Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School I'm weird !

SO I said something this evening, and Nathaniel (10) turned to me and said "Why are you so odd?" LOL I jokingly replied that I was odd because I was just so incredibly smart, it made me seem odd. He looked at me and said "ME TOO !!". He said that he has been called weird in the past at school - the child who said it wasn't being mean, just making an observation. It didn't bother Nathaniel at all, he just accepted it as true, as he feels weird, compared to the other kids. We had an interesting discussion about the other kids at school - - how "smart" they are (or are not) - he doesn't see not being smart as a bad thing, thankfully, but does have a hard time understanding why so many kids take so long to "get" stuff. (Though his has one boy at his table who has an aide, and obvious struggles, which he totally understands and has no problem with). He has lots of friends, gets along great with kids of all ages, and thankfully does like school, despite the fact that he "never learns anything". I guess I'm rambling - just figured this was a safe place to share, as you all would understand. My son thinks I'm weird, just like him

NCPMom, You made me smile. I have 4 kids who are very different. 2 are gifted and 2 struggle in school. They all think both my husband and I are weird and think each other are weird in different ways. We like to emphasize how God made each of us so unique with different abilities and personalities and that's really cool. We take the approach of why would anyone try to be like other people when being yourself is so much fun! My DD10 sounds a lot like your son.

I am happily different myself, so is my DW and we are working on building pride in that (without judging others) in our DD

In our house, the response to "you're weird" is "everybody's weird"!

A while back, we were at a local festival and a little girl (whose family I've known since she was born, but she doesn't really know me) was talking to her mom, and I said something to the mom. Little girl looked at me, then loudly whispered to her mom, "does she talk really fast?" and I smiled and said, "yes, yes I do." She gave me a sideways look and whispered again, "is she crazy?" and I said, "yes, I am." I don't think she thought that was funny.

My DS identifies himself as a nerd and is very proud of the fact. He says that my DH is a nerd too. I said, what about me, am I a nerd - he said "no mom, you are not a nerd." I was insulted!

We are a weird family with cats that do weird things lol.