Ditto the above sentiments - I enjoy these stories. I hadn't given much thought to GT family characteristics. Though I'll likely miss the mark, I'll give it a shot...

My mother is one of 8 kids (family of farmers in IL). My mom wishes someone had encouraged her to go to college. None of her siblings attended college. I was a bossy youngster. I didn't recognize how bright my mom (a legal secretary) is. She's an introvert and will let inaccurate assumptions about her slide.

I don't know my father, so I can't comment on him.

DH's parents are toxic and make some of the news stories look tame. DH took care of (tried to feed etc.) his 4 younger brothers, but he had to leave home at 15. DH worked 3 jobs during his time at UC Berkeley. He's not doubt HG+, but a biological illness + emotional baggage makes life difficult for him. Depression is an ugly beast.

One of DH's brothers is MG but the other 3 (I think) are ND - I could be wrong though.

DH wasn't tagged as GT in school (would change elementary schools 3-5x/year). However, I was tagged as GT in elementary school, and I'm not as smart as DH. I'm not sure why I was in the GT program. To this day I still don't get it.

DS2.5 is some flavor of GT, but I'm not sure what yet. Time will tell. I'd rather him be ND (w/o DH's depression) than HG+ (w/ DH-type depression).

I hope I didn't offend anyone.

It is what it is.

8 pages, and there is anecdotal evidence on both sides of the aisle, ceiling and floor.

Dillente comment: There are 80 genes for intelligence and you need 60 to be PG+ or something (don't hit me if I am wrong). You need the basic physical gift. Is it a diamond and withstand anything? Or is it like silver that needs polishing to shine? I think we heard both.

But the OLSAT results in NYC showed the highly educated areas of the city had many more high scores than children in the poor areas of harlem and the Bronx. Some of the poor areas did not have any kids scoring above 90 percentile.

Thanks OHG. I didn't intend to fast forward and borrow trouble (for DS), but I'd be lying to say that I don't wish some parts of DH skip DS. This has been a particularly rough year. I'm optimistic that the BP depression + history-linked-depression won't be as troublesome next year.

Okay, back to studying ... one more exam to go. I wonder what my classmates would think if I ran down the aisles screaming "I'm a covenant running with the land!" during the exam.

I have been observing testing at my son's school for 6 years. I can tell you that the kids who care about the test do better on the test and those who think it's a waste of time, tend to blow it off and not do well. Many of the kids who blow it off are smarter than the kids who do well. The social circumstances are very important and I be very wary of trying to say anthing about actually ability based on standardized test scores.

Ann: I can't imagine anyone would take issue with what you posted. Depression is an awful disease to deal with. I wouldn't wish it on my enemies, so I can certainly understand why you hope it doesn't affect your beloved son!

Now go kick some exam heiney, would you?!

These stories are all so interesting. It makes me think there are many families who are unaware of giftedness in their own families, but then after discovering their children are very GT, they look back and have an "i bet gramps was HG...that explains things!"

I come from a very blue collar family. My dad was one of 7. My paternal grandpa was a plumber, and all his sons are/were plumbers. Even the guys who married my dad's sisters all eventually became plumbers. If you can count quick witted humor alone as a sign of giftedness, then many members of my dad's family were GT. I find that I never paid attention to some of the extracurricular achievements of this family until after we found out our son was HG+. Now I suspect more of my relatives to be GT. I was the second in this large extended family to graduate from college (not counting trade schools, which my relatives didn't seem to think was as big of a deal).

My mom grew up very poor in a family struck by depression, schizophrenia, alcoholism. She spent much of her childhood in crummy foster homes. Until she went back for her master's degree when she was in her 40's, and aced every class, she didn't think of herself as all that smart. I know she is quite gifted. I suspect her dad was gifted also, but quite troubled.

My MIL is very intelligent, and after we found out about our son, we've had discussions wondering what could have been if she had been identified as gifted. She said she skipped school most of the time, and still did the best in the class, but they wouldn't make her valevictorian because she missed school too much. But she did very well for herself as it was. Never met FIL, but he certainly has the gift of gab (had a radio show). His mother graduated from high school at 15 and was known to be very smart. Both MIL and FIL grew up in working class families. MIL was first in her family to go to college, I believe. MIL said both DH and his brother tested gifted, and she told me their numbers. I suspect that the tester stopped when she discovered they were in the gifted range, based on stories from their youth and how they are now. I think DH is probably HG. I was identified as gifted in school, but never thought much about it until DS was identified and I read about underachievers!

My husband was one of eight siblings. His mother had been raised in a wealthy family with judges and lawyers but she married a poor man that her family did not approve of so they shunned her.

His mother instilled a love of reading and learning in all of her children, but she died when he was 14 and his family fell apart. The younger kids went to live with relatives but my husband and one brother were left to fend for themselves and he had to work evenings at a grocery store in order to survive. Prior to his mother's death he did very well in school and even represented his school in a math competition but things changed overnight. He and his brother had to work to survive. Nobody recommended college for them because they were poor. My husband ended up joining the army as soon as he could and worked his way up to a very high level because of his intelligence and leadership ability. He didn't sit around feeling sorry for himself because of hardships. He was successful because of his attitude and work ethic.

His brother also worked his way up to a high level and is very successful in business in spite of earlier hardships. Their younger sister was only about 5 when their mother died so she was raised by relatives. I don't think she ever went hungry but she also developed the same work ethic that allowed her to earn multiple degrees, including a PhD. An older sister learned languages very easily and can speak fluently in several different languages. My husband said he knew linguists in the army that had this ability. I think this would require a high degree of intelligence, especially if you are able to learn new languages easily as an adult.

My husband knew what it was like to struggle to have enough to eat and he didn't want his kids to struggle in any way, so his older son didn't have to work hard at anything. He is so very smart but he doesn't do anything with it.

My mother used to be very smart. Her father died when she was a baby, and her mother remarried but the family struggled financially so she never went to college, but she read all the time, loved crossword puzzles and was good at answering Jeopardy questions. She worked her way up to a very good job in the federal government without college. I think she knew more than a lot of people with college degrees and she a lot of her knowledge was self taught. My mother is one of the reasons I found the confidence I needed to homeschool my son. I could see that it is possible to learn without going to school. My Dad was very supportive also because he could also see that public school was not going to work for my son. He was raised in a poor family after his father died when he was very young but his brothers worked their way through school and became engineers. He wanted to be a teacher but joined the military when my mother became pregnant with me. For so many people life just gets in the way of reaching their potential, but then for others, it looks like everything has been made easy for them and they don't do anything with it.

So which situation would you rather have? The hard way with the appreciation that comes with it?
Or the easy life with no understanding of hard work and sacrifice?

Ooooh! Tough question!

I'm pretty lazy, so I'm tempted to say the easy way. But it doesn't really suit my values to say that.

Can we name a middle way, ala Buddhism? I don't want my kids to have to emigrate without even shoes to wear, but I don't want everything to come easily to them either. The middle path seems best!