Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Highly Gifted Child Rubs Teachers the Wrong Way

I have observed that my DD participates appropriately in social white lies ("I love my present," "I like your drawing,"--when I know these things are not strictly true), but still has a compulsion to fix or speak up insistently about factual inaccuracies (eg, mispronunciations by her brother, worksheets containing spelling errors, someone getting a math fact wrong). I have wondered if some of this is anxiety-based, or possibly a personality/perfectionist thing. If SHE is wrong about something like that, she always wants to be corrected. A misspelled word in a writing exercise is absolutely not acceptable to her.

And to complicate matters further, over-emphasizing comformity at that age may degrade vocabulary and complex language.

I went through a phase at around 13 where I was constantly matching what I intended to communicate to what was understood. Then I would play through scenes in my head at the end of the day to figure out if intent and outcome were matching. Then brainstorm different ways, methods to express things and try that next time.

One nice thing with that approach is it accidentally makes you question and analyze your intentions. When you realize you said something a certain way because you did intend the teacher to look dumb and you to look cool, then you have to own up at least to yourself.

Ding-ding-ding! YES.

I've often had the experience of being designated a "spokesperson" for various technical/elite/professional groups because of this ability to translate into everyday language.

I find that I have also (often) been identified as having an unmistakable "voice" as a writer-- which is completely reflective of the way in which I speak.

The two things aren't separated at all in my head, I guess-- I speak and writer as part of the same process. Most people don't, evidently. I can't understand how it isn't the same process. But apparently it isn't.


Anyway. Just noting that this may be another area of non-NT for some gifties, and that it may be one of those quirky areas of innate difference that leads to a certain automaticity/fluidity which is awkward and learned for pretty much everyone else on earth. It's definitely not native for either my DD or my DH, though my DD has the fluid determination of "what level do I aim this at" with her SPOKEN communication, and DH does not. Neither of them seems to view "communication" as a general activity which includes multiple modalities, though.

I don't like the term "dumb it down." To me, it's kind of arrogant and contains an implicit value judgment that the listener is dumb.

I know lots of people who don't understand my field. When I talk about what I'm working on to them, I don't assume that I'm dumbing stuff down or that they're dumb. I assume that I'm explaining an idea to someone who doesn't possess my level of background information and who may not be interested in hearing all the details. They do the same for me. The fact that someone explains Scala in basic terms to me doesn't make me dumb.


Ahh. But your DS is wrong and you need to correct him. And he isn't being polite. His tone may be polite, but his action isn't.

Besides, those other people may also truly believe in their hearts that they're right about the perceived mistake. A lot of stuff in life is subjective and a right answer doesn't exist, so it's not always accurate to claim that YOU ARE WRONG ABOUT THE RELATIVE MERITS OF A VS. B, no matter how strongly you believe it.

Plus, even when there is a right answer ("13 x 13 = 169, not 269"), why would it be reasonable to assume that a person will go through his whole life telling people that 13*13 is 269? He probably has other stuff to do.

Plus, why is it your son's job to correct others? I don't correct others who aren't my kids unless a) they ask or b) the results of the mistake would be harmful, as in, "Don't climb onto that branch; it's cracked and you'll fall."

Here's an example of how correcting the minor wrong can create a larger problem. After he gets a driver's license, should your son correct other drivers who are speeding by getting in front of them and setting cruise control at the speed limit? Should he wave signs at people going 70 in a 65 zone, saying SLOW DOWN? Of course not. He could cause an accident. Besides, policing other drivers is the Highway Patrol's job, and when other people try to force their version of "right" on others, they can create more problems, like traffic jams, crashes due to distraction, or road rage. Plus, there are signs that say "Slower traffic move right." So it seems that there are two right answers on the highway: don't speed, but let other people speed.

I would say this idea carries over into other areas: try not to make mistakes, but let other people make their own errors (outside extreme circumstances, as in, "Dear, you're about to run a red light" or "Doctor, you're supposed to amputate the OTHER leg.").

Is it possible that your son is focusing on the trees and not realizing that there's a forest there?

This ability to speak differently to different groups is referred to as "codeswitching." I don't think it's exclusive to the gifted, though that probably helps you to be better at it. Anyone who has grown up speaking nonstandard English but who speaks standard English in the work world does it all the time.

Thank you, ultramarina-- I didn't know that it had such a concise name!

Great observations, Val. I will probably make use of some of those things with DH. He (even at 50) still has some trouble understanding why that kind of conduct is abrasive to others.

I agree with Val on "dumbing down"-- I would choose to avoid that way of thinking about what's going on. Ultra's "codeswitching" is a more apt and more generous description.

Seen on Facebook, and adopted into my parenting wholesale:

"Before you speak, THINK:
is it True?
is it Helpful?
is it Inspiring?
is it Necessary?
is it Kind?"

Useful metric for when to speak up...

DeeDee

I had only ever seen codeswitching mentioned around the issues of bi/multilingual speakers, but its application to dialects, field-specific terminology, and different modalities of a single language makes total sense.

And this impulse to correct other people's mistakes doesn't get you better results when you grow up, BTW. My mother, who probably shares her grandson's diagnosis on the spectrum, derailed her career by going around telling her peers how to run their own departments more efficiently. She was probably right on the details. And she meant well. But it took years of hard work with guidance from somebody with a much better EQ and political sense than hers to get things back on track. To this day she still doesn't quite understand what all the fuss was about, too .

Said as one of the older, frumpy moms at those meetings... yes!

Does that potential top model mom come to PTA meetings wearing runway fashions? With her hair and face camera-ready? And if she did, what would your reaction be compared to the same person wearing a trendy pair of jeans and "street" make-up?

Does having that PTA meeting at the most expensive private school in Berverly Hills vs. a public school in a low income area change the answer?

I once read an article by a mother who went the length of volunteering at her kids school wearing the local mom uniform (jeans) and changed in her car before moving on to meetings in her high powered executive job (and the confusion when she didn't have time to change one day -- initially nobody at school recognized her). I thought it was a bit extreme, but then jeans and t-shirts are the uniforms of my profession (and I am definitely not the most fashionable dresser at school).

Analyzing those different environment, being *able* to adapt to them, being aware of the costs and benefits of not doing so, and prepared to deal with the consequences is an important lesson to learn.

And, quite honestly, one I haven't quite mastered. But I have real life experience of the drawbacks of not being *able* to play the game. Or even understand there is a game to play.

" After he gets a driver's license, should your son correct other drivers who are speeding by getting in front of them and setting cruise control at the speed limit? "

Yes.

In fact, it's best to get a friend to drive along with you so that your friend can be in the other land controlling traffic at the speed limit.

Remember, as Leo XIII said, "error has no rights".

Are we not our brother's keeper?

Are we not all responsible for the ideal functioning of the world?

Do we not have to hold our fellow man to account?