

The curse of being a gifted child - MikeCapone
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/family-and-relationships/the-curse-of-giftedness/article1797492/singlepage/#articlecontent

======
dazzawazza
My father was in on way academic. With no qualifications to his name he spent
most of his life as a manual labourer and slowly worked his way up to be a
Head Green Keeper at a municipal golf course via grave digger and truck
driver.

While at the golf course he hired a PHd Physicist to cut grass and do odd
jobs. It wasn't his choice. As a state enterprise he was obliged to hire a
certain number of 'disabled' people.

Over a few years this wretched physicist slowly revealed how he was pushed
through school and university early and was woo'ed to the city of london to do
financial modelling and how by the age of 25 with mountains of cash his brain
literally shut down.

He was rebooted in hospital diagnosed with depression and put on to the
incapacity benefit list and a charity helped him into work via the local
authorities.

He told my father that his greatest pleasure was seeing the stripes on the
golf course after he'd freshly cut the fairway. He envied my father because he
had worked his way from nothing to something where as he had the whole world
at his feet, there was nothing to work for, it just came.

After two years at the golf course he stopped turning up for work, he stopped
turning up for anything, he'd committed suicide.

This greatly effected me as a child who achieved academic success with
(seemingly) little or no effort. A little bit of struggle makes any prize more
valuable.

My ever pragmatic Dad said "he cut the grass straight and didn't piss in the
tractor cab, he was a good man".

------
Gianteye
It's significant that a large portion of gifted kids come from households
where they're the smartest by far. My mother designs curriculum for gifted
education, and over the years I've seen that part of the difficulty in raising
a gifted child to being a healthy, successful adult is knowing what to do with
them.

Richard Feynman was building complex electronic booby traps in his room when
he was seven. Before turning ten he had nearly burned down his house with a
homemade transformer in his ad hoc laboratory. Most parents would see him as a
problem that needed to be fixed, or be so confused that he'd end up being
ignored. Many parents can't see the world from the perspective of a gifted
child, realizing how slow school seems, how frustrating their peers might be.
Many parents wouldn't consider sending their kid to math camp, or Robot One,
or having them apprentice for an electronics engineer. Since the adults
wouldn't consider it fun, it doesn't occur to them, unless they're very close
with their child, that their kid might love a month doing advanced math, or
learning physics early.

I believe that gifted kids are fragile. They need strong reinforcement at home
telling them to do what makes them happy, whether the other kids dream of
being scientists, or a cellists, or a astrophysicists, or not. Since smart
kids are also very aware of themselves, they're also very sensitive to the
expectations of their parents and teachers. A lifetime of being told how
exceptional you are can lead to severe depression if you wind up simply
average. Someone with those kind of expectations lumped on them can even
become very successful and still spend the remainder of their life lamenting
the potential they had, judging themselves for not becoming a first chair,
first rate, phd everything.

~~~
gwern
> It's significant that a large portion of gifted kids come from households
> where they're the smartest by far.

I'd also point out that it's also predictable and will continue to be true for
a very strong reason: reversion to the mean. It's not going to change, which
makes measures like designing a good curriculum or at least having camps and
programs all the more important.

------
andrewl
My giftedness worked against me in one way, in that I often understood things
so quickly that I never learned to figure anything out. Especially in grade
school, if I didn't get something by just reading it once, I had no idea what
to do. I got panicky, as I felt like my powers were vanishing. I don't think I
even _knew_ that I was supposed to take concepts apart, or try different
approaches. I didn't know there were strategies to figuring things out. And I
had no confidence in my ability to do so.

This article about highly-intelligent who lack confidence in their abilities
may be of interest:

<http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/>

~~~
esun
It comes as a shock when you actually have to work at something, doesn't it.

Now I know how to work. I wish I could do university again.

------
robertk
I went to a private liberal arts college at 11 and completed a BS in math,
physics, and computer science at 16. However, I also wrote for the student
newspaper, competed on speech team, and went to the local high school's prom
with my high school friends.

This, I think, kept me grounded. Yet when I went off to graduate school in
pure mathematics, I was frozen. Whereas in my undergraduate years, I
effortlessly comprehended the analysis and group theory flung at me, I learned
in my first-year of graduate school that had been child's play. Study and work
was now required. I failed again and again and it was painful (graduate
students are not supposed to get B's).

Everything had come instantly to me in the past, so that almost no study was
necessary. Things did not work this way in grad school, and I've been learning
the work ethic for the past three years.

