Sharing Stories or Bragging?
Wednesday April 11, 2007
What parent doesn't enjoy sharing stories about her child? Sharing the last cute thing your child said or did or sharing your child's latest step in physical development or the latest sign of developing intelligence is almost of rite of passage for parents. Most parents anyway.
Parents of gifted children often remain silent when other parents begin the story-sharing ritual. They have learned through uncomfortable experiences that other parents consider their stories a form of bragging.
Here's a typical exchange among parents of three year olds --
Parent One: Johnny was so cute yesterday. He was saying his ABCs and kept saying "Elmen and a pea."
Parent Two: Oh, that is cute! Know what Mary did? We have magnetic letters on our refrigerator and Mary will put letters together and say she spelled a word. One day she put the letters t-n-j-d and said, "Look, Mommie, I spelled 'table.'"
All parents: ::laugh::
Parent One: Well, she got the 't' right!
Parent Three: We have those magnetic letters too. The other day Pat was rearranging them and came up with g-o-g-g-l-e.
Parent Two: Wow, what are the odds of putting those letters together and making a real word?
Parent Three: Well, the funny part was that he got mad at me when I said, "You spelled 'goggle.' Good job!"
Parent One: He got mad?
Parent Three: ::laughing:: Yeah, he meant to spell "googel" and made a mistake. He hates to make mistakes!
Parent Two: Oh, how cute, he was making up a new word!
Parent Three: Uh, well, no. A googel is a one with a hundred zeros after it. Pat loves numbers and learns everything he can about them. That was one thing he learned.
Parent One: ::glare::
Parent Two: ::glare::
Now Parent Three could have kept the details to herself, but then that's not really sharing. It's like having to keep a secret for fear of how people might respond to that secret. But parents of gifted children are no different from other parents: they love their children and want to share their children's triumphs, however great or small.
Poll: Do you feel like you are bragging when you talk about your child?
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Parents of gifted children often remain silent when other parents begin the story-sharing ritual. They have learned through uncomfortable experiences that other parents consider their stories a form of bragging.
Here's a typical exchange among parents of three year olds --
Parent One: Johnny was so cute yesterday. He was saying his ABCs and kept saying "Elmen and a pea."
Parent Two: Oh, that is cute! Know what Mary did? We have magnetic letters on our refrigerator and Mary will put letters together and say she spelled a word. One day she put the letters t-n-j-d and said, "Look, Mommie, I spelled 'table.'"
All parents: ::laugh::
Parent One: Well, she got the 't' right!
Parent Three: We have those magnetic letters too. The other day Pat was rearranging them and came up with g-o-g-g-l-e.
Parent Two: Wow, what are the odds of putting those letters together and making a real word?
Parent Three: Well, the funny part was that he got mad at me when I said, "You spelled 'goggle.' Good job!"
Parent One: He got mad?
Parent Three: ::laughing:: Yeah, he meant to spell "googel" and made a mistake. He hates to make mistakes!
Parent Two: Oh, how cute, he was making up a new word!
Parent Three: Uh, well, no. A googel is a one with a hundred zeros after it. Pat loves numbers and learns everything he can about them. That was one thing he learned.
Parent One: ::glare::
Parent Two: ::glare::
Now Parent Three could have kept the details to herself, but then that's not really sharing. It's like having to keep a secret for fear of how people might respond to that secret. But parents of gifted children are no different from other parents: they love their children and want to share their children's triumphs, however great or small.
Poll: Do you feel like you are bragging when you talk about your child?
View Results
More polls from your guide
Comments
Teaching your gifted child a word like “googel” and then telling other parents, IS bragging. A small child is not exposed to things like this on their own. When we talk about bragging most of us don’t mean that we teach our gifted children quantum physics and then brag. We mean we can’t tell normal stuff that our children learn on their own, like early reading, or science they learned on the science channel. Most of us would never act like a moron, and tell others our child is spelling the word “googel” which they learned when we spoon fed it to them.
The gifted child in this exchange is a composite of two real-life gifted children. One was a numbers fanatic, who did indeed want to know everything about math. His parents did not teach he word “googel” to him, although they did provide him with easy readers and picture books about numbers to nurture their child’s interest in numbers. One of the books was about the googel. The other child was one who was fascinated by letters and words. He loved to spell words with magnetic letters on the refrigerator. Neither child was ever spoon fed information.
I would never imply that any child wouldn’t want to know about numbers, or the alphabet. I have an extremely gifted child, and the point I was making is this, why make comments like that to other parents when there are loads of other words the child probably tries to spell? Why focus on that word, and make sure you repeat it to other parents? It makes no sense to do something like that.
It’s the same concept as having a conversation with others who are commenting on how much they’ve been able to save for vacation (and it’s a small amount). Then you comment that you’ve got millions of dollars and can go whenever you want.
The point of sharing the spelling of “googel” was that it was a cute and funny story, which was the type of story the other parents were sharing. Had the parent of the gifted child just brought up words her child was spelling out of nowhere, that would have been rather odd. The story illustrates how difficult it is for parents of gifted children to share stories. The parent of the gifted child could have either shared her funny story or kept quiet.
I agree with the gifted kids guide. I have a profoundly gifted child and I could never share stories with other parents. The only way I could participate in discussions was to tell stories about what my son had done one or two years earlier. That never felt good.
Most parents think their children are gifted, but most children are *not* gifted. Something is wrong with this equation. My mom is a gifted and talented resource educator, she regularly deals with parents who think their child is gifted, but it often turns out that they are not. Spelling an obscure word does not make a child gifted.
I see the point Gifted kids Guide is trying to make. And it is possible for a child to pick up sophisticated ideas and words without them being spoonfed. My son at age 3 is a big fan of magic school bus books and decided recently that one of his paintings was the mantle of the earth. He also loves to sound out and spell words and I can see us having a converstation where he trys to spell mantel and gets it wrong (as I may already have, I can not spell)and gets upset. And it would be a hard story share with many people because no one expects a 3 year old to know what the mantel is or how to spell or to be genuinely interested in this stuff. unless an adult is pushing, spoonfeeding or something. I provide the resources my child finds interesting, which often are geared for a child 2-3 years older. And sometimes I feel like I am seen as putting him on display when all I am doing is playing with him public the same way we play in private – like talking about how many groups of 2 we can divide the 6 crayons on the table into as we wait for dinner at a resturant to arrive. He can already count to 6, back and forward, he can sort them by color, he can add 2 and 4, or 3 and 3, or 5 and 1 and do the complimentarly subtraction, so I look for the next concept to keep him busy and occupied at the table. I don’t think anyone would blink if I asked him how many crayons there were, or the colors or even to added 1 an d2 crayons to get to 3, since those are things a 3 year old would normally be working on. But since those are old hat to my child I go up one more notch to keep him entertained and feel like “one of THOSE moms.”
To Renrel,
I don’t see anything bragidocious about playing with your child the way you do, however, detailing the list of his acquired skills/concepts, as you did above, IS bragging. I admire a parent for interacting with their child in intellectually stimulating ways…that is great. Just don’t describe it to everyone in detail.
I had hoped that this was a forum for parents of gifted children, and one place where we COULD feel comfortable detailing our child’s actions without being viewed as “bragging”. I see, however, from comments such as “most parents think their child is gifted”, that it is probably also visited by those who almost seem jealous (instead of being glad that they have gifted physicians who can save their lives, and research scientists doing the same work!). Nevermind.
Katherine,
The comments you see here are comments from all visitors to the site. These comments aren’t part of the Gifted Kids Site forum. You can talk with other parents of gifted kids in the forums section: http://forums.about.com/ab-giftedkids/start/?lgnF=y