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A friend of mine who is a teacher pointed out to me that “highly gifted” children were actually special needs children. She used this term because she worked in

A friend of mine who is a teacher pointed out to me that “highly gifted” children were actually special needs children. She used this term because she worked in a highly competitive district where parents were constantly harassing her to consider their children “highly gifted”. Once she used this term, it became easier for parents to accept that their children were doing fine in “normal” class, which was quite good anyways because of the average aptitude of the students.

DoreenMichele 6y ago
Parents of very gifted kids routinely seek out support groups to help them cope. It's absolutely not all upside. Social challenges are a very big part of the problem.
- 0x8BADF00D 6y ago
  I remember being in one of those “accelerated” programs. If I recall it was for math. I was not in that class for long. It wasn’t that I did poorly in the class, it was the fact that I told the teacher to go fuck herself. Suffice it to say I’ve never been particularly fond of authority figures. As a child you understand inherently that all people are equal. Why should anyone be above anyone else? At least that was how my childish mind perceived it. Hierarchy is something that learned socially.
  - 77pt77 6y ago
    >As a child you understand inherently that all people are equal. Why should anyone be above anyone else? At least that was how my childish mind perceived it. Hierarchy is something that learned socially. I remember when I was very young other children saying exactly the opposite and as an adult I've met young children that are very attuned to one's social standing. Also there are strong biological reasons as to why it is highly innate but modulated by culture.
    - Mirioron 6y ago
      I think that it's more about children thinking that everyone is equal in having to keep their word. If you make a promise then you're supposed to keep to it. What often disillusions children is that people in positions of authority often make promises, but don't keep them, yet when it goes the other way around those people will coerce everyone else into keeping the promises to them.
      - bartwe 6y ago
        It's a naive position of someone with a nice upbringing without bullies to show that under the veneer there is suppressed brutality of those willing to use violence.
  - DoreenMichele 6y ago
    Some gifted kids are especially bad about having strong views about things like justice and morality and equality. It's part of why I'm on parenting blog number three, which isn't exactly catching fire. My stories about raising my sons and my views on such were seemingly popular, at least with a vocal minority, on an email list that was basically a support group for parents of gifted kids (which is why I originally began blogging at all). My oldest was accepted to college at age thirteen. The classes he had tried to sign up for all fell through for different reasons and then he told me he didn't really want to take college classes. He wanted me to keep homeschooling him. I wasn't thrilled. At age 14, he explained Einstein's Theory of Relativity to me, which was helpful to me in understanding some of my college classes. I absolutely wasn't qualified to keep teaching him in some subjects. He already knew more science than I did. But he also has a serious medical condition and a variety of other problems. So I heaved a big sigh and said "Okay. I can't teach you, but I can keep supplying you learning materials for those subjects and I can still teach you in other subjects, like math." So, yeah, there's lots of problems you run into with gifted kids, one of them being that some of them have little tolerance for "idiot adults" who may not know anymore than they do, so they tend to not be very accepting of the idea that adults have some right of authority simply because they are older. "Older and wiser/know more" don't necessarily follow. Edit: Someone asked, then deleted their comment. It's called Raising Future Adults. https://raisingfutureadults.blogspot.com/ https://raisingfutureadults.blogspot.com/ There's not much there currently.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - gorgoiler 6y ago
      How do the strong views about justice and morality typically manifest themselves in a way that’s negative rather than positive? I’m not challenging you on that by the way. I see this too and I think I have a pretty good idea what you mean but didn’t want to second guess what you meant, incorrectly.
      - DoreenMichele 6y ago
