Things that make me stabby

[esmerel]

Originally published at Esmerel's blabber space. You can comment here or there.

So there's a post I've seen a few times today on Facebook that says:

We need to care less about whether our children are academically gifted and more about whether they sit with the lonely kid in the cafeteria.

And my immediate thought?

FUCK YOU. FUUUUUCK YOU. FUCKITY FUCK

Comments

[nineme]

That Facebook comment also assumes that the lonely kid in the cafeteria /is/ lonely.

I liked eating alone. I absolutely loved it when we got out of elementary school and could just grab a seat and eat our food without having to sit with the rest of our class. Alone, I could eat, daydream, or read a freaking book without anybody bothering me (which generally started with them asking me why I was reading a book).

[esmerel]

Yeah, exactly. I mean, yes, there are lots of times where a kid is eating alone because of shitty reasons, but that is not always the case.

[silkiemom]

I'm not on facebook, so I don't know the context around that. I can see it taken two ways, though, and I'm not sure which is meant

[esmerel]

It was framed, just like that quote.

I read it both ways; because there was that awful opinion piece on 'how it doesn't matter if your kid is gifted', and because it IS hard having a gifted, special needs kid and it's so freaking dismissive or at least utterly ignorant that such people exist. I know a lot of kids with academic overachievers for kids. Most of them also have an excess of something else that needs help but parents of more typical kids act like CLEARLY THEY DON'T NEED MORE HELP BECAUSE THEY ARE GIFTED. Which, I know you totally understand how that goes!

Every one of the parents of these gifted/overachiever kids? They all work REALLY REALLY HARD to ensure their kids are decent human beings. So it feels like a slap in the face when someone says "stop being concerned with how gifted your kid is and worry about how nice they are." How about these parents of more typical kids ALSO TEACH THEIR KIDS TO BE NICE.

Thank goodness our school's teachers aren't that way.

[silkiemom]

Oh yay, I missed that opinion piece. Probably best for my blood pressure.

It doesn't really make sense to me to tell people that you should be worrying about gifted kids being nice. I'm really not seeing how they are the group that is tormenting and harassing other kids.

Meh. I guess it's just a catchy sounding, misleading meme. Which is a shame, because I do think that the other message, about not pushing your kid to be what they are not and to focus on other things, is more helpful.