Gifted, not psychic!

Credit: Vectorshy

To our gifted children, growing so fast....

You are quick and delightful. You are intuitive and insightful. You are without a doubt gifted, and we are proud of you every day.

However....

You are not psychic. 

7 ways you are not psychic

1. You cannot guess what people are saying before they finish their sentences.
2. You cannot guess what people said while you were listening to something else.
3. You cannot do your work by skipping the explanation.
4. You cannot answer everything in one step.
5. You cannot remember everything important without taking notes and checking them.
6. You do not already know what will be important later.
7. You do not already know what the person in front of you knows.  

Why it matters
In the beginning, because you are quick, insightful, intuitive, you think you can do all these things, all the time. You see how often you are quicker and more right than many around you.

This is the most dangerous lesson for a gifted child.

It won't last.

You'll soon notice that the goals you shot for got aced by someone who didn't just finish first.

...someone with the gift to recognise the world has more to show them than vice versa.

...someone who admitted they didn't understand, and asked until they did, and thought hard and long how to turn that new knowledge into something never seen before.

Listen and learn

Admitting you don't understand can feel really bad, when you already know everything. But how can the world share its secrets with you when you already know everything?

The world is full of people, and all of them know something you don't.


If you have two settings: "what I can answer quickly" and "don't know, boring", it's time to expand your horizons.

Forget about predicting the future - go make it happen!

 

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Jessica Parsons has been the President of Explorers Auckland, of the NZ Association for Gifted Children, for 5 years. She and her husband have two gifted children who very much enjoyed the Small Poppies and Mindplus programmes offered by NZCGE. She was an accelerated student and a grateful graduate of a fledgling gifted program in her primary school in the USA, many years ago.

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This post was written for the NZCGE Gifted Awareness Week Blog Tour.