I am just beside myself after resent acknowledgement of my son's feelings about himself and how intellectual he is. There has been several recent happenings that have come about. 1. My son has pen pals.(email and snail mail) When he received an email from one of them, he saw that some of his words were spelled wrong and some of his sentence structure was incorrect. I honestly didn't know if he noticed this until he started preparing his email in writing. I looked at his draft and told him of spelling errors and sentence structure and he answered "I know mom, but he did it" I then responded "Honey, the reason we started this is for learning reason's and you need to set an example for him by using correct grammar rules ect... He then replied "okay mom" The longer I thought about this the more it concerns me! Tell me if I am wrong here!! I am open to any perspectives on this! I feel that he has some sort of complex about his intelligence! This isn't healthy is it? He should be proud of his accomplishments not ashamed!! I also received a response from Terry about her son. They have been in a very similar situation. In reading Terry's response, I in turn read it to my son. He then revealed to me that he feels very alone in school(finishing 4th grade year in ps) How can a child get to this point that he feels that he should shawdow how smart he is???
I am wondering if there is any others out there that have been in similar situations that would be willing to share with him by email or by mail? I feel that it might bring him great relief to know that he IS NOT alone!!
I let Josh read your post. He says he knows how your son feels. He says he doesn't hide his intellegence, but he doesn't really show it either. He would put his graded papers straight into his folder and look at look at them at home. When he was in first grade he learned to keep his mouth shut and not to correct people. (He corrected his teacher a couple of times and she got very upset. We explained to him that it can be upsetting to an adult when a child corrects them.) He was lucky that we had a neighbor whose daughter was very smart too. They could talk together about things. They met when they were babies. Unfortunately they were having the same problems with the school. They moved to another school district this year. With his other friends, he sticks to talking about sports and such. If you would like for the boys to be email pals, please email me and I will give you his email address. (I hate to post our reg. addresses on bulletin boards.) Josh thinks it would be fun to have an email buddy. Good luck with your son. Terry
One of the most important things for a gifted person is to be comfortable with who they are. When I was in school, I went through phases on the road to normalcy. At first I was proud of the way I picked up things very quickly; you might even say I was competitive. It didn't take long to realize that being "different" is only celebrated at home! Then I tried to appear average, which nobody bought.....kids just know these things. So then I tried to get more involved in "socializing" to counteract the negative image of being a "brain". In a classroom full of average 7th graders, a mature 13yo girl just gets disgusted with all of it and either regresses or isolates. Well, at that age, isolation would mean life without BOYS!!!! So, you guessed it, I regressed....not a true regression as in losing the maturity that I had gained, but I tried not to care so much about performing well in school. This led to the first time ever of getting an A- and that was enough to send me right back to reality and get my act together. That is fortunately about the time that my school began to offer interschool scholastic meets and several opportunities to spend time doing college programs and minicourses at the nearest university. It was after I began to socialize with other gifted kids that I realized where I fit in, other than with adults. So, a word to the wise. Skip the lengthy selfactualization and find your son some kids to socialize and converse with that are more on his intellectual level. Not that he should avoid other kids, as I believe would not benefit him at all since he needs to discover how to be comfortable with himself in the world around him--which is full of all kinds of people, rather find a good source for activities that interest your son as well as other children more "like" him. I am struggling with my own son right now in this very area. At 7yo you see a huge difference in his actions and conversation at school or with other kids than when he is at home or with more mature company. I can see he is trying to fit in and I know what that feels like. I want him to find his niche much quicker than I did (one of many reasons we will be hs'ing again next year). Take care and I hope this helped somewhat!
BTW, if your son is really bored, he can go through and correct my many grammatical errors that I am reading now in my last post....
