A lot of the world is pretty bad about things like not keeping their word. You see this come up a lot in fiction, which likely reflects the embittering experiences of the author.
In one of the Jurassic Park movies, the father is blaming the mother for letting the kid sleep with a night light and then there really is a T rex in the backyard and it's just eaten the family dog.
In one of the Aliens vs. Predators movies, the father is dismissively telling the child "There's no monster. See!" and shines the light on the window which illuminates the Alien and it breaks through the window to kill him. Logically, the child was next, but the scene cuts away before the child is attacked. So you get sort of a fantasy depiction of some asshole father getting what they so richly deserve, to the satisfaction of the child who has been dismissed their entire life.
One video game has a meme "The cake is a lie." It's a hugely popular meme and probably because a lot of parents promise desert if the kid behaves and don't necessarily follow through.
Gifted kids aren't necessarily more moral, but they are more articulate, will have a better memory and a bigger vocabulary and are somewhat inclined to be argumentative. A lot of them will call the parents on "But you said..." and will remember it if the parent basically screws them over after being reminded of what they promised.
Kids tend to universally feel that if you said you would do X, that's a promise and you are supposed to keep your promises. Gifted kids just do a better job of remembering that you said X and arguing it with you and tend to have a raft load of other strong personality traits.
The higher the IQ, the more likely they are to qualify for other labels as well, such as OCD, ASD and ADHD. So some of these kids get really wrapped around the axle about things when adults make a promise and then break it and it becomes clear that the adult never really intended to keep it. They were just screwing with the kid for convenience' sake.
The same clear, bright line of logic that makes some kids good at math or science plays out socially as a strong moral position, whether it is intended that way or not. I have a strong interest in social stuff and I am routinely assumed to be talking about morality when I'm often saying something more like "gravity doesn't work that way."
People think social stuff is fuzzy and hand wavy and you can't research it. It's hard to research, but there are some things we know and there are some best practices for determining some things and I just find that stuff interesting. But people almost always feel I am being judgy, probably because most parents raise children with either a guilt model or a shame model.
I didn't use either as a parent. I raised my kids with a model of enlightened self interest and I taught them things like "You have to pick your battles. You don't have to back down just because someone is mad that you did X, but if you don't have a good reason to keep doing X, maybe them being mad is good enough reason to give it a rest already."
So they got schooled about social dynamics in a way that's pretty uncommon.
Anyway, it's not that they really frame it as morality per se. It's more that they do the same thing all kids do -- expect you to keep your word when you make a promise and things like that -- but they are more articulate and have a better memory and are more inclined to argue things for various reasons. For parents trying to take some easy way out and be lazy and say "There will be cake if you are good" when they don't actually mean it, this is endlessly problematic and comes back to bite them, doubly so if the kid is bright.
Thanks for the explanation, Doreen. My oldest is 2 years ahead in math and has been very much obsessed with fairness for the last year or so. You've given me some ideas on how to discuss the concept of fairness, and to bring up the "choose your battles" angle.
However, quite a few of our disagreements have to do with how it's basically impossible to determine fairness because of multiple dimensions of fairness. Do you have any advice on how you have handled that (or might handle it now)?
Honestly, probably the best tip I can give you is that when your bright child is driving you up the wall, the correct answer is (usually) "They're bored. What can I do to remedy that?"
Bright kids, especially twice exceptional kids, often argue to alleviate boredom and not because they actually are that wrapped around the axle about X.
Re fairness: I studied negotiating tactics and taught my sons to negotiate from a very young age. I spent a week when they were like two and four years old (or maybe three and five) coaching them to argue their side for who gets the front seat in the car. This took up to thirty minutes per stop.
After a week, I told them they had five minutes to come up with an agreement and if they couldn't agree, they both went in the back seat. They got very talented at coming up with win-win solutions to quite a lot of their problems because I coached them on negotiation at an incredibly early age and made it a standard in the household.
You might try stocking up on negotiating books and see if that helps any.
Hi Doreen, very interesting. There's a lot of the 'Positive Education' movement (not sure how it's called in the US) in what you describe.
I have twin girls and one the best things I've learned is to let them handle all their conflicts themselves.
