Gifted Kids Become Gifted Adults

When a gifted kid grows up, they are still gifted.

That means we have a lot of gifted adults out there - parents, grandparents, young adults, elderly adults. And while we may learn to cope with our over-excitabilities, they don't go away. And I'm pretty convinced that asynchrony doesn't ever fully even out, either (see the former sentence).

I, like my son, have all five OEs. Very strongly. And I am a multipotentialite, which means I am gifted in many ways. I have said to people, "I'm good at many things, but great at nothing." Over the years, I've also told people that I'm a generalist, rather than a specialist, though as I get older I find that I do have some areas of preference to which I naturally migrate.

With my own OEs, I find that I continually have to monitor how I am coping. I get overwhelmed easily with a lot of sensory input, so I must manage my environment. I love learning new things, so I tend to jump from interest to interest quickly, making the work of completing tasks and staying engaged a challenge. Movement is my friend, helping me think more clearly and stay focused. My imagination has morphed from childhood fantasies to turning my interpretation of events into a reality of its own, which isn't a healthy response, so I try to adjust my imagination to more positive uses.

And then there is emotional OE. After all these years, you'd think I would learn. But yet, here I am, still emotional as anything. I can't go to a funeral without crying, even if I never knew the deceased - the weight of everyone's emotions in the room gets overwhelming. I have to intentionally tone down the reactive nature of my emotional OE, but if someone catches me off guard, it slips. It's all or nothing with me emotionally, it seems, though I work hard to keep it all balanced and in check.

And, as I mentioned before. I'm pretty sure that my own asynchrony - though far better than it was as a child - is still a factor. There are times I can see myself responding like a four year old and can't stop it. Most of the time, it's an internal-only reaction (that's the adult part), but I mess up regularly enough to keep me humble. There are times when my hands - so adept and quick at certain tasks like typing or playing the piano - feel like they are fumbling along completely inept at simple things like using scissors or a needle. I'm still a child in an adult body.

People ask me how I can understand my son so well. The reason is because I recognize what is going on with him, because it would be the same for me. It still is the same for me, though I have more control over my environment and how I express what's going on inside of me.

I might have grown up, but I'm still gifted.

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This post is part of a blog hop hosted by the Gifted Homeschoolers Forum. To read more great blogs on this topic, see hop on over to the link here.

God and Giftedness

If my small little cohort of connections in the gifted world is any indication, God is a sticky subject among gifted people. Perhaps it is such a sticky subject in the general population as well, but it seems like it's more so in the gifted world, because faith is aggressively rejected by many gifted people, under the guise of intellectualism.

Stained Glass Cross at Cedar Hills Baptist Church, Portland, OR.
Photo by me.

As a Christian pastor, this is troubling to me. I understand the objections; in fact, I've had almost all of them myself. I've read atheist books and materials. And I have spoken to many, many people who self-identify as atheist or agnostic, who recite objections about the religious treatment of science and/or the idea of believing in something as implausible and invisible as God, the hypocrisy of the Church, or the countless abuses committed in the name of religion.

I get it. I really do. I completely understand the thought process that could lead someone to believe that religion is a psychological trick to make oneself feel better. I've had that thought, more times than I can count. Marx was the one who called religion the "opiate of the masses," and the charge that religious leaders exert control through emotionalism and tyranny is of course one that must be taken seriously.

It is this idea - that God is a ridiculous, made-up, fiction - that is rampant among the gifted population. Smart people just don't believe in impossible ideas, right? If it's not provable through science, it's not worth the time. I've had my intelligence questioned because I believe - and I'm not the only one. But I will be honest with you - I can't not believe.

Like many gifted kids, the Teenlet began questioning his parents' beliefs earlier than most, when he was about 7 or 8. We were faced with these big questions about the existence of God as a very young person. He asserted that he was having trouble believing in something he couldn't see. I asked him if he believed in gravity. He, being the physics fan that he is, said, "of course, but that's because I can see the effect that gravity has on everything."

I asked him, then, what he would see if he didn't know anything about gravity. He would see things fall, but he wouldn't know why. He would probably think it's just the way things are. He wouldn't identify it as gravity if he didn't know about the force that pulls everything to the Earth's core. I said, it's the same with God - I see God actively engaging with me and the world every day, but that's because I'm looking, and I can identify it when I see it. I can see the effect of God on everything. But if I don't know it is from God, I might assume that it's coincidence, or an accident, or just the way things are. But when I'm looking, I see it.

And that's why I have to believe.

I am frustrated by many of the same questions that others are frustrated by. But in the end, God is bigger than all of that. In the face of all the questions, the challenges, and the struggles in my faith, I cannot ignore my real experience of God - in miracles (though I have no answers to why miracles happen for some and not for others), visions, nature, dreams, and discernment/guidance that comes from outside myself. God may be invisible, but God's work is not. In those moments when I want to throw up my hands and give in to the questions, I am reminded of what I have seen God do. And I believe.