Second Generation Gifted

j is going to be tested for the gifted program. I have mixed feelings about this, mostly because of my experience with the gifted program. It's run a little differently here, but the kids are pulled out of classes to participate in the gifted studies. I never really liked that, and I know that's why J never participated in the program himself. I felt pretty damn special when I was in the midst of getting pulled from classes, but I realize now that was part of the reason I was distanced from people who I would have liked to have as friends. Of course, how good were those friends if my intelligence got in the way? I don't know. At that age, it's really hard to say, because there are so many other factors.

The other reservation I have about the program is where he will rank amongst the other gifted students. I say that because I always felt like the dumbest of the gifted. It seemed like all the other kids were smarter than I, and it's pretty tough to not belong to the regular group of kids and not belong to the smart group of kids either. I was somewhere in between. I realize now that my strengths are in different areas than some of the other gifted kids who were stronger in the areas that seem to be stressed in gifted programs.

I can't say I had a bad gifted experience. I did quit participating when I got in high school. It just wasn't fun anymore. Being social was of more interest to me. I still made sure I got on the honor roll and in the Honor Society, but other than keeping the grades up, I wasn't too worried about my studies.

I do think the program enriched my life in some ways. Different learning techniques were introduced to me, and it was also where I was taught not to write off any ideas or methods until they were proven to be incorrect or inefficient. The gifted program is where I was first introduced to brainstorming and logic. But it is also where I cultivated the fierce intellectual competitiveness that still plagues me today. In being on the low end of the smart totem pole, I felt I had to be a little more aggressive to prove my worth. It wasn't all bad. It wasn't all good. It just was.

I can't be sure j will have the same response as I did. He's not even in the program. He still has to be tested. And that whole process worries me too. I fear how he may react if he doesn't quite make it. I think I would have been devastated if I didn't make it into the program at all. He can be sensitive like that too, and I want to protect him from such a big blow to his intellectual ego so early in his life.

With that said, I gave consent to test him. I asked him how he felt about it, and he seemed to think it was ok. He played it off like it was nothing. It reminded me of how I acted when my mom told me I had a different father. Kids don't always think things through. They don't speculate their reactions and feelings. They just know how they feel in the moment. And I think j did feel fine in the moment, just as I felt fine being told I wasn't my Dad's blood child. It's what comes after the moment that sometimes gets you.

I suppose it's a wait-and-see game now. I can't deny j an opportunity because I wasn't able to handle it appropriately at his age.

Yesterday I got rid of:
(bet you thought I forgot!)

Two candle boxes

Today I got rid of:

Box full of packing peanuts