Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Do You Brag (Or Do Your Friends Think You Do?)

2giftgirls, this is going to sound harsher than I mean it. I understand "different," and I understand the need for everybody to be accepted as they are. (I posted on that within the past few days, actually.)

However, in my view it's a two-way street. If we want acceptance, we also have to try to play by the social rules. My DS might never make it all the way to "fitting in"-- but he tries really hard, and he is included and accepted, and has a few real friends. One reason he has those friends is that he's worked to learn the things he needs to interact with them and be a friend.

By late elementary, friendships are increasingly based not on proximity or parental connections, but on commonly held interests. Having no common interests vastly reduces the opportunities for friendship. This doesn't mean DS has given up any of his unusual academic hobbies; it only means that he's also learned about topics and games that interest his friends, and it's turned out that some of these interest him too-- a real win for him.

Some of it is also participation and ability to engage: both skills that our DS has worked hard on, and he's not done yet.


I know (believe me) how judgmental other people can be when one's child appears to act different, and there is no ready explanation to offer them. Our family has been through some bumpy times (understatement), and I am quite sure there are still people in our community who think our whole family is beyond the pale. This is not nice to experience.

It is still likely the case, though, that as your DD gets older, not participating in what the others are doing will increasingly be seen as disrespectful: not only to her peers, but also to whatever adult is organizing the event. Peers are likely to note her disinterest in their activities and label her as odd, or just ignore her because she's shown that she isn't one of them. Again, I'm not trying to be mean, just observing how these things often tend to work. It is socially stigmatizing to not join a group activity if you are part of the group that is doing the activity.


I'm not saying you should try for a total personality makeover. I'm saying you might try to gently help her find her way into those social relationships that it sounds like she's on the margins of. This could involve acquiring some new skills and interests, none of which is likely to be harmful if it's approached positively.

Social skills are as much a life skill as reading or math; they smooth the way. Part of this skill set is knowing what other people are expecting you to do, and judging when it's best to go along and when it's possible or desirable to do your own thing. Most kids seem to make this judgment effortlessly. Some don't.


I'm happy for you, and relieved that she's suffering less in the new environment. That has to be huge progress for your whole family.

I'm also glad, though, that you are pursuing evaluation, because if a child is reluctant to engage with a group, there's sometimes a developmental reason, and if that is true in your DD's case, it would be better to know than not.

Best wishes, really,
DeeDee

This is a good opportunity for the use of one of my favorite tactics... turning the absurd question back on the questioner: "I dunno... what's YOUR problem?" "Who do you think YOU are?"

Or, there's always the a-stupid-question-deserves-a-stupid-answer tactic: "Today, she thinks she's Hermione from Harry Potter. Yesterday she was Professor Trelawney, which was a lot of fun. Why do you ask?"

Finally, there's the overly-honest tactic: "Her problem is that her Girl Scout troop is full of the children of obnoxious bitches."

The appropriate tactic really depends on how angry you want your audience to be.


It sounds like there's too much exploration of the territory where she's different, and not enough exploration of the territory where she's the same. People from all walks of life have things in common, and finding those things is the most important part of successful socialization.

For the record, the best man in my wedding remains a very close friend of mine since I met him in 10th grade. I graduated near the top of my class; he graduated as a functional illiterate. From a cognitive perspective, we're QUITE different. But there are a great many things I value in him apart from his political ideas or his take on the latest NASA discoveries.

This is a really great discussion! My kids are still very young (21 months and 3 1/2), but they stand out as being very different from other children their age. I long ago took the stance of never discussing milestones or things they were saying/doing with anyone other than my husband and my parents. I never even discuss these things with my brother. His son is almost 8, but it appears my 3 year old has already surpassed him in math and reading skills. I don't see anything good coming out of discussing these things. Anyone that comes into contact with the kids can plainly see they are different and highly intelligent - there is no need to bring it up or remind people. Most people with children just do not want to hear it.

I won't lie if someone asks me directly. There have been many occasions for strange looks and questions when we've been out in public and the kids have just been being themselves. Like at a family reunion when my 1 1/2 year old read the words on my Aunt's sweatshirt... she about passed out. I could tell she wanted to take my daughter around and show everyone, but I quickly tried to change the subject before she could whisk her away. Still, people will talk - there isn't much you can do about that.

We are considering enrolling our son in a private gifted kindergarten. We aren't referring to it as a gifted school, but just as a private school. When asked, we say we like their small classroom sizes and we think that's a better match for our kid's personality than the larger public school classrooms. This is totally true, and an important reason. It also isn't putting down the public school option or making it sound elitist, we are just saying this particular private school is a better fit. We just leave out the part about the advanced cirriciulm and their expertise in dealing with exceptionally gifted children!

