Gifted.....

On meeting a new parent (i.e. a parent whose child attends school with yours but who you have not yet, until now, met) the median time until they tell you that their child is "gifted" is usually 12 minutes in Australia (slightly longer in the UK and slightly less in the US).. I am really perplexed by this incredibly common phenomenon...Given the frequency by which I come across parents of "gifted" kids either every child I have ever met is gifted (not likely given some of them have ended up doing completely zip with their lives and others have yet to master how to buy a train ticket let alone cure testicular cancer) or b) the bar by which a child is termed" gifted" has been lowered just a tad..I am thinking it is more likely to be b..So lock in b please Eddie.

Gifted is meant to imply an intellectual ability ahead of the average at any particular age and yet intellectual ability can take many forms, many of which are not truly explored in a school environment... Further "gifted" does not mean successful nor does it mean happy nor content nor fulfilled. It just means the kid "may be" smarter than the average...


At this point let me share with you a secret..Generally speaking most of us hope that everyone else's child has a happy, fulfilling and long life. This does NOT translate in any way into any of us caring about what the other person's child is up to and why is it that you obsessive pyscho parents have to try and manufacture some model that promotes your little shit as "gifted".


Often Jonny, who shows an unbelievable skill at reading 4 books at once (literally..one word from each book at a time...very cool party trick), also happens to bite the other kids at pre-school and has an unnatural fascination with creating models of the opera house out of his own poo and yet all we hear of Jonny is that he is "gifted". Why don't the parents also mention these quirky attributes when regaling us all about their gifted child?



Further given my proposition above that most of us do not have a deep desire to understand, in detail, the lives of other people's children either just shut up or give me a more complete picture - taking into account the child's level of happiness, self-esteem, whether they are kind, caring and loving as well as whether they are smart or good at sport.

At this point it is also worth wondering why it is that some parents have to believe that their child is "above average". Why is it an insult to suggest your child might be average? Isn't the true measure of a life not whether you are above average, below average or average but rather are you living a happy, fulfilled life and are you adding true value to the society in which you live?


Is there something inherently wrong with a child being of average skill, intelligence etc? Does a high UAI or ability at sport translate into a successful life....NOOOOOO it doesn't.

Often I have heard parents lament that they "gave" the school a gifted child only to see in the Yr7 report that the child is (shock, horror)...average...Rather than assuming that a) your child being able to finger paint in 3 colours in Kindy does not in and of itself mean that the child was gifted to begin with or b) that other kids have caught up or finally c) the child has a lot to offer the world but is not particularly academic and so the parents have to find someone to blame for no long having a "gifted" child.


Some schools do not help in trying to keep all of this G&T stuff in context..Often you drive by both public and private schools and banners/noticeboards promote their "Gifted and Talented Programme". No mention on their public noticeboards of a programme for struggling students...funny about that.

There are of course some children that are gifted and schools (all) tend to do a good job of ensuring these kids continue to find school interesting and fun. Some (rare) even see how important it is to NOT just focus on the academic performance of the child but rather help the child develop as a complete person....


Yet the parents of the smart kids seem to herald their child's performance as something that somehow implies they (the parents) are better people than parents of not so bright kids...WTF..


Further the parents seem to not understand the role that genes play in all of this. Two parents I know posses very high intellect (we can leave to the side that they are arrogant, uncaring, selfish bores for the moment and just focus on their intellect). Both achieved very high levels in post graduate degrees. They have 2 daughters and one son.....Guess what the kids are good at school...Now you might think that this is kind of what you would expect..If these parents had produced a child of limited academic ability that would have been a surprise..It is not a surprise that the kids do well...And yet at the end of every school year when their child gets an academic award the parents trumpet the awards as both a complete surprise and secondly akin to winning the Nobel Peace prize for physics...Same goes with particularly athletically capable parents who drill their poor kids in a particular sport from the womb...Surprise, surprise, surprise the child ends up being good at sport....

One mother (both parents are good at most sports) told me how her 5 yr old daughter was so good at all sports that it was a complex and stressful decision as to which sport they should channel her into...given she will reach Olympic Gold level in any she chooses......

If you and your partner are smarter than average or better at sport than average then chances are your children will follow this line (through both the beauty of genes and behavioural conditioning)..So it is NOT a surprise...What is a surprise is a kid who does not have the gene pool or environment to draw on, who by sheer effort and application does well..

And yet I return to the central theme of this rant. Having a gifted child is not something that needs to be promoted by the parents nor necessarily desired by parents. If your child is gifted then congrats as your child will (in academic terms alone) have a slightly easier schooling life... and maybe you should move on to focus on helping them understand what it takes to have a successful life and what it takes to become good people as. Ohh and why not show a little humility amongst those with kids who may not be gifted...




If your child is not gifted then do not despair and think your child is any less a person than the genius playing with poo in the playground. Do not also try to create some weird new sport where the child can prove themselves to be gifted. Celebrate your child, help them find self-esteem in who they are and how they can add value to the world around them. Help them become a good person and focus on how lucky you are to have kids in the first place.


More than anything else we need to accept the deep truth - a happy and fulfilled life is not a function of intellect, sporting achievement or significant financial reward. It comes from a complex combination of undertaking a career that you are good at and which adds value to other people, developing relationships where you are truly loved and you love unconditionally, looking out for those in our world who are less fortunate and finally being more focused on enjoying life and all it has to offer and less about trying to be seen to be better than the next person.