Is anyone else slightly disappointed their DC didn’t turn out to be quite as amazing as I thought they were when they were little?

[meanmama]

DS was naturally very academically advanced at an early age. He basically taught himself to read, was years ahead of the rest of the class in maths, drew pictures like a 7 year old at age 3, wrote chapter books with punctuation in reception, learnt musical instruments with ease. You name it, he could do it. This was completely without any pushing from myself or DH - we have another DC who is much more academically ‘normal’ and have treated them both the same.
I couldn’t help but have extremely high hopes and dreams for DS who is now 16. But although he’s still very bright he’s also quite lazy so achieves above average but nothing like when he was little. I sometimes wonder if I should have been more pushy about made sure he pushed himself but I’m just not that type of parent.
I feel bad for feeling like this, I know IABU and obviously I do massively appreciate the fact that DS is doing pretty well academically, has lots of friends a good social life and is happy. But part of me can’t help but feel just a bit disappointed that he didn’t grow up to be the genius I thought he would.

There are a couple things that we aren't really honest with parents about (in order to get everyone to buy into the population -rather than individual- based concept and structure of the school system as it is, probably?).

1. Primary school children really vary -some arrive already reading, some take more time. But the majority end up in the same place. A lot of primary school is just waiting for them all to get to that same place. The "bright" ones at the beginning are not so different from the majority by the end. They just got there quicker. Exceptions are a small minority.
2. Real mastery of anything takes 10,000 hours of practice. The idea of natural talent is mostly untrue. So the earlier an aptitude can be identified, to get in the 10,000 hours, the better (and logically this would mean focusing on a smaller range of subjects from an earlier stage). In the same vein, early demonstration of aptitude means very little without the hours of practice. An approach based on individual aptitude for specific subjects could be really effective and keep children motivated and involved (provides a more positive learning experience) but it can be hard to deliver.

He sounds possibly neurodiverse. Hyperlexia (reading/writing at a very early age) is a sign of that. I could read at 3 and was reading novels in both English and Spanish by the time I was 6 or 7 and writing books with chapters, like your son. Started to completely fall apart in secondary school because I struggled so much with focus and the social aspects of school. I appeared normal and sociable but was masking heavily. I was called lazy many, many times and that made it all worse. Ended up with anxiety and depression, had a breakdown around 30 and was diagnosed with autism and ADHD.

Being a 'gifted child' can be a real curse. You feel like absolute shit for not being able to live up to everyone's lofty expectations. Even though I was still a good student and still got straight As at A Level, despite horrific mental health difficulties at the time, people were expecting me to be the next Mozart or Einstein. Whatever I did was never going to be good enough.

It's disappointing to see a child that you believe "could be so much more" - my DD2 is like that with the violin. She has won prestigious competition learning the piece for a couple of months and swanned in to take the trophy. HOWEVER the message has been sent and I suspect you child is the same that she didn't need to put in that much hard work to win therefore don't need to try that much. My DD2 is happy loving and balanced and I cherish her for that. I don't need her to be the next Heifetz.

I feel very sad for your son that you come across as disappointed in him. Must be many who would love to have a healthy son.

It sounds like your son is doing very well. Well done op.

If it makes you feel better-being “the best” at every class in school isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be. Eventually school ends and you need to be successful in real life, and that’s different.

pixie5121 - same here! Stupid high IQ, read before school, Mensa as a kid but not a great childhood. Oxbridge... then one side of the family pretty much disown me for not being successful in society.

I am trying to get my dr to refer for asd/adhd and am in the middle of a breakdown. mental health has always been tricky.

I often see people wanting their little children to be geniuses and really think life is simpler sometimes if not.

My primary aged DS is very bright academically and picks up learning instruments with ease. He pretty much taught himself to read at a young age and is doing incredibly well at school. However, he struggles with social situations and anxiety. We go out of our way to not put pressure on him and to just do what he can and enjoy school.

As a child I was always told to do ‘THE best’ and actually found that quite damaging and caused me huge anxiety.

I’d much rather a happy son who has strong friendship groups than one excelling in education.

not disappointed at all but my eldest was extremely bright until secondary, and then tailed off a bit- got good but not exceptional gcse results and fairly avairage a level results. she is great though- am truly proud of her, she didn’t go to uni but it hasn’t stopped her pursuing her career choice or her ambitions.

