Are my children "ungifted"?

[Puzzledbyart]

Please be kind, it is a stupid thread, but it does nag me somewhere deeply inside.

Just audited my friendship circle's offspring (children ranging in age from 2 to 12), and it looks like all of them have some special "superpower" in terms of abilities / interests. There's a fully fluent reader at 3y.o. A child aged 9 with highest grades in two musical instruments + a chorister at a famous choir. A sportsman competing at the national level. A math whizz, who is attending classes in secondary school now as he is way way ahead of the primary curriculum. A trilingual child, fully proficient at a native speaker level in all three languages. And everyone, just everyone seems to have their children on the "gifted and talented" register at school.

My children are 4 and 5, and are distinctly average in everything. Most of the time I am counting my lucky stars that they are just healthy and happy, but there are occasional days of doubt when I feel like I failed them in everything. Well, like today, when we had a playdate with a young friend similar to my oldest in age (5), and she created a comic book with a clear and engaging storyline, beautiful art and not a single spelling mistake, including expressions like "conifer trees" and "butterfly".

AIBU to ask you if you think that some children can be just naturally average, and there's no amount of effort that can make them excel at anything? Or did I miss something in their upbringing terribly?

I think there are SOME people who do that (often middle class professional people) but there is undeniably a lot of sneering about immigrants who live in a posh London borough with kids who are excelling.
And the eye rolling about hard work is a totally British thing. When i went to America after 15 years in Britain as an immigrant I realised I too was eye rolling at all the Americans constantly going on about how hard they worked. In time I did get to appreciate that work ethic though.

You sound a lovely mother and your thread is not stupid .
The specific examples of the gifted children you mention can’t give a reading on each child’s happiness and health . Your children as you describe them as being happy healthy and average is more realistic to me .
I remember a very proud and I have to say a bit pushy mother whose daughter had a stellar performance at school - she constantly referred to her son and husband as thick and the daughter gifted like her - but the mother had never had the opportunity to study - she vicariously lived her life for her .
She was indeed a very bright girl but the cracks started to show at age 13 . Taken to the GP who prescribed tranquilizers . All because her grades fell and she was no longer top of the class .
Kept at school to try to claw her way back to the top the inevitable happened . Complete breakdown at 14 . Never went back to school.

So your happy and healthy children have every chance of staying the course and I’m sure in time will have their time to shine . At something that comes naturally and they have not been pushed into . Not everyone can be a Mozart . X

My younger sister was the gifted and talented child who took Maths O level 3 years early and took extra O Levels too. I was the average kid who probably did not work hard enough at school. Years later my younger sister has a degree but only 2:2 and I have two degrees both are 2:1 and my career has flourished whereas she now, after a difficult life, stacks shelves in a shop. Give kids as many opportunities as you can to try new things and see if they show talent in any. Support any talent shown. That is all you can do.

Not all 'gifted and talented' kids have problems with socialising or physical skills or real world skills. But those that do often meet the criteria for high functioning autism, and have very specific psychological needs.

We're much more aware of them now, but in the past these children often grew up feeling as if they were on a high wire, because without the 'genius' academics they were complete zeroes and would sink without trace, or worse, become burdens. I met a few of them in my uni years, and may even have felt like that myself. (Though 'genius' is slightly over-egging it in my case. )

If you were G&T as a child, you probably aren't "average" now, even if you haven't managed to be a rock star, prime minister or go to the moon. You probably are a good deal smarter than the average bear. I'm only average with maths and spatial awareness but I'm super with anything word-related, have a fantastic vocabulary and memory, and am great at analysis and spotting connections- which are the building blocks of intelligence.

Also very bright children often don't get the support and type of education they need, or certainly didn't when I was younger. Really from the upper years of primary school through GCSEs I was just coasting. Then I suddenly found that I had to do work for A-Levels, and more so for my degree. Some crash and burn when they find things hard. Lots of info on here.

www.potentialplusuk.org/index.php/introducing-potential-plus-uk/

DD1 is an absolute star, intelligent, high performer all round academically and also sporty, also kind, responsible, sociable, pretty and fit and an amazing dancer. She also suffers from anxiety from time to time, more so when she was younger, and is almost certainly a highly sensitive person which is a mixed blessing. You never need to push he as she challenges herself.

