Exceptionally gifted children: long-term outcomes of acceleration (2006) [pdf]

Gifted kids can come from all backgrounds. When parent involvement is there and the parents know how the system works and where to find resources, it’s an ocean of opportunity out there.

When parents don’t know the system (immigrants for example), don’t have the luxury of a lot of involvement (work multiple jobs), the asymmetric knowledge/access are now an issue.

Public education is supposed to level that field somewhat and what many are pointing out is a gap through which many gifted students fall through. Then you get behavioral and social problems, as called out in the research.

A better solution is to raise taxes on those rich families, not handicap education.

The reason it's called "Gifted" is because you get born with it, just like your skin color. I didn't choose to have a high IQ. Frankly, with the way people have treated me in life and all the pain I've gone through due to it, I'm not so sure I'd want to be this way. I'm sure you know that feeling.

You want to explain performance differences in racial groups, look at complex trauma and cultural phenomina. Conduct an similar ACE study in the south-side and see what you get.

I think what you're going to find is 50% of the population has generational complex trauma they are trying to escape, and their outcomes would be improved draumatically by specialist intervention and I think one that is done, you are going to find out IQ isn't altogether different between racial groups in a country like the US.

You say that like 100% is some kind of meaningful threshold. It should be a lot more than 100%, for the same reason that spending on growing crops in China is more than 100% of spending on growing crops in Antarctica, or spending on basketball coaching for men who are six feet tall is more than 100% of spending on basketball coaching for men who are four feet tall.

What you are referring to are people with high IQ who are not well socialized and thus develop neuroticism and have emotional instability, which can happen for a variety of reasons but I think it is common among high IQ people and blood lines of high IQ people because of societies inability to understand them.

I was going to post a long tirade (which would've probably traumatized everyone here who read it) as EQ is a particularily onerous topic for me but I think a few short paragraphs will suffice.

In my case, I have high IQ and a near-eidetic memory which means I have what I call a "refactoring imagination"; I could imagine the perfect assembly of a car engine down to each measurement (or a few measurements that would allow me to make accurate guesses of the remainder) then iterate that complex system in my head over and over. That drawing can get put away in the brain and brought back 20 years later if relevant.

Now take a 6 year old child who always has his hand up in the classroom because he's bored, knows the answer from the book after reading it once or what the teacher showed them, and can anticipate what the teacher wants with a high degree of certainty. That child figures everyone else is just like they are is just as bored as they are (because that's the kids think); this goes on for weeks, the teacher becomes bewildered by the other kids (that profoundly gifted child is very good at selling the idea kids are smarter than they actually are to a relatively new teacher who hasn't developed out of that thinking yet) goads them a bit and through no fault of their own, the other kids begin teasing and assaulting him to take out their jealousy.

This snowballs due to an inference pattern of bad situation and that child then becomes what I call "the scapegoat student" for the remainder of their academic schooling.

It takes two parties to make a kid well socialized; the child and society. If society doesn't want to socialize a kid properly, they won't be. The kinds of people who latch on to EQ are the kinds who cannot accept they are "not special" and are also the kinds from whom I derived much abuse.

In the case of primary schools, getting your kid out of that situation requires moving to another district or state because the teachers are there to bring the bottom of society up to a functional level, not to allow the talented and gifted to soar. This produces the incentive, ultimately, to use some students as scapegoats.

The rest of what you mentioned is interesting to me, I'll take the tiem to look into it. Thank you.

During the Iraq War veterans were coming back with PTSD and seeing psychologists and psychiatrists. Some of them had multiple comobidities; depression, anxiety, Bipolar, with the PTSD and were send to get MRI Scans.

What they discovered is there was no brain damage, but certain areas of the brain weren't as developed as they ought to be; they administered ACE tests and found out everyone had high ACE scores. Other studies were done and are being done and are finding evidence of somatization; when you aren't raised right your brain physically doesn't develop properly.

Pick up a copy of the body keeps the score by Van der Kolk, and Complex PTSD from Surviving to Thriving by Pete Walker. Your wife undoubtedly has gastrointestinal issues from her situation and you have your issues (likely over-resorting to fight, flight freeze or fawn responses), those books will help to cure you. I also reccomend seeing a complex trauma specialist even if you don't think you need to.