No I value them becoming themselves. Being a happy individual is my ultimate goal. When I read about the challenges teens have with mental health, bullying, behavior, relationships etc I am very grateful for my lot.

Intelligence doesn't disappear I think it disapates and appears in areas that trigger interest in later life.

Sounds like me. I was put off being a writer when a teacher said all aspiring writers need to be prepared for rejection. I couldn’t cope with not getting something right first time as a child and teenager, so I immediately filed being an author under ‘too hard’. This is why I strongly believe praising kids for being effortlessly good at something is doing them no favours. Took me well into my twenties to realise that I can succeed at something that doesn’t come easily at first. I wasted a lot of time floundering before that.

To the disappointed parents on here, I would say one thing: be very careful about letting any disappointment show. My mum has never cared about job or salary, just about me being happy, whereas my dad was very disappointed. It has impacted our relationship.

I’d also say lots of people take a while to get established when they hit late teens and early adulthood, whether they were top of the class or not.

I think it’s very different being disappointed in them not trying, rather than being disappointed in them not succeeding.

I was an actual genius. Age 12 I scored in the 160s in Mensa's adult tests.

It has caused me nothing but crippling mental health issues since age 5 and stupid decisions made because I was so smart but my emotional level was exactly the same as any other child. I couldn't keep up with the toll it took on me. So much so, I've never reached one tenth of my potential.

I've attempted suicide multiple times in my life. I'd rather be of average intelligence any day and to be able to shut my brain off.

Now I have a little girl. I'm not going to make the same mistakes every adult did with me.

If your children are happy and healthy, that's really all that matters.

And really, what does "living up to their potential" really even mean? How does one even quantify that?

Reading before starting school, playing instruments, beautiful artwork, hitting a ball, while not every kid does all those things, most kids excel faster than their peers at something.

For instance, my daughter. Learned to read by the age of two from watching my wife and I read to her. She could competently play any instrument within an hour or so of getting her hands on it. Always got top marks.

She now has a masters degree and is a charge nurse at a hospital. Quite proud of her, but at the same time, there are tons of kids who were the same, and while being a nurse is quite admirable, it is not exactly a rare profession that one has to be truly special or gifted to get into.

Yes, she is more successful than many people, but not in such a way that makes her extraordinary.

So in the context of my daughter, what exactly does "living up to her potential" mean?

Another adult here who was one of ‘those’ children from a very very young age, and the constant pressure to be exceptional has haunted me my whole life and given me a tonne of hang ups and crippling anxiety that I’ve needed a fuckton of therapy for.

If your son is doing well - even if it’s not the off-the-chart high-flying achievements you once hoped for - then leave him be. No good can come of putting unnecessary pressure on him to do better just because you think he should. My mum used to tell me I was lazy and that I should be working harder even when my grades were as high as they could possibly go and I was taking 12 GCSEs. Now I’m an adult, currently studying for a PhD, I understand that the ‘lazy’ moments are actually just rest, which my body and my brain both need, and it physically isn’t possibly to be working hard and be insanely productive all the time despite what I’ve been told my whole life about my ‘potential’ to be exceptional.

I wish there was no emphasis put on 'gifted and talented' kids

I was one so was one of my sisters, highest acheiver in our primary schools, top sets, great gcses, good a levels, uni etc.
It was easy, everything was always easy, didn't really need to study, she excelled at music and sports, I did at art and drama so we were considered 'well rounded'.

It just meant everyone had high expectations for us and we found school easy and boring.

We both work in average normal careers and we both had children very young.

For me nothing academic holds any excitement when you always found it easy, there was no challenge and no point trying because it was all boring. I got over myself and found a job that I love and challenges me in a new way that was actually interesting because it didn't come naturally at all. Its not an impressive job and I definitely would have let down a lot of teachers if they knew.
But I'm happy.

My sister got tons of academic burnout, her entire self worth was tied to academics and being talented because it was all we were ever praised for. She said it felt like everything had been decided for her from being grouped as gifted and talented as a primary schooler. She felt the only way she would be worth anything was to succeed forever.

Shite mental health and accidental babies later and she is a brilliant mother because it didn't come naturally. She had to try, she had to learn how to do it and its the first thing thats made her happy since she stopped getting graded.

