Any other adults who were highly gifted children?

[12Thorns]

I am one of 6 people in my family who were judged very highly gifted (all in the top 0.01% academically)- this is over 3 generations

lots of parents here talk about having gifted children so I thought a thread on how we all turned out might be interesting and give parents of gifted children a realistic idea of how the future could develop

so from the 6 we have 2 who have gone on to be world class in their chosen field. One in medicine one in computing. These are both men who left the child raising to their wives!

we have one younger man who did ‘adequately’ at university by putting in about 5% of the normal effort when he could be bothered to fit it in between drinking and playing rugby. 3 years later, rising up the ranks in a global IT company at 3 times the expected rate, earning bucket loads

2 who have achieved ‘nothing’ in the conventional sense. One has given her life over to raising a disabled daughter, having dropped out of university herself, blaming dyslexia. One who spent his entire working life unemployed addicted to weed, but now in his 60s becoming very politically active in the green party and extinction rebellion

and me. Dyslexic and dispraxic. I can’t drive or use scissors. I am a very happy single mum and teacher. I fid several years in research and will return to it when I retire. I have written books and articles but not in my own name so most people don’t know. I don’t think I ever fulfilled my potential. But I am happy. And I still might!😁

I suppose I was what you'd call "gifted" - learned to read at 2 years old, had my lessons with the older years at schools and got all A's at GCSE, A level and a first for my degree.

However, I don't believe in the word "gifted" - I think some kids just learn quicker than others. As adults, you can't really tell who learned to read precociously young, and who didn't. It mainly evens out.

I am bright, yes, but I am also very impractical. And also incredibly unmotivated. I don't like hard work and am very lazy in that regard. Exam results aren't everything.

Such a sad but fascinating thread. When I started school in the 70s they put me up a year and then another but ultimately I was expelled, politely, ie not invited to return mid teens. There were far bigger problems in my life than school (to those I attribute my assorted mental disorders) but I’ve probably underestimated the impact of ‘giftedness’ and separation from my age group. Also think it is more likely I have adhd and a disordered personality, rather than the bipolar that was diagnosed somewhat unexpectedly in my late twenties.

Haven’t achieved much of anything measurable in life, above survival, but find pleasure and make meanings when I can. Never been bored in my own company.

I have a high iq but struggled in school due to poor teaching. I went into higher education as an adult and achieved academically. Career I have always struggled due to poor social skilled, concentration issues around things that do not interest me, not managing stress well and disorganisation. I have a fairly basic job.

A friend from school was talented and gifted, she excelled in a very deprived school and subsequently was bullied which had a massive impact on her esteem as did an abusive relationship. She's now a functioning alcoholic with a fairly low level job. She has never encouraged her own children beyond normal expectations

I found school very easy and was usually top scorer in the top sets. It wasn't a great school though and no one was ever encouraged or pushed. I didn't do any work except for turning up. I was an early reader etc

I did a mensa test with a friend after school and I scored in the top 1%

I became a nurse and did quite well, but got bored very easily. I moved jobs into IT a couple of years ago and have thrived.

@12Thorns - thanks for this thread. I have 1 that probably is gifted. We’ve stressed to him that academic success as a child will help him have more choice in what he does as an adult, though failure at different points won’t usually preclude dreams (just have to take a bit/lot longer). Reading this thread, we probably have to work a bit on the organisation front and keep going on the social skills/working at mundane tasks. He is not very observant and will do things like put clothes on back to front.

I was fairly smart but a huge grafter at school. Did v well, but went into a job I was unsuited to (because I was able to and worked v hard). Carried on for several years, because I could, to an extent, work to compensate, but ended up changing career. Much happier now, good work-life balance. Having a high work rate is helpful with young kids, but I find it hard to put that into tidying. DH is smarter but finds it hard to do boring things.

I wasn’t gifted myself but I did go to grammar school. Oddly enough, the students there who were really gifted and talented haven’t gone on to realise their (academic) potential at all. They’re happy enough now but all have definitely suffered with mental health problems in the past.

I see a lot of people describing themselves as lazy. Is that an accurate self chosen word, or one people gave you because you were underperforming by their standards?

