early in kindergarten, was given the same multiplication sheets as his classmates, but he completed his exercises in Roman numerals, binary and in different number bases. For spelling, he could choose his own twenty words each week to complete the same set of activities - master the spelling, learn the definition, use in a complete sentence. He chose the most obscure words from the dictionary. The teachers were happy with these arrangements since they did not need to put in any extra effort for lesson preps and the whole class was engaged in harmonised activities.

Best wishes for your son.

Hi, I’m the mom of a 7-year-old recently identified as gifted with significant asynchrony and trauma from school. I’ve been advocating hard but I feel emotionally raw and unsupported. I need to hear from other parents who’ve been through this. School is starting back in a month and we can’t return in the same capacity.

Hello -

Our school district is transitioning from CogAT to NGAT. Looking at NGAT, I'm trying to understand the differences and similarities with NNAT. I understand NGAT has 3 parts (verbal, nonverbal and quantitative), vs only nonverbal for NNAT. For the nonverbal part, is it essentially the same as NNAT? Same kind of questions etc? Does anybody have any insights?

Thanks!