That glass ceiling! Part 2

[var123]

Continuing the discussion about artificial limits placed on G&T children, and the resulting impact on their health and happiness (not to mention futures).

Do they really matter less because they have a perceived "advantage"?!

original thread here:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/gifted_and_talented/2507232-The-glass-ceiling-for-very-able-children?

EricNorthmanSucks You are probably right. I wish...!

"They aren't friendships if you've nothing in common" But why would you have nothing in common just because you aren't academic peers? Sure, we all need superficial social skills in life but that isn't what childhood friendships should be teaching. well, yes, actually,not is one of the things childhood friendships should be teaching It's really important to learn skills such as loyalty in childhood. That's a very difficult skill to learn and one that you cannot practice with people you don't care about deeply, despite their imperfections. So are you saying you can only care deeply about people who are your academic peers?

Clever kids play tag too.

Bertrand - you are so full to the brim of ideology

Bert, in my case we were talking about a boy between the ages of 4-8. Friendship levels at this age are about pooh jokes, football, football, and...football - not the things you mention. If a child does not have these interests and has different interests - it is not a matter of seeking academic peers, just someone to relate to. I think that isolation starting the very young years is not desirable and I was not seeking academically minded peers per se, just looking for ANYONE who might share the same interests as my son so he would feel normal!

DS - outlier - has a verity of friends. he has one close friend,equally outlierish. But he then has a series of overlapping 'functional' friends - music friends in school / music friends out of school / football friends / chess friends. In the latter, academic ability is unimportant - it is the shared passion that counts.

DD has a group of close friends in school. They are all well-behaved, non-silly girls who love netball, and come from across the academic spectrum. She then has dance friends, who dance with her 10+ hours every week.

If you have an academic outlier - and believe you me, DS has been a total outlier, leading to selective mutism, stress and total social isolation - then actually one of the very best things you can do, IME, is find them an interest that they are passionate about - music, dance, chess, Scouting, whtaever. That is where my children have found their friends, because the shared interest gives a 'structure' in which my quirky kids have found it easier to make the appropriate social moves.

Same as teachers dd, mine has different groups of friends with shared interests. One member of her primary best friends quad has sn that made her an outlier at the other end. However she's also very articulate and fun in other ways. Dds also quite sporty so had shared interests in physical activities with plenty of classmates. But there were still times dd would get very frustrated that her peers didn't understand her.

I just know bert is thinking great life lesson, but not when you're only young, and never get to experience much else.

Yes, I know they play tag too. And he did. But then he started to grow up and wanted to play it less. The friend wanted to play it all the time. DS tried to compromise but the friend still wanted to play it all the time.
So, DS1 played it more than he wanted to, but still that wasn't enough for the friend.

Mom 4-8 year old boys also seem to be about Minecraft, which is why I'm happy for my 6 year old to play it, especially as he hates football.

I remember when I was younger my dad giving advice to my brother to always read the sports news even if he didn't give a crap about it, because it would help him with all sorts of small social interactions with others. My DH does this too, I never see him watch any sport, but if someone asked him who he fancied to win the FA cup (or whatever) he'd be able to have a conversation. Actually it reminds me of the episode of The IT Crowd where Moss is able to talk to the post guy about the 'ludicrous display last night'.

teacherwith2kids It is good advice, but Oh, how I've tried! Cubs and scouts - he went for years but never made any new friends, just acquaintances.
Football - played but didn't chat to the rest of the team. To be fair, they all went to the same school and Ds didn't go there, so they had more in common to start. Then he wasn't good enough to be in the team any more.
Judo - no joy, dropped out after two years
Tennis - lack of coordination that no amount of practice was ever going to put right
Drama group - he paled and pleaded not to be forced in this
Music - refused point blank
Art - i am not mean enough to make him do that!
Chess - fear of nerdiness.

Clubs and groups outside school are obviously a great joy and a place to make friends with common ground.

But it's much more preferable to find those friends in school too. DC are there every day after all and for several hours.

Who would want to be friendless all day every day, waiting for two hours on a Saturday morning to meet your real mates at chess club?

If those chess club types attended your school in numbers then you'd have them all the time . Much nicer.

noblegiraffe - the good news about minecraft is that it goes beyond age 8. It is still the game of choice when they are 10. Have you found the stampylonghead videos yet? I don't miss having those playing in the background at all!

Yes, my DD needs other DC like her who speak English and other languages and have similar pluricultural horizons. And she needs them every day.

