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

I largely agree with Annette. I think that there are, also, community "rules" about what's acceptable - but these are subtle and vary a lot between communities, so this isn't always helpful. In the end, saying something positive about one's child practically always carries some risk of being interpreted as bragging. One just has to choose whether, and if so when, to take that risk.

A community where I particularly notice this - I mean, that different people have different, vehement, opinions about what's acceptable - is Mumsnet (where I lurk quite often, but don't post, partly because I'm aware of not really getting the social norms and have seen what happens to people who don't get them and post anyway!) Do a google search for
"stealth boasting" site:mumsnet.com
or if you're feeling really strong, for
"stealth boasting" gifted site:mumsnet.com
!

The Mercedes statement is a good example of one that would be taken as a boast by most people who drive non-status-symbol cars. People don't ordinarily inject info on the make of car into such a statement. The needless and oddly placed info, plus the status symbol, equals a likely and reasonable perception of an intent to brag that one has a Mercedes. One might as well mention the leather seats and premium stereo too.

The thing revealed about an offended parent of an ordinary child, upon a mention of giftedness of another's child, is primarily that the offendee values intelligence, and doesn't take pleasure in other people openly asserting the superiority of the others' children in this way. Not necessarily a gray area, just basic human nature of many parents.

Now, it might seem to be mostly in the eye of the beholder when the speaker doesn't know the gifted status of the listener's child. As parents of gifted kids we'd love to mention things about our children just as parents of ND kids do, and a normal part of that for us might involve mention of giftedness, or making it obvious. Still, due to the rareness of giftedness, it's highly likely that the other parent will have a child that's non-gifted. With exceptionally and profoundly gifted children, the likelihood approaches near certainty that the other's child will be lower in intelligence and/or achievement. Under those circumstances, whether it says something or not about the other parent, be prepared for an innocent drop-in of a key detail to be taken as bragging.

True, the Merc example perhaps wasn't the best. But I still agree with Annette that there *are* many such examples. Here's one. You're with a group of parents that you know to varying degrees, and one of them says her child has read the HP series 5 times and she wishes he'd read something else, but he keeps not liking things she suggests. You say, "My son really enjoyed the Philip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy just after his HP phase." She doesn't know how old your child is, and your remark is relevant, true and useful; she won't perceive your remark as a brag. Someone else in the group, however, knows that your child is 6 and in the meantime her 6yo is struggling with The Cat in the Hat. She quite likely will - that is, her emotions will be almost the same as if you had deliberately bragged that your child was reading far better than hers. I think this kind of thing really happens. I think we do have to try to be sensitive about it - though it isn't easy - but I also think we shouldn't assume that there is fault, every time anyone feels they've been bragged at. Hurt is sometimes a side-effect, and sometimes it can't be avoided, and sometimes it shouldn't be avoided.

Indeed, if we wanted to avoid such hurt at all costs, this site shouldn't exist (or should be readable only after you've acquired a password by a complicated protocol of secret handshakes). The mere existence of our children can be perceived as a brag by people who are in an emotional place to perceive it that way - as anyone who's ever been bullied for being one of them knows only too well.

Yeah, I wouldn't say this unless I knew I was among other parents of kids who are really strong readers. However, I think I might say something like "The His Dark Materials series is a good one for kids who are done with HP" or "I've heard good things about the His Dark Materials series."

With people who know my child extremely well, I'm less careful, because they see what she's doing and it would be a little silly to pretend otherwise. But I still am cautious.

See, though, I chose the example with care so that it couldn't be wriggled out of so easily :-). Your version is strictly less helpful to the person you're actually talking to than mine - this parent has already tried multiple books without success, so an "I've heard" or an unsupported assertion is not nearly as useful as an actual positive experience by an actual child - she probably chose the previous books on the basis of similar assertions and "people say" stuff, after all! Besides, both the versions you suggest have their own problems, which to my mind are worse than the disease they're trying to cure. The first is just arrogant: who are you to make blanket statements about which books are good for "kids who are done with HP" in general? I mean, maybe if you were a librarian it would be OK to say that, but I would certainly recoil from someone who said this kind of thing otherwise. The second feels to me like lying by misleading, if the only person you've heard it from is your child who's read the books!

Oh, I meant "finished with HP," not "outgrown HP." Also, I have actually read these books, so it wouldn't be like I would be asked for more details and have to reveal that I didn't know what I was talking about. But I didn't say that because in most cases I might not have read the book. FTR, though, my mom is a children's librarian and my friends generally know I'm a kids' book nerd, so there is that.

But yikes, you would recoil? It seems really arrogant to you? Huh. I wouldn't find "x series is good for kids who have finished that one" to be arrogant in the least. The only nonarrogant way is to talk about your kid reading it??