Yet my idiot brain still can't help but think "Noam Elkies' discovery about
supersingular elliptic curves got him a doctorate when he was 20! Drin'feld
proved the GL_2 case of the Langlands conjectures for the function field case
when he 19, for chrissakes. What are _you_ doing, dumbass?"

I'm still not sure how I turned out, or am turning out. I am a TA and have a
high rating on ratemyprofessors.com, so at least my students like me. I'm
learning salsa and hold weekly classic movie nights for my group of friends.

Just for shits and giggles, when one of my best friends from high school (who
is a manager at Wendy's) suggested "you should be good at more than just
academics, you should be good with girls, man," I dove into the world of game
(not the tricks part, the improving yourself as a man and "naturally"
charismatic being portion). Hilariously, that same friend now thinks of me
less as a "genius" and more as a "womanizer"!

I am not and will never be as intelligent as the ideal my parents and
childhood friends and teachers half-jokingly imposed when suggesting I will
win four Nobel prizes before the age of 20. For those following a similar
path, neither will you. So the trick is to take the cliche advice, stop
agonizing over credentials and success, and just live life; learn some salsa,
fall in love, do a startup, and backpack through Europe.

~~~
Almaviva
Where would you start out these days in the "world of game"? I also got an
undergrad degree in math essentially without trying and have had some rough
periods making it to adulthood without any work ethic but I think I've
recovered and have built up a pretty successful programming career.

However, I have absolutely no ability to attract women and have experienced
nothing but rejection for the last couple of years, and I may be beyond what
game can fix. My problem is social awkwardness and it's the kind that runs all
the way down - with people I am very comfortable with I am still very quiet,
inarticulate, and don't have much ability to do conversational improvisation.
Being in extremely good physical shape didn't make a difference and I've done
Salsa too, where I'm literally always the last person women pick when they're
all asked to partner up. I've done a year on internet personals with only
rejection, and the same with speed dating - typical results would be me
checking off 15/25 girls as yes and getting zero matches. I'm extremely non-
picky with women. Everyone I meet likes me, but for sexual interest? Forget
it. I'd love to be exactly the person I want, and socialize with women the way
I would with men (i.e. just not giving a shit and saying what I want to) but
this obviously isn't working for me! So gaming the evo-psychology system seems
to be one of the few possibilities left.

~~~
robertk
It was one of the hardest things I've ever learned, surprisingly. My path took
about two years and was reading up as much as I could, then doing "field work"
for a few weeks, then alternating back to theory. After a while it all starts
clicking.

Read all the archives of Roissy, Assanova, RooshV, PaulTheKing, KrauserPUA,
ApproachAnxiety.com. Pay especial attention to the videos posted on Krauser's
site and try to imitate his body language, vocal tone, and everything to the
dot. It doesn't mean you can't have your own personality, but it helps you get
that "dominance." Go overboard on the aggressiveness in the early phases.
Learn perfect posture and don't apologize for a week. Buy Diesel jeans that
make your ass look good. Find a style. Get a good haircut.

For you, the easiest "field work" path would be day game. Start by saying "hi"
to everyone that passes by. People will look at you funny, but do it until you
don't care anymore. Grab a camera and ask 100 people if you can take a picture
with them ("it's for a bet, I need 100 pictures of me with a stranger"). Walk
up to girls that are sitting and tell them they're cute and you had to say hi.
Do the same but with walking girls. Get phone numbers. Stop caring about phone
numbers and go for instant dates (get a coffee 10 minutes into the
conversation). Make plans for second dates. You will get flakes. Keep reading
and keep trying.

Note: If you read anything by LoveSystems or other commercial guys, know that
it may be good as a beginner but it probably won't get you laid (especially
Jeremy Soul's stuff). Go for bloggers and free material. If you can find
Chopan's posts from fastseduction.com, they are gold. Lines and routines are
useful as you're learning, but don't rely on them as you grow.

Go to attractionforums's sections on day game and read through past high-voted
posts. Read Jon117's journal. Read _Natural Game_ by Gambler (email me for a
PDF).

As you're reading all of this, know that field work is always more important,
but reading is easy and field work is hard, so while you're making up excuses
and being a chickenshit at least use that time to keep reading.

Like I said, it's not easy. I probably put more effort into this than most
undergraduates put into their degree.

