I Grew Up Gifted, but My Life Didn’t Turn Out the Way I Expected
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 very smart. The main purpose is to teach them there are things they aren’t good at and have to work at, and even small improvements in BJJ can feel like huge wins. My motivation and reason is very similar to the authors. Everyone always told me how smart I was, and wondered why I didn’t succeed academically. It’s because it was too easy and I was already “smart” so why bother? I started building software professionally at 19 and moved away from home. My first few years away from home were hard as I had to learn life skills like “focus” heh. Anyhow, that is my story time about kids and being smart. FWIW, my 7 year old came home one day recently and said “I think I am smart. I can read books the fourth graders do....” heh. I just told her “good, but it doesn’t matter. Just enjoy the books” she really thought I would be proud she is smart, and of course we are, but “smart” can set you up for a hard time finding fulfillment later on in life.