Beyond Introspection: A Podcast About Neurodivergence & Identity
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Beyond Introspection: A Podcast About Neurodivergence & Identity
BEYOND Basics - Gifted Kid Syndrome
In this episode, Harvey and Pen discuss Gifted Kid Syndrome and the effects of academic pressure and stress on children and teens - including how that stress continues to impact people throughout their lives.
Featuring: We know we've said it already, but for real: The System Is Broken, Y'all; SAT vs. ACT and how they really don't matter; Standarized Test Mint Nostalgia; Hello classism, nice to see you entrenched in the public school system; Those poor honors students; When academic success gets linked to parental pride and love, you gotta know things are bad; Hey kid, we're proud of you.
Suicide Hotline & Resources for Trans People:
USA Suicide Prevention:
https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
International Suicide Hotlines:
https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines
Suicide Hotline & Resources for LGBTQ+ Young People:
https://www.thetrevorproject.org/
Ways to support Black Lives Matter and find anti-racism resources:
https://linktr.ee/blacklivesmatte
Resources to support AAPI (Asian-American & Pacific Islander) communities:
https://www.advancingjustice-aajc.org/
https://stopaapihate.org/
Resources for US Immigrants:
https://www.informedimmigrant.com/
Resources to Support Undocumented Immigrants in the US:
Welcome to Beyond introspection: a podcast about mental health, neurodivergence and how it impacts literally every aspect of our lives.
Harvey:You know the line. All of them.
Pen:All of them. I'm Pen.
Harvey:And I'm Harvey.
Pen:And this week we are going to talk about Gifted Kid Syndrome.
Harvey:Oh, yes.
Pen:Yeah.
Harvey:You know, we have--Pen and I have a running list of topics that we--that we want to cover eventually, on this podcast. And naturally, because we're neurodivergent, we don't plan that much.
Pen:No. Oh, God, it's like...
Harvey:We talk about an episode, and it's often, like, the day of, so, like, "Hey, what are we gonna--what are we going to talk about?"
Pen:What are we talking about though?
Harvey:And I was going through and I was like, ooh, gifted kid syndrome? That would be a cool topic. And you were like, oogh.
Pen:Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's also--we also tend to add to the list more than we check things off of it.
Harvey:Hey, that means we'll be set for, like, a while.
Pen:Yes, that is--that is accurate. But yeah, gifted kid syndrome, though--wow. It's been a while since we recorded.
Harvey:Pen.
Pen:Harvey.
Harvey:Tell me...
Pen:Yes.
Harvey:...about your Wahoo! Moment of the Week.
Pen:I appreciate you so much. You are the Wahoo! Moment of my life.
Harvey:Aw, that's gay.
Pen:It...
Harvey:Well, strictly speaking, is it? No, I'm into men.
Pen:Well, if you think about...
Harvey:It's not straight.
Pen:No, if you think about, though, like, gay as same-gender attraction, we are both nonbinary.
Harvey:Hmm.
Pen:So in that--in that definition...
Harvey:I guess it is gay, then.
Pen:Yeah.
Harvey:Anyway, thank you for the very sweet compliment. I love you.
Pen:You're welcome! I love you too, Harvey.
Harvey:I do want to provide another disclaimer that we're not dating.
Pen:Oh, yeah, yeah, that's--yeah, we're not. No, we're just close, good friends. My Wahoo! Moment of the Week... uh... I have a new roommate who's moving in, and it's very exciting. I'm very happy about it. I work better when I live with another person, which is not something I knew about myself before. But I've learned like, oh, when I'm isolated things go poorly.
Harvey:There's was, like, a little bit of Caitlin Doughty in there, which I love.
Pen:I--oh, that's cool. I've never actually watched her stuff, so this is--this is just Pen--Pen impressions corner. But yeah, it's been really nice. It's been cool to have her around, and you know, we were--we were friends beforehand. So it's been like, nice just a vibe together.
Harvey:Yeah.
Pen:What's your Wahoo! Moment of the Week, Harvey?
Harvey:That's a good question.
Pen:Is it that you're gonna see your boyfriend later?
Harvey:No, I'm gonna go with something else, because that's what I say every time. It's, it's again, kind of difficult to draw on one, because I've been dealing with another depressive spell. So..
Pen:Uh-oh.
Harvey:My entire life has felt like it has sucked for the past several days. But, um, let me think. I'm on 200 milligrams of Zoloft now, which is the most that they can put me on. But I mean, it's helped because it's--it's helped me feel maybe a little less like garbage.
Pen:That's good. We like less garbage.
Harvey:We do like less garbage. Um, yeah, I think I'm gonna go with that. I got my antidepressant dose raised, and that's really been, like, the best thing that's happened to me this week.
