#gifted kid syndrome
your 20s are about fucking up your hair and getting long overdue medical diagnoses actually
Good to know that I - in true gifted kid fashion - started my 20s four years early
For someone who has typed upwards of 200,000 words for their novel, taken advanced English all their life, has a family of multigenerational English teachers, and has a formidable library in their room, I sure can’t spell worth a damn.
I spent a length of time I will not disclose cursing spell-check, more confident than I had any right to be that “paid” was actually spelled “payed.”
people misunderstand what ‘gifted kid’ actually means but it’s ok it’s fine it’s cool it’s good
it’s not about actually being gifted, it’s about an initial higher scoring on standardized testing that means little to nothing or being good at learning in the way elementary and middle school wants you to, so you get marked as ‘advanced’. in reality, maybe you had faster development in certain areas, but the issue with being a gifted kid isn’t that “everyone told me I was so cool and special for reading and then I actually wasn’t :(” it’s “I wasn’t properly taught to handle things not coming easily to me, but the adults around me were counting on me not being a ‘difficult’ child in school.”
people who use it as some weird bragging method or interpret it that way are ignoring the way a lot of school systems force certain roles on students to simplify the learning process. If your kid doesn’t need to take notes to understand a science concept bc they get it naturally, well that’s good, but now you’re not teaching them how to take notes and they’re not learning that important soft skill. but because ‘gifted’ kids are easy and don’t show that they’re falling behind in learning in other categories that are harder to quantify, they eventually fall behind after that catches up to them. It’s about the failures of a one size fits all school system trying to compensate in the worst way possible.
And also the thing where ‘gifted’ kids are super likely to also be neuroatypical, which they don’t get screened for because they appear to be doing well in school. Or “You can’t be ADHD/autistic/etc, because you’re doing so well in school!”. Or being shamed for developing mental health issues/generally not being able to keep up with school work later, because you USED TO BE able to do it just fine.
Or the assumption that just because you can read well or you like math class, you’re somehow more EMOTIONALLY mature than your little kid brain is actually capable of being.
Or gifted kids whose parents and teachers put immense pressure on them to Do Great Things and Save The World and you’re like. “I’m 10 and I have no idea how to do that, but everyone is saying that’s my job?”.
This is the best “gifted kid” post out there. I never took notes until college because I didn’t have to, snd when it got challenging I had to literally teach myself note taking at age 18. It also fucks with your perception of asking for help - you’re advanced, you’re competent, you should be able to understand every topic easily. Asking for help/going to office hours/asking for a tutor feels like failing when you were praised in your early years for not needing to do that.
THIS IS ME 100%
School all the way through like the first part of 9th grade came so easily to me but then all of a sudden I started realizing just how many skills I hadn’t learned as a direct result of school having always come easily to me.
For the longest time, I didn’t need to try.
Now suddenly I needed to try, and I didn’t know how.
And when I tell you senioritis hit early…
eldest daughter syndrome and gifted kid syndrome are some great examples of phrases used to talk about specific kinds of trauma that the internet has taken and turned into “boo hoo these people arent special anymore so theyre lashing out!!” it was never about that you fucking cunts
eldest daughter sydrome is about a very specific trauma that comes with being expected to parent for younger siblings and even your parents as a literal child and how badly it fucks you and your perception of yourself and what you’re capable of doing up. gifted kid syndrome is about how a “smart” label is slapped onto kids at a horribly young age and then they are repeatedly denied help forced to do more and more work never taught socialization or study skills and then berated and treated like a disappointment when they’re human beings instead of little intelligence machines. god.
i was fucking right about this honestly. most phrases like this are about certain kinds of trauma people have faced not about some kind of fucking superiority complex
This is SO true.
I’m an eldest daughter who does not have eldest daughter syndrome because my parents were emotionally intelligent and allowed me to be a kid. And I was a gifted kid who does not have gifted kid syndrome because…see above. These are real things that could have been traumatic for me, but were not because the adults in my life were actual adults who treated me like an actual kid. And now, as an adult, my life is easier for not having to navigate these particular types of trauma.
I have so much sympathy for all the folks who suffered in these ways. I’m so sorry you were not allowed to be a kid when you were young.