What you will end up finding out is that there is such a thing as a complex trauma family and trauma tends to be passed down from one generation to the next and become more severe until the blood line just fails. The CDC study on ACE's shows a score of 4 or higher reduces your average life expectancy by 20 years. There have been a few studies correlating high ace scores, specificially sexual abuse victims, and a specific type of rare cancer.

You will also need to go through a few iterations. I've changed tremendously from the person I was to the person I am now, and in that process, ended up completely forgetting my childhood and some of my early adult hood. Couldn't remember grade school teachers names which is not like me. My brain had repressed those memories because they were incompatible with who I am now and as I remember and re-remember them they get integrated and I gain more emotional and mental self-control and become more capible of handling future trauma.

Good Luck.

It was actively hammering me down to average level as that was easier for her to work with.

I had misforntne to meet her later on in middle school - as she was chemistry, not math, teacher by education. Whole class had failing or almost failing grade with her.

We got better teacher next year who managed to teach us 2 years of chemistry in half a year while also following normal curriculum .. and most of the class actually understood it and had fun with it.

I seriously wonder how many children have been permanently hurt by someone so inept, but well - she was a product of her times(communist occupation).

It's not like we know anything with certainty here. AFAIK there is known cause for either condition. Plenty of speculation.

(Of course there is also the overarching American tendency to try and "fix" any person that doesn't fit some predetermined robotic mold.)

The easiest thing is to just be an island. There’s a reason that people like me are called “eccentric”, because too much time in your own company inevitably results in social drift.

Fortunately, I have a partner who - in part resulting from their own childhood obstructions - is incredibly supportive, as well. It chills me to think of all the kids out there who feel trapped in an inscrutable world that doesn't seem to understand them. I like to think putting your words out there helps some.

As to knowledge, it isn’t an ends in itself - but each mote builds a greater whole and reveals hitherto unseen patterns - and those patterns allow inductive and deductive leaps to new hypotheses, which may prove useful.

Sure, that is a smart thing to do. That way, you can always feel superior, if you do not meet intelectual equals in daily life...

(I know, you did not mean that. I was a bit self mocking, whether this was sub consciously a decision for myself, but may apply to you, too?)

Can't speak for the OP, but it's not attitude, it' acknowledging/accepting my own reality and circumstances, and the consequences of that. When people feel threatened by intelligence (or anything), then intelligence becomes "superior". Humans are still animals deep down.

For me, it's my mix of curiosity and logic. If I don't dumb that down people become really uncomfortable. I've only met a handful of people in my life who enjoy their snow globe worlds being shaken. I've developed this dumbed-down mask that I have to wear all the time; mix in some obsessive personality traits-- interactions with people are like walking around with an old, dry wooden stake up the ass. Im very stiff.

Even this simple question is complicated. Are you projecting an attitude because you feel threatened (or you remember how others felt threatened)? Is it an attitude if the OP is being their true self? Is it an attitude if the OP speaks factually about their situation? Is it an attitude when the ego attaches itself to ones words, and did you assume as much?

I generally agree with everything else you said. I think you are touching on intelligence vs wisdom (life experience) in your last paragraph. Can you point out other places on the net where intellectual people congregate?

If anyone who reads this is looking for some online comradery, shoot me an email. username to fastmail. Im working on undoing all the choices I made that created my isolated/independent life.

It's huge in tech too-- plenty of people interview at companies whose names are effectively magic spells which will make them "good enough" for their parents stories to their friends.

And he's sorta right about the travel thing-- you can buy a lot of people's esteem by buying a plane ticket and being coddled by hotels and tour guides for a couple weeks. You can even call it an "adventure" and nobody will correct you. Narcissists are crazy about signalling their status with travel, so children of narcissists tend to hate it for that reason.

That’s the point of hiking. I travel overland almost exclusively, and only fly when there’s absolutely no alternative, and the journey is one of time sensitivity and necessity.

And yes, walking off the beaten track opens your eyes to far more than a beach holiday.

I am nothing but humble in my daily life, and my friends come from all walks of life, but I thought that sharing this experience might be insightful or helpful for some.

The slow/internet is my problem. I'm pretty close to living in the mountains apart from that.

Unfortunately for young gifted people, there is no reciprocity here. It might get better with age and probably varies with location, but as a kid, if you act naturally smart other kids will bully you. If you later act dumb other kids will think you are condescending and will bully you. Either way you learn just to avoid everyone.

