I’ve seen a lot of chatter on the WTM forums lately about the difference between “gifted” and “just bright.” Several people insisted that giftedness comes down to “the way they think.” I am inclined to agree, because I’ve seen Captain Science’s brain working. He really does think differently and has a hard time relating to people who are more “inside the box” thinkers (or people who have difficulty getting the whole box of concepts immediately*). The upside is that it makes him a great abstract thinker and problem solver, when he applies his abilities confidently and diligently. The downside is that it has created an unwarranted sense of his own mental superiority, which manifests as the stubborn insistence that he can always, for every subject or activity, find a “better” way to do it. He’s also constantly on the search for shortcuts, even if those “shortcuts” end up requiring 10x the amount of work as just doing it the normal way.

We saw this a lot when he was little. When Officer Daddyman would teach him martial arts, he would usually respond with, “But I can show you a better way to [roll, stand, kick].” Eventually, he did have to acknowledge that, at five or six, he really didn’t have the knowledge to school the 4th degree black belt in martial arts, but before he could get to that point, there was a lot of headbutting and chest pounding (mostly on his part, as Daddyman isn’t generally going to dignify the young monkey’s attempt to show up the big gorilla).

We’re seeing it now with math, and today it proved to be the trigger for his absurd display of hissydom. He is perfectly competent in mathematics and math foundations, so the last two days, when he suddenly couldn’t do multiplication correctly, we knew something had to be up. Apparently, he decided he could develop a better (and more importantly, faster and easier) way to do multiplication. He would only do multiplication in his new “better” way, despite the fact that the answer came out wrong every single time. The more someone tried to demonstrate that his new method wasn’t working, the angrier he became, until suddenly, he went utterly nuclear. How dare we, the simple-minded parents of his great and hideous oppression, try to act like we knew better than he? How dare we say his way wasn’t hands down the single biggest mathematical innovation EVER in the history of the world?

I’m not exactly sure what to do about this. I’m glad he wants to try new methods, but insisting they’re the right or best ones, when they obviously aren’t, has got to stop. Captain Science is probably too aware of his intelligence, which was partially avoidable (too much praise from family and teachers, too involved in his own test scores during the grade skipping and gifted class testing process) and partially unavoidable (when you’re in a class environment, it’s really not hard to compare yourself to other children, and see that your capacity or performance is different from theirs). I do think that homeschooling will help somewhat in that respect, though — instead of being the gifted kid in a mainstream classroom with diverse ability levels, he’s one several. If Eclectic Girl’s math abilities don’t poke a little hole in his delusions of grandeur, then nothing will. I also hope that being with other highly intelligent children, working on higher-level work, will start encouraging him to rise to the challenge more, rather than finding short cuts.

I agree with Patchfire when she says an IQ of 300 doesn’t matter if all you do with it is sit around and play video games. “Gifted” may describe a certain, special way of thinking, but what does that really matter if the result is a smug attitude and the constant search for cheats and shortcuts? I was a “gifted” student, too, but by high school, I was cutting so many corners in order to put in as minimal effort as possible that I was performing at a significantly lower level than the “average” students in my classes. By college, I was making no effort at all, and I’d managed to functionally dumb myself down through sheer force of “couldn’t be bothered.” The brain is like any other muscle, and if you don’t exercise it to its full capacity, it starts losing that capacity and getting mushy. I don’t want that for Captain Science.

I’m happy for him to look for a better way to do things. I don’t want him thinking his way is automatically going to be better, simply by virtue of it being his way. I definitely don’t want him falling out with the red ass any time someone points out his way isn’t an improvement over the original way of doing things.

*When Captain Science was three, his preschool teacher told me about an incident in the classroom where his frustration with another classmate’s difficulty in mastering the colors came to a head. Nick had incorrectly identified something blue as green, prompting Captain Science to say, with great exasperation, “It’s blue, Nick. B-L-U-E, blue. Not blew like the wind. Blue like the color.” A warning sign of trouble to come?

My theory is that we relaxed the prison-style homeschooling too quickly, because he was being so good and agreeable. We probably needed to continue to apply it for another two weeks beyond the improvement stage. Instead, we were too quick to relax and reward, and now Captain Science is back to having meltdowns. Gotta say, the kid is a master manipulator. I’m sure he’s just waiting for one of us to go try and empathize with him or attempt to understand why he’s acting like this.

Honestly, I don’t care why. I’m the adult. He is the child. I’m not going to be yanked around by a 9 year old with a bug up his butt. I’m done with sympathizing, empathizing, or in any way trying to explore his motivations. I do not give a rat’s patoot about his motivations. It’s behaviors that interest me, and his are going to change.

So, back we go to lockdown. We’re divesting him of his worldly toys and pleasure reading, too, in the interest of full blown attention to what needs to get done. We might be taking the door off the hinges again, as he’s been slamming it this week in his fits of tantrum. We aren’t scaling back any curricula, but we aren’t adding to it, and he might miss out on next week’s board game class if he can’t improve in the next six days. We’ll go to Patchfire’s house for science, then come straight home with no playtime.

At least Officer Daddyman was home to witness the sound and the fury. Also, I didn’t get even remotely upset about this magnificent display of jackassery (at least, not externally), so Captain Science didn’t accomplish getting a rise out of either of us. He is going to learn he can’t control us, but he had better damn well learn to control himself.

Ticked off mama is ticked off.

Imagine a witty and insightful post about feeling inadequate when you hear about other people’s homeschooling, and we’ll pretend that’s what I wrote, ok?

ETA: Oh, heavens me! My post is back! I clicked a link in a chat window and when the window opened, my post was there. Yes, a magical hidden browser window contained my post, which is probably much less witty and insightful than promised, but it’s there! Oh joy oh rapture, it’s there!