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I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

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Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#241

Post by dugluak »

chrisweekly wrote: post #43
duxup wrote: post #18

The education system provides fairly clear and predictable paths to affirmation, success, and a sort of grade based people ranking system. Life outside that system often very much does not. Everyone has to come to terms with it at some point. I can understand how for someone who school makes a strong impression on them it can be a real struggle without what was such a clear and predictable system.

Agreed. Education has two complementary goals: 1. content curriculum (body of knowledge) 2. learning curriculum (how to learn) The latter is more subtle, and IMHO doesn't receive the attention it deserves.

I'd like to add a 3rd thing, which is learning how to start something and try to do whatever it takes to finish it with constraints decided by someone else. Most likely you will be doing the similar thing for your entire life after getting out of college like starting some project or a task at work and trying to finish it whether you like it or not.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#242

Post by jdefr89 »

harryh wrote: post #85
S_A_P wrote: post #17

One of the first articles I remember reading on HN was back in 2009. The gist of the article was that you shouldn’t praise your kids for being smart, praise them when they work hard. Rewarding hard work will better serve them in the long run since being smart will plateau at some point. I have a 9 and 11 year old and I still bristle a little bit when my mom says y’all are so smart.

Be careful relying on studies in this area. The "growth mindset", like much of psychology over the last several decades, is subject to the replication crisis. At the very least, the size of the effect is almost certainly quite small.

I am not sure there is one sure fire way to teach kids. Each one is an individual. What works on one child may fail horribly in another. I think that is what we ultimately try to ignore. We want to simplify everything and say we need x or y. When in reality its that this kid needs x and that child y. But doing that is more work, people are lazy. Always looking for instant gratification. I know I have fallen victim to that myself.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#243

Post by bitexploder »

abledon wrote: post #231
bitexploder wrote: post #74

One of the worst things you can do, as a parent, is tell your kid they are smart. I have two kids and one of them is obviously “gifted”. The other is still pretty far ahead. Smart is a bad word in my house. Gifted is not something that is ever uttered. We (as parents) work very hard to instill a sense of hard work, effort, and purpose into our kids lives. They do BJJ, a martial art that is very hard, even if you are…

I was browsing reddit and noticed lots of people complaining about persisting injuries from practicing BJJ. Do they handle youth BJJ differently to protect from these types of risks?

For small kids they are just so ridiculously resilient and light. Injury rates before teenage years is very low in my experience. They also only go 2-3 times / week maximum and the coaches keep the training intensity moderated in the younger kid's classes. This matters a lot.

As an adult, I won't lie, BJJ hurts some times. Common injuries are finger/hand/foot/toe injuries. You will definitely get bumps and bruises, some times significant ones, but that is no factor usually. If you aren't in good shape you are at more risk. It kept me away from the practice for a long time, but... you modulate your own BJJ experience as an adult. Go less frequently and choose the right school, it is a journey like anything else. I personally have subluxated my ribs once (really only stopped me from doing BJJ, I could still run/lift), but it really hurt, and my fingers and toes definitely feel it some days, but nothing that required a doctor yet. The up side is... it is one of the most amazing things I have ever done. It keeps my ego in check. It is as intensely technical as you want it to be. It is like the merging of an ultimate nerd and fitness hobby into one martial art / sport.

It is a legit martial art. If you start training seriously, I think it requires a serious training focused on improving your strength and muscle mass for injury resistance as well.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#244

Post by jdefr89 »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #91

They called me gifted as a kid. Tested at a genius level IQ (not that it matters). I barely passed high school. I started my first company while in it. I dropped out of my engineering programming. I was teaching other students about computers and was running a business on the side. I am not someone who follows the rules well. My sibling is the polar opposite, they have three Ivy League degrees. They were top 3% of th…

Very similar situation. But we are kind of the exception. I just happened to start loving programming/hacking around 6th grade. I spent all my time doing that, mostly sometimes in secret to avoid being viewed as a 'nerd'. Although it paid off, I am just lucky my interest was what happens to be flourishing at the time.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#245

Post by LocalPCGuy »

0815test wrote: post #134
LocalPCGuy wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who was put into "additional classes" because of being labeled gifted, asking them to do more work isn't always the right answer. I felt like it was a punishment, basically more (boring) school work, and (as a kid) the best way to deal with that was to disengage further.