"Who would want to be friendless all day every day, waiting for two hours on a Saturday morning to meet your real mates at chess club?" But why do you have to be friendless? Ds's main friends are at his youth theatre group- they meet on Fridays. He has another group of football mates. But at school he has plenty of people to hang out with- they talk video games, music, comic books- and just general nonsense, from what I hear from the front of the car. As an adult I have a couple of quite "niche" interests- it's great if I find someone to share them but it doesn't happen very often and I don't choose my friends because of them. Or expect to like the people who share them. In fact I have quietly loathed practically everyone I've met who shares one of them!

My ds had a rough few years since start of reception, that he only got along with girls. But this year, he finally found like minded boy, similar gentle nature, love of funny books, not into sports and not into minecraft!

Bertrand - you are describing your DS who is not an outlier and saying outliers should be like him.

var DS knows about Stampy but thankfully hasn't asked to watch any of his stuff yet and I'm quite happy to keep that genie in its bottle! He has stacks of Minecraft magazines and books to keep him going when not playing.

Being friendless is not unavoidable. No one said that.

DD had lovely mates in her mixed ability school ( though interestingly she chose to leave it). DS probably would too.

But there are DC who do find it tough. And do find it easier to make friends in SS environment.

I see this every October at the university where I work. Young people who have been quite out of step with their school mates suddenly blossom like flowers. It's wonderful to observe!

BertrandRussell - you know how yesterday you felt excluded because the conversation was about maths and you couldn't relate to it? Well this is the same thing but you are on the other side of the argument this time: those who find something easy, just find it easy. It doesn't mean that those who struggle can just apply the same effort and have the same results.

If we'd written yesterday that our children find maths easy, so yours could just take the same approach as ours and then your DC would be bumping against the glass ceiling for maths too, what would you have replied?

Your DS has no difficulty making friends and that's great. My DS2 doesn't either. He can't understand why his big brother struggles. He makes suggestions about what Ds1 could do, and how he should do it, and it would be good advice. Except that Ds1 is in a different place and he just can't do it with the ease that Ds2 can. (Then there's the issue that DS2 is making it worse by implicitly acknowledging how DS1 is struggling.)

noblegiraffe - what about Skylanders? That was the other obsession about three years ago. It cost a fortune.

I didn't feel excluded from the maths talk. I just think that there is more to GandT than maths and so often discussion gets bogged down in maths levels.

I definitely think there's academic intelligence which doesn't really affect friendships at all, and then there's social difficulties. I would suggest children that find it difficult to make friends are socially awkward not academically difficult. I have one son who isn't academic in the strictest sense but is socially awkward, this becomes more and more exaggerated as he gets older. Friendships are tough. Then another who is academically gifted who doesn't struggle with friendships at all.

I firmly believe it's not because anyone is too bright to make friends with less bright children, but not socially equipped.

And birth order also affects children.

Friendship ....
When dc1 was little (3~4yo) i had already cottoned out that he would be an outlier. I also knew that football ws very much the focal point in the playground so I enrolled both the dcs into football during the hols, enough that they would know the rules and had an idea how to kick the ball. They are both very outdoorsy so I though I would give it a try.
It was probably one of my best move ever for both of them as it helped them to 'fit in' better (dc1 because he turned out to be an outlier and dc2 because he has AS trraits and found any social communication hard).
A few years donw the line, neither of them really like football btw, they both find that the 'culture', for a better word, on the pitch doesn't fit them. But it allows them to run around which they love and to be WITH people.

But nope, here too dc1 is very sociable, gets on with everyone
blablabla but has no real friends. Quite a few people he gets on well, he laughs with but there is no deep connection iyswim. I suspect, as Bobo says that he would be much happier with people who have a multicultural background I'm hoping that the new boy who started in his class will help with that. He is more or less the only truly bicultural child dc1 knows

But my experience as a child is that I didn't have any friends in primary (got along with people fine. I just couldn't understand why on earth they thought running around could be interesting). And it carried on for a long time. Secondary was better but I didn't find real friends until I was an adult (We are all linked by a special interest and the fact we are all in the top 1/100). So I haven't expected anything different for dc1. I'm not expecting him to make real strong friendship until he goes to Uni :(

Oh, ok. Still my point stands. People are different, so just because one child has friends in many spheres, and therefore clearly finds making friends easy, doesn't mean that the same strategy will work for others. TBH I would be grateful to learn that DS1 has just one friend, in any sphere.