forum former gifted kid chat
Started by @croccin-champagne
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people_alt 75 followers

@Pickles group

In kindergarten, someone stabbed me with a pencil and told me I was going to die in like an hour from lead poisoning and everything was all downhill from there

@Brooklyn_Is_Here

I vaguely remember accidently being stabbed by a pencil in like 6th and I had to wait until everyone stopped singing in music class. I raised my hand, pencil still in my arm while blood was dripping down, to ask to go to the nurse. And then you know what happens from there

Also the bitch who slammed my finger into a locker in first grade
Fuck you, my middle finger is now abnormally shaped

@Althalosian-is-the-father book

Also as much as I hate standardized testing, I'm really fucking good at it

Ew same

I mean, I kind of enjoy taking them but I hate them on principle because they don't include other types of learning
I'm predominantly an auditory learner (secondarily a visual one), what about y'all?

Visual, but conceptual. So GIFs might be great, but a slideshow is eh. Also if I can talk through it (like arguing). Plus hand's on.

@RedTheLoveless

Sup, I was the Do It All Kid. Straight A's in all of my classes. AP courses. First chair clarinet in band. Soccer and Track. I was in line to be Valedictorian or Salutatorian. I was going strong up until the second half of my Junior year.

So what happened? What broke me? Some of you already know, since you were there when it happened. It was the decline of my mother's health. She was fighting a terminal illness, and my usual repression tactic wasn't enough to keep me afloat. I slowly spiraled into a situational depression as time went on and as her condition continued to decline–and so did my school "talent". It was all downhill from there. I'm still wrestling with the feeling of grief. I've long since realized that this feeling will never leave me, the pain will simply lessen over time, but the ingrained sadness and anger will always remain.

Now while in college, I complete just enough work to keep a steady C average while using my saved time to maintain my mental health.

@Max_Miracle_DroppedMostOfTheirRPs

OMG MY PEOPLE
I’m just a GT kid and everyone assumes we’re really smart but all of us are tired and hate school. In elementary school we were actually pretty smart but now we’re all either depressed, gay, procrastinators or all of the above. I am all of the above
My parents use “but you’re so smart” in like every argument and it pisses me off :/
Yeah I’m just a big dumb GT kid who used to be really awesome in everything but math (curse my gayness)

@HighPockets group

My parents use “but you’re so smart” in like every argument and it pisses me off :/

>:( my parents do that too

I can't even make a self-depreciating joke without my parents going "but you're so smart!!!"

@ElderGod-Icefire

I am the "you're too smart for this" variety of gifted kid. I was home-schooled until 7 grade, and then in 7 grade i was definitely a big fish in a tiny pond. Cue highschool, ninth grade. I got all A's first semester, but I burned out and struggled to retain B's in the second semester, and my grabdes have since then hovered around B's and C's, which isn't that bad, but makes my parents angry because I'm "smarter than that"

@ElderGod-Winter-The-Renegade-Legionnaire book

Hello people who know my struggles
I was the kid who was in all the GT/GATE classes, but science and English were the ones I gravitated to. For the last 5 years, I have scored a perfect score on the English and science portions of standardized testing. Which is something. I'm strange because I associate colors to words, and music, and I associate numbers to science. But it works for me. I have a photographic memory when it comes to english, for example, novels. Yeah that tiny detail that I thought was intriguing, it's on page 23 line 8 from the top, left page. But math is a whole different story. I have get to find something to associate it to, so it's harder for me to focus. My mother is always on me for not making all A's, but my dad could care less. Recently I took first place over all in sculpture for teen talent, and second place over all with my trio for music. I played the flute while my male counter part played clarinet, and my female counter part played cello. It was fantastic. But I get the "you're so smart, you should do better" talk all the time, and it's hard to tell parents that you can't go any further because you've reached your limit.

@jupiter-sun-of-sweater-town group

I am the "you're too smart for this" variety of gifted kid. I was home-schooled until 7 grade, and then in 7 grade i was definitely a big fish in a tiny pond. Cue highschool, ninth grade. I got all A's first semester, but I burned out and struggled to retain B's in the second semester, and my grabdes have since then hovered around B's and C's, which isn't that bad, but makes my parents angry because I'm "smarter than that"

I used to be near the top of my class and had all As, but I've been struggling to maintain that lately. In an effort to prove that I have worth, I am forcing myself to only gets As and feel awful if I get anything lower. Yay, low self-esteem!

