Do you ever wonder what it's like to have a normal child?

[RoboJesus]

I always imagined having a normal child and I've been thinking a lot about it lately. Having a gifted child definitely changes things. Obviously I love my child perfectly as they are though. Does anyone get what I mean?

But it is often smug to mention their child's skills to others! If a child is really, truly "gifted", it is impossible to talk about their abilities without it sounding like a bit of a boast, so why would you? It's very rarely necessary to discuss your child's abilities with others, so why not just save it for the proud grandparents or others who will genuinely want to hear it?!

I have actually spent years playing down dd's achievements to other people. She gets loads of comments as it is, from people who don't know the half of what she can do. I don't want it to go to her head and I don't want her feeling like some kind of freak either.

Nobody is going to tell OP that she is a rubbish parent because she and/or her child have some difficulties. At the same time, she might be encouraged to look at those difficulties from a different perspective. My dd has had her fair share of challenges, but I don't believe that those challenges were necessarily related in any way to her "giftedness".

Some of us do genuinely want to help, but we don't necessarily subscribe to the "woe is me, having a gifted child is so difficult" school of thought. From my perspective, high intelligence is nothing but a gift. I think the problems arise when parents fixate on the "gifted" aspect of their child's personality/development and fail to acknowledge that there are many other important elements alongside that.

I think you lot would benefit from reading some Marvin Minski. Even to use the word 'gifted' is a little bizzare. If it truly pains you so, how is it a gift? Also the word itself is a misnomer in this context. A gift is a thing, freely given (this is why Minsky and Chomsky had so many arguments, despite their friendship, semantics are important).

So I would never use the term gifted. Conferred is a slightly better way of putting it.

But still, at any age, conferred intelligence is very difficult to quantify.

It really is an arbitrary marker, of what?

The ability to make connections? And that's no small feat, it's the basis of communication, which in itself is utterly extraordinary.

But the human brain is extremely malleable, to see a future of pain and sorrow, set in stone, at the age of four is to expose your own rigid pathways to the derision of others.

I have known many fine minds in my time, they all have their joys and foibles, but everything they had in common was that they were allowed to be free.

You seem to want to stymie, to categorise.

That would be an error. I think.

But it is often smug to mention their child's skills to others!

Surely not on a G&T board that is here specifically to discuss children’s skills?

I have actually spent years playing down dd's achievements to other people.

But why should you have to? I love hearing about other people’s kid’s skills. It’s so interesting to watch them learn and develop. Personally I would love to hear all the amazing things your child can do. Others do not feel the same clearly.

Nobody is going to tell OP that she is a rubbish parent because she and/or her child have some difficulties.

I just read the other thread where someone said, “I feel sorry for your children” after she’d barely said 3 words. What kind of person says that to someone who’s just asking advice on finding an appropriate school? There are some incredibly and pointlessly nasty people on this thread.

Iamagreyhound I thought the U.K. was top 10% of the class. Here in the US it's not too 10% of the class but of the standard deviation curve they have for all kids that age. As an example, DD turned 7 today. She has a reading age of a 10 year old. She is clearly bright. I've never paid much attention to it, just focused on the basics of good manners, confidence and being exposed to healthy choices. Her test results shocked everyone. I had her assessed independently as part of her autism assessment and they said her combined score put her in the 97th percentile for her age group in terms of ability.

In any case, being gifted doesn't mean much beyond school. I was at university with one of the most intelligent people I know. He graduated with a 1st and was the only one to do so. Today he is a manager in a call center. He is happy and I'm really happy for him. He makes £35k a year and struggles financially. Had he moved to London and worked for a bank he would be making millions. It wasn't what he wanted to do. Nothing wrong with his choice but being gifted didn't translate to what I think most G&T parents envision.

Want2, top 10% of the class was old system they used to classify G&T in school, not used anymore, for years. It's a quite silly system, G&T in one school can be average in another.

But it is often smug to mention their child's skills to others! If a child is really, truly "gifted", it is impossible to talk about their abilities without it sounding like a bit of a boast, so why would you?

Well, yes, that's the prevailing social convention and the vast majority of parents of outliers do the socially correct thing, playing down their children's abilities and striving to fly under the radar. As do the children themselves once they're old enough to notice these things.

The social conventions are different if your child is an exceptionally talented athlete. Talking about children's sporting abilities seems to be far more acceptable in conversation. I've always found that...interesting.

