In the mind of a gifted child

The Mind of a gifted child
Growing up all I ever wanted was to be normal, which at times seemedrather easy due to me having 6 other siblings and fitting in with themwas literally just being myself. But after I had gotten like 5 or 6 years old people started noticing that I had great memory recollection, ecspeciallly things that I had seen on Television and things my parentstold me. When your young its almost natural to think that your parentsare infoulable, but this thought was much harder for me because in essenseI had two fathers and two mothers. My father is a great wise man, who hears everything thats told to him, is a history buff, and has a general common sense that people would pay for. My father was also an alchoholic, who at times seemed lovingand at other times, blamed the world for everything and that seemed to include me. After a while my mind just found it easier to except him as these two indivuals. This wonderfulkind man whom everyone loves, and this heartless drunk who hates the world, and ecspeciallyblamed my mother. My mother, usually was very hard, very strict and very tense. In some waysshe is harder to understand then my father because I didn't see a reason for her hate the world (she really did have a damn good reason, but I was a kid to young to understand such things.) The day after one of my fathers rampages it seemed my parents would trade rollsin the sense that my mother would become nicer to us, or to me specificly, seem more loving.Almost as she was clinging to us. Thats very confusing for a child to have parents thatessentially trade rolls when one of them starts drinking. They argued most of our childhoodlives, though we all heard the arguements we never understood the reasoning, or the frequency,at times it be 5 times a week. Going to school I often lied about my ability to read or what I can do, teachers knew I had a great mind, they also seen i refused to use it. I'dsay till about the 3rd grade I was an extreme underachiever. I never did my school assignmentsI wasn't really a nice kid to hang out with, due to constant ragging I always got for being short. Well by the end of the third grade I started making friends, people who I'd wentto school with that whole time, but never really had anything to do with me till I startedshowing that I was worth more then the 10$ shoes I was wearing.
By the fourth grade I was an honor student, just as all my friends were, with little exceptionsevery now and then. I liked the teacher a lot, though dissagreed with her politically, shewas pretty much as open of a republican you can get in public schools.
At the end of the school year she had told me that there were special schools for people likeme, and that I might be better suited in one of these schools perticular, a magnet school.
Me, knowing i had good grades, but that all my friends had bout the same grades, she said to me that my almost immediate knowledge of the computers in our class amazed her, and thefact that teachers would ask me to their class to fix their computer was even more justification.
Though I had been told I was bright, special, smart, etc... for years, this is the first time that it really sank in that I might be different, I might have a greater purpose. Not to mentionthe year before I was doing the year befores word and receiving reading assistence, due at the time to either my innability or just refusal to read, to tell the truth I dont know.
My fourth grade year was also the year that I stopped asking my mom how to spell so muchand when she started asking me how to spell certain words. I mean, yeah, it seems great thefirst time you relise u might be smarter then parents.. but it is also troubling. A childgrows up with the impression that their parents are infoulable, when that is gone, its seemschildhood is essentially over.
Well, after telling all my friends, they told me I shouldn't go, because i have no friends there and at least here i had friends. By the time I had decided I should go to the new school, it was too late, the deadline has passed, I missed my chance.
I still regret that decision to this day, part of my reasoning behind not going for it atfirst was that I thought I knew enough and that a higher more technological educationwould do no good. I was wrong
The next 2 years, I did no school work.
In the sixth grade I was held back, which infuriated me, because people with worse gradeshad gotten to pass. But then a family incident happened and long story short we were placedin a state sanctioned orphanage/group home, whatever you want to call it. In there I seen just how hard my mom had worked to get us back, that really showed me that despite her,at times, strict almost heartless demeanor, she loved us with all her heart and could not standbeing away from all 7 of us. In less then a month we were out of that orphanage, albeit living in the projects. That inspired me to work hard again, I was again an honor student,reaching perfect attendence a few months in a grade that I had repeated from the year before.when I brought my "turn around" award home, she took it and still refuses to give it back.She said that it made her feel more proud of anything she has ever done. She always knew I woulddo something great, though her way of expressing her self leaves something to be desired.The way it felt when she clinched that plaq was more to me then that plaq couldv'e everdone. That was also the first year I relised I can actually act. I auditioned for the roleof robin hood in the play, using a crappy british accent, all my competetion refused to audition afterme.
To this day my 2nd time in the 6th grade is remembered most, partly due to the environmentwas better then the year prior, girls started noticing me, and I actually achived something.
the seventh eighth nineth and tenth grade was a blur, mostly cause i lost interest and didn't careI thought it was too much work and too of less emphasis on learning and testing.
By the end of the tenth grade I started heavily smoking marijuana and occasionally drinking.I found creative ways to skip classes, which would get me suspended, which was fine, i didn'twant to be there anyways.
In the 11th grade we had moved again, 12 times in 10 years mind you, too a district that had the G.E.D. program right there in school, naturally I enlisted, as i had tried at my otherschool to no avail. I passed the pretest enough to take the test, 2 weeks later I passed the G.E.D. (with levels above 12th grade averages mind you) and I was out of school,I was in adulthood at 17 years old, with no job, still living with my parents/sisters, not a clue with what to do with my life.
to spare me the typing and you the reading its been going down and up since then, mostly downi lost my job recently, but im in a steady dependable relationship with a woman I love witheverything in my being. I suppose the true moral to this story is, don't let your kids growup to quick, try to stay infoulable as possable as long as possiable. Don't drink and/or arguearound your kids, they listen you know. Push your children to try harder, no matter how smart theythink they are.And most of all, keep them plaqs on the wall, andhope to be adding more soon.