Fitting in question

[lisamarie]

DH and I were talking last night about being gifted in a school setting. He was saying that he never felt like he fit in at school. He was bigger than the other kids (he's now 6'7") and was asked by the other kids to not play basketball with them because he was too good and always crushed them. He said that in school, the class would play academic games and the teacher would tell him he can't play because he always got the answers right and the other kids needed a chance to guess.

 

I asked DH why we were sending our DS to PS when DS is clearly not making friends in class. When asked about friends, DS says that he isn't there to make friends, he's there to learn. I ask who he plays with and he says no one. If we're sending him there for social reasons, than it's not really working. DH said that he can understand why DS isn't making friends. To DS, it's like being in a class of little kids because his brain is so far ahead of theirs. DS's best friend is 6 months younger (and a grade behind). There is just no comparison. DS seems years older, not just 6 months.

 

DH says that even now he still doesn't feel like he fits in. He's 31 years old, a computer programmer for a large company with 900+ other programmers. DH says that he's in an age gap--all the other employees are either way older (50+) or just out of college. He's bigger than everyone else, he's one of only a few in the entire department without a computer science degree (DH majored in communications and is just very gifted where he can pick up a book, read it, and learn how to program computers with no programming background).

 

I guess my question is, if you are highly gifted or you have kids who are, do you ever feel like you fit in? Are there things that I can do for my DS to help him feel like he fits in? Not be popular exactly, but to feel like he actually belongs and has a place in the world where he's not this brainy freak. School wise, the only options we have in our area are to keep him where he is on grade level in a charter school, request a grade skip (not sure if that would really help the fitting in thing), pay $5K a year to send him to a private school that groups kids by ability for the major subjects while still maintaining your age-appropriate grade for other things, or homeschool (not a lot of social opportunity this route because in our church, he's in an age gap where there's lots of boys a year younger and a few 2 years older, but none his age, and none that he's close to). We can't afford private school for all our kids, so at this point it would just be him alone at the school if we opted for the private school while our girls would have to do something else (stay in charter school or else be HSed).

[Kathy G]

I think fitting in is a very big issue for gifted kids, and it likely gets worse the more gifted they are. We struggle with it here, but we have started to homeschool because the academics at the schools were too frustrating for my kids to handle (even in the gifted school) We use some saturday programs to help with socializing with others at their academic level. It costs money though. We have homeschooling friends and some are gifted also. To me and my husband socialization is not the same as socializing0 which is what was happening at school. My daughter especially never had true friends at school because nobody except the teacher understood her jokes. She is happier at home where her siblings get her jokes.

 

I wish I had an answer for you, but all I can do is to send hugs and suggest looking outside the local school for true peers for friends.

[Maus]

In a way, that's three different questions: finding friends, finding a sense of belonging, and fitting in.

 

"Fitting in" is a learned skill. You learn not to ask questions that make you stand out, etc.

 

"Finding a sense of belonging," is finding similar people where you don't stand out. You might find that in a private school. More likely, you can find that by encouraging him to develop other skills. I found my belonging in Band, where I was closer to the middle of the pack in ability. DH found his in Karate, and in Stage Crew. But I found camaraderie there, not friendship, per se.

 

"Finding friends" is a toughy. You can help him find situations where he is more likely to find friends, but to actually make a friend is tougher. And when you make friends, they aren't always of your same ability. (I've seen some really sweet friendship where one of the children is special needs.) You can't really help your child make friends. You can teach them to be kind, and to see other points of view, and etc., but then friendship happens or it doesn't.

 

---

I'm watching to see what other advice you get. We are struggling with our oldest, too. He has some quirks that turn off other kids. We are fortunate that he does have some "belonging" with his church/cub scout friends (the same kids, except there are two girls in the group at church), but he doesn't "fit in" and he doesn't have friends.

[lisamarie]

I think I am mostly curious if anyone has successfully "fit in" themselves or raised a highly gifted child that "fit in." I don't think my DS will ever have a bunch of friends, he's just not like that. He will have a couple guy friends and that will be it. Maybe he'll surprise me as he gets older, but he's just not that outgoing and isn't interested.

