#Gifted Child Syndrome

[vent-and-advice]

I am so tired of people not seeing me as neurodivergent. I am gifted, which is an actual form of being neurodivergent. But most people think gifted is just some stupid label for parents to give their kids to show they’re “smarter” or “better” than other kids. And yes, being gifted means I have a higher IQ than most people. But that’s not just it. I have many symptoms of ADHD without having ADHD. Gifted kids are more likely to get anxiety. My brain is literally wired differently than normal people. It is more active than the normal brain. There are so many times something has made perfect sense in my mind but is confusing to everybody else. My head is constantly filled with thoughts and random music and stuff. I can’t even imagine my head being silent. And that’s not even mentioning the pressure that comes with being a gifted kid.

But noooooo! I must have ADHD or something. Because there’s no way being gifted means you’re neurodivergent. And why do you get to be called gifted when my sweet little angel isn’t? You must think you’re better than everybody else! I am so tired of people saying this stuff to me and other gifted kids. I need advice.

Ok, you seem very angry right now. And I understand. Here’s a flower and take a deep breath 🌻

So, you believe you have ADHD? Well, if it’s possible, talk about that with your parents! Or if you don’t have a very safe relationship with your parents or if you don’t entirely feel comfortable talking to them, go to your school’s guidance counselor. That’s their job, after all. Dr. Amanda (the therapist who lets me live in her office) used to be a school guidance counselor!

Gifted child syndrome is a very real problem, and a huge epidemic amongst neurodivergent children. Yknow, back in my hive, I was somewhat of a gifted child. Everyone expected me to go out and collect all that pollen and would’ve been the greatest pollen collector the hive has ever seen, and no one would’ve expected I’d be here, giving my advice on the internet. But, yknow what? Who cares what they think! I’m happy doing what I am doing right now, and it’s mainly because I had someone willing to hear my struggles, Dr. Amanda! So try to find someone you feel safe enough to talk to so you can perhaps get a proper diagnosis! So here’s my advice lovely anon. Bee yourself! There’s nothing to be angry about when it comes to being neurodivergent. And those humans simply being rude to you? Laugh at them! Laugh in their faces for being so silly to think that you are foolish for knowing you are neurodivergent! You know yourself better than they will ever know you! You don’t need to prove yourself to any of them! Just prove yourself to yourself!

[fiddleturnips]

Backupsmore University

Okay, so. The following is not very well written and has been heavily edited in my actual draft - the chapter it was in has been broken up and spread between like three different chapters. However, I realized that the context for Why Fiddleford Is Like That is sort of important for my other snippets to make sense.

Content warning for depression, but this section does not contain graphic detail. Further content warning for the American Public School System in the Nineteen-Seventies. (Specifically: the school system's relative inability to absorb non-average children.)

"Ah. Right." Stanford sat back down. The broken mug scraped across the tiles and clattered as Fiddleford swept. "Well, we were in high school. It was close to graduation. We'd been fighting anyway. Big time for me, because it was around the Science Fair-"

"Scholarship season."

"Yes."

"Your family weren't that well off, am I rembering right? I seem to recall you were seeking a full ride and couldn't get it."

"I was going to go to Westmore. If I could afford it, I would have anyway. But Backupsmore was a lot more manageable."

Fiddleford laughed. "Ain't that the truth."

"Wait, you were full ride. And you were, what, seventeen Freshman year? What were you doing there?"

"They weren't that strict on school transcripts," Fiddleford said. "A lot more welcoming of science and engineering portfolios. And I needed full ride, I wasn't getting a dime after a bug came by and wiped out my school stock."

"Your… your what?"

"Oh, you wouldn't have this sort of thing. Some of us livestock breeders, when a kid's young, we'll start to set some animals aside for them. You invest in a couple of pigs, add to the herd when you can, teach the kid to care for 'em, and when it comes time for high school graduation you can get a sturdy few grand even if it's just a small herd, then if you invest it right and keep an eye on the price of pork, you can pay a kid through college with a bit to spare. Only mine all got sick and died out."

"That is fascinating and tragic. You never talked about this."

"Yeah, I never talked to the Yankee kids about the fact that I was going to a bum school because my papa couldn't afford a better one because my pigs died and I didn't have school transcripts 'cause I didn't go to school. How do you think that woulda gone over?"

Stanford did know about Fiddleford's school history. At this moment, he was significantly exaggerating. He had gone to school, and he had excelled at school - for about two thirds as long as any other kid, if you combined all of the months.

Pines and McGucket were close college friends, in a lot of the same classes and clubs, spending study hours together in the tucked-away rooms that let them get as loud and melodramatic as they wanted. At first, Fiddleford had joked that he'd done a lot of special programs for county fairs as a kid. Then, he'd joked that nobody taught him per se as he'd just up and swallowed a library one summer and they all figured that was probably that. Then he'd joked that he was a dropout, and when pressed on that he'd grudgingly admit that no, he was homeschooled.

