The ultimate--and unspoken--"gifted problem"
In the gifted community, it has become trendy to talk about “twice exceptional” kids who are both gifted and learning disabled. Many parents of gifted kids have come to realize that it’s possible to have reading, or math, or attention, or social, disabilities, and still be gifted.
Yet people still do not seem to realize that a gifted person can sometimes lack basic knowledge that someone their age might know. (Even though, if you’re busy reading about advanced calculus or philosophical problems or whatever, you have that much less time to spend on learning more “basic” facts).
According to some parents, gifted people can be bad at particular *skills,* but they still have to know everything.
When I was a child, I was afraid to ask about things I didn’t understand–whether it was how north/south/east/west worked and how they related to familiar concepts like left/right–or how to use a TV remote, which to this day still confounds me with its zillions of buttons–or how to put shampoo in my hair without getting it in my eyes.
Because I would be mocked.
It wasn’t just that my behavior would be criticized. Every parent has to tell their child when they do something that doesn’t measure up.
But no, there would be name calling. Words like “lazy” and “not paying attention” and “not listening” and “spoiled brat.” No one can learn from this. Except, apparently, gifted kids–we’re supposed to be able to learn from anything. And when I didn’t learn from this, when I attempted to explain that I wasn’t lazy or not paying attention or listening, that I was trying my best, and that I was a decent person thank you very much, I was called rebellious and defensive and a bad kid who refused to learn from criticism.
I would not be mechanically inept, with no sense of direction, today if I had been able to reveal that I didn’t know some fact or skill without being mockingly told I should know how to do it. With that sort of attack on your sense of self, you stop asking questions. You also start feeling inadequate.
I am a summa cum laude, honors graduate of one of the hottest universities in the country, I qualify for MENSA, but I lose my glasses or phone pretty much every day. I forget things (sometimes even important appointments). I do stupid things. I walk into furniture. We all do. I just seem to do it slightly more often than the average smart, well-educated person.
But thanks to the way I was treated as a child–which wasn’t intended to hurt me, by the way, it was just due to the thoughtless assumption that as a “smart kid,” I should “know better”–every time I do one of these things, I berate myself and feel like a worthless person.
The biggest obstacle in my way today is my own lack of confidence in myself. That little voice inside tearing me down and saying “you’re gifted, why can’t you do this, you must be stupid or not trying. You’re such a failure, just because you made one small mistake.” That voice that confronts me every time I write a job application, or think about applying to graduate school in preparation for a career where maybe 30% of people even set foot on the tenure track–if they’re lucky. By the time I can start pursuing my dream, I’m already exhausted from having to argue with and push aside these voices telling me I’m not good enough to make it.
I thought the gifted community had changed. I thought parents had stopped doing this to their kids.
But prominent members of it still do. Members who know that giftedness doesn’t mean being brilliant at everything. Members who at least theoretically know that twice exceptionality exists.
Not naming any names, but one such person posted:
Why is my son, who got accepted into the top school in #NYC, nonetheless a fool? I know he should be smarter, I have test scores! #gifted
Note the gratuitous name-calling (“fool”), alongside the most hurtful thing you can say to a gifted person (“I know you should be smarter, what’s wrong with you?”).
Perhaps I should have let this pass without comment, but I imagined this person’s child–certainly old enough and smart enough to read it should they be on Twitter–seeing it and feeling hurt in the same way I have for years.
(Parents of nonverbal kids say even more hurtful things than this, but they figure their child will never see it or understand it. Whatever the merits of this argument, that excuse isn’t even available to parents of smart teenagers).
My response was measured, I think, given the circumstances:
I hope he can’t read this. I still have emotional scars from my mom saying stuff like this to me. We’re not good @ everything :(
The unnamed parent went on to explain:
14 yo should know letters require stamps. This is not skill someone is good at. This is dumb behavior that deserves mocking.
Of course a 14 year old “should’ know a stamp goes on the envelope, if they’ve ever seen anyone send letters in real life or in the movies. (Then again, virtually no one ever sends a letter any more, so it’s possible that a 14 year old today may never have seen it. But whatever, let’s assume for the sake of argument that every 14 year old knows how letters work in a digital age).
Did you, for even a moment, pause to wonder how this 14 year old must have felt about such an elementary mistake? They probably felt like a complete moron, maybe even a failure, as soon as they learned about their mistake.
Even if no one mocked them.
And if their parent is mocking them online, in front of total strangers (a *definite* unethical thing to do), you just know they’re saying worse in the privacy of their own home. Because everyone feels freer to say cruel things in private than in public.
Well, parents like this should know: One of the worst feelings is the shame at realizing you’ve made a mistake that no one like you–no one your age, your intelligence, your general knowledge of the world, whatever–is supposed to make. Your heart feels like it’s been stabbed and then it sinks down into your boots. You want to run away from yourself. Just being inside your own skin hurts, almost physically.
And yes, you can be gifted–heck, you can be highly, exceptionally, or profoundly gifted–and still make such mistakes. I know I have. And I’m still learning to forgive myself for it and move on with life.
Why is it not obvious to everyone that it is NEVER, EVER okay to make fun of someone for what they don’t know?
And no, it doesn’t matter how ridiculous it appears that a person doesn’t know something. First of all, even if the person should know it, mocking them doesn’t help them learn it, it just makes them hurt, and often want to defend themselves or escape from the experience, not learn from it.
There’s an additional problem, too: not everything that seems like it’s “obvious” or “everyone should know it” really is. Anyone who’s had a calculus or engineering professor who left out crucial steps in a proof because they’re supposedly “obvious” will understand this.
Or, consider: When I was five or six and my classmates were telling me how proud they were for starting to read chapter books, I didn’t get what the big deal was. I’d been reading real books for some time, and it never even occurred to me this was a milestone. Should I have mocked them for their pride in doing something I thought was so easy? Of course not, that would be cruel.
Well, I don’t know about this particular case, but many parents–including my own, who had little experience with kids–know about as much about what kids of any age “should” be doing as I knew then. Is it really worth causing one’s child such emotional harm?
One of the hardest things for me to accept–even though it’s pretty much the story of my childhood–is that generally kind, decent people who understand basic things about their kids’ minds, and parenting, can still do cruel things that leave emotional scars that last for years. Things that if they saw someone else say or do, they’d be horrified.
But somehow, it’s okay, because their child is gifted.
Their child must know and be able to do everything at at least average levels.
If not, they deserve to be mocked.
Can you imagine the pressure we feel as we internalize this unspoken message? (And yes, we do pick it up. We’re gifted, after all).
And then the experts wonder why we all have depression, anxiety, and other mental problems.
Giftedness should never be an excuse for emotional abuse. But so often, it is. And to me, that’s pretty much the ultimate gifted problem. Most of all, because it’s the one no one ever talks about.
We’re not learning machines, we’re people, and not all of our problems have to do with an inadequate educational system. It’s time to heal, it’s time to speak out, and it’s time to get the word out so future generations of kids don’t have to go through what we went through. If you have similar experiences of your own, please reblog and share, and spread the word. I don’t know if there’s anything we can do for this particular teenager, but maybe we can help someone else.
P.S.: Thank you to the unnamed parent for inspiring this insight, and fueling my determination to try to make things better for other gifted kids and adults. And to their child, my heart goes out to you and I hope that you never struggle in the same way I have.
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