I did not find out that I was gifted until I was 36. I had a terrible childhood where I was emotionally neglected and psychologically abused, so it is difficult to say what issues that I had were strictly from the giftedness and what of them were due to being abused.

One thing I do know that is likely due to giftedness is that in middle school I spend all my time in class reading comics or other books instead of doing assignments and paying attention to what the teacher was teaching the class. As I got grades that were okayish (not that good, but good enough to pass), this was ignored. In high school I also did the bare minimum that was necessary to pass. I never did any assignments that were not graded if I could get away with it and I often slept during class. They always thought I just was very lazy and they told me this often.

Then I started studying psychology at university. For the first exam, I was very afraid that I would not pass. This was university, so I thought it would be difficult. However I got a 9.8 out of 10. From that point on, I was not able to concentrate and only got grades that helped me to just pass the courses, but not much better. I wanted to do better than that, but I just could not get myself motivated.

All this time I felt very bad about myself. I thought that I was just lazy too. I tried to get myself motivated and do the work, but I just couldn’t. I also felt that the time I was in class was completely useless and that the same was the case for making assignments. It just felt like I was jumping through hoops because, well, those were the rules. I still get angry about that. I wanted them to just tell me what I should be able to do and know in the end and just let me figure out myself how to get there, instead of just doing useless stuff. It was very frustrating.

I had a bit of a breakdown after studying psychology for two years due to my traumatic childhood. When I got better and wanted to start studying again, I went to the study advisor and simply told her I wanted to do something difficult. She told me to try Artificial Intelligence (which back then was something I never heard about). I went to the first lecture and I did not immediately understand what they were explaining. That created a bit of panic at first, as that was a bit of an unfamiliar feeling. All of a sudden, I really had to work for it.

And that is what I did and it was not difficult to get motivated at all anymore. I worked really hard and really did my best. I had an average mark of 8.6 out of 10 in the end for my master’s, which is considered very high. However, most importantly, I was having a lot of fun! I had a lot of energy all of a sudden, I had all these new ideas. It just was a really good time. Learning did not feel like a chore at all anymore. After that I got my PhD and now I am an assistant professor and I hope to become a full professor one day. Once I can do that, I am thinking about starting a whole new career path to keep myself challenged.

I am telling you all this to illustrate what it feels like to be gifted, but having to fully adapt to your environment instead of your environment adapting to you. The psychiatrist that told me I was gifted once said to me “if you have an IQ of 70, people will help you and adapt to you, if you have an IQ of 130, people expect you to figure it out by yourself and adapt to everyone else, even though it is the same deviation from the average.” That stayed with me a lot. Gifted people need help and they get exhausted by continuously being expected to adapt to their environment and having to jump through hoops that were not made for them.

With my experience in mind, I would think it would be best to get you daughter the help she needs, whether that is in a regular school or in a program. Also, it is very important to keep her challenged. If she is not doing well at school, she might not be lazy or not wanting to do better, she just might be very bored and unable to concentrate. If a program is needed to keep her challenged, that might be the best option. However, I think that lots of interaction with people outside of such programs remains important as it teaches you a lot about a variety of other people and how to work with them. I hated my childhood, but that’s something valuable that I did learn.