It's not supposed to be a punishment at all! If anything, the whole policy of "challenging" gifted kids is something that should be done in an unusually benevolent way, since the whole point is to visibly teach them that it's okay to fail at something that's especially difficult (particularly when they're just starting out on that task); and that good things can come out of failure, provided that it's followed by foc…

Exactly, when I was in elementary school, it was basically an additional class, that took me out of regular class time which then meant in addition to the extra class work, I had to also catch up on the regular class information, assignments, etc. that other kids had class time to learn/work on.

It was well intentioned, just not super well thought out I think. Also keep in mind that my perceptions are filtered through many years at this point, so take them with a bit of a grain of salt.

Middle school and beyond were a bit better, as you just ended up in more advanced classes (i.e. advanced Math).

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#246

Post by sriku »

S_A_P wrote: post #17

One of the first articles I remember reading on HN was back in 2009. The gist of the article was that you shouldn’t praise your kids for being smart, praise them when they work hard. Rewarding hard work will better serve them in the long run since being smart will plateau at some point. I have a 9 and 11 year old and I still bristle a little bit when my mom says y’all are so smart.

I resonate with the bristling too and the struggle to determine when to appreciate is a daily affair due to the kids' diverse activities. My six year old experimented with somersaulting on rings today, barely did anything to start with and then worked it to routine in just a day during a holiday break when he articulated a series of variations at the end. Hard work at play! I don't even know whether to say anything. Don't want to spoil it.

As for myself, I didn't consider myself gifted or intelligent though folks around me seemed to .. but mostly because they had no idea how much work I actually put in .. even just academically. So when I faced the same situation described in the article about facing peers also on top, I was rejoicing and enjoying it instead of despairing as seems to be a pattern. I attribute the main difference to an event that disconnected me from seeking external approval.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#247

Post by jdefr89 »

polote wrote: post #82
imtringued wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay but what does that have to do with the article? Just by reading the title you should know that the author was diagnosed as gifted during childhood and the problems only started manifesting in early adulthood. Your hypothesis doesn't apply here.

Because the article basically assumes that all gifted people are like her. And that being gifted is not so much an asset. Which is statically wrong. But there is a category of gifted people, and the girl in the article probably belongs to it, which considers that being gifted is so bad and that people who say the opposite just don't understand what being gifted is. I'm gifted and I have no issue with that, like said…

I believe the name for what you're trying to describe is called "clinicians error" or something like that? I see your point. But I think the article speaks to the idea that most people equate being gifted with 100% success. When in fact, like anything else, there are no guarantees.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#248

Post by noir_lord »

AllegedAlec wrote: post #51
S_A_P wrote: post #17

One of the first articles I remember reading on HN was back in 2009. The gist of the article was that you shouldn’t praise your kids for being smart, praise them when they work hard. Rewarding hard work will better serve them in the long run since being smart will plateau at some point. I have a 9 and 11 year old and I still bristle a little bit when my mom says y’all are so smart.

It's what Pratchett said: “If you trust in yourself... and believe in your dreams... and follow your star... you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

I've always liked :-

> Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working. - Picasso

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#249

Post by dugluak »

adamnemecek wrote: post #233
dugluak wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's the reality of life and part of learning as well. Most of us don't get the luxury of doing things on our own schedule or terms. Usually the schedule is decided by someone else, like the customer or the boss or whoever is paying you.

Maybe the reason you don't have the luxury is because the school never gave you the luxury so you didn't have the opportunity to work out something to retain it.

all I am saying is, the ability to do something with constraints that are out of your control, is a skill that needs to be learned.

Re: I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected

#250

Post by maxerickson »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #239
bradleyjg wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hypothesis that at least in the US smart people that want to continue with the same sort of “do the work you are assigned and be rewarded” become doctors. There are entrepreneurial paths in medicine but an excellent student that wants to can go from medical school to a residency, followship, and then a hospital position and earn enough to be in the 1% without ever needing to fight for it in the office politi…

The majority of US doctors have huge student loan debts for many years, they either must go into a specialty to pay them off quickly, or remain middle-class for years as primary care, pediatrics, geriatrics, and many other needed specialties are under-remunerated.

This is a popular story, but really they stop taking on debt at about 30 and pay it off, easily, by 45.

Around here you can live a nice lifestyle for ~$40,000. Early career primary care physicians have a gross of something like $120,000...

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