Comments on: What My Daughter’s 5th Grade Teacher Taught Me About Being a Gifted Adult

By: Elisa

Elisa — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:34:25 +0000

I’m curious – how have you organized your life around being gifted?

By: Gifted Girl

Gifted Girl — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 09:59:13 +0000

I’m 27 and after a lifetime of battling with giftedness (I was formally identified age 7) I’m glad to see your daughter is receiving advice on how to cope with it. It’s hard work! But actually in some ways I would contradict the advice given here. I think the best thing you can do is give yourself permission to be gifted. For me that meant accepting that I am a serious minded introvert who likes to isolate, and not someone who could ever really pull off the “dumb bimbo act” in order to hide my abilities. I tried to organise my life so as to accomodate these characteristics rather than trying to be someone I’m not. I see it as standing up for myself as a gifted person, and increasing awareness about giftedness in the process. That option is less exhausting and more authentic to me. So I think the best advice to a gifted child would be to “go with your natural tendencies, even when everyone else thinks you’re weird!”

By: Casey

Casey — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 04:57:56 +0000

I really, really appreciate this wisdom. I have a second grade daughter and a kindergarten daughter who seem to be very advanced and all indications point that they will test gifted. There isn’t formal gifted programs until 4th grade (but ability grouping until then), so there’s no “advice” for them as yet. It’s good to have a heads up on some really sound advice while they are still young.

By: Gifted and Lazy | gifteduniverse.com

Gifted and Lazy | gifteduniverse.com — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 02:46:37 +0000

[...] Are gifted people lazy because things come too easily for them, so they don’t know how too work hard? When I was in a gifted program in high school, we had a game: who could do the least amount of work and get the best mark. And there are some intelligent/gifted people who have a sense of entitlement - I shouldn’t have to work hard because I’m smart. My daughter’s teacher this year had a great approach to dealing with this: he regularly reminded my daughter that ultimately, her education was her own, not her parents’, not her teachers’ and he would ask her: do YOU feel about this work? Is this your best effort? Is this the result YOU were seeking? No question, there is a gap between what goes on in my daughter’s head and what she translates into academic work…she did very well with the message of empowerment and responsibility. We both learned a lot from this teacher . [...]