DD2 is in some ways a total opposite, like Type A and Type B personalities. She even has blonde, fine, curly hair while DD1 has thick straight dark hair. DD1 is petite for her age and DD2 is a beanpole. I see them both as gifted in different ways- DD2 is probably only around average academically, but takes homework in her stride, whereas DD1 would get upset about it at primary school as she wanted to get everything right, and it was very much all or nothing, whereas DD2 just gets on with it, which is a great skill in life. Also she has the gift of the gab, and makes people fall about laughing, and other kids are just drawn to her, everyone wants to be her friend. She is a fantastic sports woman.

I don't think they have a Gifted and Talented register now, DD1 was certainly on it, but DD2 probably wouldn't be.

Anyway, the point is, apart from me enjoying a jolly good boast about my lovely daughters, is that there probably will be something your kids are pretty good at and can certainly develop into being really very good indeed at with a lot of hard work. Our job as parents, among other things is to find how to best encourage and develop them into well-rounded and resilient adults.

Honestly, healthy and happy is far better than academic ability. Being a kind, caring, compassionate, well rounded person is far more important than being able to speak several languages or being a chess master, or being a literary genius before they've had their first wobbly tooth. Don't judge your children against others, just love them and nurture them and teach them about boundaries and respect. Make the most of every precious second because they are adults in the blink of an eye

I had a friend who cane from an immigrant background (I forget which now it was a long time ago) and she was fluent in 5 languages. I dunno if it is a survival thing from moving from country to country after fleeing war, but it seems a plausible (if ignorant and over generalised, sorry I'm knackered) explanation that could be passed on from 1 generation to the next ?

But also some of us (immigrants) grow up in multilingual countries. I learned two languages from birth (they were spoken around me), plus English and I was educated in English. We learned a second and third language in school right from Reception age as well all the way till we were 12 when we dropped our 3rd language and then learned two languages till I was 18. I have zero language skills but I can speak, read and write three languages fluently. I think the ‘bilingual kids speak later’ thing happens if the bilingualism is imposed- so you live in country A but your parents speak the language of country B. My friends and I all grew up fairly effortlessly bilingual and trilingual. I watched TV programmes in 3 languages and even now I switch easily between at least two when talking to my friends. It wasn’t a sign of being gifted- we all learned by immersion.

I agree with HuloBeraal wrt the celebration of work ethic in the US v the UK attitude, where immigrant work ethic is dismissed as 'oh immigrant work ethic...' and immigrant parents (and actually parents who are working class too) who are seen to be encouraging their children to work hard, or taking the time and making the effort to develop interests and gifts are sneered at for their 'sharp elbows'.

The idea that people should 'know their place' is alive and kicking in the UK. It is toxic and it affects every single aspect of life from cradle to grave.

Interestingly, obvious setting within classrooms is not practiced in the US (to the best of my knowledge) though there is differentiation, and you would never see test results posted publicly in a classroom. My DCs attended a k-8 elementary where there was never a G&T roll or any G&T provision. In 1st and 2nd grade each student had in his or her desk a folder called "Never Done Work" that they could take out and work from if they finished assigned school exercises early. They handed their work in along with the class work they had been doing. The work in the folder included logic games, puzzles, spot the difference games, straight maths, grammar, crosswords, etc.

At age 13/14 upon graduation there was an awards dinner where awards for good citizenship and academic leadership (not necessarily = top gpa in any given subject) were given. At that dinner too the two top performing students as measured by pure GPA for the last two years of school were announced. The second place student (salutatorian) gave a speech. The top student (valedictorian) gave a speech at the formal graduation. Nobody ever knew who the top two were until that final week of school.