Then eventually the two boys got close enough and he got tipsy enough for it all to come out. The whole story was that the older he got, the more he skipped grades and got shifted to advanced classes and eventually got stuck in the school's Special Education department because as it was they had no idea what the hell else to do with him, the more he'd get bored and start stealing books from older kids and building things out of school supplies and on one memorable occasion stuck a fork in the electrical outlet - he'd been found with third-degree burns on his hand and a paper beside him calculating the exact voltage available from the wall outlet in comparison to the shock a human being could survive - anyway, the more all of that happened, the earlier in the year his Ma and Pa would have the hard conversation that the trouble he could cause at home was nothing like the trouble he was already causing in the classroom.

By high school, his Ma had sat him down and said: Look. You need an education. Every single word of what they teach you in those there classrooms matters, even the stuff you think is dumb and silly. So you're gonna stay home this year, we're getting permission to let you do experiments in the local tech college's labs for Chemistry and such and the rest you're figuring out on your own. And at the end of the year, you are submitting reports about what you learned to every single teacher in the school, and we'll see if they find fault in your methods.

She'd meant for him to get through Freshman core curriculum. He'd gotten through that most of the electives. The next year, he did the rest of the core curriculum and they rented out some textbooks from the local tech college, plus a special weekly tutoring session with the Language Arts teacher because his critical thinking was a bit underdeveloped and another with the AP Maths guy to whip his self-correction into shape. The year after that, they had a sit-down with a representative of the County and a recruitment man from a university and the principal of the high school he'd dropped out of. He couldn't legally leave the public system until he was at the legal age, but they all agreed that he was doing just fine on his own until then.

He wasn't seventeen when he enrolled at Backupsmore. He was sixteen. And he'd already tested out of Freshman and Sophmore classes, and the only other one there who'd done that was Stanford. The two were friends because up to that point, neither one had ever had a peer.

Stanford Pines was a by-the-book scientist. He'd completed every year of school the way it was intended, on time, and with very high marks. He'd also completed science fair projects and extracurriculars. Once he reached university, he kept a full schedule, his days planned to the minute, with an exercise routine and designated journaling time. His accelerated schooling happened because he did things to the letter, bull-rushed through the political game, took every advantage he could get, and was so damn good at his job that nobody could find a reason to keep him from going at it.

Fiddleford McGucket was a free thinking engineer. He couldn't keep his head on straight enough to follow orders, but he was "such a delight to have in class" and "unfailingly diligent with his homework" and "not afraid to do the hard, boring work that needs doing for a project's success," so he kept getting special treatment anyway.

For Stanford Pines, his combined arrogance with his peers, aggressively growth-minded attitude, relentless self-paced work schedule, and unfailing results put him through twelve doctorates and a self-guided grant program.

For Fiddleford McGucket, the combined inexperience working with others, habit of taking on all the work that was available to him so he could prove he was worthwhile, commitment to doing everything perfectly right the first time no matter how loaded his schedule was, and desperate, desperate need to fit in for once left him plastered to the floor of a bathroom stall trying not to cry out loud while he psyched himself up to get back to the lab every spring and autumn night for a year.

Pines and McGucket had both set astronomical standards for themselves that no normal human could possibly hope to achieve. Difference was, Doctor Stanford Pines had somehow done it.

[quotesfromall]

I feel kind of stupid. There's a whole bunch of science I should be doing, right?

Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary

[enigmasandepiphanies]

english professor gives validation, 132 alive, 240 resurrected

[whatchu-want-from-me]

I might have gifted child syndrome, but I want to pull myself out of it before it gets too bad.

Does anybody have advice for this?

[alexandersecretblog]

the funniest thing about me is when i get upset i start using those little emoticons. i dont know why. especially when im seething with rage but trying to act nice (*´ー｀*)

[guiltyidealist]

"my child is fine" your child was a pleasure to have in class

[justletmereadmywhump]

realizing the reason I enjoy dehumanization and pet whump so much is because I have both Oldest Child and Gifted Kid Syndrome

I am not doing okay

[loafofryebread]

I was a gifted child in grade four so you can only imagine the kind of mental health I have now

[that-ineffable-devil]

Interviewer: And you are...?

Gale, proudly: Gale of Waterdeep! Former magical prodigy and ex-lover of the goddess of the Weave!

Interviewer: Mmhmm... And now?

Gale, deflating: I... Um... Have a... Worm... In my head... And... I have to eat magic boots or I will explode and level a city.

Interviewer: I'm sorry, I didn't catch--

Gale: I HAVE TO EAT MAGIC BOOTS OR GO BOOM, OK? HAPPY NOW?! *storms off*

[ethereal-bumble-bee]

When I was in elementary school our Talented and Gifted program was called “Flight” (as in like soaring to great heights or whatever, idk don’t ask me), and I think the fondest memories of my entire child/tween years were in that little room in another school (and then another little room in middle school).

