Gifted kids. Gifted programs. Problem-causers that frustrate teachers when they get bored. What does gifted mean? That's today's deep dive.
For starters, being gifted does not mean you are a genius by any means. It simply means you are more mature and advanced in one topic or more than your peers are. You are probably also keenly aware of a lot more in your world than your peers. Your peers are not stupid. If you are gifted in any way you are not a superior human; you are simply built and wired differently from those around you. Do not become narcissistic and begin to believe you are superior.
Now that the warning is out there, let's keep going. Being gifted can show up in IQ, but not always, so don't depend on IQ points to show if your child, you, or your peer is gifted. It also has to be noticed over time by several others. One devoted mother/father saying their son/daughter is a young prodigy is not enough to say they are gifted. It takes careful observations and more than one person to notice a gifted kid, and there are also tests that you can take to know. Academic success does not mean gifted. Some people who fit in the gifted category have been known to fail miserably at conventional schooling, while others do phenomenally. As you are probably already realizing, this is no simple definition.
Qualities of a gifted kid
One of the most common characteristics of a gifted person includes curiosity and deep-diving into passions. We all have our interests, but this will be abnormally intense passion uncommon for the age of the person. The curiosity aspect of things also includes questions, constant in nature, so think about that kid in class who asked ten million questions until the teacher shut them down to move on. Or maybe that was you. Maybe you wanted to know how everything works, functions and can be taken apart, then put back together. In the simplest of terms, gifted individuals generally have an insatiable curiosity. when we take an interest in something we nerd and geek out on it to intense levels.
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| One example of geeking and nerding out on a passion is cosplaying, dressing as your favorite characters from comic books, movies, and books. |
Remember that bored kid, or maybe you, that sat in the back of the class doodling while waiting for the rest of your classmates to understand the concept you perceived as mind-numbingly easy? Yeah, that is a gifted person problem. This is why some students stop listening in class, and in some cases, mistakenly get labeled ADHD by worried parents who don't quite understand what is going through their kids' heads and mistake not paying attention and class disruption for a disorder that wasn't there. Also, "troublemakers" in class could be gifted kids. I want to encourage teachers to remember this. "Troublemakers" are, in some cases, bored kids that need brain stimulation the classroom they are in can't give them. This is why gifted programs that go at the student's pace are good to have. Also, if you are homeschooling it can help because there isn't a whole classroom to teach and it is individual learning by nature. Generally, boys are more disruptive because girls seek to blend in with others.
Intensity is another major quality of gifted individuals. Intensity in emotion, sensitivity, passions, and social interaction makes it hard to fit in. Intensity in focus makes it hard to tear someone away from a task they are engrossed in mentally. This can be vividly illustrated by a person unwilling to leave a computer game, book, or project alone to go do something unrelated. I know people that have obsessed deeply on subjects and projects to a point of perfectionism, which is a gifted person problem. That kind of intense focus consumes us to the point of frustration because nothing looks as good as your mental blueprint said it would.
Being observant is not as common as it should be. Those of us who are gifted tend to notice what others don't and might be belittled for noticing "unimportant" details in a book, real life, or a movie. Sometimes our details prove important later, sometimes not, but my point is this; we are more aware of our world than others seem to be. Trying to converse about that odd song lyric (for example) with someone who barely noticed that radio was even on is not particularly encouraging in the way of faith in humankind (for reference, I put my faith in God, not humankind). It is frustrating to talk about a subtle social cue and have no one else notice it. It makes you look crazy when you are not. I'm here to tell my fellow gifted people you are not crazy. It probably stops us from being harmed in the streets to notice everyone around you. Keep on being aware of your world, especially when others are oblivious to what they shouldn't be.
Imagination, encouraged in all children, is a trait gifted never lose. It makes us writers, artists, and creative problem solvers. We may alarm our adult leaders in our younger years with more mature ideas that came from our young mouths, but we use our adult years coming up with unconventional solutions to common problems. Here's to all the inventors out there that thought outside the box! We have no box, as gifted individuals, so we tend to do things differently. Teachers, once again, I want to say something to you. If we answer and solve the problem correctly in our own way, please don't penalize us for creativity. Creative thinkers shouldn't be squashed in youth to be just like everyone else.
Complex vocabulary that is unusual for that age group is a big clue, but it creates social problems. Adults that can use the vocab and complex sentence structures are now easier to converse with than your peers. Try connecting with others socially when they are not at your intellectual level but are your maturity level; it is legitimately a struggle to find a connection in this situation. The term "peer" takes on a new meaning and we find someone mentally our age, and in elementary school it is darn near impossible unless you are talking to a teacher. It gets easier the older you become and college is the easiest still because those getting a college education are mostly those people who are coming by choice and have high levels of intelligence already. My best school years are still college and the most human connection I have made was during college.
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| Nancy Drew Games are created by Her Interactive and feature you, as Nancy Drew, solving the mystery. |
You see puzzle games everywhere, and lots of gaming takes more intelligence than just, for example, blasting asteroids until you can't. I have played Nancy Drew Her Interactive games for years that took quite a bit of problem-solving and intelligence to finish. I still play them. Some are harder than others in level and puzzles, but puzzle games attract gifted individuals. Occupying your mind and providing stimulation to gamers relieves gifted people of their boredom, as well as also sharpening skills. Creative puzzle games and logic puzzles are easier for out-of-the-box thinkers. Unoccupied people with a need for challenge find these games and consume them happily.
