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?

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.

The thing is, I think lots of parents do give their kids a version of "well honey you're smarter than everyone else", although I expect most are a bit more subtle about it. I profoundly disagree with this approach.

It's the fixed mindset versus the growth mindset, isn't it? If the parent concludes that the child is struggling with friendships because they're so much cleverer than everyone else, then that's just the way it is and the best thing to do is to try to help the child to understand why they have trouble relating to others so that they can learn to accept and work around it. If a parent concludes that the child is struggling with friendships because they haven't yet learnt how to relate effectively to others or developed the skills that they need to make and maintain friendships, then obviously the focus will be on what the parent can do to help the child learn to relate more effectively to others and develop better social skills so that they don't struggle in future.

Who cares how ‘gifted’ someone is - surely what matters is how able they are to do what they want to do & how easily they move through life?

What’s the definition of ‘fulfilling potential?’ I went to Oxford, have a PhD blah blah blah yet caring responsibilities mean I have no career and am not running the country (doubt the caring stopped me running the country). Have I failed to live up to my potential? Not in my eyes.

Ds3’s had some problems with understanding speech/conversations. Had a whole series of language tests (& hearing checks etc) and it didn’t pick anything up. Quite the opposite - he’s on the 98th centile for understanding of vocabulary for his age. Still struggles to understand a lot of information delivered verbally though (we solved that by choosing his secondary school carefully).

Ds2 is a talented actor. He would like to make a career out of it. Odds very much stacked against him (as they are for any talented actor without family connections to showbiz). How will we work out whether he has ‘lived up to potential?’ (& who cares, except him - resilience and a dollop of self esteem probably the most useful traits for him to develop).

Whether your kids are gifted, talented or plain old ‘normal’ - just give them a stable home (which can take many forms) and lots of love. They don’t need their progress measured and charted and their perfect future planned out for them. Stand back fgs and let them find their own way.

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

All you do is ask why why why when it’s all been explained over and over by several people. And now you’ve resorted to personal attacks because you have nothing constructive to add.

French, I totally agree.

But now I’m off to another thread. I love discussing this stuff but I do not love smart children being called future serial killers. Enjoy.

I am now (in a desperate attempt to stave off the house-cleaning) doing a kind of mental spreadsheet over the distribution of giftedness v. personality across my rather large extended family. Not showing up anything v. helpful so far.

I will spare you the details, but basically some people who are gifted are also sensitive and perfectionist, others are equally sensitive and perfectionist (and v similar personalities) but not at all gifted. Others again are gifted but not sensitive: these deal well with failure; others again are less gifted but have the same cheerful attitude towards trying again. Others are laidback but not very persevering. And some people have changed with age, others are essentially the same as when they were toddlers.

Same with the students I teach. I have never been able to predict the quality of writing a student would be capable of just by observing how well/badly they come across in a social situation: I have to wait until the essay is actually there before me. Some students project an intellectual image but their reasoning is weak, some project the same image and are absolutely brilliant, some look like they would be too busy being social animals but then turn in work that is really astonishing.

So no cookie cutter children, then? Who’d have thought it...

Iwas, I have read lots about giftedness, but I have yet to see anything which suggests that high intelligence causes social difficulties.

Of course, there are many "gifted" children who struggle socially. I suspect that some of these children may be on the autistic spectrum, whether or not they have a diagnosis. I accept that, in those cases, there may be a link between "giftedness" and the social difficulties, because both are linked to the underlying ASD.

Many other "gifted" children simply lack social skills, presumably because IQ isn't intrinsically linked to EQ/emotional intelligence. I suspect that the lack of social skills is exacerbated by parents who get so excited about their child's cognitive ability that they neglect to focus on other aspects of their development. Personally, I'm far from convinced that asynchronous development is the result of nature rather than nurture.

What I can see is personality traits living through generations in new and varying combinations, just like noses and hair.

Dd has MIL's hair but DM's smile, is it surprising then that she might have DM's personality but a talent probably handed down from MILs side of the family? Or that DS might have my personality and my way of reacting but not my particular brand of giftedness or DMs musicality?

But when it comes to learned experience, as opposed to inherited, I think French2019 is yet again spot on: as a parent it makes a massive difference if you present it to your child as "you are struggling because you have special gifts" or "I can teach you a few tricks".

My DM did have a very regrettable tendency of validating my social difficulties rather than trying to do something about them - mainly because she was very shy and with limited social skills herself so was essentially validating herself. It wasn't the best preparation I could have had, and the area of my life that has really suffered (ironically enough) is the academic career that my talents had fitted me for.

What does it actually matter? Not being rude or anything OP but why do you feel the need to constantly go over it like it sounds you do? I have a 13 year old ASD son who attends a SEN school and is working at an age 7 range, don't know if he will ever cope on his own or be able to work, I have a 9 year old daughter who her school want to put in for GCSE's, that's how far ahead she is and I have a 7 year old son who meets all targets for his age etc but I don't feel the need to go on and on about it all?
Btw my daughter showed no sign of being gifted at nursery age so don't panic and ponder too much yet

I feel very conflicted about the G&T board. On one hand it provides hours of mirth; on the other it encourages this nonsense.