You need to give better advice than this to people when they're five, when they actually need it.

I learned early on that being right was no defense, and that no matter what happened I would always be blamed. These were the wrong lessons, but society at large was the wrong teacher, so I guess we're even.

This doesn't stop when we stop being kids. In the so-called "adult" world, people make some of the stupidest decisions imaginable on a daily basis, and refuse to acknowledge any errors in their choices no matter how they're brought up. Helping other people turns out to be an exercise not only in futility, but in masochism as well.

I've been called "justifiably arrogant" in the past. I've been condescending. I've come out the other side, and now basically think of myself as kind of mediocre. I used to look around at how people make much worse decisions than me about the important stuff and feel a little comforted by the idea that at least I'm doing better than them. Now, it just makes me sad, because I realize I kinda suck, but 98% of people make me look good by comparison.

I've learned to "go along to get along" to some extent, with people who don't matter to me. The people who do matter to me are the people with whom I can be honest, because honesty is a great way to get yourself in a lot of social trouble otherwise.

Mostly, what it comes down to, is that basically everybody sucks, smart or not, and everybody wants to believe "My shit doesn't stink." There's a grave injustice afoot when someone actually has a good idea, by way of applying some native intelligence and learned rationality to a problem, and gets punished for it, though -- and native intelligence helps people realize they're getting burned at the stake over someone else's superstitions, thus making "smart kids" bitter, dismissive, and lonely.

I'm generalizing a lot. Exceptions abound.

As to experience, I have lived what feel like many lifetimes - I have loved and been loved (I’m married to a woman who challenges me, and I wouldn’t have it any other way), I’ve had the most spectacular pain, emotional and physical - the senseless deaths of dear friends, severe and life-threatening illnesses (writing a will at 26 thinking it’ll be needed imminently is a bag of laughs), I’ve lived in abject penury, while desperately trying to keep the lights on for my sister, after our parents split and both absconded, leaving us alone in the U.K. at 17 and 11, respectively. I took a life, accidentally, as a young child, and it haunts me still. I could create life, but I won’t, as I carry a fistful of genetic disease. Hour-long? You’re not trying ;)

I’m working on leaving behind my baggage, but like The Luggage it does rather like to follow me - therapy is helping, and this is actually part of it - I am under instructions to talk about this stuff, openly and honestly, and to see that people aren’t as judgmental as the wounded child within believes.

As to travel - slow travel opens the mind to so many possibilities, so many ways of living, what matters to people, how they differ, how they’re the same. The scenery is just the backdrop for the infinite theatres of human experience.

Oh, and I absolutely am insecure. Confidence oozes from my ears, as far as others are concerned, but inside its little but doubt, guilt, and shame.

Anyway. Thanks. I really do appreciate the reply.

I find being stoned out of my gourd is a good way to slow myself down enough that I don’t find myself bored and frustrated. Typical, I know.

I do have a circle, but they really are scattered to the winds - and I think that works, as they’re similar in their lack of desire to spend too much time with people. I’m happily married to a woman who I think might actually be smarter than me, although her education was poor - but she doesn’t put me on a pedestal, and has no bones with telling me I’m wrong. It’s incredibly refreshing. I feed her knowledge, she feeds me ideas, and together we achieve things.

You say it’s a pleasure when someone makes an inductive leap, but I find that it usually pisses people off - instead, I leave one ear listening for anything unexpected in what they’re saying, let them say their piece while I delve through the topic with the rest of my attention, and then respond - although I do catch myself far too often finishing people’s thoughts, still - speech is just so slow.

As to the “soft” side of things - I was the CTO and sales lead at my business until I ran out of novel problems to solve, and left, as we’d built a self-sustaining machine - sold tens of millions of pounds of our software over the years, and it was my shoulder clients would want to cry on, as part of my curse is understanding people far too damn well - hence my analogy to lightbulbs, insulting as it may be - the psychology of others is generally predictable, en masse or singularly. I also write fiction, which to my shock and surprise got published late last year. Like most of my output, I saw it as no damn good - but apparently people like it enough to pay money for it. Bizarre.

Anyway - I appreciate the input!

There weren't enough "gifted" people around for the numbers to work out for #1. During my whole time, I was aware of one other student skipping a grade and only a handful taking classes from the next grade up. The closest I got in a school setting was one elective AP class in high school.

