After noticing that I was bored in school, my 1st grade teacher recommended skipping me to 3rd, but my mom declined, thinking she was doing me a favor by ensuring that school would always be too easy for me. My 2nd grade teacher's solution to the problem was to pair me with the slowest person in my class, so that I could help her once I was done with my work. I resented the arrangement and probably wasn't a very good tutor as a result. Beginning in 2nd, I was also one of two people in my grade who were pulled out for a gifted enrichment program once a week. The enrichment activities gave me all my best memories of grade school but didn't change the fact that the classroom curriculum wasn't challenging me.
Being an overachieving, perfectionist, teacher pleaser, I kept my mouth shut, did what was expected of me and got As all through junior high, high school, college, law school and graduate school, only to wind up underemployed in a job I hate. To this day, I'm plagued by perfectionism and the fear of attempting anything I might not be good at. I shy away from real challenge and, as a result, will probably never come close to meeting my true potential, although I am currently looking for a more challenging job, having realized a lot of these things about myself only recently.
I'm doing everything I can to make sure my son has a different experience. For starters, I've enrolled him in kindergarten a year early at a gifted school where every child receives an individualized education. This kid is going to be challenged from day one.
I also think a lot of my trouble growing up has to do with class as much as anything. My parents were rural, poorly-educated, blue-collar, working class people who didn't read, travel or enjoy any kind of intellectual pursuits. They frankly had no idea how to give me what I needed--no enrichment activities, no mentoring, no encouragement (actually told me at age 10 that college wasn't in the cards for me)--so I'm sure I should be enormously proud that I've made it even as far as I have.
Right now, more than anything, I feel very fortunate to have the education, awareness and income to be able to give my son all those things I didn't have. And to see him thrive and blossom in response! When I try to imagine him being raised by my parents in the community I grew up in, it makes me incredibly sad. I think that raising a HG or PG kid as a ND kid is akin to child neglect. At the very least, it makes for a real screwed up adult.