Let me start by saying that I'm finding this thread thought-provoking and possibly even useful, and am arguing as a way to clarify my own thinking. I hope everyone reading is doing so in the same spirit; I certainly don't mean to offend.

(Yes, I assumed that was what you meant actually.) You're probably fairly safe, then, but the suggestions might not work so well for someone else :-) (In actual fact, I too have read these books, but I could have picked something I only knew about from DS.)

Yes, I'm afraid I really would. To me it's like any other case where someone who, as far as I know, has experience only of her own children makes blanket statements about children in general. Try "Children need regular bedtimes", "Boys so love running around", "Children who like potatoes like carrots, too". (I mean, I might not notice - most people, me included, slip into talking in generalisations sometimes, there's one ;-) - and if I did notice I might think you were daft rather than arrogant, but I don't find it advisable to generalise like that.

Suppose, for the same of argument, that you're recommending a book about which the only thing you know is that your own child loved it shortly after the HP phase. Now imagine how the conversation might go on in each case:

Version 1:
Her: blah blah Harry Potter blah blah
You: My son loved [book] just after his HP phase.
Now, as far as I can see, the only possible difficult continuation is:
Her: Ah, that's interesting. How old is he?
at which point you're in a slightly tight spot, but at least you've been open. I'd probably go for:
You: He's a bit younger than yours, but it sounds as though they have similar tastes. [And change subject ;-) ]

Version 2:
Her: blah blah Harry Potter blah blah
You: [Book] is good for children who've finished HP.
Her: Ah, that's interesting. Why do you say that?
You: Well, my son loved it, anyway. [Nothing else you can say, by hypothesis]
Now don't you feel a bit of a prat, having been pushed into revealing that your general statement was based on one kid? And you're still open to "How old is he?" at this point, so it's not as though you've gained anything...

Version 3:
Her: blah blah Harry Potter blah blah
You: I've heard that [book] is good for reading after HP.
Her: Ah, that's interesting. Who did you hear that from?
You: Err, my son. [Nothing else you can say, by hypothesis]
And again, you feel like a prat, and you're still open to "and how old is he?".

All in all, looks to me like "O what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive".

I don't say that's the only nonarrogant way, but TBH I find the idea that one should be scrabbling around for a way to conceal the obvious underlying fact, that one's own child enjoyed the books, sad and faintly ridiculous. The concealment "smells of the lamp" to me, since it's so much more natural to say staightforwardly that your kid read it, if that's the case, and when you tie yourself in knots to conceal some piece of information, IME all too often it comes out anyway and the result is worse than if you'd been straightforward in the first place. It may well be partly just that I'm not good at doing the concealment, I admit!

Good points everyone, including Annette. I seem to just disagree on a few minor points, relating to scope more than general attitude. It seems to me that a good communicator thinks of the likely perceptions of his words-- "good", "bad", with certain contextual knowledge of the the speaker or without, etc.

So, for example, if one has a quite precocious reader and is speaking where it's likely that others with normal or struggling readers know that, the simple fact of mentioning the precociousness is more likely to cause offense than in the absence of specific info about one's child. The information of each message includes the context in which it is spoken and heard. The mention of the precociousness may be explicit, in which it's more likely to be taken as overt bragging, or implicit based on circumstances, in which it may be taken as "stealth boasting".

There are definitely circumstances where I'd agree that probable offense is unavoidable, and when one shouldn't remain mum to avoid it. And there are definitely people who are too quick to take offense, who shouldn't be catered to. I just think that this is an understandably touchy subject for a great many people, and that it's best all around if we try to be tactful. In my experience there are a great many times when a thoughtful person could easily avoid offense that seems to be routinely given.

I don't see the Mercedes analogy as an appropriate one. It's just another car, only an outrageously expensive one. To me, saying you're driving a Mercedes is just like saying your child is attending the private school whose primary qualification for attendance is the ability to pay an extravagant tuition.

Our children are more like all-electric vehicles. They look the same and do some of the same things as other cars, but the technology involved is completely different, so our experiences and challenges with them are completely different.

So, if someone asks you to make a three-hour car trip, it's virtually impossible to have this conversation without mentioning that your car is different, battery won't last that long, takes too long to charge, and there's a dearth of charging stations. Whether the listener decides you're bragging about your eco-friendliness is beyond your control.

By the same token, my boss needs to know why I keep requesting time off to have meetings with DD's school. It's impossible to have that conversation with him without mentioning giftedness... unless I want to just lie outright (I don't).

Mentioning giftedness isn't strictly necessary there, unless further questions make it unavoidable. You could open with a response about special educational needs instead of specifically mentioning giftedness. That might give the impression that your child is on the other end of the spectrum in some way, of course (that wouldn't bother me personally). I think it is reasonable to mention giftedness in your scenario, just not necessarily necessary.