        It's not necessarily that it's negative, though it can be. It's just that it's usually socially unacceptable to take a strong moral stand and turn X thing into a hill to die on (especially if you are five, but not only if you are a child). Most people cannot and will not live up to the strict moral standards of some five year old on their high horse. When the five year old screams "The emperor has no clothes and you're a liar!!!!" multiple times per day and will not stop when punished for it, it creates a lot of problems. One of my sons was like that. I homeschooled and I can live up to his expectations for things like fairness and keeping my word. But when adults don't live up to those expectations and they have some tyrannical little would-be civil rights activist on their hands, it sometimes turns abusive because they need the kid to just shut up and give it a rest already and they run out of ideas for how to keep the kid from being a troublemaker. (Alternately, in school, they are constantly in detention or similar.)
  - aspenmayer 6y ago
    An innate sense of equality without appreciation of power dynamics can make institutional power and authority figures seem adversarial to a certain kind of precocious mind, perhaps younger ones especially so. Learning should be a journey that instills the value of knowledge as well as the labor to acquire it and transform it into useful and amusing ends. Otherwise, a failure to grasp knowledge itself can create a disdain for the entire enterprise of learning and a kind of self-hating self-sustaining self-induced oppositionally-defiant ignorance. I still love the USA, though.
    - 0x8BADF00D 6y ago
      I too love the USA. I love all Americans, even those whom I disagree with on every axis, but love as people. But I find myself at a crossroads (or at least, what I feel is a crossroads). What should I do next? Should I stay in a country that taxes me without representation of my views? I think Balaji Srinivasan said it best. In political science, you have two options: voice and exit. Voice is protesting what you find intolerable in a system by voting against policies that negatively affect you. Or, there is exit. Exit is leaving that system entirely, such that it amplifies the dissenting voice. I find myself contemplating exit. I'm actually considering an authoritarian state, Singapore, as a place to emigrate to. Because while my views won't be represented, at least they won't tax me for it. I'm almost sort of okay with that.
      - aspenmayer 6y ago
        You’re only chasing safety. To me it seems you feel like a victim of a street robbery. “Your money or your life,” the voice behind you asks, weighing options as you weigh yours. “I’ll take the money, since I’m not overly attached to my current way of life,” you reply confidently, at least you hope that’s how it sounds. The reply sings. You cry, for a part of you just died. If you’re lucky, you’re still clinging to a convincing enough simulacrum of your former life to enjoy whatever money you were able to keep. FIN In all seriousness, I feel like leaving is what everyone else in the country would tell you to do. Anyone who would give up on the experiment of America is foolish to do so. They give up their leverage, power, and credibility in the eyes of their fellow citizens. That may not mean much to you. I’m not saying it should. But if nothing else, throwing in the towel and doing as you say feels like taking your ball and going home. We’re in this together. It’s sink or swim, but a rising tide raises all boats, large and small. The economy isn’t a zero sum game, but most of politics in this country is winner take all, which isn’t far off. Yet change happens here anyway. The best life for you is one where you can live your best life. No one can tell you what that looks like. Hopefully you recognize it when you see it, and it might be a lot closer to home than you realize. But hey it’s your choice either way. There’s no shame in being an expat. I’ve lived overseas and it made me who I am as much as any other thing, and I still like me most days. If you’re lucky the door swings both ways. You can always come back. Just don’t let it hit you on the way out.
  - devmunchies 6y ago
    I was transferred to a “gifted” program in 5th grade but I moved back out after a month or 2. It was nice having more rigorous material but it also meant more homework and I was terrible at doing homework. Plus the kids were more dry, less jokes.
    - joejerryronnie 6y ago
      > Plus the kids were more dry, less jokes. Gifted children simply prefer British humour over American humor.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - gorgoiler 6y ago
    Very well said, thank you. For me, the turning point was learning that: (1) hierarchies are a partial order: ones manager is ones superior only at work, and not in all aspects of life. It’s weird if they are. It feels challenging when they are subordinate to you on some other axis (e.g. your manager is younger or less socially popular than you) until this axiom sinks in. Becoming a company man is risky once you’ve learned this because you may end up surrendering yourself to the idea that the company hierarchy is total in all aspects of life. Having the boss round for dinner, bowing and scraping, 1950s stereotypes etc. (2) In a healthy hierarchy power and responsibility go hand in hand. One accepts authority figures in life because they also take responsibility for things working properly. Your manager at work gets to deal with the awkward underperforming colleague, not you. If people gather to you socially, you have a responsibility to bring something positive to their lives. Learning that hierarchies were there to provide a service to me — something which felt counter intuitive for a long time — was eye opening. It does also make you double down on attacking hierarchies where power is wielded irresponsibly.