I only skipped two grades, going from older to average to younger. I could see a larger age gap being different for socialization, but not with regards to bullying - there is no gain from beating on someone that's much smaller.

100% agree that it's way, way better than the current state of the art which seems to me to basically be "as long as they aren't causing trouble, we're happy to have them bored in class and pulling up our standardized testing results..."

Each family is unique and spending more time with a tutor or parent is not always the best. There are ~7.5m reports for abuse of children in the US annually and ~65k cases of sexual abuse of children. There are ~75m children in the US total. Each one of those cases, horrible as they are, are real and society needs to take them into account. It's nearly 10% of kiddos that get abuse reported annually. Digging into these grim statistics is very worthwhile. [0] Hand-waving them off is not helpful or realistic to most educators, parents, or policy makers.

I'm not saying that larger or smaller classes are more or less ideal or that abuse is related to stoicism or families. I am saying the solution is unique to each child and that many solutions exist simultaneously. Each family and each person is unique.

[0] https://americanspcc.org/child-abuse-statistics/

EDIT: Another post on HN pointed to some of pg's comments on parenthood here: https://www.unclepaul.io/

I remember when I was very young other children saying exactly the opposite and as an adult I've met young children that are very attuned to one's social standing.

Also there are strong biological reasons as to why it is highly innate but modulated by culture.

It's part of why I'm on parenting blog number three, which isn't exactly catching fire. My stories about raising my sons and my views on such were seemingly popular, at least with a vocal minority, on an email list that was basically a support group for parents of gifted kids (which is why I originally began blogging at all).

My oldest was accepted to college at age thirteen. The classes he had tried to sign up for all fell through for different reasons and then he told me he didn't really want to take college classes. He wanted me to keep homeschooling him.

I wasn't thrilled. At age 14, he explained Einstein's Theory of Relativity to me, which was helpful to me in understanding some of my college classes. I absolutely wasn't qualified to keep teaching him in some subjects. He already knew more science than I did.

But he also has a serious medical condition and a variety of other problems. So I heaved a big sigh and said "Okay. I can't teach you, but I can keep supplying you learning materials for those subjects and I can still teach you in other subjects, like math."

So, yeah, there's lots of problems you run into with gifted kids, one of them being that some of them have little tolerance for "idiot adults" who may not know anymore than they do, so they tend to not be very accepting of the idea that adults have some right of authority simply because they are older. "Older and wiser/know more" don't necessarily follow.

Edit: Someone asked, then deleted their comment. It's called Raising Future Adults.

https://raisingfutureadults.blogspot.com/

There's not much there currently.

I still love the USA, though.

(1) hierarchies are a partial order: ones manager is ones superior only at work, and not in all aspects of life. It’s weird if they are. It feels challenging when they are subordinate to you on some other axis (e.g. your manager is younger or less socially popular than you) until this axiom sinks in. Becoming a company man is risky once you’ve learned this because you may end up surrendering yourself to the idea that the company hierarchy is total in all aspects of life. Having the boss round for dinner, bowing and scraping, 1950s stereotypes etc.

(2) In a healthy hierarchy power and responsibility go hand in hand. One accepts authority figures in life because they also take responsibility for things working properly. Your manager at work gets to deal with the awkward underperforming colleague, not you. If people gather to you socially, you have a responsibility to bring something positive to their lives.

Learning that hierarchies were there to provide a service to me — something which felt counter intuitive for a long time — was eye opening. It does also make you double down on attacking hierarchies where power is wielded irresponsibly.

Going backward 12 grade, AP calculus, english lit, programming (mostly self study), auto mechanics (elective), physics. 11th grade applied math, english lit, programming, American history, 9th grade geometry and proofs, yearbook (which taught me how big a project is, how to layout a book, how many students coast, there were basically 3 of us that did 85% of the work), world history, student store (learned what it's like to have co-workers and a job and responsibilities like showing up to school 45 mins early to run the store in the morning), I'm not going to fill it all the way back to kindergarten but is school different now?

I didn't grind out paperwork in 8th grade. I took German, Chemistry, Writing/English, Geography, Typing (yea that was a thing), Algebra

The flip-side is, social adaptation/easy-going-ness actually makes it easier for his teachers to challenge him, etc.

The oldest reminds me of me, struggles and all. I have to think my middle kid has an easier path of things than I did.