Were you a gifted child?

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Gaffer Gragz
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09 Feb 2021, 2:21 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:

You're an autodidact, Firemonkey. You don't get those high IQs for nothing.....

Have you thought about taking university courses? It's never too late. I hear about people graduating in their 80s.

I was going to say the same. Go for it.

Not that I did get many O levels??? I did get mostly F's, a few E's. (I think that's how it relates between US and Norway but get unsure ). And I'm certainly, not on any scale, close to 150

Anyway, to the point, I'm 50 and I will as soon as my burnout-condition get less oppressive seek out university opportunities heading for field work in biology/ecology. Well I do hope

Leahcar
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09 Feb 2021, 2:48 pm

I am not gifted; in fact I am the opposite as someone intellectually disabled. But any time I could for some reason do something to an average level, I was showered with praise like I was gifted at it.
It was patronising and part of why I am a perfectionist now.

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kraftiekortie
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09 Feb 2021, 2:50 pm

It's really not good that people patronize you and are condescending to you.

For some reason, I don't sense you are "intellectually disabled" at all. I'm wondering if this was a label put on you as a child, and a label you can't get rid of?

kraftiekortie
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09 Feb 2021, 3:07 pm

We don't have "O-levels" in the US. At least in NY State, one has to pass 5 "Regents exams" with a 55% score (maybe that's gone up to 65%) in order to graduate high school. That's probably quite equivalent to O-levels.

There's no such thing as an "E" grade in the US----except in elementary school, where it means "excellent."

We have A (plus and minus), B (plus and minus), C (plus and minus), D (plus and minus), and F (failure). At times, we use number grades in lieu of letter grades. At times, there are "pass and fail" courses.

firemonkey
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09 Feb 2021, 3:53 pm

Leahcar wrote:

A good and inspirational young woman with learning disability (UK usage).

https://twitter.com/ciarale01

Gaffer Gragz
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10 Feb 2021, 4:29 am

Gaffer Gragz wrote:

kraftiekortie wrote:

You're an autodidact, Firemonkey. You don't get those high IQs for nothing.....

Have you thought about taking university courses? It's never too late. I hear about people graduating in their 80s.

I was going to say the same. Go for it.

Not that I did get many good grades. I did get mostly D+'s, a few D-'s. (I think that's how it relates between US and Norway, still unsure ). And I'm certainly, not on any scale, close to 150

Anyway, to the point, I'm 50 and I will as soon as my burnout-condition get less oppressive seek out university opportunities heading for field work in biology/ecology. Well I do hope

Edit: general miscomprehensions corrected re kraftiekortie. Thanks m8

Mona Pereth
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14 Feb 2021, 5:42 am

Aspie1 wrote:

My message to any "gifted" (read: cursed) kid reading this: NEVER LET YOUR FAMILY FIND OUT YOU'RE SMART. You will turn into a disembodied report card in their eyes.

I disagree. In my case, being considered gifted enabled me to attend a specialized high school (Bronx HS of Science) where I was able to avoid the bullies, for the most part.

The advantages/disadvantages of being known as "gifted" probably vary quite a bit depending on one's family and one's locale.

In the long run, doing well academically, and then attending college and doing well there, especially in STEM subjects, is good for one's longterm ability to earn a living, other factors being equal.

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magz
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14 Feb 2021, 5:46 am

One of the things my parents did right about my upbringing was not caring for my grades but supporting my love for science itself.

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jimmy m
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14 Feb 2021, 7:24 am

I don't know if I would use the worded gifted. I would say that in some areas I am off the charts and in other areas I am at the bottom of the chart.

There was a girl who was the same age as my daughter who graduated from high school. She was the one that received a full ride to college (all expenses paid). Her parents pushed her to the limit, all through grade school and through high school. She was a perfectionist. When she got into college, she crashed and burned. She didn't even make it through the first semester. The pressure was too great.

