Growing Up "Gifted"
Without a Decent Return Policy
I often felt like something was wrong with me when I was a child. People spoke in hushed whispers and talked about "finding a place for me" as if I were an aggressive pet dog rather than a very timid child with a high IQ. However, I didn't truly realize I was weird until I started school.
I thought I'd been sent to a school for mentally retarded children. There were children attending class who couldn't dress themselves or go to the bathroom alone much less read or write. The teacher gave rewards, such as candies and gold star stickers for such basic activities as tying one's own shoes or speaking in complete sentences. Nap time was part of the curriculum. I was extremely angry with my parents.
It took a while for the concept to sink in, but I came to understand that those children were normal and I was the oddball. I eventually forgave my parents for sending me to that school. I soon learned it could be fun to play with the other kids, much as it was fun to play with puppies and kittens. A few times I got in trouble for getting my classmates to perform tricks for my amusement by giving rewards of candy. For the most part, I enjoyed myself.
After a few years, my classmates began using their growing powers of deduction to determine that I was abnormal. I began living in a bizarre, divided world. Adults praised me and rewarded me for the simplest of tasks but children despised me. I never lorded my smarts over my peers but teachers and other adults made far too much fuss over me. I was extraordinarily shy and unable to make eye-contact so I seldom even spoke at all. This didn't stop other students from assuming I thought I was better than they were. My pleas to the adults in my life to cease all public praise were ignored. They simply caused my "fans" to declare me modest as well as brilliant. I was treated to jeers of "she thinks she's soooooooooo smart" until I graduated from high school.
Unfortunately, I could never get away with less than perfect marks without someone voicing their disappointment. Everyone seemed to have very high but skewed expectations of me. Even I did.
Fast forward to the adult world.
I never went on to become a world renowned scientist or a wizard of Wall Street. I haven't changed the world. I'm not wealthy or famous nor have I cured any diseases. Most folks aren't and haven't either. The difference is that people are disappointed in me for being a regular person. Many times I've been called a failure or accused of not living up to my abilities because I am a florist, an artist, and a freelance writer instead of a medical researcher or a high-payed executive.
Far too little importance is placed on personal joy in our society. By my standards, I am not a failure.
Published by Kylyssa Shay
Kylyssa Shay spent 18 years as a professional floral designer and has aquacultured marine life for fun and profit. Ms. Shay is a freelance writer, an atheist and an avid life-long learner with unusual life e... View profile
- Helping Gifted Children Get Along with OthersWe need to remember that gifted children are still children and need parental guidance to understand how to get along with others.
- Common Emotional Difficulties of Gifted ChildrenGifted children experience a number of challenges as they mature, and it can be difficult to determine if they are using a healthy coping style to manage stress, anger, and other emotional states. Here are some tips...
- The Signs of a Gifted ChildThe first in a series of articles written to guide parents who have or might have gifted children.
- Parenting Gifted Children: What Behavioral Characteristcs You Can ExpectAs a parent of a gifted and talented child, it is important to understand the unique behaviors your child may exhibit.
- Gifted Children and Behavior ProblemsSigns and ideas for gifted children and their families.
- Realistic Expectations for the Gifted Child
- Mensa High IQ Society: How to Take an IQ Test and Become a Member
- Cheap Summer Ideas for Gifted Children
- Highly Gifted Children Experience Excitable Intellect
- Social, Emotional Problems for Gifted Child
- Teaching Gifted Children
- Skipping a Grade: Should Gifted Children Move Ahead?
8 Comments
Post a CommentI'm 13 and highly gifted also, and I must admit that your story was deeply moving and highly relateable.
This is excellent. As someone in very similar shoes, I am deeply grateful to see an article like this written. I happen to also have a high IQ and grew up often hearing suggestions that I was going to win a Nobel Prize or cure cancer. Instead, I ended up opting out of the entire mainstream job market. I chose not to go to college (conventionally structured education doesn't work well for me), and I went on to travel around the country, join a hippie commune, write, paint, fall in love, and eventually become happy stay-at-home-mom and freelance writer. I've often been told that I'm underachieving, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I love my life and I love the person who I turned out to be.
Very introspective. I too was (and am) blessed with a high IQ, and, like you, have been regarded as an "underachiever" for starting my own landscaping business. I graduated with honors from college, and many of my friends, who were mediocre students at best went on to grad or professional school in search of fame and riches. I'm a good landscaper, I do honest work, and I am successful at what I do because of my passion. I married the woman I loved, not because she could get me "ahead" or she was who I "should" marry... and I am happy. As I once read on a beer bottle, "Follow your folly," and for that, I am happy.
...or a Doctor, or an egineer or, at the very least wealthy. Thanks for the chuckle in the way you described going to school. Yes, being 'abnormally smart' isn't the dream people crack it up to be.
wow !!!...What a very interesting story !!...
I love your story ... it very moving and well written. I am glad you are "smart" enough to love yourself for who you are and chose professions you are passionate about.
Absolutely fabulous article! I'll never figure out why "intelligence" places kids out of the "pack." Schools (excessively) reward even the most mediocre athlete, but brains are almost a curse in public school. Oh they have an Honor Roll and stuff like that, but the "medals" and adoration are absent. I wasn't brilliant like you, but smart enough to be treated as an "odd-ball," at least by the time Jr. High rolled around. Sounds like YOUR life is a true success though...material objects and money aren't everything. If you find your work and your life fulfilling, you're in the top 10 percent. At least you are smart enough to land yourself a lifestyle with which you're satisfied. I've seen many of these "high profile" successes end up drowning in a liquor bottle, eating a shotgun, or otherwise miserable. (I live in a cabin and work seasonally...but at least I'm where I love, with people I love, doing what I love!) ;-) KIM
A very well written story, i enjoyed this, thanks hon!!!!!!!!!!!