Dh very worried about intelligence

amother

Linen

Tue, Mar 12 2019, 8:26 am

Dh and I are both very intelligent and were classified as gifted when we were kids. We've since come to recognize that being gifted is not all it's cracked up to be and comes with some serious challenges (we both have ADHD). The thing is, dh still ascribes a lot of importance to it. Our oldest is gifted too and also has autism. Our youngest is not old enough to know for sure but is showing signs of both giftedness and ADHD.

Middle child seems to be of average intelligence and is really socially savvy. He's not struggling academically at all, he's exactly average. He's in lower elementary, so not getting real grades yet, but he's likely to be a B student who sometimes gets A's. He has above average social skills for his age, and despite being the youngest in his class, he's the most popular. He's very perceptive and in general really good at navigating whatever tricky social stuff comes up among his peers. Honestly, I find it refreshing. His autistic sibling has very poor social skills, as does dh. I've always had decent social skills, though it was never as effortless as it seems to be for this child, so I say good for him. He is the one who's going to grow up to be a CEO and a shul president. He's just got that type of big personality. Book smarts aren't the most important thing in life.

Dh is really freaking out that he's "not smart" and he knows it shouldn't bother him but it does. He also has a hard time relating to him because he's never known what it's like to have good social skills. He has never said anything to ds or treated him differently, but it's bound to come out eventually if dh doesn't change his attitude. And dh knows he needs to, he's just having a hard time with coming to terms with the fact that he has a child who isn't a genius. I've tried framing it for dh as "he's a social genius," which is really better than being an academic genius in many ways, but I know that he's still struggling with this. Any other ideas for helping dh come to terms with this so that it doesn't become a a problem for him and this child down the road?

amother

Silver

Tue, Mar 12 2019, 8:51 am

What a shame. He sounds like a great kid. And far from "not smart". I hope your DH doesn't end up giving this child a complex.

Bottom line is: This is the child Hashem hand picked for you to parent. And for that reason alone, nothing to freak out over. That's aside from the fact that his IQ has no bearing on his success or happiness in life.

Few people have children all cut from the same cookie cutter that made them. We all have to learn how to parent different kinds of kids, some very like us and some very different. That's life.

amother

Babypink

Tue, Mar 12 2019, 8:56 am

As someone who interprets IQ tests for educational/therapy purposes, we look at all 4 types of intelligence that that Wechsler and other IQ tests measure. Aside from looking at the actual scores of each part, we look for significant discrepancies. A student who has average to high average scores on all 4 areas, generally does well in school and in the lomg term. The 'gifted' students who oftern perform extremely well on some of the parts of intelligence often do poorly on 1 section, often fluid reasoning (social-brilliant kids who lack proper social skills ie. On the autistic spectrum). Others may do very well, but present with weak working memory abilities (ie. Attention disorders).
If you look at it from an educators perspective your son who seems average may actually be in a better place in the long term.

amother

Beige

Tue, Mar 12 2019, 9:26 am

I think it's interesting that your husband is perseverating and worrying about the child who is doing well globally, but seems unconcerned about the autistic child because of his high IQ scores. Typicy, parents would worry most about autistic children and their future.

I'm wondering if your husband also has his own social deficits that don't allow him to "get" people and understand people's makeups and value individual differences

Chayalle

Tue, Mar 12 2019, 9:33 am

A neighbor of mine who was in Chinuch for over 30 years, once put it this way - if you were stuck on a desert island, what kind of person would you want to have with you? An academically intelligent person, or a more street-smart type?

OP, your DH needs to learn to respect different types of intelligence, and that there are different areas where they can succeed. Your child can go very far with his people skills.

amother

Ivory

Tue, Mar 12 2019, 10:02 am

I find both of your perspectives somewhat odd. How on earth can you predict that one child will be a CEO for heavens sake. He's in grade school. Or that the other may not be. Children develop and continue to do so. So do adults. There's hope for you all. And goodness, there may be some other socially savvy kid who's going to be the CEO because his dad gifted him the position. Or someone else will be the CEO because he speaks Mandarin and your kid doesn't. Sheesh. Why these projections? Life is beautiful, let it unfold...

daagahminayin

Tue, Mar 12 2019, 10:22 am

Maybe tell your husband to think of it this way: as human beings we all have very limited intelligence compared to all the things there are to know in the world. Even the smartest people in the world only know a tiny fraction of the world’s information, and their processing skills do not come close to the abilities of a basic computer. The people with the highest IQs go into a specific field and specialise - that means a mathematician will not have the knowledge or skills of a surgeon, or a pilot.

All the humans in the world, relative to Hashem - we are not even ants. Just crawling around on the earth’s surface, busy doing our thing. Some ants are above average intelligence, some below. A few ants are super smart for their species. But they are all ants and the smartest ant will never have the understanding or skills of a 2 year old human.

So basically, get over being super smart. It’s not so amazing. We all have the intelligence we need to do what we are here in the world to do.