 

So I guess my main question is--does a highly gifted person ever really fit in? Are there changes we can make with my DS to encourage this or is it pretty much a lost cause until he's an adult? Is it better to go with their brain or their body when finding a place for them to fit in?

[Rivka]

I don't know my IQ, but my scores on the GRE qualify me for the "Triple 9 Society" (for the 99.9th percentile). I was pretty gifted, although I feel dorky saying that. :tongue_smilie:

 

I felt very out-of-place all through school and pretty awkward around other kids, even in gifted classes. It was always a bit of a crisis to work out who I was going to eat lunch with or be project partners with. I often did have one close friend, but especially as a teen I was often lonely.

 

I went to Reed, a college which is well known for being "intellectual" - which is not precisely the same as being hard to get into or being academically demanding. At Reed it was common for students to have intellectual passions, do extra academic reading, argue about philosophy at parties, et cetera. I did find friends and peers there, and felt as if I fit in. Graduate school was nowhere near as satisfying an intellectual experience - there seemed to be a greater percentage of people who hit the high achiever/hard worker/good test taker mold. But there were also a few people I shared that mental spark with. It helped that the university had special events for people who received the same fellowship I did, which was GRE score-based.

 

Now, in my adult life, I do have some social anxiety but I also have good friends and social settings where I can fit in. The circles I have chosen to move in probably help. (I live in a large city, I am a university professor, I go to the notoriously overeducated Unitarian-Universalist church, I am connected to science fiction fandom, etc.) I don't really feel out-of-place anymore, although I am still clearly not normal/average.

 

Well, that was like a whole little autobiography. Sorry. ;)

 

I will say that I think I would have benefited a lot, as a child, from some sort of explicit social skills instruction. I don't think it's an accident that I started to have a lot more friends when I got better at things like empathy, code switching (using appropriate language for the setting/relationship), and appreciating nonintellectual forms of merit.

 

This is an unpopular opinion, but I think that a lot (but not all) of the the peer issues I see discussed in gifted fora have more to do with social skills issues than they do with intellectual superiority.

Edited November 7, 2011 by Rivka

[Parker Martin]

My husband is profoundly gifted. This giftedness extends to his social skills. He was always extremely popular and can get along with anyone.

 

Finding intellectual peers is, obviously, tough for him, but someone doesn't have to be your intellectual peer to be a dear (or dearest) friend. In fact, I'd say that his closest friends, apart from those within the family, are not his intellectual peers. It doesn't seem to matter. Things like loyalty, curiosity, shared interest, sense of humor, kindness, character, etc. can all be found from end to end of the IQ spectrum, and those things matter a lot more to the success of a friendship than IQ.

 

Now if you were talking specifically marriage, which is something of a form of friendship, my answer would be different. But for friends, I think IQ is less important.

[hil]

My bright son is just five months younger than yours. He went to kindergarten, but has been homeschooled for the past year and a half. I didn't intend to homeschool, but with we had a baby right before he would have entered first grade, so it made sense. I couldn't recommend homeschooling more. It's thrilling to see their acceleration. For socialization, I've joined a local gifted homeschooling group. The parents of this group are just different in the best way possible. Their posts are so thoughtful and error-free. It is truly relieving to know other genius-parents.

 

So that's my advice: homeschool, (make the jump, you won't regret it), and somehow find the other gifted kids around you. Maybe whoever does the testing in your area, (not that testing is necessary!), could point you in a good direction locally?

 

 

Hilary

DS7

DD1

[Ester Maria]

I guess my question is, if you are highly gifted or you have kids who are, do you ever feel like you fit in?

Here is what I will tell you, and you take it or leave it as you wish.

 

Almost NOBODY has ever fit in anywhere to the fullest, without the shade of that subjective feeling that is so typical of humans (not necessarily highly intellectually skilled humans), that little voice in them that suggests that they are somehow special, that the situatiations they have been put into are somewhat awkward for them, that there is something unique about their experience.

