Gifted Children

Diary

This is where I'll write more details about my own experiences as a mother of a gifted child. As mentioned in the previous page (on Determinations), this page won't take the form of a journal or "Dear Diary" account. Rather, I'll tell my story, partly in threads related to particular issues, including the ones already discussed.

In the beginning

I didn't start out as a mother of a gifted child. When did I become such a beast? In hindsight, I could point to the day Theo was born or maybe even back to the day he was conceived. But, to be fair and practical about it, I'd have to say it was a gradual thing, evolving over several months at least. It started with wondering what this "gifted children" business was all about. Then wondering whether it applied to my own child.

Also, I didn't begin wondering seriously until my son had reached Primary school. And the notion of "gifted children" didn't seem useful, funnily enough, until after my son came home with a mediocre school report that alerted me to the fact that something was wrong. So maybe, in some cases, it takes a problem to wake you up.

A telling moment was when I visited the Linda Silverman web site (for the Gifted Development Center, Colorado, US.). There, she makes the confronting claim: "If you have selected our Website, chances are that you, yourself, are a gifted person." A bit awesome this, at a time when I hadn't yet acquired more realistic ideas about giftedness. With time, I came to see that "gifted" is a fairly recent label. In my day, you just said a kid was bright or brainy or "good at school". I was those things, but I didn't see myself as "gifted".

So, be warned. From wondering whether your child is gifted, it mightn't be long before you're wondering whether you yourself are gifted. One wondering leads to two!

The Gifted Industry

Especially in the US, there are heaps of specialised services, organisations, books, audio and video material, web pages (like these), etc, which focus on gifted children. This "gifted industry" put me off a bit at first, and still bothers me to this day. I think this is a healthy reaction, a balance to any excessive focus on giftedness.

Obviously, since I'm contributing to this industry now, I also think it has a value. My two main reasons for supporting this movement are:

If you read about famous gifted people, it's common to find that their gifts were poorly recognised at first and that many obstacles had to be overcome in bringing those gifts to fruition. It's easy enough to draw the conclusion that "the gift will out", the acorn will find some way to grow, gifts have an in-built urge to develop toward talents, etc. This complacency ignores the many gifted people who didn't become famous or successful or just plain fulfilled. They represent wasted human resources and often wasted lives.
Again, a look at the lives of the famous reveals much pain and hardship during the process from potential gift to full flowering. As children, these people often suffered at the hands of insensitive, inflexible, even cruel teachers, parents, and other significant adults. I don't believe that such suffering has to be. It isn't some romantic necessity for genius. Some suffering arises from competition, sheer hard work and perseverance, overcoming failures or setbacks, etc. But these are healthy sorts of suffering (unless taken to excess). On the other hand, suffering arising from religious, sexist, cultural or economic suppression is tragic. And only continued vigilance will keep these sorts of monsters at bay.

That's enough for this first diary page. If you're still interested, then check out Page2 of this diary.

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