Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment I think I am gifted

My son is twice exceptional. Your story is one that I wanted to avoid for my son and it is why we homeschool. Our public school is a color in the lines, everyone must learn the same way kind of school. One of his diagnosed "learning disabilities" is dysgraphia, yet he has not made anything less than an A on all of his papers in a homeschool co-op class. He just needs to type and he needs help taking notes if taking pages of handwritten notes is required in the class.

My son always needed to know why, so much so that when he was younger and I saw a book titled "The Big Book of Tell Me Why" I knew I had to have it. But I think his most troublesome why question was "why do I have to do it this way when it is more difficult me and I can do it so much better my own way." I didn't know the answer and I still don't. I often lurked on teachers.net math boards and most of those teachers seemed to believe very strongly that kids must show their work, so I felt anxiety about not making my son do enough written math the "school way." Because of my anxiety about this, math was a struggle for both of us. My son could do it very well if left alone to do it his way, using a lot of mental math because of his handwriting difficulties. When he was tested by an educational psychologist the month he turned seven, when he should have just finished first grade, we were told he tested at a 4th grade level for math. He had learned it from playing math computer games and he only did mental math. He refused to use the paper the tester offered him and the tester told us he thought he could have kept going on the test if he just would have used the paper and pencil.

Since he was allowed to do math his way some of the time at home he gained confidence in his math ability even though he had a disability that affected the way he did math. He always got concepts easily and I felt that he was smarter than I was since I am not that good with mental math and I could never come up with an alternate way of solving a problem. I had to be taught. He was always good with word problems and usually got the right answer when his dad would ask him word problems. When I was in school I could color in the lines very well and do things the way the teachers wanted so I always made A's in math. I just didn't particularly like math and didn't take any math beyond college algebra. My husband was good enough in math in junior high that he participated in math competitions even though he was the youngest in the group, but quit when his mother died and his life turned upside down. He didn't go beyond college algebra either because it wasn't necessary for his management degree. I don't think my son will want to go beyond college algebra, but I might be wrong. I would love to find the perfect math mentor who could take the time to understand my son's weird ways of doing math and make him think that math is actually fun instead of just "useful" as my son describes it.

As my son got older, even though he didn't get OT, he could write out math problems a little more easily, but it still takes him twice as long to write them out as the average kid, and if he is allowed to use mental math as much as he can then he can do math faster than I can. We sometimes race each other and he is definitely faster when he is allowed to to things his way.

I am glad you are finding that you can learn well when you do it your own way and also gaining confidence in your abilities.

My son has a group of online friends, some in college, who didn't know that he was only 12. He wouldn't tell them his age and one day he asked them how old they thought he was. They guessed that he was between 14 and 19. One of them said he was too smart to be 12. He feels good about this. I don't think being labeled gifted, in his case verbally gifted, has damaged him at all.

Floflo something in your self description reminded me slightly of my dh. �We have no way of knowing, or no need of knowing by now, if he's actually academically gifted. �He's observant and the conclusions he ends up at are unusual. �I can usually tell with most people but I honestly can't tell if he's very smart or just very different. �I'm currently reading a few things about rational skepticism. �It seems to satisfactorily describe the unexplainable "smarts" I'm seeing in him. �I don't know whether someone taught him to have that mindset or if some people are born with it. �I've got time to unravel this mystery that I married. �<3 <3. I know he didn't read books about it to try to become like that because he grew up with a stutter and was more of a fighter than a reader in school. �I think I've known college kids and beyond who read about and tried to internalize rational skepticism, but I'm close to convinced dh was born wired that way and your self description sounds fitting too. �I don't know if that makes you gifted as defined by an iq test. �It does make u different, more right more often in a lot of ways. �I just erased my thoughts on the downside. �Hope this helps. �If you're searching for "your people" and don't find them at Mensa try rational skepticism.

Sorry lucounu, I will always prefer the gifted label (wherever it applies) to any other attempts to describe a gifted child, like the zealous Pentecostal environment I grew up in. �ie.. I understood stuff no one else did because god wanted to use me in a big way, �(god told many adults to tell me this throughout my childhood) and i was willful and stubborn because the devil saw I was valuable and wanted to steal my soul. �I still had the heavy burdens of high pressure and adult responsibility from mom, from the church, and the school. �Without the label people still see what they see in you and still don't take it easy on you. �Without the label I still grew up feeling used and abused. �With the label we can have open discussions in plain language and I wish our parents were on this forum while we were growing up. �It would have been easier on us and on them.
And plus the label will let our kids into some cool nerd summer camps that other kids might see as just more work and ours will have a blast. �If that's not true and the other kids would like it too then we should have more geek retreats so there's room enough for all.
Sorry if it sounds personal or whiny, just anecdotal support in favor of accurate labeling of geniuses. You always hear stories why we shouldn't use that word. I think it's a cause and effect mixup and I think we should all get tattoos.