At the same time, nearly EVERYBODY (except for those who have opted for a radical reclusive lifestyle) *has* fit in, in sense of a factual statement - in spite of that subjective note that most thinking people have in the soundtrack of their lives, people have still found friends or just buddies, found intimate partners, founded families, worked with a plethora of other people and been generally included in the flow of life in a society.

 

What we have is a paradox between a subjective feeling of almost each individual and a factual reality of almost each individual - and in my experience, that contrast is one of those things which make us human in the first place.

Secondly, what does "fit in" mean anyway? There are different ways of fitting in that different personalities with different life circumstances are going to use. Not everybody needs an intimate friendship, for example, in spite of the common stereotyping. Nothing is wrong if somebody is not a social butterfly. And nothing is necessarily wrong if somebody simply feels awkward at school, workplace or wherever. If anything, those are so universal feelings shared by people of so different intellects and psychological constitutions, that in my opinion they are more of a mainstream than exceptional cases. I think that we, especially as parents, tend to largely overthink this whole issue. People are different. It is not necessarily a side-effect of giftedness, as there are different profiles of gifted people - it is most likely simply a character and a personality thing. Not everyone is cut to be the same and that is fine. In fact, it is even fine and a normal human variety that some whine more about being misunderstood than others - also not something that, as a parent, one ought necessarily to overthink and read into it all sorts of things from our intellectual dynamic with the child. Some kids just complain more (whether about academics or social life), but there is no actual evidence that they are really suffering more than other kids who are not complaining so much. Or that they are suffering at all. Maybe what they experience is just normal life, clashed with their idealized vision of how it "ought" to be. In reality, it is just not perfect, and it especially not perfect in a world filled with so different personalities.

 

I have known geniuses who were complete misanthropes and led reclusive lifestyles, with a fatalist mindset and a mix of contempt and hate towards life.

I have known geniuses who had climbed the highest social ladders, butterflies, lovable, in spite of not having been able to communicate about their ideas with everyone.

 

It is not an intellect thing. It is a normal human variety of character. If one has a problem with it and wishes to change, one can / should do so in the limits of what is possible in terms of work on character and personality, finding better modes of adaptation. It is not always possible - some people fundamentally cannot or wish not to change (like the misanthrope I described previously). But I think "blaming" the intellect for it or, even worse, discussing it with the child the way that you tacitly consider behaviors and character to be a side-effect of the intellect, is a bad choice in my opinion. I completely separate the two when I discuss social issues with my children. I know it is not a typical stance. But it is something I have observed with myself, DH and the children: our issues have ALWAYS been a fundamentally psychological thing. And we are four different psychologies - with a budding fifth - in one household, and all of us would probably be classified as gifted.

 

I think that what helped my children the most was focusing on others and needs of others, not necessarily their own alone. I worked hard on pointing to them that their whinings about being "misunderstood" stem from THEIR mental rigidity and THEIR setting unrealistic goals for other people: THEY are the ones who are asking from other people something, a level of communication, that those people cannot give to them (of course, I much sugarcoated all of that, but this was in essence what I was telling them). I do not allow, not for a moment, for them NOT to own this problem, they know that self-pity does not really work with me and that there HAVE to be ways of collaborating with many different personalities and intellect in this world. There is no guarantee that they will ever find a perfect intellectual match - in fact, chances are that they will not. But you have to live the life you HAVE, not the life you WISH YOU HAD. What cannot be reasonably fixed (with local opportunities to connect to similar children, etc.) has to be dealt with in a way that you draw from it maximum advantage, and by focusing on what you have, not on what you wish you had. It will maybe never be perfect, but it takes kids a while to snap out of that self-centered mentality and look at the dynamic of life and society from a different angle. But WHEN that click happens, things get a lot easier.

 

For the record, I have one of each: a natural social butterfly who can find a common ground with everybody EVEN IF they do not share the intellectual interests and manages to navigate life turning everything into her advantage and clicking with most people on the level she can intuitively specify, and a negativity prone child who felt like misfit for a long time, until some of these considerations finally kicked in and she started to approach social situations as a two-way street, when she started seeing the needs of other people as very real as well (as well as their limitations and HER limitations), relationships as something that is worked on, etc. It has mostly been a maturity thing rather than radical changing of life circumstances - though she is, as we are all after all, still a work in progress.

