Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I was a smart kid, in the "gifted" program at school but not really gifted just a hard worker with decent ability, my husband was the same.
We have two adopted children. Our son is "actually" gifted with an IQ of 140. He didn't learn his giftedness from us at all, we haven't had to teach him anything academic he just learns it. This whole "giftedness is mostly learned" is bunk, a truly gifted child learns constantly on their own. I spent hours reading and teaching our daughter and she is a good student but not gifted. Our son had no interest in sitting still long enough to be read to, we couldn't catch him long enough to do the same stuff we did with our daughter. Didn't matter.
I've run into Facebook pages for gifted education where the parents spend a lot of time talking about their own educational experiences and how they struggled as a gifted child. I'm getting the impression that a lot of parents of gifted children also think of themselves as gifted, and I'm wondering how often this is the case?
I wouldn't normally think of this as being typical. I don't think giftedness is inherited or taught, so I think this is suprising.
I've run into Facebook pages for gifted education where the parents spend a lot of time talking about their own educational experiences and how they struggled as a gifted child. I'm getting the impression that a lot of parents of gifted children also think of themselves as gifted, and I'm wondering how often this is the case?
I wouldn't normally think of this as being typical. I don't think giftedness is inherited or taught, so I think this is suprising.
I just wanted to comment on something else I thought of. We have a generation of parents now who were raised on the self esteem movement but adult life doesn't pat you on the back unless you actually accomplish something and then it forgets immediately and moves on to the next new thing. I'm not one of them but I'd think that adults who were raised being told how special they were might struggle with the fact that most of us just blend in as adults. They may be trying to find that specialness again.
What's better to say? I struggled with school or I struggled with school because I'm gifted and they didn't recognize my talent? Which one would stroke more egos? I can't say for sure because I'm not one of them nor do I personally know many of them but I would think that children who grow up having their egos protected might become adults who need their egos protected.
Giftedness is overrated. Dd#2 is gifted but doesn't really apply herself. This begs the question is a gift worth anything if you don't use it? So she kicks ass on an IQ test. That and $3 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. I'm convinced that effort trumps giftedness almost every time. I wish I would have figured that out when I was younger. I'm not that smart but if I work at things I can attain a level of understanding beyond what the average person would. I'd do a few things differently if I had a do over knowing what I know now. I put too much stock on "being" smart when I was younger and put up road blocks because I'm not smart instead of realizing that hard work can trump smart. I think we have this backwards. We celebrate smart but not hard work. The message kids hear is smart matters but hard work doesn't when it should be the other way around. It isn't the parent whose child is "gifted" who should be bragging but the parent whose child works hard to succeed who should be bragging. But, somehow, saying "My child works hard to get good grades" seems like a put down because of the message being sent.
Giftedness is overrated. Dd#2 is gifted but doesn't really apply herself. This begs the question is a gift worth anything if you don't use it? So she kicks ass on an IQ test. That and $3 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. I'm convinced that effort trumps giftedness almost every time. I wish I would have figured that out when I was younger. I'm not that smart but if I work at things I can attain a level of understanding beyond what the average person would. I'd do a few things differently if I had a do over knowing what I know now. I put too much stock on "being" smart when I was younger and put up road blocks because I'm not smart instead of realizing that hard work can trump smart. I think we have this backwards. We celebrate smart but not hard work. The message kids hear is smart matters but hard work doesn't when it should be the other way around. It isn't the parent whose child is "gifted" who should be bragging but the parent whose child works hard to succeed who should be bragging. But, somehow, saying "My child works hard to get good grades" seems like a put down because of the message being sent.
I do think intelligence, beyond a certain level, is overrated. The most "intelligent" and academically gifted people I've met have often had very unusual personalities that made it difficult to succeed in their personal or professional lives or ended up in trouble because they were in a limiting environment where their intelligence couldn't be utilized.
Someone with an IQ of 160-170 should grasp concepts easily on the intellectual frontier that a 120-130 may not understand or be slow to comprehend, but a 120-130 is still capable of doing most anything they want to do in day-to-day life. That extra thirty to fifty points begins to yield diminishing returns IMO over say, 70 to 120, which would take someone from mildly retarded and needing assistance to above average intelligence and self-sufficient.
The people I know who are truly successful are all grinders - they've put in the hours to get to the top of some field and all really enjoy what they do. If a person is very intelligent but doesn't like what they do for a living, they won't be very successful at it, whereas someone who is less intelligent but is passionate about their field will put in more hours, become better at it, and will likely be more fulfilled while doing it.
The term Gifted did not exist when I grew up in Sweden..I.guess the so called gifted students were the once who received A s on anything they did and who never had to study for a math or chemistry test .They were usually about 3 students in the entire school like that.
Then the category of students who just were very good students. They worked hard and got good grades for that reason. Those kids are more likely to succeed in life. Hard work pays off.
Neither my wife nor I are gifted. We have one child genius among 3 and the two others are quite intelligent, but not at the genius level.
We never pushed our kids, nor treated them differently. They picked their own universities and careers. Our only admonition was to pick a job you enjoy and that will support your chosen lifestyle. Both, not one or the other.
Being gifted is widely over rated in school what purpose does it serve?
For instance in interviews majority of time you decide if you are hiring person before they sit down.
Lets say you are a male boss, 50 years old. Two guys come in for a job fresh out of school in your department.
Guy A Looks good in a suit, good looking, in shape, witty, funny athletic likes to drink, party and was head of fraternity and has football season tickets, hard worker, worked real jobs in College, lifting stuff, cleaning etc. B- student from a local university.
Guy B is a A+ gifted student, worked fancy internships buy never a real job. Only real interests is academics. Does not really like to party, watch sports etc. Although very bright when people see him it may reflect poorly upon on you although super smart having a nerdy guy with a food stain is not good. Plus when I go on conferences and business trips do I want to be trapped with him. Finally, will job challenge him and will he be pestering me for raises.
I would always hire guy A. I had lots of gifted folks work for me Harvard types. One passed out at a client meeting with Goldman as could not handle booze, other refused to type as he felt folks from harvard should have secretaries and one I almost shot myself after a business trip with him.
I then switched to the B minus student who took the bosses to nickle wing night during a business trip to watch the big game!!!
That's not my question, and a subject for a different thread.
My question is if parents of gifted kids also think of themselves as gifted.
Parent of "gifted" kids are usually told that the child is "gifted" because it came from one of the parent. The funny thing is that when they give these parent's gifted materials, the parent don't usually do well.
There are varying degree of "gifted". There are way too many "gifted" kids today but are they really gifted or are they just advanced for their age? I said advanced because of exposured but not necessarily IQ level. At some point, they may not be "gifted" anymore when compared to their peers.
Now I do like the idea of pulling kids out and group them as "gifted" so that they could work on their "un-gifted" areas.
I questioned the amount of "gifted" kids today because our public education system has "dumb down" to the point where every kid is gifted one way or another.
Here is an example of what I mean. My son is in 6th grade and they have accelerated math and language arts program where kids are 1 or 2 grades above grade level. Out of about 250 kids, they have 90 kids in math that are studying math 2 grades above their level. Are these really smart kids? That many? or it's just the low expectation from our education system?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