Extra Credit: For shits and giggles, try the apocalypse opener until you don't
get a negative reaction (when it works, you feel like Neo from the Matrix--and
when it fails, I've had girls say "I...I can't...I'm sorry! :(" in an
apologizing tone after I asked them, without any prior convo, "What are you
doing later? Do you want to come home with me?" in an assertive manner.)

Extra Credit 2: Read all important high-commented topics on attractionforums's
Online Game section. Set up an OkCupid account and try it with their
suggestions. Online game worked so well for me that I had to check my inbox
several times a day as I'd send out 20 messages and 15 would reply. It became
too much of a hassle as I struggled to keep track of who was who and usually
ended up on a date with girls that were much uglier or boring than their
profile suggested. But it's fun to try.

~~~
achompas
My God dude--don't do this Game/PUA type stuff.

Want to have some luck with women? Get involved in social activities
(volunteering, book clubs, etc.), don't be a recluse, and never forget how
awesome you are. The rest falls into place. Just be yourself and don't think
too much.

This pick-up artist stuff is cliche, ineffective, and, worst of all,
misanthropic. These people have a worldview that revolves around control and
domination, and that's not a healthy mental state.

~~~
Almaviva
> The rest falls into place.

You're just lucky to have some natural attraction then I guess. I'm extremely
confident in myself and sure of myself and women don't give a fuck. I do opera
singing and salsa dancing and go to the gym regularly, am in outstanding
shape, and am not even that shy any more. I've been on internet dating for two
years and have tried speed dating a couple of times and can make friends with
almost any man but have achieved precisely jack shit with women.

Trust me, if I had any choice at this point - any choice - other than trying
to learn skills in gaming women's minds I'd be doing that.

------
zmmz
Above all, I believe that gifted children need good parenting. It seems to be
a common theme with young achievers that they burn out quickly and become
disillusioned or full of reject. It's always disturbing to see 12 year old pop
stars on TV whose parents have chosen to keep the kids out of school, 14 year
old college freshmen and other "prodigies".

I could not be happier that my parents did not let me skip grades. There was a
kid in my class who was three years younger than everybody else in the grade
in high school and needless to say he could not associate with us at all, and
it's not like we didn't try.

Sure, I could have finished studies a little earlier, but the defining moments
of my teenage years are those spent with my friends, not what the rest of
society would deem as worthy achievements.

------
chesser
Everything in this article applies to non-"gifted" children as well. They also
get enormously pressured to get better grades, are overscheduled, forced into
music lessons, come from broken homes, have crappy parents, get picked on for
any number of reasons, are sensitive, etc., etc.

You could just as easily write a narrative about Joe Average, who didn't have
things come easily to him, who struggled, who was never told "you can
accomplish anything!", whose parents said, "yeah, we don't expect great things
from him", who envied all the gifted kids and their opportunities and their
parents who believed in them.

The biggest problem with being gifted is the sense of entitlement that comes
with it. That you shouldn't have to suffer like the rest of the plebeians
because you are _special_ , or that all your problems are the result of your
_special curse_.

It's just another part of the general case of "mismatch between reality and
your unrealistic expectations".

At some point _everyone_ is faced with the challenge of throwing off the yokes
of other people's expectations and conditioning and finding their own way.

------
corin_
I found being a bright child had as many problems as benefits, but none due to
pressure from parents or myself.

School work seemed insanely easy, to the point that I made no effort and still
did well. At my (private) school in the UK, twice a term we were given report
cards, and for each subject we were given A1-E5 (letters for attainment,
numbers for effort). In nearly every subject I would get A5. In my GCSEs I did
no revision, was up until 6am before every exam, and still aced them.

At that point I realised how bored I was. Since the age of 7 I had assumed I
would end up studying music at university (for a few years aged 13-15 I
changed that plan to be a CS degree), but at 16 I decided to drop out of
school because I couldn't face another two insanely boring years before
getting into real education.

The four years since then have been amazing, I got into an amazing company
that sent me around the world until I got tired of travelling too much, and
that has let me pretty much change my job description whenever I fancied doing
something new. I'd love to go to university some day and get the degree in
music that I've wanted since I was 7, but I'm not in any rush.

