Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Are your kids 'smarter' than you?

Golly, I have been thinking about this a whole lot lately. DS12 thinks that he is about equal in giftedness to DH, and that his dear mother is 'the cute one.'

This may be true. It may not be. Part of me would like it one way, and part of me would like it to be the other...

In our family we each have so many different differences. How to compare one to another? Adults have so many fewer demands to be 'well rounded.' Personality makes such a difference.

This is why I'm always wanting to reduce the definition of gifted to 'having special educational needs' so I can move to a 'gifted is as gifted does' stance and say, 'if the kid's readiness level is 3 years above age peers, get him with subject readiness peers and let the future bring what it will!

This is why I limit my LOG to 'MG, moderatly gifted' (I know I'm more than that)
'PG'for 'as high as modern tests can measure' (I somehow doubt that I'm that, at least on any skills that current IQ tests measure.)
and 'HG' for in between.

So embarrassing to talk about 'what LOG I think I am' - even here!

So sad that the routine of school starts back up tommorow!

So don't leave me hanging here...fess up...anyone think that they are more gifted then their kid? as gifted?

sleepy smiles,
Grinity

DS6 seems to be much more gifted than I am. I plan to take the Mensa test in the next month of two but I am scared that I will not score high enough to qualify. HA!

I was "smart" as a child and I read everything I could get my hands on very early but the way DS6 approaches numbers and other abstract thought just amazes me. I feel that my being smart as a child was something that came from my love of reading and hard work (even though school never felt like work)--DS6 doesn't even need to try at all--his GT seems more natural.

I was actually talking to DH about this last week after taking the online Cognitive Skills test. There were some sections that DS6's raw score was almost the same as mine. There are also some video games and even board games that DS6 is already way ahead of me.

I have no idea!

DS7 is certainly better at pattern recognition than I am. He seems to combine many of the "smarts" of DH with my best skills, too. As DH is an engineer and I am a writer--both formerly GT kids in our own rights and pretty evenly matched--that definitely makes for a kid who is "smarter than the average bear"...

But I'm not sure if he's smarter than we are or just differently smart. You know?

I feel the same way!

My mom thought I was "God's gift to smarts," and I don't think that was always good for me. It took me a long time to define myself as anything more than "the smart one," and I always felt I had to be perfect. I want my kids to feel like they can make mistakes and that they are more than brains with legs.

Amusingly, I always thought I was MG. I saw my IQ test score recently and found I was HG+. It at least explained to me why I thought DS7 was MG (or maybe just a wee bit more) all along. My whole frame of reference was skewed from a very early age!

BTW, I just realized that I didn't mention DS4 at all. That's because I still can't tell for sure if he's ND, LD + GT, or just differently GT. And I'm not even thinking about LOGs with him yet! I'd tend to say that I'm smarter than he is, but that he's significantly more creative than anyone in the family. Still, it's awfully early to tell yet...

This is an easy one for me. If it wasn't for the video of the birth and the fact that they look like me and DH I would wonder "did this child really come out of my body?" Where did this child with all these brains come from?

Well since I was ID'd as PG at age 6 and DS is in the EG/PG range, same test (Stanford-Binet) but different versions, I'd say we're pretty close. DH was also Id'd at a young age but his IQ is lower than mine or DS's. I believe DH has some serious ADD issues that were never identified that probably interfered with his score. He's still so easily distracted by the slightest thing! We call it "look a shiny!" and even DS now recognizes the glazed look...

DS however, is way more social than I was as a child. Thank goodness for that, it's the only way he's currently surviving school.

It sure went by quick. It's been hard to say goodbye to the unbounded play and creativity my daughters enjoyed the past few weeks. DD's turned our living room into a Dinosaur Museum complete with all the excavation tools on display with explanations of how they were used and a gift shop that took dinosaur dollars and T-Rex tokens. It'll be nice to have the couches back but sad to know the unstructured time has ended. After much of the vacation spent deschooling, DD6 had another "More Math!" request on Saturday and that did my heart good. It was also wonderful to be able to indulge the pleas to keep reading and not worry about waking up early the next morning. Oh, Spring Break seems so far away...76 days and counting.
I go back and forth on this. I came across my SB-LM score in some old school files my mother had saved, so I'm curious about how our scores would compare. DH says DD's are my clones, so I'm guessing it's pretty close. They have an edge in circumstances though. My mom was a single mother so her time and money for afterschooling was limited. Also I was an only child until I turned 8. DD's are 2 years apart and their relationship gives them lots of built in intellectual support plus challenges.
I see some of this too with my oldest and youngest.

I've mentioned that my perception is that Einstein's creativity set him apart and is a big piece of his accomplishments, K.

Einstein's IQ is much debated, but, according to this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Dear-Professo...mp;s=books&qid=1231130266&sr=1-2

A 10 year old girl wrote him a letter in the 40's asking him what his I.Q. was and he wrote back to her that it was 145.

I'd say that both my children are more intelligent than I am based on what I see them do compared to what I could do or how complexly I thought at their age.

It's amazing as an adult sometimes to have the conversations I have with them. Remembering what I was thinking about and doing at that age really puts in in context.

This is hard - ds8 is a clever, very creative dickens...sometimes I think the common sense or 'practical intelligence' is somewhat lacking though. But he is only 8 so I gotta give him a break on that!!

I am probably approaching HG, DH is probably bordering on PG, but again he is lacking a bit in the practical realm...at least from my perspective. I think of myself as very very creative, but DH really outshines me there too, at least verbally/language wise. DS seems to have inherited this ability to just make stuff up, stories and plans of action in great colorful detail...

I would probably put ds8 close to where I fall and dd2.5 might be smarter than all of us - but that might be due to being more attuned to toddler gifted behaviors now.
About 72% of what she says and does just seems amazing to me. Also, we are looking at some testing for ld for ds so that might completely change things up.

I read that kids average about 10 iq points above their parents, but I don't know if that holds true if the parent's iq is already above avg. ...

((happy dance!!))

Thanks Dear Ones!

I woke up with a lovely collection of posts to chew on! Better news than the black ice and 90 minute school delays.

I'm the one who get distracted by shiny ideas in my house. I've given up the idea that i'm 2E, but I think I do have a working memory bottleneck, so sometimes the main point just slips of my working memory table. OTOH, I'm able to create such cool connections with the leftovers that do remain on the screen, so maybe that has it's own advantages.

I don't think it is very noticible here, as I can always go back and read the posts again. Of course sometimes I don't have the time or energy, but often I do, and I'm fast!

Love and More Love,
Grinity