LogFAQs > #961300252

Southernfatman posted...

It's more like we were gifted as kids, which gave people the impression we were super smart when we were just better at learning the early stuff and that pressure and the feeling we let people down crushes us mentally and makes us feel like failures. Or at least that's how it is for me.

This.

I do have several facebook friends who constantly share memes about what it's like to be a failure as an adult after being a former gifted kid growing up.

The problem is that these people are trying to take two different sets of standards and comparing them to each other.

Being a gifted kid simply meant you were at a math or reading level higher than your grade in school (a grade which is determined by your age, not by any sort of realistic mental capacity). One you are in high school, being gifted loses its value as you can be a 10th grader and be taking basic algebra or calculus depending on your skill level. There is no "expected" level of math, just what you tested into and what prerequisites you have. This also continues in college.

Outside of school, there are no math or reading tests. You get judged in society by your career, your wealth, your appearance, things that weren't as important when you were a child. Being good at math does not necessarily translate to these things. But a gifted child will hear "gifted" and assume they were better at most things than most people when that is just not necessarily true. Then they learn the truth as an adult and their world falls apart.

EDIT: Let me add to this that the issue comes with the term "gifted". If we just changed the term to "advanced placement" I think we wouldn't see this kind of problem pop up as often.