Do gifted kids grow up to be gifted adults?

[Mollydoggerson]

I wonder?

I see alot of references to gifted kids and I wonder what really makes a gifted kid. I thought kids had developmental spurts, so that they might learn alot and engage the brain alot and be developmentally ahead at certain times in the childhood, however over time their focus might change to something else and alot of them even out to be intelligent normal people and not necessariy remain in the gifted category all their life.

I wonder how many kids are classed as gifted when in fact they are of normal intelligience but are also studious and engaged. I think (in Ireland anyway), a whole business has built up around the labelling of 'gifted' children.

So my query is if a child is classed as gifted on average do they develop into gifted adults?

Yeeeees Chickens. I did no revision for my GCSEs. This = 4 A* and 6 As. Come AS Level time, I got 'unclassified' for my history cw, an E for Music and a D for psychology. I knew I deserved it because I had just sat there and listened, figuring it worked for my at GCSE level. I remember telling my mother on the phone and her demanding to talk to the head of 6th form 'because something isn't right there!'

However, shockingly enough, I got a high 2:1 for my degree using the same method I used for my GCSEs. I know full well that I could have got a first if I had put some effort in, but I never do, for anything. The only thing I really worked at was a) my riding, which I have given up, and b) the practical part of my teaching degree. I worked my socks off on placement and actually deserved the top marks I got. Then I trawlked the country doing interviews, got a job in a school that would have been perfect for me, that I really worked for and then.... got pregnant. And to this day, I can't be completely sure that I didn't do it on purpose. I didn't do it on purpose, but it just stinks of self sabotage to me.

And here I am, in a dead end job on a single figure salary, serving other peopel breakfasts and wiping shit from the toilet afterwards. There is nothing wrong with this job and I am quite good at it, but if my primary teachers could see me now...

DH was gifted as a child and he continues to be motivated and work hard - no skills lacking in that front, BUT he is fairly successful rather than mega-successful as an adult because he sets his own goals and they don't involve climbing the ladder at work.
There are some things he's achieved that I find hugely impressive (he is an academic in one field and he published a paper in a top journal in a completely different field - it used research from his own field but he still had to quickly get his head round an entirely different way of thinking) but they won't do his career any good.
The most practical application of his enormous brain as far as I can see is his ability to compare different car insurance and energy quotes when the companies try to make it really complicated. Otherwise, the fact that he is very good at housework is more useful, really.

my dad interestingly had a high IQ and it continued through life, but I think his early life was hard and he wasn't praised until he went off to boarding school for secondary.

(even then he dropped down from honours classes because he worked out that he was going to be well over the entry requirements for med school and could get in by doing less )

he stuck at hobbies and excelled at sport and any career or interest he took to. But he also was able to self motivate and work. He didn't have the internal battle I'ld have to sit down and write a paper.

Maybe it comes from NOT being praised for his IQ as a young child?

It can make you lazy, complacent, and if you don't have enough self-belief, the idea that any exam you can sail through must be very very easy (so not really 'worth much').

I once got a top grade for a history exam essay. I hadn't read the topic so made it up. Ah Napoleon, I wonder if you ever did get up to half the things I attributed to you? I assumed that the person marking it thought that I had read a different book and didn't want to contradict me!

Oh yes, whilst I was teaching I would always praise effort and hard work. There was a child in my class who was years ahead of every other child there - an eleven year old doing maths at GCSE level for example. She had two weeks off with an illness, came back on the Friday, did the spelling test for which she had not had the words and got one wrong. She was devastated and it honestly took her a week to put it out of her mind. She reminded me of me so much that I wanted to pull her aside and tell her my life story, just to shock her out of thinking that it was cleverness that counted over something more important, and that there is nothing wrong with making mistakes.

Yeah actually that's a good point.

My dad was 'old fashioned' clever - scholarship to eton sort of thing from an estate in se london. He went to oxbridge and carried on being very driven and achieved loads.

He HATED how lazy I was. Am!

though... thinking out loud here... in his case he was motivated by how proud his parents were, and by guilt for their sacrifices (grandad worked three jobs to buy dad the books, uniform etc so he could 'fit in').

Whereas I was expected to be a high achiever and didn't have much positive reinforcement as people always wanted me to do more. I was made to 'learn' an instrument very very young to in some way prove my G+T ness and it put me off playing music for life. V sad.

Some children are more intelligent than others.

The problem with labelling the top 10% of the class as gifted in Reception is that that 10% will not remain the stable. The gifted label is not a measure of innate intelligence but achievement and is as such i useless label.

Intelligent children will be intelligent adults, what they achieve though will be variable, with many average children achieving more than their gifted peers- it's what is done with their abilities and how their attitude to life is that will determine the outcome.

I was the 'bright' one in my family and my brother the grafter. Guess who's the successful adult?

My sister used to beat me up for getting better marks than her. She is three years older. I now have 2 degrees and 2 postgrads. Working towards another degree. I am sure a psychologist would have a field day with that info.

Sis didn't get her degree...

As another idle coaster, this is all very true for me too. We spend a lot of time praising effort in our house now, although heaven knows whether it will make a difference.

