Avoiding my experiences probably has motivated me with DC20 and DC16. In fact, I doubt that I would have thought to look into the issue had DC20 not echoed the same frustrations and anger that I had felt as a child upon entering school.
I was not identified as gifted until it was almost too late. Upon entering school, there was always something "wrong" with me, and I went to extreme measures to correct the problem and avoid teachers' wrath and students' bullying. I spent my teen years in and out of recovery from addiction, getting clean only to have someone point out how different I was from my classmates and how much of a problem I was in the classroom when I began participating again. My last counselor was the one who "discovered" that I was profoundly gifted and helped me understand what that meant about how I viewed the world around me and attributed meaning to my experiences.
During my teen years, I also started to help my aunt raise my two young cousins. DC20 is a very bright young man who hated school the second he started and became a problem in class the second he started school. Testing gave us answers: very bright kid with learning disabilities and ADHD. This has helped him get the accomodations he needs to learn successfully and to develop skills that he will need in the future. It has also helped to reassure less-gifted DC16 that she is not stupid, which has come up many times in the past as she has made cuts and not made cuts for gifted programs and has, at times, felt angry about her brother.
Have we pushed? Yes. DC20 would not have done any homework or tried anything related to school were it not for the pushing, as he enjoys learning but struggles to write out what he knows. Forcing him to play the violin or get perfect grades? No, although his grades have been quite high and he has enjoyed music and athletics over the years...
While I do not agree with everything said on this board or other boards like it, I appreciate a place that understands. Although there seem to be many gifted kids in the area when DC20 was young, no one had a clue or was willing to listen to the challenges--like a 7-year-old getting suspended from school after impulsively acting out of social justice when a fifth grade bully hurled racial epithets at the classmates who had basically tortured DC20 every day for the past year... or DC20 simultanously feeling like the dumbest kid in his class and the smartest...
I'm sorry your experiences have been so bad. You might find some of the articles on Hoagies' Gifted Website intriguing(
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org). I believe there are still some articles dealing with gifted children growing into gifted adults and some of the challenges facing gifted young adults...
