Last year a friend suggested I get my son, Dimitri (names changed to protect identity) tested for giftedness. I knew he was intellectually far far ahead of the kids his age but I had seen gifted kids on Ellen, in the news or YouTube and the vibe I got was (and I may have totally made this up) that their parents were using them to get fame. That's the last thing I wanted to do so I kept pretty quiet about the incredible things my kids were saying and doing. I made an effort to pretend that they were "normal" and to downplay their achievements.But because I'm so enthusiastic about parenting my kids and so fascinated by them it's been hard to stay quiet. I love to watch them learn new skills, new words, new ways of saying things. I love to watch them discover new ideas and suddenly grasp concepts they were too young to grasp just months ago. I'm enthralled by their ability to learn so quickly and their love of learning. So every once in awhile in the company of close friends and family I'd find myself enthusiastically sharing stories about my kids because it's so hard not to! But for the most part I kept quiet about them.
After my friend suggested getting Dimitri tested for giftedness I did a little poking around on Google but what I found confused me. People were talking about how "challenging" gifted kids are and asking where to get a good psychologist for their gifted daughter and talking about their "twice exceptional" child who had dyslexia and dysgraphia. What? I thought a gifted child was simply a child that everything (or at least many things) came easy to! I hadn't experienced any challenges resulting from the giftedness of my children. Why would a gifted child need a psychologist? What the heck did "twice exceptional" mean? Instead of digging deeper for the answers I just figured everyone writing about gifted kids was crazy or that my kids were just a different kind of gifted. The good kind of gifted. So I dropped the subject and moved on.
Months and months later I came across a book at a library that triggered in me a desire to take a second look at giftedness. It was about advocating for your gifted child to help them get the type of education that's right for them. The book answered a lot of my questions and so did a few TEDx talks and some YouTube videos I watched after reading the book. They all served to fill in the gaps for me. There isn't a good gifted and a bad gifted. There is just gifted. Gifties brains simply work differently and that produces "good" outcomes like intense curiosity, a strong memory, ability to learn quickly and feel deeply. It also can result in challenges like boredom, loneliness, depression, perfectionism, extreme criticism of others, and anxiety. These especially occur in situations where the gifted person is bullied and shamed for being different by their family or peers.
Which brings me to why I decided to start this blog. Without support and acceptance gifted children can feel so isolated, so misunderstood, so depressed and lonely that many of them start cutting, abusing substances or in some cases use their abilities to take revenge on those who have hurt them.
This blog is my way of celebrating gifted children. I want to support my little Gifties so that they can find joy in being who they are and have the strength to ignore the haters who would try to shame or isolate them for it. I'm not going to play my kids talents down in an effort to help everyone else feel good about their kids anymore. You should feel good about your kids! Gifties or not. Each child deserves to have their life, loves, and gifts celebrated and that includes our little Gifties.
<3 Ellie
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