The biggest thing for me was that I was never taught to learn anything through
school. Luckily I was musical, which taught me great discipline (recordings
and concert tours aged 10-13), and atheltic (was once a really good
footballer, though in the last few years I've become _very_ lazy and put on an
awful lot of weight). That, combined with making my way in the business world,
has taught me what may friends had to learn in school: how to actually work on
something and improve at it.

~~~
Tycho
I'm always curious how this 'make no effort and still get As' thing works. At
what point does the information enter your head?

-before you ever cover it in class?

-when the teacher explains it once?

-when the teacher re-explains it?

-when you do your homework assignments?

-when you casually read over the notes just before the exam?

-when you read the exam questions and infer what they need to know?

I'm genuinely curious. I've always personally suspected that peoples biggest
problem (me included) is not paying attention in class, or being unable to do
so, or the teaching moving too fast for them. I figure if you're really
attentive enough, revision wouldn't be so necessary. Watching advanced lecture
courses on YouTube where I can rewind any confusing parts and refer to other
sources if need be, has been a more efficient learning process for me.

~~~
nostrademons
For me it was usually "when the teacher explains it once", occasionally
"before you ever cover it in class" if it was a subject I was interested in
beforehand. I rarely did homework assignments and never took notes.

There's also an interesting thing you can do with standardized tests, where
you infer the answer from the questions and the other answers given.
Standardized test authors are actually really predictable: they usually think
of multiple choice options based on common error patterns, so if you look at
the answers and think "Well, those two are off by one, and those two have
factors that are off by one, and those two are what you get if you add instead
of multiply", you can triangulate between them and come up with the right
answer even if you don't understand the question.

Actually, I once did an experiment to try and quantify this effect. Throughout
high school, a bunch of my classmates would say, "You're not really smart,
you're just a good test taker." So I figured I'd take the AP Comparative
Government without ever having taken the class or done any self-study. Just a
half hour of reading a test-prep book over breakfast. I _knew_ I didn't know
anything about the subject, so any score I got could be solely attributable to
test-taking skills.

I got a 3 on it, which is a passing grade for many colleges. I got a 5 (the
highest) on the tests that I actually _did_ know the subject area, so it
wasn't all test-taking.

It was funny though - the AP Comp Gov is a big multiple-choice section
followed by 4 essay tests, and I obviously didn't know the subject, so I'd
have to bullshit the essays. So I did the multiple choice through a
combination of looking for patterns in the answers and using my common-sense
knowledge of foreign governments that I'd picked up from newspapers. And then
I used the questions they'd asked in the multiple choice section as talking
points for the essay. Basically, I was using the test itself to answer the
questions on the test.

~~~
waterlesscloud
People in school would comment on how well I did on all the various
standardized tests, and my response was "It's easy, the answer is always right
there on the page."

------
Eliezer
I think I turned out reasonably well, I was known to be a child prodigy, and
my parents never pressured me in any way to outperform. (To such a degree that
my maternal grandmother was the one who bought me the Childcraft books that
formed a large part of my childhood.)

Not sure that was _optimal_ , but it's a data point.

------
neilk
Having been formerly labeled a gifted child, I'm not sure they really exist.
I'm not sure the child _has_ something different -- rather s/he _does_
something different.

I was definitely very intelligent by IQ tests, but it seems to me that what I
really had as a child was focus. Arbitrary tasks -- ones that I set for
myself, as well as the ones the world does -- were met with the total
commitment that adults usually reserve for wartime. So of course I advanced
more quickly.

As for why I had such focus, that's complicated and probably varies from
person to person. But did anyone else feel that way?

------
JimboOmega
I was labeled gifted, but I also seriously lacked coordination. My handwriting
was and is truly awful, and any "project" that involved construction came out
a mess, no matter how much time I put into it. Sometime around middle school I
was diagnosed with ADHD.

As a result, I grew up with the message that I was "smart but lazy" and "if
only you would apply yourself then..." Teachers always assumed I did a rush
job on everything (which before I got ADHD medication was often true). Parents
saw grades that were good but not what I was capable of.

That sort of message can haunt you.

On a related note, Gladwell (in one of his books, I forget which) wrote about
how people who were picked to be great successes based on childhood IQ scores
wound up all over the map; but very few were great successes (most wound up as
moderately successful professionals, IIRC)

~~~
yters
I think expecting gifted kids to be successful, and putting a bunch of effort
into such, is a mismatch.

It's pretty well known that perseverance (perhaps being a jerk too) is much
more important than high IQ for becoming rich and powerful.

High IQ is much better for coming up with deep ideas, being creative, etc. Not
characteristics that necessarily correspond with our standard definition of
success.