It's a lot about accepting their emotions, letting them express themselves, acknowledging their feelings and... Stopping short of giving a solution. 'I'm here for comfort, you're in a safe place, now go find your path'. So, so liberating. They always find a solution, as long as they're fed, not too tired, and not sick. Not always win-win, but choosing which hill to die on, feeling how advantageous is the deal for everyone, sometimes taking a loss to maintain harmony and keep the game going, sometimes taking a yuge loud stand for a tiny tiny thing but once you listen you hear a long litany of small concessions not rewarded and it's time to take a stand. They're far more prone to show generosity and also to assert when they don't want to share. And they're perfectly allowed to change their mind, and to handle the happy or angry consequences. It's kind of wonderful to see how then those skills are useful with their school friends. Kind of a superpower.
More and more I feel parenting is giving a place to come for comfort, teach (by example and some simple phrases) few absolute principles (no violence - you can be angry, you can't hurt others, no stealing, ...) and just be available for reassurance, comfort, to mourn with them and also to try new stuff (lying, new 'negotiation' techniques, sports, music, ...).
Parenting can be a form of therapy. You question yourself a lot. And kids are kind of a mirror of our inconsistencies, our biases. You can embrace it, admit your inconsistencies, show them that 1) one does not have to be perfect to help, comfort and be worthy of inconditional love 2) one can say sorry when wrong 3) one can change and improve when faced with inconsistencies 4) some things are not good but it's not easy to stop when you've been doing it for long - and there lies the difficulty of changing habits, it's hard and can be done, 5) sometimes people fail to follow-through and it's important to be persistent...
It's a challenge to become a better person. Their world is shaped by what they see. Your reward is to shape a slightly better world through them.
While I've only got a single 3yo so far, and I've been mostly following similar approach as you, I find that this approach requires a lot of time (and energy) investment that is sometimes hard to get. My wife also works pretty long hours, so sometimes enduring arguments of the sort is extra tiring.
Not to diminish the work you did, but did you manage to do that along the full time work, or did you have to stop or reduce work hours?
Not to mention that this 3yo is happy to sleep for 7-8h every other night because there's so much stuff to do. :)
As I said elsewhere, I was fortunate to be a full-time homemaker.
Just to give you some kind of picture: I have a serious medical condition, as does my oldest, and both of my kids are twice exceptional, not just gifted. I was also a military wife, which is fairly demanding, and I went to college part-time and intermittently.
When my oldest was twelve, I realized that he argued so much because he was bored. At that point, I began redirecting his attention instead of arguing and life got vastly better and he quit making me crazy.
I was still active on parenting lists and that idea was a big revelation for a number of parents who indicated that announcements that "I'm bored" tended to precede problematic social behavior.
"Idle hands are the devil's workshop" for bright kids. Keeping them occupied is the best way to keep the peace.
Well that doesn't sound that bad. I apologize for my ignorance though because I'm not privileged to have kids of my own.
I think just being honest would be the best approach if their memory is good and they somewhat have a higher moral standard. Why not just explain you're in a difficult situation when it happens and express how you expect them to play their part in helping complete the difficult situation.
I hate parents that do the blame & shame or guilt to achieve something. That to me can play into a controlling dynamic that never solves the conflict. I think sincereness when difficulties happen is the best approach because everyone involved likely will remember it. Specially if it works out.
Life is sometimes just not that easy and simple and gifted kids often go through a stage where their mind and experience levels are out of step and it goes weird places.
My oldest son talked late in part because he was frustrated that he couldn't express himself as articulately as his college-educated mother. So he continued using two-word phrases and refused to use sentences because he was two years old and that made some kind of logical sense to him, since he felt like he had mastered two-word phrases but trying to use sentences made him feel dumb. He was sixteen before he really got over it.
My other son, the one with the fairness bug, got very car sick and had trouble eating and it was quite hard to convince him that, no, really, you are allowed to order ice cream for dinner at a restaurant when we are traveling and you are car sick. He had gotten it into his head that it was a bad thing to eat desert without first eating dinner and he would have melt downs about things like that and no amount of telling him "No, really, I'm your mom and I say it's okay" was enough to readily fix it. We would go through a few rounds of things before he would finally decide that there wasn't some problem with making some exception, even though he explicitly had parental permission.