G&T as a label and a mainstream concept is bollocks. I am sure that virtually every parent who’s ever posted here about their ‘gifted’ child does not in fact have a gifted child, as “gifted” would be understood by the world at large.

Playing the flute better than most does not make a child gifted. Or being able to draw well. Or doing sums quickly. That’s all called being good at something. And it will almost always level out in respect of peers with age.

(IQ as a concept is more or less worthless by the way.)

OP, your child is very, very unlikely to warrant the description ‘gifted’. Your child is overwhelmingly likely to be - by your definition - normal.

and her dd sounds lovely

Thank you cory, I think she is lovely, although obviously, I may be a little biased.

I went to lots of courses for children who is having social difficulties, when my ds was in nursery. Also upped the attending days to 5 x 6 hrs a week to expose him more with other children.
I never connected him having social difficulty to how clever he was for his age. It was great experience to attend those courses, we met children from all the different backgrounds.
He still had social difficulty in ks1, but he was always happy and loved by other children and staff at school.
Now I don't think many people actually believe he used to be opposite of what he is now.

Everyone seems to have gone off on their own tangents here. Anyone still asking about the base differences between normal and gifted kids, someone posted a link a ways back.

@RoboJesus I'm just wondering what you imagined a normal child might be like, that your child is not like?

And I was wondering what aspects have definitely changed now you have a gifted child? You say it definitely changes things, but I wondered what.

OP, I am now wondering what life is like with a gifted child? Genuine question.

OP, I really don't think you will do your child any favours by defining him as "not normal". Most of us on this board are well aware what "gifted" means because we have "gifted" children ourselves - the link really doesn't tell us anything that we don't already know. However, where we differ is that we don't necessarily believe that it's helpful to set our "gifted" children apart from others and to define their whole identity in terms of their "giftedness".

Personally, I think it's far better to emphasise what my dd has in common with other kids, not what makes her different.

Confused at many people on here opening a gifted an talented thread just to complain about posters talking about their gifted and talented child.

Op are you able to explain what you need to find this thread helpful? Many of us have kids like yours (and doubtless have the same or very similar experiences) but we are all essentially casting around in a bucket trying to find a non-existent fish. If the purpose of the thread was to prove that no one else has a child like yours, we are still unable to help - the only think we know about your child is that they can draw, but not with crayons.
Usually as an op, in order to get what you want out of a thread, you have to be a little less vague.
My 140+er was tested ten years ago. I found the 2-7yo the most ‘intense’ in terms of being over-invested in G&T culture. I don’t think I would ever have described her as not normal, but I read plenty of articles that encouraged me to think that way. If anything, her disability marked her out as far more different to her peers.
At nearly fifteen, her ‘giftedness’ cause a different set of differences, but it is still her disability that marks her out.
I don’t know what you want. And I don’t know anything about your child in order to be able to offer anything remotely useful to you, really.
Tell us about the child and ask any questions. Lots of us have been there before. Your child isn’t unique, however much you have been conditioned to think they are.

OP, many of us have posted with our greatly varying experiences of gifted and non-gifted children. Given this variation in experience, it's hardly surprising that we don't feel qualified to know what makes your experience different from that of a parent of a non-gifted child.

How about you actually telling us? You know, like posters have been urging you to do since the start of the thread.

Ime MN can be very supportive once you post about actual difficulties.

But expecting posters to be able to second-guess at exactly what difficulties you may be experiencing isn't very helpful.

The way to stop posters going off on their own tangents, OP, would be to post about your actual situation as it impacts your own life, rather than just sticking to some theory about gifted children that other posters may not agree with.

Yes. I looked at that list. My child matches many of it. I told you how in many ways he was normal. And I gave you some advice as an academic on ways to stretch his mind.

Unfortunately all you want from this thread (actually who knows what you want) is for people to tell you that profoundly gifted children are doomed to be abnormal. No one who says that their gifted child is normal is to be ever given any attention.

This is the 3rd/4th thread we have tried to be helpful to you. Surely having a high IQ is not all that there is to your child. Does he have a good sense of humour? Is he artistic? Is he creative? Does he write good stories? Does he have a vivid imagination? Is he musically gifted? Does he like playing sport? Kick a ball around? Can he swim?! Is he kind and friendly? Is he chatty?

You seem to have reduced your child to an IQ score and I say this based on multiple threads.

I have this odd feeling that the OP is in awe of her son. And is possibly not very academic herself. (I don’t mean that pejoratively). And so cannot seem to see anything beyond his OP and how different he seems to her.

I was fairly gifted as a child. So to me my son was exactly like me as a child. And not remotely abnormal.

Confused at many people on here opening a gifted an talented thread just to complain about posters talking about their gifted and talented child.

There is no problem at all with people coming on to talk about their "gifted" child. However, the OP isn't actually talking about her child.

Agree Kosha. There are many "gifted" individuals in my family, so dd's academic abilities don't strike me as normal. I'm far more in awe of her amazing social skills, as that side of life didn't come to me so easily. I'm sure we're all a bit mystified when our kids turn out to be really good at stuff that we're not!