One of my daughters made it through elementary, junior high school and high school with all straight "A". When she went off to college, I pulled her aside and told her - "D" is for Diploma. I wanted to impress in her that she didn't need to be perfect in order to graduate. She is a medical doctor today.

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kraftiekortie
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14 Feb 2021, 7:27 am

Excellent idea, Jimmy...but one must get at least a C average to graduate college.

But you really did the right thing. I take things too literally.

jimmy m
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14 Feb 2021, 7:53 am

kraftiekortie wrote:

Excellent idea, Jimmy...but one must get at least a C average to graduate college.

But you really did the right thing. I take things too literally.

As I recall, she did get a couple "B's" in college. Otherwise all "A's". But the point to the story was she did not Crash and Burn as a result.

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firemonkey
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14 Feb 2021, 11:40 am

Mona Pereth wrote:

Aspie1 wrote:

My message to any "gifted" (read: cursed) kid reading this: NEVER LET YOUR FAMILY FIND OUT YOU'RE SMART. You will turn into a disembodied report card in their eyes.

My stepmother went there.

SharonB
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16 Feb 2021, 2:36 pm

jimmy m wrote:

...Her parents pushed her to the limit, all through grade school and through high school. She was a perfectionist. When she got into college, she crashed and burned. She didn't even make it through the first semester. The pressure was too great.

Did she return to college or not? My nephew received pressure and flunked out and didn't go back. As a counter point, my mom didn't receive external pressure nor did she pressure me, but we both crashed and burned initially in college (after one year for her, after one semester for me). I think it was the undiagnosed-ASD-living-independently-without-support issue. We both went back after a year and completed college. Perhaps we went back b/c it was on our own terms, without that outside pressure. We adjusted our expectations, got help and did it.

kraftiekortie
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16 Feb 2021, 2:38 pm

I have a nephew who flunked out of college.....then went back to community college.....then went back to a 4-year college....and still graduated when he was 23.

firemonkey
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16 Feb 2021, 8:09 pm

SharonB wrote:

I think it was the undiagnosed-ASD-living-independently-without-support issue.

That really hit home for me. One thing I obsessed over after taking my O levels was how I'd cope with the non academic side of university life if I got the A level grades to go. It was a constant worry which I definitely think played a part in my developing severe mental illness. I was young for my age when it came to independent living skills, and knew I wouldn't be able to cope.

Back then ,1975/1976, there was nothing like the help and support there is now. You were either bright enough or not bright enough to go to uni. I never made it to uni.

Dial1194
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05 May 2021, 2:45 pm

diagnosedafter50 wrote:

Dial1194 wrote:

Eh... hard to say. When I went through school, a lot of the 'gifted' programs were very crude things. I got into a couple based (presumably) on good grades, and did well (if not spectacularly) enough to be part of the wallpaper. From what I gathered - hampered somewhat by my lack of networking - they were marginally less boring than the regular academic streams. I don't think we ever got taught any additional subjects; presumably it was just faster or more in-depth.

In my personal life, I didn't have any particularly intellectual or academic hobbies, other than being hyperlexic. For a while, I was the neighborhood go-to kid for configuring or un-screwing anything electronic, but it's not like I had a soldering iron and a knowledge of circuits.

Other stuff? I dunno. I wrote memory-optimization configuration files for the family PC in the mid-80s so it was capable of running some of the games of the time. Wired up an extended parallel-port cable and rigged up a home network that ran through the ceiling. Nothing exactly groundbreaking.

Were the books you read fiction, that helps problem solving skills?
"

Quite a lot of fiction, yes. Mostly SF where I could get hold of it, some fantasy, some fairy tales, Enid Blyton-type stuff, and a bunch of reference works (mostly to do with language, but also encyclopedias etc). I'd also read the newspaper, manuals for everything, and anything else I could get my hands on, as the internet of the time was something that universities had but hardly anyone else did. Surprisingly, I read little in the way of classic literature, even though there was quite a lot of it in the house. Possibly because it was heavy going at that age, even for me.

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