Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Non-Gifted Parents/Gifted Environment-Xperience?

This is so sad, HK. Do you mean the gifted community elsewhere have treated you (and DH) this way, or the general community who knows you (and DH) are "smart"?

Snobbishness is never okay, imo.
Perhaps "twerpitude" should be added to the dictionary to describe that attitude.

It's just that most of the people around us think that we're "too perfect" and we frankly kind of intimidate others because we're... well, I'm going to set aside my qualms and say it-- we're ultra-competent and we seldom make foreseeable errors, because we are very good at thinking things through and dealing with the prevention end of things rather than the consequences one, if that makes sense. We also seem like control freaks because we read the fine print, we ask a LOT of questions, etc.

We don't really judge people who don't, mind you, and we realize that most people can't really do what we do, and that even a few people who could don't want to be as uptight about it all as we are in the process. It takes a tremendous amount of bandwidth to have a plan A, B, and C for any system failure in your life, and to take preventative action to make sure that none of that is needed to start with. We're people who actually are prepared for very rare natural disasters, for example.

But yeah, it means that the average person who knows us kind of takes an unholy GLEE in pointing out our errors to all and sundry. Preferably by pointing them out as broadly as is practical. I backed my (7yo) car into a concrete post about 20" high, for example... and there were good reasons why that happened when it did, but it was fundamentally a bonehead mistake on my part. But one of the neighbors has taken great delight in pointing it out to me. Three times.

I like this forum. I read it like Facebook. In our family almost everyone is gifted. I know that sounds kind of lame but it is the truth.

Unfortunately the collective gifted child rearing knowledge base in our families doesn't seem to help much with our oldest. My husband and I as well as our siblings were all teacher pleasing, quick learners, good memorizers, straight A's top of class type kids. I think our parents just kicked back and watched the accolades roll in.

DS5 is at a higher level of giftedness by 10-20 IQ points, he is very likely 2e and is thought of by his teachers as more of a creative type rather than an academic all star.

At this point he is a very different kid than anyone else in our family. I get more help here than chatting with my family.

Group hug?

Group hug. I feel right at home here and hope you do, too, Ametrine. It's one of the only places where I know someone will always "get" me. It's what university should have been...but wasn't.

I definitely want to do better by DD.

Oh, this. So much. This drives SO much of our parenting. My DH and I mirror your family's growing-up experiences, Mana. Along with

"Well, of course the boys are FLATTERED if a girl makes the effort to seem interested. But you have to let them win-- no boy likes to be beaten by a girl."

"A college degree was fine, because you're a smart girl. But what do you want with graduate school?"





I heard so many of those same things as a child. Definitely a group hug.

Hi, I'm so new here I've only stuck my oar in a couple of times but I'll stick it in again because I just wanted to say Ametrine that I think there are different types of gifted. It's only recently I've realised (after managing to spawn 2 gifties) that I'm actually pretty brainy too. But having only done medium well at school I didn't really realise it. When I think back I wonder if I'd been schooled differently ...
My kids aren't the typical story you hear either. Advanced early milestones but not early readers (bang on 5) nor not really into puzzles or Lego, but very sharp and curious and into science, and they streak ahead of the pack by 8 or 9. DS outstripped my reading comprehension by about age 11 and I'm sure DD will be the same (and I'm a writer/editor/journalist!)
But I agree, I often get lost in some of these conversations, particularly the policy/college entry type threads because they don't relate to my country. And some I just can't follow because I'm not an academic

I don't post often, but read constantly . I am gifted, though I believe at the lower end, nothing but school testing was ever done. I seem to recall a 130IQ from the early 80s, but I cannot get my hands on anything other than SATs which I did decently on. I was in a gifted pullout from 5th grade on, was 7th in my high school class without much effort...only my AP English research papers took any real time but they were fun! Lol. I remember doing a paper in 9th grade on Joan of Arc, I had so much fun burying myself in that research and produced a 40 page typewritten document...drumroll..that was promptly denounced as over limit and I was told to cut it down (boo). While I don't think of myself as overly smart, mostly because math is NOT my thing, I definitely have the qualities. Now that I have two sons, both gifted, I have newfound pleasure in researching anything about giftedness....that is what led me to this board.

I love it here. Howler Karma, your sense of humor is awesome, I love the way you write and parent! I occasionally find political discussion or science discussions beyond either my interests or abilities but generally can muddle through most things not intrinsically devoted to jargon. Of course, having had my sons tested, led to various readings on my part as to the ins and outs of testing BECAUSE I didn't know enough and wanted to be able to advocate successfully, you should see my bookshelf! We also deal with incredibly type A kids, two years apart, same sex which definitely leads to crazy competition between them. My younger (8) is DYS and like his engineer Dad, my older (10) is more like me. Both are very athletic and sociable but quick to anger and just go, go, go! The clashes keep me peeled to the parenting aspect of this board as well.

As far as being this board high brow, definitely not, but as someone mentioned, this outlet allows for the real us to come out not be carved down for general consumption .

Spent years paring down my vocabulary and editing emails down to a quarter their original size to improve communication, it is nice to have a place to unleash a little bit. Also fun to shake out mothballs from my cognitive psychology education.

One nice thing about forums is they provide time and Google as a cybernetic appendage to level things a bit. Eavesdropping on a couple of people in the EG plus range even without jargon is a completely different animal as the middle parts of discussions and smaller steps to conclusions are passed right over without a blink.

I am an older mom. They didn't test for giftedness when I was in school, but people at high school reunions told me they remembered me as one of the smart kids. I was good at taking tests and I didn't have to study very much, but I didn't take any more math than I had to and I didn't talk like a college professor. When I took the ACT I got one chance and there were no ACT prep books or classes to help me prepare. I made a high enough score even though I had a bad cold when I took it and was under the influence of cold meds, to get into college. There are engineers and a lot of highly paid government workers on my side of the family and some of them seem gifted.

When I met my husband's family, I was sure that I was not gifted at all. They all talk like college professors, one is, and they are doing very well financially even though they did not grow up in a wealthy family. They all worked their way through school.

My son talks like his dad's side of the family. Instead of teaching himself to read at four like people on my side of the family, he learned to read and spell at two. He learned math very quickly using online games that I encouraged because it gave me a break from his endless questions. He often came up with his own way of solving problems instead of doing it the way he was supposed to. Before he started kindergarten at five and without going to any kind of school except for using funschool.com he came up with his own way of doing mental math using negative numbers and I worried that it was wrong to allow him to do this because I was taught to write everything out. He had problems with writing because his fingers were hyperflexible and his hands lacked the strength that most other kids had and he was not eligible for OT because he was too smart to fail. I was told to homeschool by the principal and a teacher.

I needed help and I couldn't find it in my small town. I couldn't get OT for my son because insurance would not pay for it. We had to do it on our own and people on this board helped with that. They helped with suggesting books for my son to read. They provided a lot of moral support when we could not fit in with people in our small town.

Thanks, everyone for your stories. I feel better knowing I'm not the only one who feels out of my depth by some of the conversation-especially the policy/university threads.

And I especially appreciate the encouragement from those I know are above and beyond my own cognitive level. I'm grateful they don't think, "What an imbecile; what's she doing here?" I really, really want to learn from you and I hope you'll suffer my ignorance and dumb-down your answers!