For gifted children, being intelligent can have dark implications (2015)
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Re: For gifted children, being intelligent can have dark implications (2015)
#2Quote: "Reed’s entanglements serve as an apt metaphor for the school life of severely gifted children."
Ah, "severely gifted" -- what a meme. What a commentary on the times in which we live. I can imagine psychologists surveying this new frontier with barely concealed joy, in particular now that the DSM is being abandoned.
People need to understand that, in modern times, to avoid one or another mental illness diagnosis, you can't be too smart or too dumb, you can't be hyperkinetic or hypokinetic, you can't be extraordinary in any way. You have to be the very definition of dull and unimaginative. You have to be a psychologist.
Re: For gifted children, being intelligent can have dark implications (2015)
#3Quote: "Reed’s entanglements serve as an apt metaphor for the school life of severely gifted children." Ah, "severely gifted" -- what a meme. What a commentary on the times in which we live. I can imagine psychologists surveying this new frontier with barely concealed joy, in particular now that the DSM is being abandoned. People need to understand that, in modern times, to avoid one or another mental illness diagnos…
It does seem eerily similar to Harrison Bergeron.
Re: For gifted children, being intelligent can have dark implications (2015)
#4Quote: "Reed’s entanglements serve as an apt metaphor for the school life of severely gifted children." Ah, "severely gifted" -- what a meme. What a commentary on the times in which we live. I can imagine psychologists surveying this new frontier with barely concealed joy, in particular now that the DSM is being abandoned. People need to understand that, in modern times, to avoid one or another mental illness diagnos…
I'd say that's why diagnoses are typically a "perfect storm" of otherwise normal conditions. We can probably all say that we've experienced schizoid avoidance patterns. But at some point, for certain people, that condition becomes a part of a larger psychological pattern in which it's considered an illness. Usually because it begins to have an overtly negative impact on the ability to function in society.
The nature of human development just means that we all inherit some level of personality "defect". But psychologists don't view them all as candidates for a diagnosis of mental illness.
Re: For gifted children, being intelligent can have dark implications (2015)
#5Quote: "Reed’s entanglements serve as an apt metaphor for the school life of severely gifted children." Ah, "severely gifted" -- what a meme. What a commentary on the times in which we live. I can imagine psychologists surveying this new frontier with barely concealed joy, in particular now that the DSM is being abandoned. People need to understand that, in modern times, to avoid one or another mental illness diagnos…
The diagnosis criteria for most mental illnesses include that the patient is negatively affected by their specific symptoms.
Or regarding the specific quote, in the context of going to a normal school, "severely gifted" might be the right word for describing these children. If these children are given something meaningful to do in school instead, then the moniker would not be apt.
Re: For gifted children, being intelligent can have dark implications (2015)
#6This resonated with me. Growing up I always felt like an alien around other kids, my mindset was just so different. I put a lot of effort into fitting in though, which I think helped somewhat. Even so, I very nearly dropped out of school and could quite easily have gone down a dark path (likely ending up homeless or in prison or worse). Luckily I went to one of the best public schools in the country and ended up with some pretty good teachers, but I learned as much on my own as I did from school, and had things been different I might have lost patience. As it was I nearly ended up stuck on a remedial track for most subjects on entering High School (due partly to the fact that I just didn't do homework, 20-some years later after discovering that I have ADHD a lot more things make sense). Somehow at 13 I had the maturity to realize I needed to fix that and luckily the school system rewarded my efforts (ultimately I graduated with special honors among a handful of top students in my class, and entered college as a sophomore).
I imagine a lot of other folks who are just as smart as I was but didn't luck out with the same circumstances have been severely let down by the system over the years. Things just aren't setup for people who learn differently, or at a different pace, or have a different form of cognition than the archetypal student that everything is built around. Which ends up ill serving a lot of students across all intelligence levels.
Re: For gifted children, being intelligent can have dark implications (2015)
#7Quote: "Reed’s entanglements serve as an apt metaphor for the school life of severely gifted children." Ah, "severely gifted" -- what a meme. What a commentary on the times in which we live. I can imagine psychologists surveying this new frontier with barely concealed joy, in particular now that the DSM is being abandoned. People need to understand that, in modern times, to avoid one or another mental illness diagnos…
that last sentence :)
Re: For gifted children, being intelligent can have dark implications (2015)
#8luckily not everyone who is smart is necessarily a wreck, but some are. i was too. still am but now i'm a more powerful wreck and some people actually need to listen me.
Re: For gifted children, being intelligent can have dark implications (2015)
#9I was bullied for 8 years in primary school. I made the simple mistake of showing off how much smarter I am than the rest of the class (I was kind of a prick about that, looking at it now), and it was impossible to fix it later. Having visible skin condition, walking around bandaged for months, and asthma had not helped either.
I've learnt how to adjust when I was in hospitals and sanatorium, changing einvironment a few times is great for that. In middle school everything was OK already (also it was much better school, so there were more kids like me there).
I also think being on the receiving end of ostracism is valuable experience (but not for 8 years, a few months would suffice). It works as a vaccine against tribal thinking.
Re: For gifted children, being intelligent can have dark implications (2015)
#10Quote: "Reed’s entanglements serve as an apt metaphor for the school life of severely gifted children." Ah, "severely gifted" -- what a meme. What a commentary on the times in which we live. I can imagine psychologists surveying this new frontier with barely concealed joy, in particular now that the DSM is being abandoned. People need to understand that, in modern times, to avoid one or another mental illness diagnos…
Even 'dull' and 'unimaginative' are outliers. You need to be... beige.