  - non-entity 6y ago
    I was in and out of "gifted programs" for most of my schooling, if you could call them that. A few of the people in there were generally smart, many not so much. Personally I always hated them. Except for a brief program when I was in 4th grade all they were for us was just am increased workload. Me, being the lazy pos I am, just neglected to do any of the extra work and I focused on my own thing. I remember in 4th grade when I was kicked outthe first time transferring from the accelerated class that had me doing boatloads of dull readings and "paper work" in the accelerated clas to the normal class with a much less mind-numbing workload where I had time to work on what I wanted to when because I finished early. Eventually they would realize I'm moving faster than most of the class, stick me in the gifted class and the cycle would repeat up until graduation. When I was a senior I. I recall my senior year one of the kids who was in the giftedprograms their entire schooling asking me if a 23 was a good ASVAB score. Ibrelaize these programs are going to vary depending on your school district, so for context, this was a mostly lower-middle class and middle class suburb of a southeastern metro. I personally dont think I'm very smart, likely average, maybe a little less than I used to be nowadays, but I consider a lot of these programs a sham.
    - proverbialbunny 6y ago
      Yah. I think many of us can relate here. Starting in 2nd grade I started ditching class and going to the computer lab to write code. For some sort of reason my teacher didn't notice I was missing as long as I was in for attendance during first period. She did realize I wasn't turning in any work, so I got put into some sort of special program I never went to. They didn't expect me to come, because I never came, and my teacher expected me to be gone, giving me all the time in the world to do whatever I wanted. I took this trick all the way through high school signing up for programs, or more, stating I was part of programs that would let me ditch classes. However, in 6th grade, the computer lab shared a window with my homeroom, so a substitute teacher made a comment about it. Turns out I had hacked the admin password and was sending mail, in the form of leaving text messages onto the distract administrator's desktop, where we'd chat about all sorts of stuff. The district didn't know what to do with me. Should I be punished? So they changed the admin password, which I immediately broke into, and that was it. I stayed in the computer lab and my homeroom teacher treated that like normal.
  - esoterica 6y ago
    You seem to think that sharing that anecdote paints you in a positive light but it really doesn't. It just makes you seem like you haven't matured much since you were a child. I mean really, bragging about how you were hurling expletives at your teachers because you were too smart and enlightened to acknowledge authority figures? Come on. You're very clearly embodying a specific archetype of the socially maladjusted outcast who thinks they keep clashing with other people because they are a misunderstood genius when really they are just difficult and abrasive.
    - dang 6y ago
      No personal attacks in HN comments, please, regardless of how much someone else has matured. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
pfarnsworth 6y ago
My son is profoundly gifted, although he's not in the same league as some of those children described in the study. I absolutely consider him a special-needs child. He's been kicked out of two schools (including a "gifted" school) at this point for his behavior, but it turns out his behavior was because he was profoundly bored. His current school accelerated him by 2 grades and now he's more manageable. He's still bored, but at least he feels like his classmates are more his level, even though he probably needs to skip 1 or 2 more grades to match his academic abilities. I'm loathe to accelerate him further because I worry about emotional well-being, being the youngest kid in the class, but this study has given me food for thought. Thank you OP for posting this.
- ttty 6y ago
  I'd usually bring my own work at school. I liked to build web application, so I used most of my boring school time to architect them on paper. Then when at home, I could implement it. My teachers bothered me a bit, but I was passing the exams, so they couldn't complain too much. Your kid could have his own little project and do it at school.