But I also think it depends what kind of 'gifted' you are; I was just quick at picking things up, so did my very best at GCSE level, then got gradually more and more average as I went up the education system, although I did make it to an MA. But would have made a lousy academic, as I got bored concentrating on one thing. Then found a job where I had to learn new things all the time, and that suited me down to the ground. Whether that makes me more or less gifted now I do not know though.

Drive and ambition are a huge measure of success, in my opinion. However the ability to process information quickly and effectively and abstract is certainly a basic requirement in a lot of professions/careers.

I would say by way of experience and generalisations that a gifted mind, if nurtured and stimulated will remain such as an adult.

I would also say that in early childhood gifted labels are often misleading, as these can be confused with early development rather than true giftedness. I would say that often you cannot really clearly see that giftedness until later childhood, although there are always exceptions of course!!

But what do you call being successful as an adult?
It could be earning a lot of money, being high on the carreer ladder or discovering new things (I am thinking doing research, inventing things) or would you easure it as the ability to be happy?
If you take the first 2 points, I think that on the top of having a high ish IQ, the successful peopole also have a high Emotional Intelligence. That is what is making the difference between two persons with the same high IQ.
Then you need to want to go up the carreer ladder, and some people will not really want to.

I was 'gifted' as a child. I am still as intelligent as I was, which means that I foiund going back to Uni for a master 'easy going' compare to other people. Have I climbed the carreer ladder? No.
1- One is because of the first job I did that did not 'allow' huge carreer progression into management etc..
2- Because having had 2 dcs, the doors very even more close to me than before.
3- Much more importantly, I choose another path, one that I love, is fulfilling but doesn't always bring a lot of money back home.

Not necessarily.

I think real geniuses don't need to study much though. The cleverest person I know was my best friend at school who, until she got to Oxford, glided through school with the teachers feeling unqualified to mark her work, they would simply write 'A' at the bottom of everything. At Oxford she finally got feedback but was still at the top and I think later had some of her work published.

Although there are obviously a lot of advantages of being very clever I don't quite understand the obsession with it. It doesn't necessarily help your earning power and, arguably, clever people are more predisposed to mental health issues because their minds can go to more places than people with 'ordinary' minds.

I suppose it's hard to tell really

In University the educational phsycologists said that I did have severe dyslexia or similar but my IQ "worked around" it so much I wouldn't benefit from any support (e.g. extra time in exams, was walking out bored after an hour and still getting As).

So maybe it did help me through life on balance, but it certainly made me LAZY!

I don't know. The people I studied with at Uni were all 'gifted' in one way or the other tbh (different country and different system though). They did work hard and, even though I can see why it can lead to lazyness, I don't think it should be that way (ie if children who are gifted are challenged enough they will have to work hard at it in one way or the other).

But for me, the real advantage to be gifted is the fact I coud choose the carreer I really wanted without worrying if I had the ability to do it.

I didn't coast either, I was only ever top of the class if I actually worked (quite hard) for it. Maybe that's a UK thing... or some of you lot are just insanely clever.

In my education system you fail the class if you don't do homework competently. They would hold you back a year if you failed that badly.

chickensgomeh - that sums me to a tee! I have done alright, certainly.But when I look around and see the phds and friends who are doctors and own their own businesses etc I am intellectually lazy. I have always done the minimum I could get away with. It really shows now, I think.

I remember HATING chemistry at school. The teacher didn't hold me in high regard. 3rd year, I came TOP in the exams. She was convinced i cheated. I just memorised it all.

I notice that dd (7) gets VERY frustrated on those odd occasions that she can't do or understand something straight away. Despite not being mother tongue French speaking she is still near the top of the class. I praise effort and reward MORE for improvements on her weak things eg tidiness, gymnastics, chatting....

Just read this thread and suddenly feel at home - I'm totally in the 'bright but lazy' camp.

However, I've recently changed career and finally found something which I love doing - it is amazing how much effort I can put in if I try.

I was an intelligent/precocious child. To my parents that was everything, nothing else seemed to matter (and still doesn't, I'm twentyfuckingfive!). They brought me up thinking my brains were the most important thing and I had to work hard because getting anything less than top marks was not good enough.

But I didn't get shown how to work hard in a vocational/practical sense, how to be sociable, etc. My parents are useless lazy screw-ups [needless to say there are lots of other issues here] because they are hung up on the idea that being clever is all that matters.

So no, I'm not a particularly gifted adult. I'm still clever (although baby brain has rather depleted my intelligence) but I'm not successful. Having a good brain is not enough, IME.

Yes - I find that works! Work - dull, now my family tree for example, I could go for hours and hours.....I need to set up my own business really....I just don't know what....

Forgot to say - unlike many of you here I am not in the "bright but lazy" camp. At least, not intellectually lazy. I'm very geeky, I have a high 'need for cognition' and my constant brain-whirring is actually pretty painful.

Porto I agree, I do very few comments on how good ds1 is at maths for example. But I do encourage a lot being self reliant, tidying up, swimming etc... all the things he isn't keen on or not particularly good at so that he learns what making an effort means. And that it is worth doing (for the swimming for example).

Perhpas it is just that with a gifted child, the need of being a well rounded person is even more obvious ( as in said person, as an adult is obvioulsy intelligent enough to do X so if she/he can't do it then it's coming from somewhere else??).