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

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

#181

Post by Konnstann » Fri, May 31, 2019, 1:52 PM UTC

LocalPCGuy wrote: post #61

dougmwne wrote: post #24

I think the central problem here is not asking more of gifted people during early school years. I was pretty disengaged with school before college. It just wasn't challenging enough in the right kinds of ways. I flourished when I got to college since I was finally in an environment with unlimited challenge and rewards. I learned to set my own standards for achievement and be less worried about how I would be judged e…

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.

My gifted program didn't put me into additional classes, just different ones. I was very lazy as a kid, but I took the highest classes possible because the difference in work was negligible but I wouldn't be bored out of my mind in class. I guess I got lucky.

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

#182

Post by shanusmagnus » Fri, May 31, 2019, 1:53 PM UTC

harimau777 wrote: post #155

jshaqaw wrote: post #36

Part of the issue here is defining what it means to “achieve”. I was a gifted child and graduated at the top of my fancy Ivy League university. Did I go on to conquer the world? No. And many days I stress and feel bad about that. But that’s mostly when I allow myself to judge myself by the external validation system of society. Society values a big bank account or fancy awards which is fine. A happy life spent with f…

Personally, my goals are to have an interesting job (i.e. using a modern tech stack), have the resources to pursue my hobbies, and have the autonomy to be eccentric if I want to. However, meeting those goals require a lot of money. This is especially the case since interesting tech jobs, access to niche resources, and tolerance of alternative lifestyles are all associated with living in a large city. Therefore, I fin…

How eccentric do you want to be? What exactly are your hobbies? This doesn't seem very hard to pull off with a pretty middle-of-the-road tech job and living pretty much anyplace, but maybe I'm suffering from a failure of imagination.

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

#183

Post by sanxiyn » Fri, May 31, 2019, 1:53 PM UTC

bitexploder wrote: post #87

vfc1 wrote: post #37

Probably the simplest would be to not designate a child as gifted. It marks them as different, which can act almost like a social stigma. Just let them grow up at their own rhythm, and see what happens. If they are good at school, they can always take online video courses on things that they enjoy. For example, have them take as many courses as they want on https://brilliant.org or Coursera on any topic they like. Le…

One challenge is kids will figure out they are smart all on their own. As a parent you have to almost actively repress the notion in a kid’s head that they are “smart”.

Why? Being smart is good. Why wouldn't you let your kids know?

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

#184

Post by portroyal » Fri, May 31, 2019, 1:53 PM UTC

toyg wrote: post #81

wickoff wrote: post #70

I think that the standards the author is judging herself by are messed up and harmful. She is healthy, married, is raising a child, is an educator, presumably has a good standing within her community. She checks like 9 out of 10 boxes you can judge a human by and yet it's still not enough. What the hell? Does everybody have to excel now? Everybody has to be a millionaire, own a company, be a scientist, athlete or an…

> is an educator > North America Hardly a good box to tick, by most reports.

Your comment is grey and I don't think it should be.

People care so much about being "a good person" while also acknowledging corporate psychopathy and other "bad guys win" scenarios that are so normal to the human existence.

Meanwhile, if you ask an educator about their situation, I'm not sure they'd tick the box. The educators I know are fulfilled by their work, not their work environments.

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

#185

Post by adamnemecek » Fri, May 31, 2019, 1:53 PM UTC

Pxtl wrote: post #29

I went through the gifted program and that's the experience of my peergroup as well, I think. A combination of effortless success in school and ADD left about half of my cohort completely failing in adulthood. There are, of course, some hotshots with PhDs in cool jobs Toronto, but a whole lot of effortlessly brilliant folks just getting by with joe-jobs. While there's nothing wrong with that life, it does speak to ho…

I think that school wasted their potential.

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

#186

Post by humanrebar » Fri, May 31, 2019, 1:55 PM UTC

vagab0nd wrote: post #178

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…

Speaking from my own experience, I think it's very important to have a balanced view of the fact that you are smart. i.e. you shouldn't be ignorant of it. If you "play" competitively in any of the fields, being ignorant of your own strength is a big disadvantage in my opinion.

Yes. Being smart is like being tall. You might as well accept it and be honest about it.

And both are good for your life in direct and indirect ways. But neither guarantee much of anything. So some humility about intelligence is important.

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

#187

Post by peteradio » Fri, May 31, 2019, 1:56 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #117

harryh wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 think the point is that intelligence is a tool. By itself it doesn't get you terribly far (assuming you want to get somewhere). You need to apply it to something diligently. In other words, intelligence is necessary but not sufficient.

That's why it's fucked up to translate these studies into advice saying "don't compliment your kids intelligence".

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

#188

Post by Humdeee » Fri, May 31, 2019, 1:57 PM UTC

ransom1538 wrote: post #126

celticninja wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.

The world needs more good people. The world doesn't need more smart people.

More good people, more smart people, but much less people overall.

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

#189

Post by mcguire » Fri, May 31, 2019, 1:57 PM UTC

vfc1 wrote: post #37

Probably the simplest would be to not designate a child as gifted. It marks them as different, which can act almost like a social stigma. Just let them grow up at their own rhythm, and see what happens. If they are good at school, they can always take online video courses on things that they enjoy. For example, have them take as many courses as they want on https://brilliant.org or Coursera on any topic they like. Le…

One very striking thing I've heard from a friend who went to a gifted school was that it let them have a "normal" childhood. Rather than being "the smart kids", they were just normal in their environment.

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

#190

Post by pdimitar » Fri, May 31, 2019, 1:58 PM UTC

Being smart does not guarantee material success and job/food security.

This is something I finally started comings to terms with at 39. I was one of these kids who was falling asleep in class, pissed the teacher by doing so, had to do a personal exam mid-term and I completed it with A grades everywhere. People envied me for grokking everything easily and being seemingly genius with zero effort.

...Until I went to university and had to work after.

Not gonna repeat the article because it nailed a lot of things exactly right but again, realising that intellect does not strongly correlate with material gain is a mind-blowing revelation I wish I was taught much earlier in my life.