thanks lori and latexican
I will look up rational skepticism. we moved several times during my childhood. Math was a weakness. I have come to the conclusion that I just wasn't taught math properly. I had anxiety around it and I always thought the teacher was asking something of me that did not exist. Does that make sense? I don't think I knew how to do it at all. Then when changed schools, higher level and more issues. Then comprehension was a problem. Reading was a strength but the comprehension was killer. University was a problem. A professor told me he thought I had a learning disability because I wrote an essay like a 9th grade high school student. I went and got tested and apparently it was ADD, which was def. not true. I scored in the 98 percentile in the processing speed index but other areas low or average. How can someone test me in Math when I do not know how to do it. How can you test me on intelligence in comprehension when I do not know how to comprehend. This was not good for my self-esteem. I am learning things on my own now and I don't have any problem comprehending. I have figured out on my own how to understand. Delve into the history of it first find out why this thinking came about in the first place and then read what whoever had to say. That's how Ill get it. If you put something in front of me and say this is how it is, I will not understand. I need more. I also just read something about anxiety on this forum. It said, because of the perfectionism in us, we don't try because we are afraid of the failure. Something like that. That could explain things as well. I have very high expectations of myself.

Hi, I think I have just the book for you... while technically you do not need a label, I think that understanding yourself and how that part of you interrelates to everything else is good. Anyway, the book is called GIFTED GROWNUPS my Marylou Strenewszki. It made my dh and I revisit our lives and understand them in a different way. It certainly explained a lot!

floflo -
have you found Hoagie's Gifted website? It's a huge compliation of all things gifted-related. Take a look, particuarly at this page:
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/conferences.htm
See if there are any nearby events and attend one. Try to get to know some people, see if they are 'yours.'

I don't think that you are so very unusual, myself.

As for the gender thing, I've been bouncing around some ideas. I think that one could think of gender identity as a line that everyone lines up on, with 'traditionally masculine' and 'traditionally feminine' as the poles on the graph.

Or one could think of each person as a pile of legos. If every traditionally masculine strength was a blue brick, and every traditionally feminine strength was pink brick. Maybe every strength that isn't traditionally associated with a gender role is green. Some people would have large piles, and some people would have small piles. Some peoples piles would be mostly one color. Some people's piles would be rather an even mix of all colors. I think I'm about 3/4 pink bricks, but I have about as many, if not more blue bricks than most of the guys I know.

It's documented that gifted people aren't much for 'traditional' limitations of any kind, and some places you'll read that gifted people are 'more' androgenous than the norm. If there is any truth to this, then I think that it's my 'lego analogy' sort of andrygenous, rather than the 'right in the middle' of the line analogy. But I think that people see themselves are 'right in the middle' if they've never heard the Lego analogy.

((shrug))
Maybe...
Grinity

Holy mackerel. "Gifted" it is! I guess there has to be some sort of label, and I don't mean to say that gifted people should always seek to escape notice; far from it. I just saw the OP as a person with some problems that might be intensified by outing herself, but I was failing to account for the fact that she's just awakening now.

thanks again...I have never heard of the lego analogy. I like it.
I will check out that book as well Mam. I have seen the hoagies gifted website. thanks for the links again

I've been thinking about the ideas for a long time now, but I made up the lego analogy just a few minutes ago, just for you. Glad you like it.

Thanks. I was just saying life is surprising similar called by any other name. I wonder what else it's been called by people who really didn't know. Gifted kids are unpredictable, uncontrollable even if compliant, they challenge everything you think you know (which scares people more than it should). People have to notice and make up some kind of word to explain it. A demanding mother or inflexible belittling teacher would act the same when facing such a child, just like their amazed and proud with or without mentioning you're giftedness.
Reading about giftedness now that I have children to raise has helped heal my own inner brat considerably. I wouldn't have known how relevant that was to the story of my life. I thought being smart was just one little part of who I am and ignored it, now I see how it affects personality patterns and social interactions and there's a suprising number of similar stories. I see the people looking for answers here without kids motivating them and have to say good move.
About dh, he intrigues me because he continues to challenge and confuse me. People usually fall short quickly. He's never been called gifted. Yet I have a hard time seeing through his games. I'm reading http://m.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality (thanks collinsmum). I just read http://www.csicop.org/si/show/critical_thinking_what_is_it_good_for_in_fact_what_is_it/. When I was surfing through the idea of cognitive behavioral therapy to build a framework for disciplining my kids. http://www.csicop.org/si/show/critical_thinking_what_is_it_good_for_in_fact_what_is_it/. That's how I ended up on the subject of rational skepticism, which fits a lot of my confusion my husband causes. It fits floflo's description of (the same debate I have with dh constantly). I say "quit complaining about EVERYTHING. You criticize everything like an old woman" you're driving me crazy. He says "you were already crazy when we met. And I don't complain I observe." sound familiar op? While we're here, does anyone know if rational skepticism indicates giftedness? Or if it's a separate trait? Dh would have been unidentified 2e. He stuttered and was dyslexic before they had good services.

FWIW, there is some research support on the idea that gifted folks tend to be a bit more androgynous than the norm. I strongly suspect that it has to do with the tendency towards postformal reasoning.

For those who are uncomfortable with giftedness as one aspect of social and cultural identity, let me ask the same thing I ask psychologists to consider, at the end of my dissertation. Is there any other aspect of identity which we would routinely suggest should be hidden, not just from others, but from the self? Do we think that's normally a good thing for psychological health, to not know oneself fully and/or to constantly have to hide from others? Does that whole closeted thing work well for any other group of people?