Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy spouse in gifted denial/ not on board

((hugs)) Mia,
See if you can get your family consultant to be the one who takes notes and sends them to him via email - perhaps that will get you out of the middle of things a bit. Also, request a phone consult with Sylvia Rimm on how to co-parent with your XH, if that's still a possiblity - she is really good with 'modern realities.'

Best Wishes,
Grinity

Ooh, thank you, Grin, I'll do that! I never would have thought to ask the consultant to send notes on. Thank you!!

He's just sooo frustrating... The kid may be well-parented , but I do believe there's just a *bit* more to it!

Mia,
Does XH have any special interest that overlap with education? It is possible that he is having the same gifted denial that you and I had years ago...or that he's being difficult just to be difficult. Again, having him spend time with normal children is one way out. Harder to arrange from a distance.

I remember all while I was growing up, my Mom making 'little comments' about 'how stupid the game companies were to write the wrong ages on the 'suggested playing ages' on game like Monopoly. Gifted denial starts early, we learn it from our loved ones, and dies hard. What were his parent's attitudes towards intellectual differences?

Best Wishes,
Grinity

Grin-- I pm'd you.

Congrats on DYS!!

Acceptance to DYS went along way with the gifted denial around here. My DP when "hit over the head" by the pros, relented and admitted that DS6 is not your average little boy.

Now she's completely freaked out that he grow up "as normal" as possible. Since every movie she's ever seen portrays gifties as functional wierdos...

Gotta love those stereotypes...NOT!

Unless she is very young, I imagine that she has seen plenty of other groups portrayed as weirdos in movies as well? I'm still waiting for the gifted eqivalent of Ellen Degenerous and Mellissa Ethridge to 'come out' as having grown up gifted and underchallenged in school and being openly lovable while showing the uniquness of their mind. I think that we are less than 10 years away - would anyone like to start a betting pool on who will step forward and show that a person can be totally brillient, totally lovable, and not one bit wierd?

Hmmm...Well, I don't fit the bill!

I'm certainly weird, I'm not always very lovable, and I'd never call myself brilliant...

I did grow up GT and I'm happy and reasonably well-adjusted. Think that would do?

Bianc850,

I'm so happy to hear that things have improved.

I think that my point was, that if a group of people grows up thinking that they are 'different in a bad way' then they grow up to act this out, and even if they don't - the media will portray that they do. It's what the media does.

Take the same group, surround them with love, understanding, positive role models and what they need for a healthy self-image (some social time with mental peers and challenging academics in the case of Gifties) and they grow up with the same challenges as anyone else and their own unique and valuable strengths.

We happen to live in a society where members of a group don't feel 'validated' until there is a popular movie, a TV show, and a couple of celebrities that share the identity. Now that's what I call weird! ((wink))

Grinity