Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Talking with other moms

Absolutely, I PM'd you already!

Thanks CAMom .. just sent you a PM.

Brought a smile to my face. What a wonderful story and one to cherish.

I am not sure how to deal with this issue either. Every time I get together with other moms the topic turns to DD. I try to come up with appropriate responses but I inevitable botch it up. It seems no matter what I say it is awkward.

I would love to be able to speak openly about my children's lives and interests with other moms. When I was a new mom with my first baby I was excited and enamored just like every new mom and wanted to share every detail of this new life. It was a rude awakening to realize that I could not just share my excitement of my precious little babies new skills with other moms.

Now with baby #3, I just don't say anything. But I am still excited when she dose something new and I think that is part of being a mom and loving your kids. Any parent wants to celebrate their child regardless of where on the spectrum they fall.

I had a hard time with this when my son was in kindergarten. I remember wishing I could talk to other moms about my son, but I quickly found out I couldn't. On my son's first day of kindergarten parents who had brought school supplies were handed a list of instructions on where to put the different items. Instead of reading it myself, I had my son read it out loud and put the items in the appropriate place. One of the reasons I asked him to do it was because the kindergarten teacher, after the kindergarten readiness screening a few months earlier, had determined that he wasn't ready for kindergarten because "he didn't follow directions" and had "verbal overflow." I wanted the teacher to see that he could both read and follow instructions. I didn't realize other parents were watching and that none of the other kids could read more than a few words and that he was the second youngest in the class because redshirting was very common. So from the first day of kindergarten we were asked questions about how he learned to read so well and what his IQ was. I felt very uncomfortable being asked these questions, especially when one of the other moms was a teacher.

The only people I found that I could really talk to were parents of other gifted kids in my son's musical theater class. I could talk to them because their kids were smart and quirky just like mine. My child was just a little more extreme in some ways. Being outside the box seemed to be the norm for the kids who did musical theater so my son fit in well with this group that ranged in age from 4-19.

He never really had any friends his age (except for one gifted friend) because he just didn't fit in with kids his age. When we started homeschooling I didn't have this problem as much, except for the woman at the insurance agency whose kid is the same age as mine who would always ask me what grade level he was at now and when I was going to let him go to college. Homeschoolers with kids close to my son's age didn't want to be around us and he felt shunned by them. Public schooled kids his age thought he was nerdy because he was smart and didn't do sports. His public schooled friends told him he would be bullied because of this. He would beg to stay home instead of going to cub scouts, except when they had races of some kind and Cub Scouts is the only thing he is involved in with kids his age.

Other people just watched or listened to my son when he spoke and usually didn't say anything except they would sometimes tell me he talked like an adult. My son told me yesterday that he often noticed people turning around to look over in his direction, without looking straight at him, whenever he started talking, as if they were trying to see what he looked like without being obvious about it. He was always aware of being "onstage" when he was around other people. As a person with lifelong social anxiety issues this was hard for me to get used to but people watching him didn't bother him as much as the feeling that they didn't accept him because he was not like other kids.

It was such a pleasant surprise yesterday to meet complete strangers who knew what it was like to raise a gifted child. My son and I went to Denny's for the free breakfast that was advertised during the Super Bowl. The line was really long and my son joked about the recession and how we were already standing in food lines. He also talked about how much the Super Bowl commercials cost and wondered how Denny's could afford to pay for the commercial and also offer the free meals and whether this strategy would pay off by getting more people to come back to Denny's instead of going to IHOP. An older, retired couple noticed us and invited us to sit with them and because I was afraid I would be late bringing food back to my parents, I gladly accepted their offer. They told me that their son had learned to read on his own by age 3 and was telling time and counting change before starting kindergarten. The way they described their son sounded so much like mine. They said he went to public school but he was very bored and became the class clown. They said they wished they had homeschooled and thought we were doing the right thing. It was so good to hear of another example of a person who survived gifted childhood to become a successful adult.

So there are BTDT people out there who will notice your child and understand and sometimes you meet them when you least expect it.

In my experience, when someone mentions relatives working in these professions, it is usually safe to talk to them about your child being advanced because there are usually gifted people in their family and they don't think your child is weird because he is grade levels ahead of kids his age.

I'm lucky, I'm the grandma and everyone *expects* grandmas to brag about the grands!

I have learned not to talk about it if at all possible. If pressed I will say the truth but keep it simple and if whoever asked the qeustion feels uncomfortable she should know not to press me again. Sometimes when other moms talk about their kids' achievement, I make general comments but don't say anything specific about my kids. I've met one mom who actually went ahead to "test" my son his reading level (she pulled him aside in the classroom during a party), which was so inappropriate. For these really competitive moms I even had to go out of my way to make sure they don't see what my kid is doing so that their kids don't get too much pressure.

I hear all of you. We just avoid the conversations. Learned the hard way. It never ends well - even with parents of other GT kids it isn't always "safe". Tiny answers low on detail and then just start answering questions with questions about general things like books, characters, how boy and girls, brothers and sisters are different - anything to change the direction. Like that Time Mag cover story from Aug of 07... you know if your kid practices basketball everyday they won't be Michael Jordan but we think we are all equal stepping up for education. Doesn't mean any of these gt kids will "turn out better" or have a "better" or "richer" or more fullfilling life... but even hinting at such differences could get you blacklisted in the hen/mommy crowd (uh is that really a bad thing though ;-).