- leshokunin 6y ago
  You haven't mentioned anything outside of school, so have you considered giving him something on the side? I would extrapolate that he's very frustrated he understands something faster than the others, regardless of whether it's a few grades beyond him or not. It's ok for school to be a certain speed. Some hobbies have infinite depth, and aren't inherently limited by the pace of school and the routine of school days. Examples include: games such as Chess / Tetris / Go, literature, learning finance, making things (woodwork, electronics...).
barry-cotter 6y ago
> Once she used this term, it became easier for parents to accept that their children were doing fine in “normal” class, which was quite good anyways because of the average aptitude of the students. Your child could be doing work three grades ahead, learning things that would challenge them and help them grow intellectually. Instead we’ll keep them here with the normal children where at best they’ll learn to shut up and not bother the teacher.
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  The GP is talking about competitive parents whose kids aren't genuinely exceptionally gifted. The parents are just looking for bragging rights and/or another edge.
  - barry-cotter 6y ago
    Keeping children who’re perfectly capable of doing sixth grade work doing fifth grade work isn’t as bad but it’s still a waste off their time and a lesson in the actual priorities of the school system, which certainly don’t have learning among the top five.
    - DoreenMichele 6y ago
      Some parents don't really have the best interests of their children at heart. "Hot housing" children does not make for better future outcomes. It just deprives children of their childhood.
      - barry-cotter 6y ago
        > "Hot housing" children does not make for better future outcomes. I would welcome any research to that effect if you have it to hand. I am not an expert but if you search gwern.net for “gifted education”, “acceleration” “SMPY” or “Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth” you’ll find many papers on this general topic. There’s nothing there showing negative effects and quite a bit that’s positive.
mlyle 6y ago
Yah. You can be super bright without being in the category that needs all the support and scaffolding. My oldest is super precocious mathematically. And has adjustment problems, impatience, social struggles, etc. Massive but undeveloped sense of justice/fairness that borders on fascism, too. He is doing OK, but... it takes a lot of enrichment and support for him to make it and stay sane. My middle kid is nearly as capable mathematically and stronger verbally... but he's chill, and patient, adept socially, ... good at, and content, slacking. Fits in perfectly in a mainstream classroom without a lot of accommodation. (The youngest? Who knows. We'll see, he's only 6).
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
  Your middle kid sounds like how I was. If he really is like I was, then please give him the same enrichment and support as your more difficult eldest. The middle one may have learned to slack and chill out and not rock the boat, but it's still a coping mechanism for a problem that needs support.
  - mlyle 6y ago
    Hey-- thanks for the message. We get it / try -- when he doesn't successfully weasel out of it (he is good at that). The flip-side is, social adaptation/easy-going-ness actually makes it easier for his teachers to challenge him, etc. The oldest reminds me of me, struggles and all. I have to think my middle kid has an easier path of things than I did.
    - xcasperx 6y ago
      I too was the middle kid. Here's my own anecdotal advice: I started slacking in school from about 3rd-9th grade. I found programming between 9th-10th grade during the summer through pretty much sheer dumb luck, timing, and being in the perfect environment. After that, my grades improved, confidence improved, everything improved. The school system may not be able to offer your kid the opportunity they need to really find the inspiration that can kick them into drive. Maybe try to expose them to as many things as you can, and see what clicks? Another thing is how they learn. I learned through modding video games and could see instant results, via changing just a few variables, of what programming could do, and would share these with my friends. This instant gratification and social "confirmation" from my friends, as well as the communities I joined, really pushed me forward. Plus, I really enjoyed it. Shortly after modding video games, I tried getting into creating websites but didn't quite see the instant gratification or have the social "confirmation" to push me as hard as I did with modding video games.
notechback 6y ago
You see a global move towards "inclusive" education which aims to provide opportunities for all levels of performance and background/conditions, including the gifted. Eg Portugal and Norway are impressive reference cases.