I regularly accused myself of being lazy, then someone pointed out various ways that I am not. It was a revelation.

I think I have problems with focus and concentration- perhaps something like ADHD- but I no longer think I'm lazy.

I tried so hard to focus on revision, get homework done, etc. I set up timetables, set an area to work in, tried sitting on uncomfortable chairs... no success.
I can read novels for hours on end, but can't settle to some tasks at all.

For me, it's an accurate term as regards the academic work I was supposed to be doing- eg at uni I would often turn up for my weekly tutorial having done precisely none of the set work, and sometimes I wouldn't turn up at all. I might well have used the time I was supposed to be working in other interesting ways, such as studying a completely different subject, but if lazy means not doing the things you should be doing, then I 100% was.

One thing which only struck me later in life (thinking about all this stuff in relation to my incredibly clever but lazy son) was that laziness might in some ways be about preserving one's sense of self. For clever kids, being clever is often "their thing" and they also often have a sense of cognitive abilities as something you either have or have not, rather than as something that could be improved through work. So to try their best and not succeed would feel like disaster- maybe I'm not so clever after all? What am I then? Failing to try, for someone in that mindset, functions as a subconscious self-defence mechanism. After all, if you don't try, your failure can be put down to that and you don't have to question whether you're actually as clever as everybody tells you you are. Another reason why all these labels can be deeply unhelpful.

Or maybe I was just bone idle- who knows? 😉

I'm starting to think there is group here of untapped potential - very clever types whose natural brains are now enhanced by wisdom and life experience. Personally, I am doing some of my best thinking right now at 40, but it's mainly shared only with my kids!

I feel like we could harness this somehow ... an online think tank, throw us the difficult moral or economic problems of the day? Or we all do an online physics course and collectively ponder the nature of reality? Because of the old ADHD I would never be able to organise it though...gah...

Does anyone have any other ideas of how we might utilise our talents? That would fit in with our day to day motherhood and boring jobs?

@SeaDogs that resonates with me 100%. The first thing I ever failed was my driving test - and I fell apart. Then everything fell apart and I stopped trying. Even now I’m scared to try uni again - what if I fail? What if I’m an actual loser and those people who I know haven’t got an IQ to match mine seem to have 3 degrees to their name. Better not to take the risk…

triptop same! Fuck me, if I’d had the wisdom and experience at 25 that I have now, Well - let’s just say mo mowlam and I would be jointly honoured and Arafat would’ve died calling me a “healer of worlds”. 😂

these days my talents (and opportunities) lie more in the direction of the mumsnet chicken. Not strictly true, but you know what I mean.

In my dreams I will most motivate myself enough to set up a very profitable home-based business which works around school hours and can harness my creative and entrepreneurial ambitions. But that requires a lot of dedication and organisation. Damn it. But a combined effort...?

The two identified highly gifted people in my own family have both had chronic mental health issues which have long-term impacted their life/work choices.

I am extremely lazy but also not really. If following my interests I’m capable of putting in very long hours, if it’s something that can wait, like housework, and I’m not in the mood it doesn’t happen. Now that I’ve stopped trying to ‘manage’ my moods and impulses and just go with their flow life is pretty harmonious and opens new ways of earning money that can be paused and resumed at will. This is much easier now the mortgage is paid off and I live alone, the empty nest is filled with creation stations and mess.

I especially enjoy activities I’m not good at, I love not having any aptitude for something and improving at it until the itch is scratched and I can move on to the next thing. Dry hobbies are good, things you can put aside for years and resume whenever (I like: knitting, crochet, sketching, sewing, writing, digital photography and so on) rather than, I don’t know, cake decorating or anything that goes off.

Me. Taught myself to read at 2, IQ tested at 160 at 9, Oxbridge scholarship, am now a professor.

I was but then messed around in Alevels so failed to meet my offer for medicine. I'm now 31 a Senior Biomedical scientist in blood transfusion unsure what my next career step is but enjoying it for now. We had our son at 23 and he is the best thing that happened to us. I've still got years to fully realise my potential (even if I am starting with a midlife crisis!!) happy and enjoying life.

If I had the option to go back and correct my ways I would pick my current degree again so it wasn't all a bad thing!