------
mrlyc
I wasn't gifted but I was quite bright, having the third highest IQ out of the
fifty or so pupils in the two fifth grade classes. I was doing very well at
school but my teacher didn't like me for some reason so he kept accusing me of
cheating. He told the entire class on many occasions not to have anything to
do with me. From that, I learned to dumb myself down and not do so well at
school.

------
iuguy
If there's one thing I can suggest to any prospective or current parent, it's
that if you child is smart, clever or exceptional in any field, just love
them. Love them with all your heart and soul.

I was a 'gifted' kid, and by many standards people would say that I had a good
childhood, but I didn't. My childhood was a mixture of pressure, bullying and
failure (i.e. getting A's instead of A*'s). My parents did the best they
could, but as Philip Larkin said, "They fuck you up, your parents do".

So please. If you have a 'gifted' or 'talented' child, let them know that you
love them no matter what, that they don't always have to come first, and that
happiness is more important that intelligence.

~~~
regehr
It's probably best to love the mediocre and stupid children as well.

~~~
iuguy
I couldn't agree more.

------
JonathanFields
Stanford psych professor Carol Dweck has research and written extensively on
how your adoption of either a "growth" mindset - achievement is largely work-
based - or "fixed" mindset - achievement is largely gift-based - is largely
determinative of the long-term success of those to whom things seem to come
without effort younger in life.

[https://www.stanford.edu/dept/psychology/cgi-
bin/drupalm/cdw...](https://www.stanford.edu/dept/psychology/cgi-
bin/drupalm/cdweck)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Dweck>

~~~
MikeCapone
I wrote something about this a few years ago:

[http://michaelgr.com/2007/04/15/fixed-mindset-vs-growth-
mind...](http://michaelgr.com/2007/04/15/fixed-mindset-vs-growth-mindset-
which-one-are-you/)

I think it's a very important concept to teach children.

------
rubidium
From the article "A gifted child is just one who has advanced beyond his or
her peers; it takes drive, application, perseverance and insight to turn that
potential into exceptional adult success."

It's worth saying that again. "A gifted child is just one who has advanced
beyond his or her peers". It's not a big deal so don't make a big deal about
it. Praise shouldn't be the response to gifted-ness, but rather asking him/her
"What do you want to do?"

Learning that the best motivation is internal, not external, is an essential
need in our early educational system.

------
robertk
A child that learns ideas young might not understand them as deeply as a
similarly-intelligent adult that learns them when he is 20. Although the vast
majority of such adults will not understand the ideas as well as the child,
the simple fact that there are many more adults studying such things than
gifted children means the pioneers and important researchers in the field are
statistically unlikely to be prodigies.

------
RoyG
I grew up with this as well. My 'solution' was to chart my own course. While
i've never (yet) achieved huge success in the traditional manner, I continue
to learn, grow and push myself.

The problem, as I see it, comes from the expectations of parents, teachers,
etc. While they may mean well, their guidance tends to be too conventional.
They want to fit you into the System, just in a slightly different role.

------
wallflower
> Terman found his answers in his longitudinal study on gifted children called
> Genetic Studies of Genius which had five volumes The children in this study
> were called “Termites”. The volumes reviewed the follow-ups Terman did
> throughout their lives. The fifth volume was a 35 year follow-up...

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Terman>

~~~
tokenadult
A better book than any of the books from the Terman study about the Termites
is Joel Shurkin's Terman's Kids: The Groundbreaking Study of How the Gifted
Grow Up (Boston: Little, Brown, 1992). (ISBN 978-0316788908)

[http://articles.latimes.com/1992-05-31/books/bk-1247_1_lewis...](http://articles.latimes.com/1992-05-31/books/bk-1247_1_lewis-
terman/2)

Joel Shurkin worked for the Stanford News Service as a science writer, and was
the first independent researcher to have access to the Terman Study files.

------
DaniFong
A while back, I wrote an essay on the subject...

[http://daniellefong.com/2008/05/15/advice-to-the-bright-
and-...](http://daniellefong.com/2008/05/15/advice-to-the-bright-and-young/)

------
michaelchisari
"Gifted", like the word "Genius", pales in importance to hard work and
tenacity.

Give me one child with average IQ and a lasting obsession with one or more
subjects, and another child with a "gifted" IQ and a bad work ethic and
fleeting interests, and we'll see who's more accomplished at 40.