DoreenMichele 6y ago

Parents of very gifted kids routinely seek out support groups to help them cope. It's absolutely not all upside. Social challenges are a very big part of the problem.

0x8BADF00D 6y ago
I remember being in one of those “accelerated” programs. If I recall it was for math. I was not in that class for long. It wasn’t that I did poorly in the class, it was the fact that I told the teacher to go fuck herself. Suffice it to say I’ve never been particularly fond of authority figures. As a child you understand inherently that all people are equal. Why should anyone be above anyone else? At least that was how my childish mind perceived it. Hierarchy is something that learned socially.
- 77pt77 6y ago
  >As a child you understand inherently that all people are equal. Why should anyone be above anyone else? At least that was how my childish mind perceived it. Hierarchy is something that learned socially. I remember when I was very young other children saying exactly the opposite and as an adult I've met young children that are very attuned to one's social standing. Also there are strong biological reasons as to why it is highly innate but modulated by culture.
  - Mirioron 6y ago
    I think that it's more about children thinking that everyone is equal in having to keep their word. If you make a promise then you're supposed to keep to it. What often disillusions children is that people in positions of authority often make promises, but don't keep them, yet when it goes the other way around those people will coerce everyone else into keeping the promises to them.
    - bartwe 6y ago
      It's a naive position of someone with a nice upbringing without bullies to show that under the veneer there is suppressed brutality of those willing to use violence.
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  Some gifted kids are especially bad about having strong views about things like justice and morality and equality. It's part of why I'm on parenting blog number three, which isn't exactly catching fire. My stories about raising my sons and my views on such were seemingly popular, at least with a vocal minority, on an email list that was basically a support group for parents of gifted kids (which is why I originally began blogging at all). My oldest was accepted to college at age thirteen. The classes he had tried to sign up for all fell through for different reasons and then he told me he didn't really want to take college classes. He wanted me to keep homeschooling him. I wasn't thrilled. At age 14, he explained Einstein's Theory of Relativity to me, which was helpful to me in understanding some of my college classes. I absolutely wasn't qualified to keep teaching him in some subjects. He already knew more science than I did. But he also has a serious medical condition and a variety of other problems. So I heaved a big sigh and said "Okay. I can't teach you, but I can keep supplying you learning materials for those subjects and I can still teach you in other subjects, like math." So, yeah, there's lots of problems you run into with gifted kids, one of them being that some of them have little tolerance for "idiot adults" who may not know anymore than they do, so they tend to not be very accepting of the idea that adults have some right of authority simply because they are older. "Older and wiser/know more" don't necessarily follow. Edit: Someone asked, then deleted their comment. It's called Raising Future Adults. https://raisingfutureadults.blogspot.com/ https://raisingfutureadults.blogspot.com/ There's not much there currently.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - gorgoiler 6y ago
    How do the strong views about justice and morality typically manifest themselves in a way that’s negative rather than positive? I’m not challenging you on that by the way. I see this too and I think I have a pretty good idea what you mean but didn’t want to second guess what you meant, incorrectly.
    - DoreenMichele 6y ago
      It's not necessarily that it's negative, though it can be. It's just that it's usually socially unacceptable to take a strong moral stand and turn X thing into a hill to die on (especially if you are five, but not only if you are a child). Most people cannot and will not live up to the strict moral standards of some five year old on their high horse. When the five year old screams "The emperor has no clothes and you're a liar!!!!" multiple times per day and will not stop when punished for it, it creates a lot of problems. One of my sons was like that. I homeschooled and I can live up to his expectations for things like fairness and keeping my word. But when adults don't live up to those expectations and they have some tyrannical little would-be civil rights activist on their hands, it sometimes turns abusive because they need the kid to just shut up and give it a rest already and they run out of ideas for how to keep the kid from being a troublemaker. (Alternately, in school, they are constantly in detention or similar.)
- aspenmayer 6y ago
  An innate sense of equality without appreciation of power dynamics can make institutional power and authority figures seem adversarial to a certain kind of precocious mind, perhaps younger ones especially so. Learning should be a journey that instills the value of knowledge as well as the labor to acquire it and transform it into useful and amusing ends. Otherwise, a failure to grasp knowledge itself can create a disdain for the entire enterprise of learning and a kind of self-hating self-sustaining self-induced oppositionally-defiant ignorance. I still love the USA, though.
  - 0x8BADF00D 6y ago
    I too love the USA. I love all Americans, even those whom I disagree with on every axis, but love as people. But I find myself at a crossroads (or at least, what I feel is a crossroads). What should I do next? Should I stay in a country that taxes me without representation of my views? I think Balaji Srinivasan said it best. In political science, you have two options: voice and exit. Voice is protesting what you find intolerable in a system by voting against policies that negatively affect you. Or, there is exit. Exit is leaving that system entirely, such that it amplifies the dissenting voice. I find myself contemplating exit. I'm actually considering an authoritarian state, Singapore, as a place to emigrate to. Because while my views won't be represented, at least they won't tax me for it. I'm almost sort of okay with that.
    - aspenmayer 6y ago
