Reasons Why Growing up a Gifted Kid Isn't Always What It's Cracked up to Be

Definitions of gifted education vary from source to source. My school board's Ministry of Education, for instance, defines it as "accommodating learning experiences of a depth and breadth beyond those normally provided." Some of my more cynical friends, however, have described it as "when you take a test that dictates the next ten years of your life despite being too young to even pack your own lunch." Although the former may be more credible and the latter more biased, neither of these definitions are necessarily more factual than the other, and based off my own personal experiences as part of an enriched education program, I think the answer lies somewhere in between.

For me, along with most of the students from my old public school, the Giftedness Battle of Identity started on the playground at a young age. See, our school had a number of self-contained enriched classes mixed in with the general education ones, so even though everyone went to the same school, you would rarely see kids from the opposite program. And maybe it was because we were naturally inclined to befriend our own classmates, or maybe it was because we had these labels attached to us like ear tags on a herd of cattle. Whatever the reason, every recess became a war between the "Gifties" and the "Normies," as we had designated ourselves. There was this student-contrived invisible line that partitioned the school yard, and the "Gifties" and the "Normies" kept to their respective sides.

It's hard to blame our 9-year-old selves, though. Being in the gifted program and being in the mainstream program was made to be such a seemingly substantial part of our identities. Not only did the entire school dynamic seem to support the disconnect, but also when you're a kid you don't have much else to identify with; there's your name, your grade, your gender, and in our case, whether you're "gifted" or "mainstream."

And I think those terms are the root of the problem when it comes to enriched education. I grew up not thinking twice about the word "gifted," but if you really take a step back and consider the implications of that language, they become difficult to look past. I mean, what does it mean to be gifted? What does it mean to have a gift?

Well, my school board's web page implies that "an unusually advanced degree of general intellectual ability" is a gift. The test I took when I was 9 implies that creative thinking and the ability to make broad connections are gifts. My teachers' approach implies that superiority in math and excellence in language are gifts.

But those are just a few (exclusionary) examples of the very real and the very necessary gifts in our world. I have a sibling who wasn't accepted into the gifted program but is exceptionally talented in the arts. I have another friend who wasn't accepted but is a natural leader and an efficacious public speaker. And that's not to mention those with spiritual gifts: discernment, hospitality, intercession, etc. Can any of those people be justly labelled as ungifted just because they aren't in the fifth percentile for elementary school math?

When I grew up, there was so much social stigma attached to the "mainstream" program. But oftentimes the product of a graduating gifted class is a few students who go on to achieve conventional success, and a few who fall victim to what I like to call the Gifted Kid Cycle, which plays out something like this:

Students will spend the first— and statistically most definitive— 10 years of their lives contending with the same class of mark-oriented geniuses, which makes them liable to becoming competitive perfectionists. They spend those same years intensively studying the subjects that come naturally to them, meaning they never have to exert themselves to succeed. And so, these predisposed competitive perfectionists also never learn how to fail, and are thus unmotivated to try.

Despite this lack of motivation though, they live their lives desperate to live up to the potential and the pressure (both internal and external) that they experienced during their entire life tagged as a gifted kid.

So while the gifted program is presented as an environment that sets you up to prosper, and often succeeds at doing so, that isn't always the case. The National Association for Gifted Children identifies heightened awareness, anxiety, perfectionism, stress, issues with peer relationships, and identity concerns as possible effects of gifted education that students occasionally carry with them into adulthood.

While I recognize the undeniable importance of accelerated education for certain students, there are all sorts of other factors at play, and the program is far from perfect. And that's why growing up a gifted kid isn't always what it's cracked up to be.