@ElderGod-Winter-The-Renegade-Legionnaire book

I am the "you're too smart for this" variety of gifted kid. I was home-schooled until 7 grade, and then in 7 grade i was definitely a big fish in a tiny pond. Cue highschool, ninth grade. I got all A's first semester, but I burned out and struggled to retain B's in the second semester, and my grabdes have since then hovered around B's and C's, which isn't that bad, but makes my parents angry because I'm "smarter than that"

I used to be near the top of my class and had all As, but I've been struggling to maintain that lately. In an effort to prove that I have worth, I am forcing myself to only gets As and feel awful if I get anything lower. Yay, low self-esteem!

That's no way to live. Good grades are not worth having low self-esteem. Set your expectations high, and reward yourself when you reach them, but give yourself room to be human.

@ccb group

for all of elementary school, i was the “good across the board” kid, becuase i think i was really good at getting the basics down. i went to private school my whole life until university, so there was no official gifted program, but in like 1st-2nd grade, i was always given more advanced books, more advanced math homework, etc. i coasted for a long time, and never truly studied for a test until like 5th or 6th grade, but at some point, being “good at arithmetic” and “good at spelling” sort of stop being accomplishments. when i got to middle school and i had to study, i had never learned how to, so i went from a straight a math student to a pretty average math student, but i was still good enough at arts and humanities to keep that overachiever/gifted-kid mentality and put a wild amount of pressure on myself, and my parents put a wild amount of pressure on me too (they constantly made me feel like unless i did well, i was a financial burden, even though they were the ones who had sent me to private school my whole life). i also only ever let myself enjoy things that i was “good” at, so for instance, even though i was interested in science, i convinced myself at some point in high school that i “wasn’t a science kid” and stopped applying myself in my science classes so i wouldn’t have to face the terrifying ordeal of actually trying and still not being perfect, but getting bad grades still stressed me out so i couldn’t just ignore those classes entirely. then at some point in high school, i guess when my mental illness really reached a boiling point, i just burnt out completely when it came to caring about grades, and so did my parents, because i think they finally started to understand the psychological toll their expectations took on me. i’m studying english and film theory in college now, and i do genuinely love those things, and it’s kind of a relief for me to know that my grades are a lot better when i only take classes i’m “good” at. but i can’t help but wonder how much better off i’d be if i’d grown up with a healthier attitude towards grades. like now, when i have to take a science gen ed, i strive for the bare minimum, but what if someone had taught me how to study for those classes before i had a complete mental breakdown, or helped me realize earlier that needing to work at something doesn’t make me stupid? idk man. the “gifted kid” label can be incredibly harmful, which i’m sure you’re all well aware of.

has anyone here seen the movie 3 idiots? it kind of grapples with this ultra-competitive education style that privileges Being The Best over learning for your own enrichment. plus it’s one of my favorite movies and it was the first bollywood film i ever saw :’)

@Oakiin

Yeah hi i've been told my entire life by everyone around me that I'm really smart and super advanced and my favorite teacher said I was one of the smartest students he's ever taught, and yep i feel dumb like always, I get flustered, I can't say anything worth anything, and I think I'm terribly annoying. I'm constantly competing with my siblings, even though I know there's no reason to, I feel like I'm the dumbest of the bunch
Not sure if this exactly counts, but here she be

@Kylie_has_writers_block group

I was the flavor of gifted kid who has always had a mature mind and was at least ok at most things (also the involuntary teacher's pet). I learned to walk, talk, and read at a really early age and at age 3 I told my mom that I didn't think Santa was real because it was impossible for him to get to every house. Anyways, school and test taking has always been really easy for me and I was put in the gifted program at my public school at an early age. Because I was socially awkward but still smart and polite, I was always the teacher's favorite. But as I got older, I realized that I wasn't really passionate about any one thing and I had problems applying myself because things had come to me naturally. It's hard for me to do things that I'm not good at now because I'm not used to it and I pressure myself. I still do good in school, but I don't know what I what to go to college for, feel like I haven't developed proper life skills, and have missed several big opportunities because I didn't follow through.
(Also, I have had general and social anxiety from a very young age so I put too much pressure on myself and had bad self esteem issues.)

@Max_Miracle_DroppedMostOfTheirRPs

I’m just now realizing one of my major issues is with being a GT kid, I was always kind of taught that intelligence and talent always stayed on the same level, or at the very least, people who had more natural talent would always be ahead. I think that’s why I can’t commit to things if I’m not naturally good at them, I feel like I’ll never be anywhere close to good enough. So I’ve quit on a lot of things, especially if I do put in effort and it doesn’t yield results.

@HighPockets group

I didn't realize how many of my characters were former/current Gifted Kids (or are by their setting's standards/equal or would be considered such if they lived in our setting)