I appreciate any comments that are given to me! It is nice as an adult also to know that "Your not alone in your quest" That there are others out there dealing with your same situations. I am soooo enjoying this outlet to vent and get other perspectives on my current situation. I hope that I can find a homeschool group close to me.(I have mailed letters to some and haven't heard from them yet)Through this post I have found a mother and son that can relate to both of us on a personal experience basis! I feel so fortunate for that! God does work in mysterious ways! Terry I emailed you I hope you get it. Brooke thanks for your response! I was helpful.
Not sure if this will help you any or not but...my brother is gifted. My mom never had him tested but, in ps they put him in a gifted program that he got to go to once a week - woo boy! Anyway... he is a Dec baby so that meant staying the extra year at home before starting school and my mom worked with him and taught him things. He'd do the workbooks she could purchase at Target/Wal-Mart, ToysRUs, etc... He was several grades ahead. So...off to school he goes and he already knows everything and when he finally got to something he didn't know he'd learn it extremely quickly and then wait for the long drawn out process for everyone else to "get it". He would get paired up with the slower kids and even the ones that came to school and spoke little or no English. He was the teachers aid without the paycheck. Yeh that's fair, NOT! He would always say "no body likes me". High school spelling test were a joke for him. He'd look at the vocab words for 2 min before the class, using the gal sitting next to him lists of course because he didn't write the words down originally and he'd take the test and maybe get 1 or 2 wrong out of 20. He just really down plays what he can do. So...his long life story short....he applies for college and they send him back a letter telling him that students of his caliber apply to their honors program and here's some scholarship money. GEEZ!!! Well...he never took high school serious so...he didn't college and lost the scholarship. He'd go to class and not take notes and the teachers would get mad at him for it. He'd say why should I write it down if I know it already. He actually had one professor tell him not to come to class, just show up for the test. So...here is the example of a kid who should have been challenged more but...the ps just couldn't do it for him and because of the experience he has a sour attitude that *people are stupid*. Where he is working now he isn't challenged AT ALL. He use to do web design but...due to layoffs in one area office he got a job in another area office and they won't pay him for the web design but...of course want it for what they pay him. So..he's not challenged and bored out of his mind at work. But, he won't leave because they pay him so well that he can't get a job elsewhere for the same salary, especially without a degree yet. (that's the very short story of it) UGH!!!! So....here I am, a witness to this and a mother of a 5 year old who is very smart and has a photographic memory. I refuse to have what happened to my brother happen to my ds. I've never had ds tested but I can tell you without a doubt that he is very smart. Gifted people along with fat, too skinny, too round a head, too square a head, too tall, too short, etc....all get singled out and take things personally when others say something negative that should just be blown off. Which reminds me...my brother is about 6ft and weighs maybe 145 - yes tall and thin. He tries to eat more but...just has a high metabolism. So...if you teach your child nothing else, teach them to accept people for who they are and not their faults and to accept THEMSELF for the wonderful person they truly are. It's the crawfish story, right? I've told it before but.... a boy is out collecting crawfish and a man ask the boy "don't you need a lid to keep them in the bucket?" The boy replies "nope they will keep pulling eachother back down into the bucket so I don't need to worry" Check out http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/ if you haven't already. Also two books The Survival Guide for Parents of Gifted Kids and The gifted Kids Survival Guide II (ages 11-18) Hope that helps at least a little.