Pen:Well, he--heck yeah.
Harvey:Heck.
Pen:Censor self. Yep. Self censor. Yeah, I'm glad that you are, you know, adjusting as you need to adjust.
Harvey:Yeah, now the issue is I need to get back into therapy, but...
Pen:Mm, yeah.
Harvey:Anybody... any listener want to call a therapist's office for me? That is a joke.
Pen:Any listener want to write a mental health referral for me to get my top surgery?
Harvey:Hey, me, too.
Pen:That's also a joke, but it has been super stressful. Oh!
Harvey:Oh!
Pen:Anyway.
Harvey:Anyway.
Pen:Moving on from the current stress of our lives to the--one of the underlying stress things we both--we both suffer from the gifted kid--kid syndrome, and just the burnout of it.
Harvey:Gifted kid burnout is so real. And--and, I mean, it's interesting, the amount of overlap that Pen and I have, because our academic backgrounds are nothing alike at all.
Pen:No, it's--it's very different depending on, like, context of--let's--let's start with, like, a brief overview of what we mean by gifted kid syndrome.
Harvey:Of course.
Pen:Was there a particular definition that you had, or...?
Harvey:Um, I don't know if I did, but really, the way that I conceptualize it in general, is just sort of like, this isn't necessarily a concise definition, but gifted kid syndrome often results from, like, a kid being told over and over again, like, how smart they are, and how mature, and how advanced they are for their age. And so, they get this tremendous pressure to perform. And inevitably, when they get into larger schools, like middle and high school, and in some cases, their intellect becomes less competitive, by virtue of the fact that there are just more people there, you know, it results in this, like, really strong psychological burden. I guess for me, like, I based so much of my personality around being smart, so that, when I got to middle and high school, and there were so many people who were smarter than me, I had a bit of an identity crisis. And also, like, wasn't really sure where my worth lay. So that's how I--that's how gifted kid syndrome--that's how I've conceptualized it, and that's how it looks for me, but...
Pen:For me, it's slightly different, and of course, the context of it, I think, like, a huge thing is you grew up in suburb--suburbia. Wow.
Harvey:Chicago suburbs, yeah.
Pen:Saying that felt so, like, 2000s pop-punk, and I didn't enjoy it. I grew up in a tiny, tiny town. Very small. So it was, like, same building, K-12. So it didn't get bigger. It really, really didn't. So for me, the gifted kid syndrome stuff was more, like, you know, when I was young, I was more advanced, like, I was a really good reader from very young. Which the system is--the school system is fully broken. If you are a good reader, you can just get by so easily in so many areas. And it doesn't actually, like, mean anything, inherently. But since the system was stacked in my favor, I was always treated, you know, like, "Oh, wow, you're so smart," and it was very easy for me to get very good grades with very little effort, and it was a very othering experience for me. There wasn't, like, honors classes or a gifted track, because, like, my graduating class was, I think under 30 people.
Harvey:Oh, wow.
Pen:Yeah, the most we ever had was, like, 33, I think, in the K-12, and it was the same people, always. Yeah, so there wasn't a gifted track, because there just, like, where would you have put it? So I always just felt very, like, kind of othered by it, and for a very long time, and even still now, when people would call me smart, it would be, like...I didn't like it. Because to me, it didn't sound like a compliment. It sounded like another way that I was being treated as different.
Harvey:Yeah.
Pen:And particularly being a neurodivergent kid, like, that hit hard. And then, as I got older, like, things just continued to be pretty easy for me until I got super depressed, and then it was harder for me to put in, like, any kind of effort, and when things were just a bit more difficult for--for me naturally, my grades, like... well, I would say my grades tanked, but I graduated with a 4.125 GPA, so...
Harvey:Well...
Pen:Yeah. But I did have difficulty and then my first semester of college, I failed a class. And it wasn't because I couldn't, you know, put in the effort. It's because I didn't, because I was super depressed, so I just didn't show up. And actually facing, like, that kind of adversity for the first time in my life, I had no skills for--like, I didn't know how to study. I didn't know how to make the effort to apply myself, because it had never happened before. And I had this pressure for as long as I could remember of, like, you had better get good grades, or you are failing. Like, an A was not doing a good job, it was meeting the bare minimum of expectations.
Harvey:Yeah. And the expectations that I had to meet were not quite that stringent, but it was still like--like, an A It was like, "Oh, hey, good job." B was like, "All right." And then C's like, "What happened?" And then, God forbid, I get a D or an F.