      You’re only chasing safety. To me it seems you feel like a victim of a street robbery. “Your money or your life,” the voice behind you asks, weighing options as you weigh yours. “I’ll take the money, since I’m not overly attached to my current way of life,” you reply confidently, at least you hope that’s how it sounds. The reply sings. You cry, for a part of you just died. If you’re lucky, you’re still clinging to a convincing enough simulacrum of your former life to enjoy whatever money you were able to keep. FIN In all seriousness, I feel like leaving is what everyone else in the country would tell you to do. Anyone who would give up on the experiment of America is foolish to do so. They give up their leverage, power, and credibility in the eyes of their fellow citizens. That may not mean much to you. I’m not saying it should. But if nothing else, throwing in the towel and doing as you say feels like taking your ball and going home. We’re in this together. It’s sink or swim, but a rising tide raises all boats, large and small. The economy isn’t a zero sum game, but most of politics in this country is winner take all, which isn’t far off. Yet change happens here anyway. The best life for you is one where you can live your best life. No one can tell you what that looks like. Hopefully you recognize it when you see it, and it might be a lot closer to home than you realize. But hey it’s your choice either way. There’s no shame in being an expat. I’ve lived overseas and it made me who I am as much as any other thing, and I still like me most days. If you’re lucky the door swings both ways. You can always come back. Just don’t let it hit you on the way out.
- devmunchies 6y ago
  I was transferred to a “gifted” program in 5th grade but I moved back out after a month or 2. It was nice having more rigorous material but it also meant more homework and I was terrible at doing homework. Plus the kids were more dry, less jokes.
  - joejerryronnie 6y ago
    > Plus the kids were more dry, less jokes. Gifted children simply prefer British humour over American humor.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- gorgoiler 6y ago
  Very well said, thank you. For me, the turning point was learning that: (1) hierarchies are a partial order: ones manager is ones superior only at work, and not in all aspects of life. It’s weird if they are. It feels challenging when they are subordinate to you on some other axis (e.g. your manager is younger or less socially popular than you) until this axiom sinks in. Becoming a company man is risky once you’ve learned this because you may end up surrendering yourself to the idea that the company hierarchy is total in all aspects of life. Having the boss round for dinner, bowing and scraping, 1950s stereotypes etc. (2) In a healthy hierarchy power and responsibility go hand in hand. One accepts authority figures in life because they also take responsibility for things working properly. Your manager at work gets to deal with the awkward underperforming colleague, not you. If people gather to you socially, you have a responsibility to bring something positive to their lives. Learning that hierarchies were there to provide a service to me — something which felt counter intuitive for a long time — was eye opening. It does also make you double down on attacking hierarchies where power is wielded irresponsibly.
- non-entity 6y ago
  I was in and out of "gifted programs" for most of my schooling, if you could call them that. A few of the people in there were generally smart, many not so much. Personally I always hated them. Except for a brief program when I was in 4th grade all they were for us was just am increased workload. Me, being the lazy pos I am, just neglected to do any of the extra work and I focused on my own thing. I remember in 4th grade when I was kicked outthe first time transferring from the accelerated class that had me doing boatloads of dull readings and "paper work" in the accelerated clas to the normal class with a much less mind-numbing workload where I had time to work on what I wanted to when because I finished early. Eventually they would realize I'm moving faster than most of the class, stick me in the gifted class and the cycle would repeat up until graduation. When I was a senior I. I recall my senior year one of the kids who was in the giftedprograms their entire schooling asking me if a 23 was a good ASVAB score. Ibrelaize these programs are going to vary depending on your school district, so for context, this was a mostly lower-middle class and middle class suburb of a southeastern metro. I personally dont think I'm very smart, likely average, maybe a little less than I used to be nowadays, but I consider a lot of these programs a sham.
  - proverbialbunny 6y ago
    Yah. I think many of us can relate here. Starting in 2nd grade I started ditching class and going to the computer lab to write code. For some sort of reason my teacher didn't notice I was missing as long as I was in for attendance during first period. She did realize I wasn't turning in any work, so I got put into some sort of special program I never went to. They didn't expect me to come, because I never came, and my teacher expected me to be gone, giving me all the time in the world to do whatever I wanted. I took this trick all the way through high school signing up for programs, or more, stating I was part of programs that would let me ditch classes. However, in 6th grade, the computer lab shared a window with my homeroom, so a substitute teacher made a comment about it. Turns out I had hacked the admin password and was sending mail, in the form of leaving text messages onto the distract administrator's desktop, where we'd chat about all sorts of stuff. The district didn't know what to do with me. Should I be punished? So they changed the admin password, which I immediately broke into, and that was it. I stayed in the computer lab and my homeroom teacher treated that like normal.
- esoterica 6y ago
  You seem to think that sharing that anecdote paints you in a positive light but it really doesn't. It just makes you seem like you haven't matured much since you were a child. I mean really, bragging about how you were hurling expletives at your teachers because you were too smart and enlightened to acknowledge authority figures? Come on. You're very clearly embodying a specific archetype of the socially maladjusted outcast who thinks they keep clashing with other people because they are a misunderstood genius when really they are just difficult and abrasive.
  - dang 6y ago
    No personal attacks in HN comments, please, regardless of how much someone else has matured. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