I think American educators tend to value traits that will see a student through the long educational haul - traits that anyone can develop, not traits that children are born with - whereas UK culture as a whole and therefore UK education tends to be biased in favour of the existence of 'genius', and deep down believes firmly in notions of innate talent or genius or giftedness. Thanks to the class system, there is rampant conflation of 'innate talent' with 'UC'.

My son is a maths whizz, loves physics and has understood politics since he was 10. He is on gifted and talented programme at school which gives access to specialised speakers who give talks on a variety of subjects. He is a normal teen in every other way. Maths just happens to be something he enjoys and is good at

I think all you can do is support your kids in the moment. If they suddenly enjoy art then make sure they have access to decent resources, watch YouTube tutorials (unless you can afford classes) and help them self learn. You soon find out what they are genuinely talented in that way.

For my children it has been animals, cooking, art and gymnastics. Each of them has gone on to do well in what they genuinely enjoyed. I’ve never pushed them just been aware of their talents and interests.

They aren’t G&T but the two eldest have now got careers in their interests and ultimately what we’re aiming for is for our children to enjoy what they do and earn enough to support themselves through life.

WRT "work ethic", I think British culture has historically been: Work hard, but don't expect a medal or praise for it or go on about it, it's just what you do because you have to.

In modern generations it seems to have been watered down to: If you don't have to work, don't bother. Do as little as you can because why would you exhaust yourself?

Embarrassingly I recognise this in myself. And I do sort of identify with it.

Bertie
I think that's probably how I feel about it. You work hard because that's what you to do get somewhere in life, but dont go on about like tyou deserve some sort of medal.
You revise to do your best, go to rehearsals to get better and it's about getting on with it.
The idea of going on about how hard you're working/DC are working/busy DC are with all their clubs/all their achievements is so alien to me.

I do recognise the "if you don't ha e to work hard then why bother" in recent years within schools. For some parents and students they do what they like for years and then in y11 expect all the staff to do intervention etc so they can get their GCSEs

@Puzzledbyart
Ah, that explains part of the situation, you see, usually immigrants have left all sorts of comforts they could have had in their home countries in terms of being fluent language speakers and having an extensive net of family and friends around, in order to live in a different country, so most of them will be determined to bet on the sort of talent or education their kids have so they in their turn succeed in the future. It's a matter of survival but also it's cultural.
Basically, the more practice you put in, the more proficient you become. It's literally that simple. The rest is wilfulness to do it.

I find it interesting that my kids have found there seems to be something of a culture at their comp' that the kids couldn't get into the grammar schools, so obviously they're thick and crap, and wot's the point in bovverin', like? That really upsets me. These kids feel like they've already been written off, and limited in what they can achieve and aspire to, and therefore write themselves off. How much wasted capital and potential is out there, living a self fulfilling prophecy.

I wish I knew what made some children like that as mine are a surprise to me! Those saying about fluent readers being taught, I’m not entirely sure on that - I was certainly reading very early but there were no special lessons, I was read to but that’s all. I grew up with a single working mum, my granny looked after me in the day but that often meant me having to wait around while she did her cleaning jobs, after school I just read books or watched telly. No after school clubs except piano lesson once a week. I was picked out as talented at junior school, always top of the class, IQ tested as Mensa level, and told I had natural musical ability but stopped at grade 4 piano. Did it mean anything after that? Not much - I got good but not amazing O levels and A levels and didn’t go to uni as I couldn’t afford to. I have a good not amazing job.
My kids have had loads of opportunities but much though I love them they can be thick as mince at times!

I don't see anyone expecting a medal for anything in the US, or 'going on about' their children's work or activities. If you are a middle class American then your children will be engaged in some activity or other, whether that's a piano lesson once a week or a sport that entails three evenings of training and weekends devoted to travel for games.
I don't see mention of sports or other activities other people's children are participating in as 'boasting'. I think that way of framing it is evidence of tall poppy syndrome in the UK that isn't evident in the US.

There is pressure on university bound American kids to have a wide selection of activities and achievements (especially leadership roles) under their belts thanks to the university admission system, where extra curricular activities and evidence of certain personal qualities plus time management skills are taken into account by admissions officers.