Pen:But I think, generally, like, the gifted kid syndrome
tends to be:when you are young, you seem very advanced, probably because the system is broken, possibly because of, like, trauma that you're experiencing. Like, some kids genuinely are a bit quieter, but if you are told that you are mature for your age, because you aren't, you know, like loud or rambunctious, and you don't necessarily socialize a lot, or you are really withdrawn, there's a fair chance that that's not because--that's not a good thing.
Harvey:Right.
Pen:It's.. it is a really, really fair chance that's because of some kind of distress. And then, like, you know, having things[unintelligible], and then when they are not having no skills to deal with it, depression and anxiety are really, really common in people who were, like, gifted kids. And then that burnout, just, like, is killer. And then not having coping skills to deal with any of it.
Harvey:And you know, it's funny. Now that I'm in college, like, it hasn't gotten any better. I'm somewhat more comfortable with not getting perfect grades on everything, but I got my first B, like, two semesters ago, like, my first semester of my junior year of college. Every other class I had finished with an A or an A-, and I was still cranky about those A-s. The B really got to me, which is sort of--was sort of, I think, the wake up call for me to be like, I mean, Harv, what are you.. you have, like, a 3.9 GPA in college.
Pen:That's really good.
Harvey:Yeah, I think more like 3.94 or something like that. And like, that's a...
Pen:That's really, really good.
Harvey:Yeah, that's the thing. It's a ridiculous GPA, and that's something that I know, but I--the way that I was raised, I'm--I'm inclined to pick out every imperfection.
Pen:Yep.
Harvey:And that had to do with--yeah, no, I think--I think your definition of gifted kid syndrome works really well. You know, the idea of, like, being told you were smart, possibly actually being smart, but then, because you were so, quote unquote, advanced, never learning the skills to deal with failure, because failure was not an option.
Pen:Or even, like, socializing, as well.
Harvey:Yeah.
Pen:Depending on sort of your situation. Like, I didn't learn a lot of social skills for a lot of reasons, but one of them was because, like, when you are the kid who does really well in class, that doesn't win you points.
Harvey:No, especially in elementary school, for some reason, when you are good at school, people think that you're lame, slash teacher's pet. And I'm not entirely sure where that comes from, but...
Pen:I think defensiveness, primarily.
Harvey:Maybe.
Pen:Because there is, like, the view from the administration and, like, the expectations that kids are put on that kids who do well in school are better.
Harvey:Oh, yeah, have more worth--mm-hmm.
Pen:Yeah. And also, like, the way that we value intelligence. And again, like I know, we've said it before, and I've said it several times, already, the school system is broken.
Harvey:It benefits a very particular kind of student.
Pen:Yeah, it values, like, one definition of intelligence, and it is a very narrow definition of intelligence. And also, it's just straight up busted. Like, memorization is not an effective form of learning.
Harvey:I didn't fail a single class in middle school. I should have, because I was not doing any of my homework, and I was so depressed, but because I'm an incredibly good test taker...
Pen:Yep.
Harvey:...I got by.
Pen:If you are good at taking tests, then you do very well in school. And it's, like, the factors that go into whether or not you are good at taking tests are numerous, and should not be reflective or indicative of your relative intelligence, not to mention that we shouldn't be valuing human worth on intelligence, but...
Harvey:Correct. And, you know--and I mean, you can tell just how much emphasis we place on testing when,and I speak from somebody who came from a pretty wealthy family, there are entire classes dedicated to teaching you how to take standardized tests. I took one. I had to. Not--not--not by my school, my mom made me. Made me take an entire class that met for three hours every week from, like, 3pm to 6pm, all about how to learn how to take the SAT. And sure enough, my score did go up from the practice, but I--you can--you can--I can get more--I can get more into this later, but my SAT score was somewhere in the 1300s I don't remember exactly where...
Pen:[Whispering] I don't know what that means.
Harvey:It's equivalent to, like, a 27 or 28 on the ACT.
Pen:Oh, nice! Yeah, I took the ACT, so people--and it's, like, getting phased out more and more, so everything's, like, SAT now, and people say these big numbers, and I'm like, what?
Harvey:You know, we both--we both lived in Illinois, I think our entire lives, and Illinois used to use the ACT, but my year, when I was a junior in high school, so 2016-2017...
Pen:Yeah.
Harvey:That's when they started phasing over to the SAT.
Pen:Yes, I remember that. I was the last class to take the ACT, and the one below me had the option of either going to a separate place to take the ACT instead, or taking the SAT, and they are, like, a bit different.
Harvey:Yeah, like, I think namely the ACT has, like, a science section and the SAT is just reading and math.
Pen:[Laughter] I'm sorry. It's just that our science department in the school was so... like, we kept getting different teachers, and it was super inconsistent, and we got, like, new teachers all the time, and some of them were, like, brand new, had never taught High school before. My mom used to teach in the high school level, and while it was weird to take a class with my mom, she at least was a good teacher. She was genuinely the last good teacher we had for science.