Along the lines of what She said .... She's post alluded to something I was going to mention. If your son continues to downplay his abilities, and is in situations where he has to be stifled because of the needs of the many, that eventually leads to an intolerance for "stupidity." Really, the ones he becomes intolerant of aren't "stupid," ... but the suppression and stifling leads to arrogance. Therefore, even the average person would be considered stupid. Maybe I didn't word that well, but the suggestion to find him a peer group with which he can relate is a good one. Yes, he does need to mingle with all ages and ability levels so as not be develop arrogance, but he also needs to feel that he is not alone. HTH, Kathe
Josh emailed him last night. I hope you get it. He is really excited to have a new mail buddy. Feel free to email me again if you need anything. Terry
If his interests are more advanced as well you might just try to find older penpals for him, not necessarily "gifted" ones. I believe that gifted students don't mean gifted friends. They learn a lot from the average kids. My son was (I suppose still is, but he is an adult now!) profoundly gifted, and always had older friends. This was fine, he was tall and no one knew he was younger! The funny thing is, his spelling has always been terrible! So, someone who writes letters with bad grammar or spelling is not necessarily less "intellectual" than your son. The other kid probably doesn't even notice that your son's letters are written correctly. It isn't abnormal for a public schooled student to "hide" their intellegence. I remember a boy who was popular and a little bit of a touble maker in my son's 5th grade class. (My son began homeschooling in 7th grade.) He acted dumb and would check out really easy, stupid-type stories at the library. I was shocked to see him in listed on the honor roll with straight As! He hid it to be popular, but at least he didn't mess up school work. Your son must be aware that the one reason he goes to school, or is taught by you, is to learn the correct way to speak and write. OK...he has done it faster than others. You might want to point out that he is wasting his time trying to do it wrong! He has to think how to make mistakes, unless they are coming automatically, and you haven't really noticed before now. Or, if he thinks it is OK because someone else does it, then maybe he really doesn't have a firm grasp on the rules. "If they do it that way, maybe their way is right" sort of thing. Especially if "they" are public schooled and ours are homeschooled, they may feel "we" made the mistake not the classroom teacher. My son never related well with, or was friends with other "gifted" students. "Gifts" differ, and interests differ from child to child, whether gifted or average, or slow. A slow learner may have more in common with a gifted child, if their interests are the same. If it is an intellectual thing, then go with the older friends, if he fits in without looking too young. Be aware though, this WILL have results later on. My son was concurrently enrolled in college in 8th grade, so his classmates were older, therefore his friends were older. Therefore he graduated early, became an "adult" early. He moved out on his own at 18, married at 20 to a woman 7 years older.
Everyone voices their opinions based on their experiences. I realize that my son needs friends of all types and he has them. He just has not bonded with someone of his own intellect at this point and HE was so comforted by a post that Terry made about her son that is the same age and also dealt with some of the same issues my son has. No one likes to feel that they are alone in their negative experiences. It does help to know that you are not the ONLY one!!! That was really all we were trying to do here. He needed someone he could relate his feelings to that would understand him and where he comes from on this particular subject. I didn't mean to infer that the other child was not as intelligent as my son at all!!! I am not sure that you know all of the issues we have faced with him either. I understand my son and how he works for the most part. I am not a gifted person and never have been. I do have areas that I excell in though. This is where I realize that everyone can contribute something new and fresh to any relationship. I teach my children not to be quick to judge. I want their relationship to be very colorful! The more different each of their friends are the better prepared for everyday grown-up life they will be!! They need to be prepared to deal with people of all ages! I appreciate everyone's advice and oppinions!!
My thoughts differ a bit on this topic Angel. Gifted people are not just advanced intellectually...they see the world with a very different view than others. The higher the IQ, the more so. My oldest son is profoundly gifted. It is not that he doesn't get along with others his age in the sense that he thinks he is better or smarter or anything related to ego. His sense of humour is advanced, his sense of empathy, sense of direction, sense of self and so on. And it is not just a case of hanging out with kids a few years older. It has been my experience that does not solve the problem....just as a year or two of grade skipping seldom solves the problem if a child is gifted rather than bright. Being with people that understand your disposition in life is very important. Especially so for the young precocious mind. My advice, if you are interested, is to seek out mentors. Excellent way for gifted kids to be able to be themselves and be appreciated for that. Another is to seek out your local Gifted Children's association and look for friends there. I tell you...walking into the room at our monthly meetings is amazing. My kids fit in there soooo well! There is a certain energy about the room that happens in a group of gifted kids. My nine year old read Lisa Rivero's book Creative Homeschooling *A Resource for Smart Families and loved it. It was a great comfort to him. There are unique traits that go along with many, many gifted people. Those traits need to be celebrated. Michelle
