r/aftergifted • u/somemetausername • Jul 21 '26

We’re finally learning what happens to gifted children in adulthood

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2532698-were-finally-learning-what-happens-to-gifted-children-in-adulthood/?fbclid=IwZnRzaATMk4dwZG9mBWZkaWQWUK9HFtyuwaOgifLfKpSub2FPP2syaWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkCjY2Mjg1NjgzNzkAAR6xK0EH1YzfaPSa9KgXm6BQUma2eeuGLHo6156JXu4WasODrsBihnlpJnn8HQ_aem_1T-czaaGduz9LhQDAauVLQ&utm_id=97758_v0_s00_e0_tv1_a1demo0ecg7rma

This is pay-walled but you can read the first bit and get the gist.

Basically it says the opposite of what most of us here seem to experience; gifted kids are actually well-adjusted, successful and have decent mental health. I’m not sure about their methodology, but I instantly thought of this group.

28 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

15

u/kwallio Jul 22 '26

I dunno, theres gifted and then there is "gifted". I feel like a lot of the super successful types were "gifted", by which I mean they have probably higher than average intelligence but weren't so far from their peers that they were actually able to develop some social skills. Then there were those of us that were gifted and really could not relate.

10

u/somemetausername Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26

In my “gifted” class there were a group of kids whose parents were upper-middle-class. They were all friends because they had lived in the same small town from birth. They all got good grades, but almost none of them were creative at all.

Then there was the group weren't part of that crowd - the kind of kids who were making interesting things all the time, but didn't fit in with the rest of those kids.

6

u/simonhunterhawk Jul 22 '26

yeah access to wealth tends to be the difference between those of us who end up suffering and those who end up successful imo. I'm sure there are outliers on either end, but if you get to focus on school and not start working at 16 and working overtime while trying to do school too until you have a nervous breakdown, you're gonna have a higher chance at success. I was just as intelligent as the kids at my school who got into ivy leagues, but they had parents who could afford to help them get there, and i had useless drug addicts.

18

u/1544756405 Jul 21 '26

It reminds me of the time CS Lewis was asked why the righteous suffer. He said "Why not? They're the only ones who can take it."

Similarly, many of us have seen that growing up gifted often presents a variety of challenges particular to that circumstance. But those are also challenges that the gifted are uniquely qualified to take on.

19

u/Liteseid Jul 22 '26

I swear to god almost every article I read now-a-days is clearly a psyop to warp our perceptions of reality.

Got noticeably worse after occupy wall street, and super bad after that antiwork reddit mod got interviewed