No matter who we were or who we hung out with outside of that class, for an hour each day we just chatted and laughed at/with each other and learned together. No one was “popular” or “cool”-- we were all just a bunch of nerds that liked to chatter constantly.

That Flight class taught me to give speeches/presentations, to work hard and not give up when I didn’t know something, and to just reach for the goddamned stars. It taught me that it wasn’t such an awful thing to be different, and that the way I saw the world didn’t make me any lesser than the neurotypical kids my age.

This sounds like a total exaggeration, but i genuinely think that class saved my life. There were so many issues that Mrs. Penn (the T&G teacher a few years ago) helped me through and taught me how to navigate, and I owe literally all of my achievements to being taught to be resilient and confident in my intelligence and potential. Being a “gifted” kid sucked/still sucks sometimes, but I couldn’t imagine ever knowing myself to be any different.

[desertsportshipping]

How does Wes handle Leon's fanbase, or like. the more crazy ones? Does he take em behind the pokecenter or practically becomes Leon's personal bodygaurd at large events?

Leon now has scary dog privilege.

Wes basically became Leon's bodyguard, scaring not just crazy fans, but also the media and Rose. Leon has anxiety and is generally a people pleaser, so Wes tells people "no" for him.

As for Wes's feelings about the crazy fans, he just adds them to the list of people who want him dead. Leon does not like this, but much like with the Galarian media slandering Wes in the papers, he can't really do anything about it.

Wes yelling at people who want Leon to do things has been great for his mental health, as he now doesn't have to stress about unnecessary "Champion duties" and can now stress about Wes and Hop instead.

Patreon - Etsy

[lostsometime]

zoro you are twelve. at most. you cannot be ready to die because you're not already the Best At Swords!

[kirakat369]

My parents needed a smart kid. With perfect grades, I towed the line. I lost myself while learning, but surely I'll be fine.

My parents needed some help, so quickly I was put to use. I had no time to be myself. Their grip tightened like a noose.

My parents needed me to act as maid and childcare, while my sibling got to have fun. I know it wasn't fair.

They needed an adult. All they had was a child. I traded fun for functionality, and any slip-up was reviled.

Now that I'm fully grown I'm trying to make up for lost time, but I don't know where to start. It's an overwhelming climb.

All that I missed out on, my friends treat it as a joke. I'm struggling, swimming upstream and they're cheering as I choke.

Their condescending comments, and "funny" little jabs hit me where it hurts like sharp little stabs.

They don't treat me like a peer, who's grew up a different way. They see me as a child, and I know it's not okay.

I'm drowning in the irony. I grew up far to fast only to be treated like a kid when that time has clearly passed.

[kindyu]

a reminder to teachers: if there's a really talented kid in your class that's already doing really well and you see their huge potential and want to push them to do even better: don't. if you want to see the child thrive and do even better, DO NOT do it through negative criticism. this kid is already a perfectionist, they are doing their absolute best. and if you only point out the flaws, if you judge them harshly than their peers and criticize the shit out of them in order to perfect them, they'll burn out. you're not creating a diamond by applying pressure. you're stomping them into the ground. this child is learning that their hard work is not good enough. they're learning that no matter what they do, they will fail. they're learning that they can't trust themselves to asses their work because even though they're satisfied with it, the teacher they desperately seek approval from will never be. so they think they're not good, actually. they're trash. they're not good at anything. because the field in which they've been the strongest, they're actually bad at. they're learning that their worth is dependent on how well they do in school.

what you should do instead is show them exactly what they did well. i'm not saying to never correct them. show them what they could do better, absolutely. but do it gently. these perfectionist kids will take your criticism and they will better their work. you don't need to worry that they won't, you don't need to shove it in their faces in order for them to understand.

give them opportunities. give them additional work that they can do if they wanna get even better, but don't have to. and don't punish their creativity and their worldview if it's different from yours. they don't have to like what you like. they don't have to do things the way you did them. they are not an extension of you. they're not tools through which you can realize the success you never had. they're fragile little humans that need your guidance and love, not your tough hand.

and praise them. tell them you see their efforts, tell them the truth: that they're hardworking, intelligent, extremely creative people. because by doing the opposite, you will not get them to go far. you're going to destroy them.

and also, show they they're more than their success. that their succes or lack there of doesn't determine their worth. that is the most important part.

sincerely,

a "gifted child" that was belittled and pushed to the ground in order to be even better, but only burned out, is mentally ill and has not been able to grow to their fullest potential (yet) because they had to recover first.

[cityandking]

vesper is experiencing inquisition like a game of chess where there is always a Right move to make and she has to balance that against her own sense of duty and morality and justice. narayani is experiencing inquisition like a game of chess but she doesn't know the rules so she's eating the pieces when her opponent isn't looking