Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Your perception of other same age kids?

How would you describe what you're noticing about Other People's Kids if you were planning on discussing the observation with your kid?

(I'm on the right track. I'll get there.)

It's actually good to think about, because if you notice it your observant kids will too, and knowing kids they'll blurt it out in the middle of the grocery store. May as well figure out a nice way to say it so we can talk to our kids about it rather than shutting them up when they say it.

I'm going to respond, because I feel like we're not responding directly to one another much in this thread. lol.


Yes. How do we find a polite, grown up way to observe something and discuss it with someone else (like a child), if we need to?

This is exactly something a child might notice.

Let me try. I came home from 1st grade and asked my mom why the other kids were so "stupid" and "Why can't they read?" I don't think she gave me a very good response.

But what could we say to a child when she notices her peers seem slower or don't know what she knows yet?

Everyone learns at their own pace?
Some children need to learn about things a few times, but you learn things after seeing them once or twice?



I'm out of ideas. The conclusion the child will come to will inevitably be..."Oh, I'm faster at learning and those kids are slower." And it would be a correct conclusion, but a rude way to say it out loud.

I don't know either. That's why Grinnity has said before we're developing a whole new language and a new way of talking about things as part of our experience on this forum. Nobody said it was going to be easy. (your mom probably shut you up, right? Now where's your "nice" words to describe what you saw?)

We could just tell the truth.
"You sometimes learn things more quickly than other children. Yes, that means they take longer to learn things and may seem slow to you, but it isn't polite to say that out loud. You should try to be patient with other children like that. If you tell another child that she is "slow", you'll hurt her feelings."

I would love if my child was more tolerant than I was of the slower children, but most of the time they drove me nuts. It wasn't just that they played games "wrong"... most of my frustration stemmed from the slow pace of school. I'm hoping homeschooling and introducing her to kids of all ages will help with some of that.

It's easy to get defensive when someone calls us on our use of offensive speech: "It's all in the ears of the hearer", "Some people just like to be offended and it's nobody else's fault", "There are possible interpretations besides the glaringly obvious hurtful ones", "You're making my point for me", etc. It's often easy to cut through such nonsense by simply putting oneself in the position of the specific hearer, and likely others as well.

Might someone get offended upon learning that someone described her child as a zombie? Weird? Glazed (i.e. lifeless etc.)? Of course they certainly would, and reasonably so-- any argument to the contrary is so ridiculous that it terminates any pretense at reasonable debate. It's pure bull****. (If you insert an offensive term there, it's your issue and not mine.)

If any posters here saw a little of their own attitudes in my previous post, I hope it stings a little. The extent to which it does may be the extent to which they can easily change to become more kind and mindful of others, when discussing topics with such an obvious capacity for hurt feelings-- and with such recent evidence of the sort of backlash their attitudes cause against the parents of gifted children. There may be little hope for those who stick to their guns even after someone lets them know that they have been personally, directly offended to the point of leaving this site.

Oh, and we can add some nice things about the other child, if we know the other child (He / she may not understand the point of puzzles yet, but is caring and fun to play tag with. Or whatever.)

I get the point that it's more polite to talk about our children directly without any comparisons to others (even on a gifted forum like this). I also understand that tact, even on a forum, is always a good thing. These are valid points and easy to see. It's too bad that so few of you understand my points.

It's not kind to make negative judgements about other posters based on scant evidence of any intent to be vicious. You can't both want to increase the politeness and kindness in the world, and yet also, find it acceptable to be both judgmental and vicious in doing so. That's hypocritical.

In your quest is to make the world a kinder place, start with yourselves.

"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?"

That's my point. Got it?

I think we'd be talking about calling everybody in the world dull and lifeless by just looking at them at the supermarket. I didn't know we were talking about other people's kids we actually know & spend time with.

You don't understand my point, but you clearly illustrate what I'm saying.

I rest my case.