Some "gifted" children struggle with friendships, just like many other non-gifted kids. I do find that there is a tendency among the parents of some of the "gifted" children to assume that the friendship issues are an inevitable consequence of being "gifted", rather than the result of poorly developed social skills.

But the poorly developed social skills are generally a consequence of being "gifted" and therefore out of sync with age peers, so it becomes rather circular.

Children learn social skills from the early years by practising with their peers. Children who are developing asynchronously ("gifted" children, particularly the outliers) will have different play interests, different expectations of friendship, than their age peers. (Giftedness means being that child who picks up reading or numeracy apparently by osmosis in the preschool years, but also being that child who's trying to explain a terribly complicated game they've just dreamt up to 3/4 year old age mates who really don't want to know.) The result is frustration and disappointment, on both sides, social difficulties, and eventually perhaps isolation and therefore even less opportunity to practice. And yes of course that means that the social skills need to be worked on, with support from parents and educators, but these are hard yards for children whose cognitive development has raced ahead of that of their age peers, and of their own level of social, physical and emotional development.

Children who are "a bit" gifted are less out of sync, and therefore struggle less. But I do think that if you're a 5 year old with the intellectual ability of say, an 8/9 year old, it's fair to say that friendship issues probably are pretty much inevitable.

The very intelligent people I know - and I’m talking double firsts from Oxbridge types after being dux at school - I don’t really envy them. Huge expectations to do well and often struggle on the emotional intelligence side.

I think if I had a gifted child, I would try to encourage normal social interactions as much as possible, and almost downplay their “specialness” for this reason.

The most “successful” people I know are not the most intelligent. I’m certainly not gifted but graduated with a first and am quite quick but struggle with self esteem and watch far less able people than me so far better

Children who are "a bit" gifted are less out of sync, and therefore struggle less. But I do think that if you're a 5 year old with the intellectual ability of say, an 8/9 year old, it's fair to say that friendship issues probably are pretty much inevitable.

No, no, no! And no again! Friendship issues are not inevitable for those children, and this kind of thinking makes me really mad because it ruined my childhood. I did have social difficulties as a "gifted" child but it would have been so much better for me if someone had actually addressed this and invested in helping me to interact more effectively with my peers instead of just assuming that my struggles were inevitable because I was "gifted".

My dd is every bit as "gifted" as I was, probably more so. Academically, she has consistently been working at a level far above her peers. However, she is lucky enough to be socially "gifted" as well. She can make friends with anyone. She has always loved talking to adults and spending time with older kids, but she also loves being with her peers and with younger children too. Yes, there may have been differences in cognitive development between dd and her peers, but that wasn't necessarily a bar to forming friendships - any more than an age gap of a few years is a bar to siblings playing together happily. Yes, the dynamics of dd's relationships are not always perfectly balanced - I can see that she is looked to as the "leader" in her group of friends - but her friends adore her and she adores them. And while her friends might be in awe of her academic abilities, she sees lots of other positive qualities in them which she truly values. Life is about so much more than being smart. She is happy, and that counts for a lot.

I found social interaction much, much harder as a child. I was painfully shy and it was much easier to stay in my comfort zone of having my head stuck in a book or only interacting with another child who also happened to be very bright. Sadly, that didn't help me to get out and practise talking to my peers, and in hindsight, I really wish someone had helped me much more proactively to develop my social skills at an earlier age as it would have made such a huge difference.

One of my proudest moments as a parent has been watching my dd "coach" another child in how to get along better with her peers. The child in question was getting excluded in the early years of secondary school because the other kids found her intensely irritating. DD is very empathetic and didn't want to be mean, but also found this child very difficult to be around. The child's mum thought the issues were inevitable because she was very bright and therefore her peers couldn't relate - believing that my dd was kind to this child because they were "on the same wavelength" and not because my dd pitied her. DD concluded that the child did not have the self-awareness to recognise when she was behaving in a way that others found annoying, so she took it upon herself to talk to the girl - as kindly and gently as she could - to explain why others were reacting as they did. They had several conversations like this, and eventually came up with a code word that dd could use to alert the other child when her behaviours were starting to alienate the other kids. Credit to her, the other child took dd's intervention in the way that it was intended and she heeded the advice. Her relationships improved significantly, and a few months later, she wrote the loveliest card to thank dd for helping her.