Kids and adults who tend to follow office and school rules to the letter could be gifted. A sense of constancy and justice is part of being gifted. Basically, one's word is taken as law. This can be seen in me, who sees a largely-ignored rule about cell phone use that even most supervisors ignore, but I can't bring myself to break. I don't tell anyone above me about this because it doesn't truly interfere with work, but yet, I won't go against it and use my cellphone at work. That is one example of having a sense of justice. I, and others with similar traits, hold myself to a high bar and won't let myself slack off. Because of this, and a reputation for not slacking off, I get caught red-handed when I do, while others who aren't watched as an example can do anything (seemingly).
Along with following rules to the letter, we remember a bit more than our peers for longer periods of time. I am gifted in reading, so I can tell you all about books I read months and years back, while my peers that I went to early or later schooling with may not be able to. If you tie this to noticing more about the environment you can conclude quite easily that we can retain knowledge about people and places that others quickly or have nearly forgotten. Little details, especially odd things, are kept in long term. If you tend to remember more than those around you I want you to know you are not crazy. Just because no one else noticed it doesn't mean it didn't happen or certain words didn't come out of someone's mouth.
Quirky Individuals
If you process through all this and connect it all together it is clear that gifted traits can create quirky individuals. This means that they may also include learning disabilities. High IQs tend to come with social weirdness, to varying degrees, that makes it hard to fit in or blend in. In some cases, they are told to live up to adult standards, but if they do they have fewer friends because they have to play dumb with their peers to blend in. You can't truly be yourself in this scenario and you may end up being a loner. In my case, I was well-liked by most and still on the social fringes. I was almost in between popular and the social fringes, actually, which turns out to be an odd place where you befriend the "weird" people and yet get your picture inevitably in the yearbook. Gifted individuals are truly originals, and we have original ideas that may leave some people a little uncomfortable or amazed at our maturity. Our perspectives are not what the average student sees. As a result, trying to explain our ideas can sometimes and often get expressions of confusion, a raised eyebrow, or a mix of several reactions. We can be easily misunderstood and misrepresented, as well as others perceiving us as "off" or "odd".
Here's the part where I tell you the struggles of being gifted. I'd like to personally say these are real struggles and nowhere near fiction. Being gifted, have a learning disability, or both combined can create a life where you would rather throw yourself into your passions and forget most of (not all) your peers. I mentioned that college was the most social connection with other students I have ever had. That doesn't mean I had no friends (I did make true friends earlier than that, so don't assume I didn't), but it meant I did bury myself in writing fiction to create a world of my own. It was a coping mechanism that has now led to me writing fiction in an attempt to get it published. I would sit in the back of classrooms writing stories in notebooks when I was bored. It confused a math teacher once, who picked it up thinking it was me passing notes. I did not have a learning disability, but I did have no regard for social norms.
Oh, social norms, pesky rules that make no sense and make life so much harder in the long run... Other people on the social fringes felt the same way. Odd ducks stick together. It is a gifted person problem. Long ago I decided to quit trying to fit in and I am not the only one to make that decision in this world. The only problem with that is the fact that when you blatantly ignore social norms you can get made fun of, and you don't blend in anywhere. Social groups all include unspoken rules, especially in female circles. In my case, I disappeared inside my created worlds and only reached out to specific people that I liked and trusted.
Other struggles that the gifted endure include not being able to connect intellectually with others. Another personal experience I have had is intense empathy that my peers mistook for "having a crush on every boy". My kindness was taken as a crush by my peers because my emotional maturity was not at the same level. (This is also an introvert-related problem, but that is not today's topic.) When I did have a real crush on someone it was strangely intense and obvious due to the deep emotions I didn't know how to control or interpret. This deepness in emotion is not uncommon in gifted people.
Last, but definitely not least, is perfectionism. This is when you have a blueprint or mental image of the results in your brain that are magnificent and amazing, then you look at your project that is absolutely beautiful and it falls short. You rewrite your thesis, term paper, fiction story, or presentations ten million times because it falls short of your vision. You see your art or wood project, nearly perfect in every detail and only off by an eighth of an inch, and call it flawed. You have a grand vision and you can't make it look that perfect. It is a struggle that can drive you mildly or terribly insane. I took a class making a documentary (no, I didn't include it in this blog. You'll never see it if you don't personally know me.) and my inexperience with the camera made it impossible for me to reach my vision, even with a tutor that greatly helped and encouraged me. Did I get a good grade? Yes, but I still see my creation as subpar and home-video-like. My point? I never reached my perfect vision and couldn't possibly have done so. I got a decent result (according to my tutor who loved it), and I am unsatisfied with it. Tears were cried over that project. Perfectionism can drive you to succeed, but it can also drive you to insanity faster than anything else I've ever seen.
The End
This has been a long post, so I leave you to process this information. Feel free to find more information and dive deeper into this subject.
Sources:
https://www.readandspell.com/us/signs-of-a-gifted-childPictures:
Greenwood School District
Bored Panda
Her Interactive
Pinterest
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