Disclaimer.
I am not a child psychologist, a psychiatrist, or an educator. I have no training whatsoever in child psychology barring one or two classes I took in preparation for an abortive attempt at being a schoolteacher. I am, however, a loudmouth with an exaggerated opinion of his own intelligence. This characteristic alone qualifies me to shoot my mouth off about anything about which I feel like shooting it off.
My wife and I know a couple who don't make a ton of money, and who live in a perfectly good public school district, but who spend an inordinate amount of money each year to send their kid to an elite private school because, as the wife puts it with a self-satisfied smirk, "We think he's just a little bit gifted, hee hee."
This infuriates me.
I'm not saying gifted kids don't exist. They do. But they are few and far between. In seven years of being a parent--and thus interacting rather closely with a lot of other parents and their kids--I've only seen one whom I'd call gifted.
A couple of our acquaintance--not the couple mentioned above--has a little boy whom we'll call Jake. Jake is eerily, creepily, unsettlingly, super-smart. He read the whole Harry Potter series at three. He could draw three-quarter perspective profile pictures at four. And he was fluent--I mean like translator-ability fluent--in Hebrew at five. Jake is an undeniably brilliant child. To paraphrase Oliver Wendell Holmes, "I can't define 'gifted,' but I know it when I see it"; and this little boy, Jake, is, for lack of a better word, gifted. Most kids aren't. Including mine. Including, in all probability, yours. Deal with it.
The word "gifted," in my opinion, is a euphemism for "having parents who are A) white, and B) pushy." It's a horseshit category, and by "horseshit", I mean "absolutely utterly meaningless, and worse than that, pernicious." What it means is that the parents realize that their kid is no prodigy--not a Bobby Fischer, not a Midori--but they simply cannot accept that their kid isn't better, even marginally, than all the other kids.
When parents insist that their completely normal, completely average kids are "gifted," it really isn't about the kids at all. It's about the parents and their egos.
We have a tendency to look at kids as extensions of the parents. In effect, the kids become the parents' proxies. It's a pretty natural tendency, but it's one that should be fought against nonetheless, because not only is it dangerous, it's irritating as hell, once you see what's really going on.
No one wants to hear people bragging about themselves, but it's perfectly acceptable to brag about one's kids. It's a socially acceptable way of blowing your own horn. Because, you see, when parents brag about their kids, what they're really doing is puffing their own intelligence, genetics, or superior parenting skills. They aren't kvelling about their kids, they're bragging about themselves.
Likewise, when we compliment kids, what we're really doing is complimenting the parents. It's no longer socially acceptable--hell, it's even legally actionable--to tell a woman how hot she is. But if you say, "Your children are absolutely beautiful children," that's perfectly okay.
Thus, when parents insist their kids are gifted when, all evidence to the contrary aside, they aren't really looking for the best educational opportunity for their child. They're just asserting their belief that there's no way in hell that they, THEY, with their superior genetics, intellect, or parenting skills, could have whelped a young 'un who isn't above average in SOME way.
Earlier I used the word "pernicious" to describe this phenomenon. "Pernicious" is one of my favorite words. It moves this tendency of parents insisting their kids are gifted from the "merely annoying" category into the "potentially dangerous" category. Here's why.
There is currently a raging debate in this country on the medicating of children for ADD, ADHD, and a zillion other "syndromes", "disorders", or "conditions." (My personal favorite, the one that I've been diagnosed with, is ODD--Oppositional Defiant Disorder: "an ongoing pattern of disobedient, hostile and defiant behavior toward authority figures." That's from Wikipedia, so you know it's good. Turns out I suffer from a syndrome. I have a disease. And here I thought I was just an asshole for all those years! Also, I like the acronym. I've always been odd.)
But I digress. I have a sneaking, scientifically-unverifiable suspicion that the rash in what I believe to be the overdiagnosis and overmedication of children has little to do with actual real syndromes, disorders, or diseases. Once again, I suspect it has to do with the parents' egos.
Their kid, their unbelievably gifted Billy/Susan/Evan/Olivia, is simply not performing up to his or her parents' expectations. For some unfathomable reason, the kid ISN'T splitting the atom at seven! For some unfathomable reason, the kid talks too much in class! In fact, the kid is--gasp--acting like... like... well, like a normal kid, God forbid. A normal, gleefully rotten, poorly-behaved, not-particularly-spectacular-at-math-chess-or-music-kid. A kid like--shudder--all the other kids. Unacceptable!
But why, you can hear the parents' anguished voices asking? What, oh what, could be the reason for this? Surely my child is gifted. My superior genetics, intellect, and parenting skills guarantee THAT. There's no way a kid who originated in MY balls/ovaries is anything less than gifted.
So there must be something in the way. There must be something keeping my child from standing out from the crowd. It must be a syndrome. Which must be medicated. So that Billy/Susan/Evan/Olivia reaches the heights to which my superior genetics, intellect, and parenting skills have destined for him or her. That must be it. My kid is brilliant, but his or her ADD is in the way! My parenting skills are superb, but my kid's ADHD is making him or her act out!
And in order to salve our own egos, we first turn the kids into freaks. We stigmatize them by making them the victim of a psychological disorder. And then we medicate the living shit out of them, and turn them into little junkies who are unable to exist in the world without pills.
I can't even begin to imagine the effects of this on a child's physiology or self-esteem. In order to maintain the fantasy that we, the parents, are exceptional, we tell them they're defective in some way--and then we teach them that the answer to all life's problems can be found in a pill. And then we wonder why drug use among teens is at epidemic proportions.
As much as it pains me to admit it, my kids do not appear to be particularly gifted. Nor do they appear to be of more than average intelligence. By all accounts, they are perfectly normal, perfectly average, unapologetically rotten and ill-behaved, happy, healthy kids. Thank God. Admitting it doesn't mean I don't love them. In fact, it means I love them more than the parents who insist their kids are gifted, because it means my love for them isn't conditional. They don't have to be above average for me to love them. They just have to be mine.
Here's a thought. The next time you're tempted to compliment a parent on his or her children, refrain from doing so. Don't feed their bloated egos. Instead, ignore the parent and compliment the kid directly. It'll do a hell of a lot more for the kid and his or her self-esteem. Plus the look on the parents' faces when you ignore them and their self-promotion is absolutely priceless.
Of course, that's probably just the ODD talking. Ignore me.
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