pfarnsworth 6y ago

My son is profoundly gifted, although he's not in the same league as some of those children described in the study. I absolutely consider him a special-needs child. He's been kicked out of two schools (including a "gifted" school) at this point for his behavior, but it turns out his behavior was because he was profoundly bored. His current school accelerated him by 2 grades and now he's more manageable. He's still bored, but at least he feels like his classmates are more his level, even though he probably needs to skip 1 or 2 more grades to match his academic abilities. I'm loathe to accelerate him further because I worry about emotional well-being, being the youngest kid in the class, but this study has given me food for thought. Thank you OP for posting this.

ttty 6y ago
I'd usually bring my own work at school. I liked to build web application, so I used most of my boring school time to architect them on paper. Then when at home, I could implement it. My teachers bothered me a bit, but I was passing the exams, so they couldn't complain too much. Your kid could have his own little project and do it at school.
leshokunin 6y ago
You haven't mentioned anything outside of school, so have you considered giving him something on the side? I would extrapolate that he's very frustrated he understands something faster than the others, regardless of whether it's a few grades beyond him or not. It's ok for school to be a certain speed. Some hobbies have infinite depth, and aren't inherently limited by the pace of school and the routine of school days. Examples include: games such as Chess / Tetris / Go, literature, learning finance, making things (woodwork, electronics...).

barry-cotter 6y ago

> Once she used this term, it became easier for parents to accept that their children were doing fine in “normal” class, which was quite good anyways because of the average aptitude of the students. Your child could be doing work three grades ahead, learning things that would challenge them and help them grow intellectually. Instead we’ll keep them here with the normal children where at best they’ll learn to shut up and not bother the teacher.

DoreenMichele 6y ago
The GP is talking about competitive parents whose kids aren't genuinely exceptionally gifted. The parents are just looking for bragging rights and/or another edge.
- barry-cotter 6y ago
  Keeping children who’re perfectly capable of doing sixth grade work doing fifth grade work isn’t as bad but it’s still a waste off their time and a lesson in the actual priorities of the school system, which certainly don’t have learning among the top five.
  - DoreenMichele 6y ago
    Some parents don't really have the best interests of their children at heart. "Hot housing" children does not make for better future outcomes. It just deprives children of their childhood.
    - barry-cotter 6y ago
      > "Hot housing" children does not make for better future outcomes. I would welcome any research to that effect if you have it to hand. I am not an expert but if you search gwern.net for “gifted education”, “acceleration” “SMPY” or “Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth” you’ll find many papers on this general topic. There’s nothing there showing negative effects and quite a bit that’s positive.

mlyle 6y ago

Yah. You can be super bright without being in the category that needs all the support and scaffolding. My oldest is super precocious mathematically. And has adjustment problems, impatience, social struggles, etc. Massive but undeveloped sense of justice/fairness that borders on fascism, too. He is doing OK, but... it takes a lot of enrichment and support for him to make it and stay sane. My middle kid is nearly as capable mathematically and stronger verbally... but he's chill, and patient, adept socially, ... good at, and content, slacking. Fits in perfectly in a mainstream classroom without a lot of accommodation. (The youngest? Who knows. We'll see, he's only 6).

6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
Your middle kid sounds like how I was. If he really is like I was, then please give him the same enrichment and support as your more difficult eldest. The middle one may have learned to slack and chill out and not rock the boat, but it's still a coping mechanism for a problem that needs support.
- mlyle 6y ago
  Hey-- thanks for the message. We get it / try -- when he doesn't successfully weasel out of it (he is good at that). The flip-side is, social adaptation/easy-going-ness actually makes it easier for his teachers to challenge him, etc. The oldest reminds me of me, struggles and all. I have to think my middle kid has an easier path of things than I did.
  - xcasperx 6y ago
    I too was the middle kid. Here's my own anecdotal advice: I started slacking in school from about 3rd-9th grade. I found programming between 9th-10th grade during the summer through pretty much sheer dumb luck, timing, and being in the perfect environment. After that, my grades improved, confidence improved, everything improved. The school system may not be able to offer your kid the opportunity they need to really find the inspiration that can kick them into drive. Maybe try to expose them to as many things as you can, and see what clicks? Another thing is how they learn. I learned through modding video games and could see instant results, via changing just a few variables, of what programming could do, and would share these with my friends. This instant gratification and social "confirmation" from my friends, as well as the communities I joined, really pushed me forward. Plus, I really enjoyed it. Shortly after modding video games, I tried getting into creating websites but didn't quite see the instant gratification or have the social "confirmation" to push me as hard as I did with modding video games.

notechback 6y ago

You see a global move towards "inclusive" education which aims to provide opportunities for all levels of performance and background/conditions, including the gifted. Eg Portugal and Norway are impressive reference cases.