------
jkin
People just need to know the techniques of pressure management. When I was
raised, my parents taught me always to be humble. There are always people
better, smarter than you. I got my PhD from UCLA and happened to know this
guy. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_Tao> He was a full professor at 24
and teaching people much older than him and he was the winner of fields medal.
So, if u have too much pressure, think twice that somewhere, someone is more
intelligent. And I am sure just like all other records, someday, someone will
break it.

------
sokoloff
_For 36 years, Dr. Freeman has studied a group of 210 British children - some
gifted, most not. In her new book, Gifted Lives, she concluded that, of the 20
identified as gifted, only six went on to adult lives that matched the
potential of their early promise (one is a successful opera singer; another
runs a hedge fund.)_

I would think that 6 out of 20 is statistically significantly higher than any
control group of their peers.

Sure, that means 14 of 20 didn't, but how many of the 190 not identified as
gifted went on to similar levels of achievement? For parity, the answer would
be 57. I'd wager the actual answer is no more than 1, with the most likely
answer being 0.

It's not that being labelled as gifted as a pre-teen is some kind of express
ticket punch to fame, fortune and Easy Street. How could it be? You've only
spent 8 maybe 9 years not soiling yourself at that point.

There will be strife and challenge along the way, and not everyone will rise
above those challenges, for a variety of internal or external reasons. I'd
still prefer to be in the 20 rather than the 190. (Background: in a US program
run by Johns Hopkins(SMPY-CTY), I was so identified @11, and while, in the
subsequent 28 years, I may not have become an opera singer or run a hedge
fund, I've done OK. I'll also observe that some of my past was very easy,
other portions were fairly difficult. I could have achieved more, but I could
also have acheived way, way less.)

------
bmr
One curse of gifted children is that their work life is significantly more
"regular" than their academic achievements. Even if they become doctors,
lawyers, engineers, etc. there will be plenty of people with the exact same
title - many of whom were not similarly gifted.

I imagine there's quite a bit of worry that they should be doing something
greater.

------
amichail
This sort of labeling is harmful because it is at best a diversion. Focus on
what's important -- financial independence.

~~~
yters
Yeah, and otherwise eschewing standard definitions of success if it doesn't
fit my interests.

------
todayiamme
How _do_ you know if someone is truly gifted when they are in that gray area?
In some cases it's clearly visible, but how do we judge? What parameters are
observed? Precocity? Attention to detail? Creativity?

What are the parameters behind something like this?

~~~
qjz
I'm the parent of "gifted" children, and found that the tests these days are
pretty objective, focusing on identifying traits in order to optimize the
curriculum for all students. In spite of different capabilities, kids in an
age group are emotional peers, and keeping them together is an important goal.
Therefore, it's important not to view the process as stigmatizing or as a
popularity contest. Different kids have different needs, and parents who
desperately want their children to be labeled as "gifted" risk ignoring the
true nature of their children, possibly doing more harm than good. I've found
it expedient to treat "giftedness" as another learning disorder, or at the
very least, a special need, which helps to keep my parental ego out of the
equation.

For example, one of the key traits for identifying the gifted kids is the
ability to learn without repetition. They absorb and retain information
instantly, and often become bored or restless if they aren't continually
challenged. You might be surprised to learn that among the gifted children are
often kids with behavioral problems or full-blown ADHD. But it makes sense
when you realize that the symptoms can flare up while the teacher is repeating
lessons for students who need it, leaving the others to their own devices.

Some gifted kids are well-rounded, while others display traits that make them
gifted in specific areas (excellent pattern-recognition and large vocabularies
can be indicators). A good program will identify these traits and tailor an
approach that works best for the individual. It may sound complicated, but
I've seen it handled effectively in my children's public school, so it's
definitely attainable.

~~~
todayiamme
Your answer helped me realize that being gifted is just a part of the
equation. A child's emotional, physical and other needs are important too.
It's as if there is a distortion in the lens with which people view such kids,
resigning them to one-dimensional caricatures, while losing out the essence of
who they are.

Thank you for that.

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elblanco
One wonders, what exactly makes a person "superhuman"? What if you're just 5%
better than the mean? 10%?

Does the label "human" encompass all of the variations? Does an IQ in the top
1-2% of a nation make somebody "superhuman"?

(I originally wrote an overly long post full of personal anecdotes recalling
the pain of being smart and different, but thought these questions added
more).

~~~
eru
IQ may not be even real, after all. Just a statistical artefact.