I was labeled as gifted as a child. I did sometimes find it hard to relate to my peers, but I had some older friends and I also found a way to develop positive relationships with friends my own age. I was in camp fire girls, and I remember just always being shocked by how ...er... uninformed my fellow camp fire girls seemed. But this was an important life lesson. I had to learn to connect with people on some level. Maybe these girls didn't want to talk about math - but they knew a lot about riding horses, or make-up (for example) that I didn't. I remember I wrote a play for our group because I knew they were good with make up and costumes - it even included a musical number because one of them had an amazing voice. I became friends with these girls, and they accepted me.

Learning to connect with people is such an important life skill. 2giftgirls, I think it's great you have your daughter in girl scouts! With work and patience, I think she can find ways to connect with these girls and develop friendships. Music is great for that too - it can really be a place for some gifted kids to shine!

I am worried about my 3 1/2 year old's social skills. He considers adults to be his friends. He is finally cultivating a friendship with a girl in his montessori class that is 6. Kids his own age, though, he seems 100% uninterested in. He's still very young, of course, so I am hoping it'll get better. But I know that highly gifted kids sometimes struggle socially, and I do worry that is a path he is heading down. I'm not too worried - just slightly above the normal baseline "mother worry" levels.

Anyway, back to the original topic at hand.... no, I make a serious effort to not brag. I focus on more socially neutral topics, but I'm honest if asked directly.

Phew! I sure wrote a lot!

I have in the last few months been told by people That I Have Just Met how smart their kids are. At a school get-to-know-you earlier this year, I had no less than 4 people tell he how smart their child was. The other day, a mom I had JUST been introduced to worked in that her daughter gets all As/A+s. Last weekend, a different mom, who AGAIN I had just met, managed to let me know that her son was so smart that "everything he touches turns to gold". OK. I'm flabbergasted. I never say a WORD, although I am starting to get the giggles every time a parent "gets to the brag" before the 2 minute threshold.

We have 3 family members who we share with, and who are very supportive.

This weekend someone was amazed that the Womb Raider (13mos) was using a straw to drink. We just said thanks.

I have a photo of Mr W when he was 4 mos old holding a juice box and sucking it down. For this reason, we never bring up his milestones in public.

Her brightness is accessible to most people, where Mr W's is not. To go around bragging about him would brand us as nuts to most people while making many of the parents insecure.

If any thing, I think that I tend to go too far in the other direction. This past weekend, I had to laugh when DD's music teacher pulled me aside and said that she didn't think that I appreciated how unusually bright my DD is.

knute--DD's preschool teachers called a conference with us to inform us in hushed, awed tones that DD was gifted. We sort of giggled about this afterwards. They suggested we get her IQ tested right then. She was three, so we didn't.

I try very hard not to talk about my kids academic situations (or their milestones or unique ways of thinking), preferring that they just blend in with their grade peers and their older friends. But, a lot of people have figured it out over time, having heard about the acclerations -- especially subject. For some reason, this means that a lot of parents like to tell me how smart their kids are. What I've found over the years is that, if a parent talks loudly to me about it, their child is a high-achiever (and, usually, the parent is insecure), but if a parent whispers it to me, their child is more than likely gifted.

In fact, a good friendship of mine was ruined because, when my DD skipped a grade, this friend started incessantly telling me how wonderfully advanced her kids were, while simultaneously insulting our educational decisions.

And so we try to keep it secret how old our kids are (unless asked directly) because that brings up all kinds of questions and, ultimately, judgements by others.

Was anyone else here desperate to blend in as a kid? I was. I didn't think the same way almost everyone else did, and it was so obvious, and was such a huge barrier for me.

As an example, I was taunted for using "big words," yet I had idea what kids were talking about. I didn't realize when I was six that my vocabulary was so different. As I got older, I thought about different stuff than my peers and got accused of "thinking too much."

This isn't a whingey post about how tough I had it, but rather a way of making a related point, which is that when parents brag, their kids can suffer. My parents never bragged about me, but if they had, my frustrations would have been magnified and the situation would have been even worse.

So, it might seem wonderful to a parent to tell the world how bright her child is, but the child might see things very differently. Kids don't typically need someone advertising the fact that they're really incredibly different from almost everyone around them.

I agree. I don't think some parents think about how their "bragging" can hurt their kids. The parent mentioned earlier in this thread saying everything their kid "touched turns to gold"?? Yuck!! How will the kid handle it when something he touches merely turns to silver?

On the other hand, I don't think my parents handled it the best way either. They told me that all the kids in my school got 99th percentile on all their standardized tests and that an IQ of 152 was very "typical". I think it made it more confusing and frustrating for me when it was quite evident that I was actually different than most of my peers. I remember when I was 6 or 7 I was thinking either (a) all tests are extremely flawed and meaningless and/or (b) my parents clearly didn't understand percentiles, normal curves, standard deviations, or even the most basic principles of statistics. (I was sort of obsessed with math.) LOL!

So I think my (well meaning) parents went too far the other way - they pretended I wasn't gifted (although they enrolled in gifted programming and a special University enrichment - etc).

I'm sure there is a good middle ground - and most of us are striving to find it.