I was fortunate to be a homemaker, so I had a fair amount of time and flexibility for stopping and explaining life, the universe and everything at the drop of a hat for my endlessly questioning little hellions. But if both parents work or you are a single parent, there just isn't enough time in the day and it's exhausting even if there is.
I think I did a good job, but it wasn't easy. It was never easy. And that's why I keep trying to blog about it: Because other parents who mean well and would like to do the right thing aren't getting the answers they need and some of them are just tearing their hair out.
Such parents liked my emails on a particular email list years ago and that's why I began blogging. But it never really quite gelled. I'm hoping it will soon cuz Reasons.
I’m enjoying your stories here and on your “Raising Future Adults” blog. You mentioned other parenting blogs – are they still live? I’d love to read more of your work.
No, those parenting blogs aren't still live. But I run a wide variety of websites, most of which are written more or less on the format of "x topic as filtered through my eyes and life experience."
Thanks! As a mom of a gifted preschooler, I’ve appreciated the chance to learn from your experience of parenting your gifted kids with respect and honesty. You remind me of Aunt Annie, another blogger who’s work has really resonated with me. http://auntannieschildcare.blogspot.com/p/aunt-annies-gifted...
Well, I have, in fact, finally written the post I've been working on of late. Hopefully, this is a new beginning and I will be more consistent henceforth.
In one of the Jurassic Park movies, the father is blaming the mother for letting the kid sleep with a night light and then there really is a T rex in the backyard and it's just eaten the family dog.
In one of the Aliens vs. Predators movies, the father is dismissively telling the child "There's no monster. See!" and shines the light on the window which illuminates the Alien and it breaks through the window to kill him. Logically, the child was next, but the scene cuts away before the child is attacked. So you get sort of a fantasy depiction of some asshole father getting what they so richly deserve, to the satisfaction of the child who has been dismissed their entire life.
One video game has a meme "The cake is a lie." It's a hugely popular meme and probably because a lot of parents promise desert if the kid behaves and don't necessarily follow through.
Gifted kids aren't necessarily more moral, but they are more articulate, will have a better memory and a bigger vocabulary and are somewhat inclined to be argumentative. A lot of them will call the parents on "But you said..." and will remember it if the parent basically screws them over after being reminded of what they promised.
Kids tend to universally feel that if you said you would do X, that's a promise and you are supposed to keep your promises. Gifted kids just do a better job of remembering that you said X and arguing it with you and tend to have a raft load of other strong personality traits.
The higher the IQ, the more likely they are to qualify for other labels as well, such as OCD, ASD and ADHD. So some of these kids get really wrapped around the axle about things when adults make a promise and then break it and it becomes clear that the adult never really intended to keep it. They were just screwing with the kid for convenience' sake.
The same clear, bright line of logic that makes some kids good at math or science plays out socially as a strong moral position, whether it is intended that way or not. I have a strong interest in social stuff and I am routinely assumed to be talking about morality when I'm often saying something more like "gravity doesn't work that way."
People think social stuff is fuzzy and hand wavy and you can't research it. It's hard to research, but there are some things we know and there are some best practices for determining some things and I just find that stuff interesting. But people almost always feel I am being judgy, probably because most parents raise children with either a guilt model or a shame model.
I didn't use either as a parent. I raised my kids with a model of enlightened self interest and I taught them things like "You have to pick your battles. You don't have to back down just because someone is mad that you did X, but if you don't have a good reason to keep doing X, maybe them being mad is good enough reason to give it a rest already."
So they got schooled about social dynamics in a way that's pretty uncommon.
Anyway, it's not that they really frame it as morality per se. It's more that they do the same thing all kids do -- expect you to keep your word when you make a promise and things like that -- but they are more articulate and have a better memory and are more inclined to argue things for various reasons. For parents trying to take some easy way out and be lazy and say "There will be cake if you are good" when they don't actually mean it, this is endlessly problematic and comes back to bite them, doubly so if the kid is bright.