I will never allow my children to be given an IQ test. Although they are both in the ‘gifted’ programs at the schools insistence.

I am writing a book on my experience….and revealing my genuis ’secret’ to the world. I have lived in SHAME because of that label.

Firstly it is no good being gifted if you are not given the opportunity to use you potential to the full and being subjected to the constraints of society it can be very undermining and lead to problematic behaviour.

Therefore, with respect to society, all gifted children feel society‘s way are too constraining and need to be catered for.

This can be overcome if the child is from a reasonably well off family who will pay for extras to maximise the use of the child’s potential such as going to private school, but I want to consider cases where the situation is worse than what a normal child experiences.

Gifted children from disadvantaged/poor families experience the added constraint of poverty which as well as society holding them back, which holds them back even further and can lead to their intelligence being used defensively and to escape the stranglehold of the circumstances. Such children concentrate on these issues rather than their education since they are not getting the education worthy of their capability.

Disabled normal children are at a disadvantage, so what must it be like for a gifted child who is disabled or has a medical condition? This will be a double blow to some extent. As well as the constraints of society over the gifted, the handicap subjects the gifted child to even more constraints due to the attitudes of society.

Now the worst situation is where a child who is gifted, disabled and from a poor family.

Children who are gifted, disabled and come from a poor/disadvantaged family experience the worst. They are often held back by society, held back through poverty and held back by their disability, and quite often the public services won’t do anything to help them maximise their potential.

I came into this category and the local authority/public sector used my handicap to devalue my intelligence and used my intelligence to deny me support for my medical condition. As a result, I was given less support than a normal able bodied child with no care needs and was treated as subnormal.

Although I was bullied a lot by children, they will have grown up and can be forgiven. But most of the bullying, oppression etc. I experienced was committed by adults with authority – mostly public sector workers and civil servants who neglected my rights and subjected me to constraints of such, I have performed below average in my education as well as my career even though prior to all the problems I was described as “A very capable boy who has been most cooperative during the year. He has good all round ability but is particularly good in maths at which he could go a long way”. I also became one of the most problematic and disruptive as well as occasionally violent of children due to the constraints
I experienced. I have gone berserk and suffered a nervous breakdown as well as threatening to kill myself.

I endured twenty years of oppression by the public sector while I was living in the Bridgend area of South Wales (1973 to 1993) and with the way I was feeling about being treated worse than average I felt suicidal on times. Could there be a link to how these youngsters who have committed suicide and how they have been devalued in life? If I hadn’t had the willpower to fight my way forward I would have killed myself in the Bridgend area thirty years ago.

Maybe these youngsters experienced something similar with respect to having more potential than the circumstances they were living in were letting them use and they felt trapped with no light at the end of the tunnel. You don’t have to be gifted to experience this feeling of rejection and imprisonment by society.

This reveals the problems of being gifted, living in poverty and having a medical condition which others can use to their advantage to treat you as subnormal in order to bring you down to below their level.

“Why do some people reach their potential, while others with equal or greater talent fail?”
I must say Law of Attraction is responsible for this.

Be Good!

http://www.antoniothornton.com/law-of-attraction

I read at a HIGHLY advanced rate (was tested as “beyond 8th grade level” in Kindergarten), and comprehended a LOT of what I read, yet I was abysmal at Math because of the way it was taught. I only understand a majority of it today because of what I have self-taught myself, and because of a High School teacher who was BRILLIANT and understood that not everyone looks at a problem in the same way. He would let me (and others like me) do the problems how we wanted, as long as we wrote down what we were thinking.

I would also say that, for me, I was ambivalent about school – I did the minimum needed, got A’s and B’s, and counted the days and years until I was out of there. My college experience was a NIGHTMARE, and one I’m not keen on repeating to get a degree. The most important advice I would give parents of a gifted child is to make sure that the teacher, child, and parents are ALL on the same wavelength. If the child is acting up in class, the teacher should recognize this for BOREDOM, and give the child something more difficult rather than think it’s a reflection on their teaching skills.

These feelings and experiences have led my husband and I to strongly consider Homeschooling, even if she DOESN’T test as Gifted (though she IS intelligent). But the “Montessori” sounds interesting, and I will certainly check it out as well!