As an adult, I have friends who are academically brilliant as well as friends who are academically very average. All of them have other qualities that I value much more than their intelligence. There is no reason why children can only be friends with their academic equals either, and we do them a disservice in thinking that this is so. Sometimes, a little intervention in the early years to help children develop better social skills would prevent a lifetime of misery, but time and again, I see the assumption that social difficulties are inevitable getting in the way of that. We owe it to our kids to smash that myth.

My son is very able, particularly in maths. He has been assessed and his fsIQ was at 99.5 percentile, brought down by a relatively slow processing speed. His nonverbal score was 147. And he's 11 so this isn't precociousness.

Op, the gap narrows. DS was a bit out on a limb as a small child. He had a reading age of 7 1/2 when he was 3 and still in nursery. He couldn't understand why the other kids didn't read the signs and follow the instructions. In Reception he alienated some of the kids by telling them they were doing things wrong, or by trying to do things for them. But you know what, the other kids learned to read and write and the gap became less obvious. Are you familiar with Bloom's taxonomy? A lot of "gifted" (freaking hate that term) children are very good at skill acquisition and the restatement of knowledge, but they may be less good at some of the higher order skills that come in at upper key stage 2 and onwards. DS is showing signs of finding organisation and comparison, interpretation and creative innovation much less natural states of learning compared with some of his peers, and whilst he does a good job, he isn't unquestionably the best at this any more, rather than in maths and coding where he still finishes his allowed tasks in minutes and then helps the others. The best thing is that his basic kindness is now we'll understood and he is thought of by his peers as a very kind and helpful kid who can be a bit scarily clever. I think he doesn't really know how clever he is; he knows he's good at maths but he doesn't know that realising at age 7 that he could work out how to add all numbers 1 -100 by making 50 pairs of 101is not something that most adults would realise, for example. I've never told him. Why would I?

I love hearing about other people’s kid’s skills. It’s so interesting to watch them learn and develop. Personally I would love to hear all the amazing things your child can do.

Iwas, I get where you're coming from, and it's lovely that you're so interested in hearing about other people's children. I too find it fascinating to see how these children develop. However, if you don't play down your child's ability, how do you stop it from going to their heads?

People have been gushing about how clever dd is for as long as I can remember, often when they have only seen a fraction of what she is capable of. I really don't particularly want dd growing up thinking that she is a freak of some sort, nor do I want her to carry the weight of too much expectation. I just want her to be a normal kid, so when the comments start, I try to shut them down. It isn't that I'm not proud of her - I am immensely so, but I don't want her abilities to define her as she is so much more than that.

We warded that off, French, by always praising/rewarding efforts rather than achievement.
But personality has the biggest role to play...
One of mine is very modest about their achievements, despite standing out a lot at primary school, everyone knew that's just how she was, she never bragged, or brought her achievements to the attention of others. Again that's now happened at secondary school. It's taken a year for people to realise what her capabilities are, because she doesn't announce them.

My second though moans that people just don't recognise his genius, because they're too far behind him intellectually
We have to do a lot of work with him about his attitude/friendships.

No, no, no! And no again! Friendship issues are not inevitable for those children, and this kind of thinking makes me really mad because it ruined my childhood. I did have social difficulties as a "gifted" child but it would have been so much better for me if someone had actually addressed this and invested in helping me to interact more effectively with my peers instead of just assuming that my struggles were inevitable because I was "gifted".

No one is saying it’s inevitable, they’re saying it’s quite common in gifted children for the reasons stated by Caera. There are many, many studies showing this to be the case. Parents of these kids are well aware of that nowadays however being the parent of a gifted child often means special classes to help them learn to get along with children their own age, along with constant visits to the park and clubs to help them practice their skills. When the OP is talking about how it’s hard this is what she’s referring too. She can’t just happily watch her son run off with the first child of his own age he meets and play happily. She has to watch him feel confused and try to help him find a way to get along with other 4 year olds when he would rather just hang out with older kids. She has to watch him wonder what’s wrong with himself that he doesn’t automatically get along with other 4 year olds. How do you think that makes her feel? Not smug and superior. And then she wants to ask other parents for advice but then she just gets shouted at for daring to mention the problem.

But OP never stated that her dc is having social problems. Where did she say that?