Your kid is 16 he has plenty of time to to succeed in stuff if he wants, but it is so nice as an adult to not have that.
To have no expectations put on you and nobody around you who sees you and your hard to find happiness as a disapointment or a waste of academic ability.
Nobody I know as an adult knows what I was like in school because it doesn't matter at all and nobody cares. It only matters if they are happy, screw the rest of it.

There is a heartbreaking thread on here at the moment about a suicidal child. Please be content your own child is happy.

I think being very advanced at a young age can cause problems down the line- you never learn the lessons of hard work and application because everything comes easily to you and you're more likely to have a fixed mindset regarding your abilities (you can do things easily because you're clever, so when you meet something you can't do you give up- not clever enough so no point trying). This was my experience as a clever kid and a lazy teen and I've tried not to make those mistakes with my own clever kids. Interesting, DS best learned about application and having a growth mindset from playing football- something that didn't come easily to him but which he really cared about.

I also think that some of being a very advanced kid is just that you achieve things earlier than your peers- reading at 3, writing long stories at 4 or whatever- but that doesn't necessarily translate into the ability to do things that other people can't do. You just did some fairly standard things at a non-standard time, and eventually other people catch up.

Don't beat yourself up, OP. Your son sounds absolutely fine. It's very common for boys to develop academic motivation a little later than girls, so it's quite possible that he'll shine again at A levels, especially if he likes his choices. To be interested in what you do and willing to work at it is the main thing and worth far more than being ahead of your peers without effort. Nothing worth doing can be done without work.

This.

All of this.

Some of us would be over the moon to have children at all, let alone a happy well-adjusted one. Suggest you count your blessings.

Oh and as an Oxbridge grad, I can tell
you a lot of very very intelligent people are deeply unhappy, suicidal even. If he can be happy and clever he has it made.

This is such a weird OP.

@samyeagar - I agree. The idea there is a standard we all should achieve or otherwise fall short or let ourselves down in some way is rather sad really. Not valuing actual achievements, but measuring them critically against something that never was. All the more meaningless when you consider that these standards are set on the basis of developmental progress, when we all know people develop at different rates.

Me too, especially after reading the utterly heartbreaking posts from JungleZgok 🥺
My mother wanted me to be a genius so she had bragging rights- I wasn’t and she expressed her disappointment with me right up to her death aged 97 earlier this year. She succeeded in making me very anxious, I had/have very low self-esteem and it’s dogged my life.
Ffs be bl… grateful you have a happy, sociable teenager, far too many mothers don’t.

He’s always worked (in the difficult and hardworking field of hospitality), lives entirely off his own back and within his means (no debt) and is a ‘marvellous son’ who his mother describes as ‘loyal, kind, and empathetic.’

What expectations has he not lived up to? He sounds like a son to be truly proud of.

I was reading at 3, high grades in primary, gifted & talented programme in secondary, mediocre at uni. Throughout all of it I was bored! I just wanted to do my own thing without external pressures. My mum occasionally suggests I go back to uni (now mid 30s). No thanks.

All my friends went through similar things growing up. We're not here to fulfil your ambitions. I'm really good at my mediocre-pay job in a niche sector :)

I’ll also add that as someone without kids, I’ve noticed that pretty much ALL my friends who are parents (of which there are many) have proudly told me how advanced their child is for their age in something or other: vocabulary, numbers, reading, music or whatever else. I feel happy for them that they’re so proud of their gorgeous children, but I think it kind of goes to show that sometimes ‘exceptional’ kids aren’t quite as exceptional as their parents might think they are.

And it’s interesting to see primary teachers on this thread explaining that even when a child is exceptionally gifted at an early age, other children generally tend to more or less catch up during those primary years. Expecting your child to stay better than everyone else at something for the rest of their life, purely because they took to it quicker than others as a toddler, just sounds like a recipe for making everyone miserable!

And it’s interesting to see primary teachers on this thread explaining that even when a child is exceptionally gifted at an early age, other children generally tend to more or less catch up during those primary years.

It’s true though. I can’t tell you how many parents have bragged to me that their child read at age 3 but it genuinely doesn’t matter. Listen to them and another child who didn’t learn to read until they were 8 read aloud when they’re both 13. They’ll both read the same. It makes little difference.