[HappyCamper]

We had the same issue that your son is having when he was in public school (from K-2). For his second grade, he was placed in a 2/3 class so he could do third grade work. But he still did not fit in socially or academically. He is now at a private school for kids like him and is SOOO happy. He fits in - academically, socially, emotionally. It is a big stretch for our family, but it is worth it. It was hard to leave his sister in public school though, so now she is at home.:001_smile:

[Lang Syne Boardie]

My extroverted son has found success in society by studying self-help books and religiously applying the principles he felt were sound. He now has many friends, and has even learned how to be transparent enough to attract other highly intelligent people to himself while being humble enough to not alienate everybody else. He embraces leadership opportunities and looks for ways to encourage others to also break out of their shell if they want to. DH and I have been amazed at the way he takes on the world with an ear-to-ear grin, making friends everywhere. What confidence and poise he has, all because he learned it and earned it on his own by age 15.

 

Another gifted son is an extreme introvert. His brother's solutions won't work for him, and he doesn't want to be Mr. Popularity, anyway. He is suddenly finding his way through volunteering. He doesn't need his friends to be as quick-witted as he is. He has decided he doesn't particularly need to be 'understood,' either. He'd rather do his thinking on his own and do his actions with others. He values physical and mental strength, dedication, generosity, service, and unselfishness. He's finding those like-minded people through community service and martial arts.

 

I think there are probably as many solutions as there are people.

[ebunny]

DH and I were talking last night about being gifted in a school setting. He was saying that he never felt like he fit in at school. He was bigger than the other kids (he's now 6'7") and was asked by the other kids to not play basketball with them because he was too good and always crushed them. He said that in school, the class would play academic games and the teacher would tell him he can't play because he always got the answers right and the other kids needed a chance to guess.

 

I asked DH why we were sending our DS to PS when DS is clearly not making friends in class. When asked about friends, DS says that he isn't there to make friends, he's there to learn. I ask who he plays with and he says no one. If we're sending him there for social reasons, than it's not really working. DH said that he can understand why DS isn't making friends. To DS, it's like being in a class of little kids because his brain is so far ahead of theirs. DS's best friend is 6 months younger (and a grade behind). There is just no comparison. DS seems years older, not just 6 months.

 

DH says that even now he still doesn't feel like he fits in. He's 31 years old, a computer programmer for a large company with 900+ other programmers. DH says that he's in an age gap--all the other employees are either way older (50+) or just out of college. He's bigger than everyone else, he's one of only a few in the entire department without a computer science degree (DH majored in communications and is just very gifted where he can pick up a book, read it, and learn how to program computers with no programming background).

 

I guess my question is, if you are highly gifted or you have kids who are, do you ever feel like you fit in? Are there things that I can do for my DS to help him feel like he fits in? Not be popular exactly, but to feel like he actually belongs and has a place in the world where he's not this brainy freak. School wise, the only options we have in our area are to keep him where he is on grade level in a charter school, request a grade skip (not sure if that would really help the fitting in thing), pay $5K a year to send him to a private school that groups kids by ability for the major subjects while still maintaining your age-appropriate grade for other things, or homeschool (not a lot of social opportunity this route because in our church, he's in an age gap where there's lots of boys a year younger and a few 2 years older, but none his age, and none that he's close to). We can't afford private school for all our kids, so at this point it would just be him alone at the school if we opted for the private school while our girls would have to do something else (stay in charter school or else be HSed).

 

I don't know if I am Highly gifted, but my DD has been tested as such.

 

She does have personality differences with other children, and "fitting in" takes some effort, for her. I think of it as a rite of passage to growing up in a society and finding your place in the world.

 

The social aspects don't bother her, as much as it bothers me to see her struggle. I did worry about her social needs (I posted about it here), but on hindsight, it was unnecessary.

She understands the 'social dynamic' far better than I do/did, and is willing to do as needed to connect to her peers/adults.

 

Personally, the older I get, the better I relate and 'fit in' with the people around me. :001_smile:

 

Just my 2 cents.