Children who are "a bit" gifted are less out of sync, and therefore struggle less. But I do think that if you're a 5 year old with the intellectual ability of say, an 8/9 year old, it's fair to say that friendship issues probably are pretty much inevitable.

Everything French2019 said. (and her dd sounds lovely)

The way my db and my dn managed this was simply by connecting with other people about different things. Unless you are led to believe that your bookish interests or your ability in maths is the single thing that defines you, you can find other paths to meet and make friends. My db and dn did it through sport and through outdoor pursuits: their giftedness was just one aspect of their generally full and rich lives.

When you're building a den you don't actually have to talk about your plans for writing an opera. And there is nothing about being able to read Catullus in the original that means you cannot also enjoy building a snowman or baking a cake. Or listening to music or watching a television series.

I think British education focuses far too narrowly on pitting intellect against manual/people skills and we do our young people- both the gifted and the non-gifted- a disservice this way.

However, if you don't play down your child's ability, how do you stop it from going to their heads?

I think it depends on the child and there are different ways of talking to them about it.

If you have a happy and well adjusted child who is excelling academically or in her area of expertise then you probably don’t need to talk to them much about it.

If you have a child that has by random chance had a series of bad experiences (feeling like an outcast because they can’t relate to the children they’ve so far met, no access to kids like them or older kids, teachers assuming they must have ASD and talking loudly about it in front of them) then they need to know why they feel different. Just wondering what’s wrong with them with no answers forthcoming is incredibly damaging. It doesn’t need to be, “well honey you’re smarter than everyone else”, but there are ways to help them understand why they have trouble and that can help them learn to bridge the gap.

irvineonehome we don't actually know that it's social problems the OP is referring to because, despite being asked repeatedly, she hasn't been back to confirm this

but she posted in rather a wistful way about what it would be like having an "ordinary" child, which rather suggests she is experiencing or foreseeing some kind of problem

if the child is getting on swimmingly and everything is fine, why would you post on a large forum wondering what it would be like if they were different?

I've never posted on a forum wondering what it would be like if I was 5 foot six instead of five foot seven, because being five foot seven isn't really a problem.

But I might well have expressed a wonder what it would be like not to have a child with a pain condition, because that has a very definite negative side to it.

But OP never stated that her dc is having social problems. Where did she say that?

She didn’t. We made an assumption to continue the conversation. When people talk about trouble with gifted preschoolers it is usually either social problems, perfectionism, sensitivities or a combination of all three that’s the problem. Oh, see also ignorant teachers. Shopping around for psychologists too. It was all explained in the link I posted several pages ago.

No one is saying it’s inevitable, they’re saying it’s quite common in gifted children for the reasons stated by Caera.

Actually, Ceara did say it was inevitable. Of course it's quite common for "gifted" children to encounter social difficulties. I suspect it's quite common for non-gifted children too. Correlation doesn't necessarily equal causation.

As for the OP, I agree with Irvine that the OP hasn't actually mentioned social difficulties. The OP hasn't actually told us much about her dc at all. However, she does seem determined to see "giftedness" as a problem of some sort. I'm not quite sure why.

Correlation doesn't necessarily equal causation.

But if you read the many studies on the subject you’ll see that, in this case, it does.

However, she does seem determined to see "giftedness" as a problem of some sort. I'm not quite sure why.

I think we’ve covered that quite comprehensively at this point.

She didn’t. We made an assumption to continue the conversation
Why would you do that?
Op clearly has no intention of being anything more than nebulously vague (like all her threads), why would you decide for yourself what her issue must be? If she was genuinely looking for help she might actually state what her problem was.

Isn't that notorious serial killer currently in a maximum security prison a 'gifted' person with an IQ of 165 plus?

I think we’ve covered that quite comprehensively at this point. What?!
Unless you’re op’s sock, you are extremely presumptuous to speak on her behalf like this!!
Are you op under a name change?

Why would you do that?

to continue the conversation

Unless you’re op’s sock, you are extremely presumptuous to speak on her behalf like this!!

I’m not speaking on her behalf. The conversation moved on. You failed to keep up.

Isn't that notorious serial killer currently in a maximum security prison a 'gifted' person with an IQ of 165 plus?

Just wow. What is actually wrong with you?

I did not fail to keep up, you silly presumptuous person.

This conversation is either going in circles or truly revolting. It would be nice to just have an adult conversation about giftedness but it’s become people trying to catch posters out or just making really nasty comments.