Harvey:Oh, no.
Pen:We had her freshman year.
Harvey:Oh, yikes.
Pen:And so--when--so we all did, like--it was just a super consistent thing for as long as we were taking standardized tests, like, in a lot of the whole school, we just bombed the science section. It just went nowhere. We all--that was consistently the worst.
Harvey:Wowza. That's... but, yeah, all of that to say, I mean, that really does go to show just how important testing is to our conception of intelligence. And even then, and I can go a little bit more into this with my particular experiences with tracking, particularly because I grew up in an urban area, and I was in honors, advanced placement classes for most of my school career. Like--I--my friends legitimately made fun of me for my SAT score, because it was"low." Right? My friends were scoring 14 and 15 hundreds, and they were like, "Oh, you got a 13-whatever?" Like, okay, dude, I'm going to Insert State University. Like, leave me alone.
Pen:Oh, wow, that is--here was something. Here was something. So they, like, hyped up the ACT for us since we were in, like, elementary school.
Harvey:Oh, yeah.
Pen:Like, it was ridiculous.
Harvey:When you--when you're in high school, you're gonna take this big test, and it's, like, okay.
Pen:It's gonna, like, inform the rest of your life.
Harvey:And it's like, I'm six.
Pen:Once we got past third grade and the ISATs, which I still remember--like, one time my--standardized tests are so weird, because you always get. like, mints and stuff and--
Harvey:Yes!
Pen:And I--I know that there are, like, different reasons for it. Genuinely, the mints are good and I kind of--I appreciate it. I--the summer before we met, my neck just, like, fully got messed up.
Harvey:Oh, right.
Pen:Well, it was a recurring--it was the second--like, an injury kind of came back. And I, like, just straight up couldn't move. And the way to--that I fixed that, was by putting Icy Hot on it. And you know, Icy Hot has menthol. And so I put it on, and just got fully transported and remembered, like, exactly the last time I had taken a standardized test because it smelled like wintergreen lifesavers, and I was like, wh-wh-whaaa?
Harvey:No, I remember when I was a kid genuinely getting really excited to take the ISATs.
Pen:Was it--was it because of limits? Was it because of a different reason?
Harvey:It was--I don't know what the reason was. I don't think it was--because when I was a kid, I hated mint.
Pen:Oh.
Harvey:But they did give us mints during the SAT, which I loved. Someone also, when I--sorry, unrelated--we got a snack break during the SAT in between the reading and the math section.
Pen:There really is nothing better than a snack break. During a standardized test.
Harvey:There was someone who straight up--I was sitting next to them--brought a full bowl of kimchi. And I will--there was also a bird in the fieldhouse that we were taking the SAT in. I will never forget the time I took the SAT, because there were so many wild things happening, but I digress.
Pen:No, but, they, like, scared us about the ACT so much, for so long. And then I took a junior year, and it happened. And let me tell any--any listeners we might have who haven't taken insert big standardized tests here. It stops impacting your life within two years, typically. It matters for college acceptance, and even then, like, that's starting to phase out in some places as well.
Harvey:The university I go to went test blind.
Pen:Which, thank God, because, like, I--we'll talk a little bit more about, you know, racism and classism and how that impacts things. And like, genuinely, I think gifted kids syndrome tends to be a pretty white thing...
Harvey:Oh, yeah.
Pen:...because you know, people of color aren't recognized as having the ability to be gifted in nearly the same respect.
Harvey:Although, what I will say: my--the high school that I went to is actually pretty ethnically diverse. And honestly, the majority of the people in the honors/AP track in my school work folks of color.
Pen:Okay.
Harvey:That did mean that the people who I knew who were folks of color and were tracked honors/AP felt even more pressure to perform.
Pen:That is a really good point. Like, it definitely impacts differently, depending on--on your race--race and ethnicity, which is really just--that's barely a statement, because that's life.
Harvey:Yeah.
Pen:That's every aspect of your life.
Harvey:[Sarcastically] Shockingly.
Pen:But yeah, like, I ended up going to a community college because I graduated top 10% of my class, and the local community college had a deal where if you were in the top 10%, you got 32 credit hours.
Harvey:Oh, dang.
Pen:And I--it wasn't originally what I was going to do. I'm not going to talk about all that. But I went and I did that, and because of that, when I applied to other universities, my ACT just did not matter at all.
Harvey:Oh, yeah, if you go to community college, it literally does not matter.
Pen:Like, yeah, it doesn't affect any of that. And then they weren't looking at my high school stuff because I was transferring from Community College. Like, it's possible some universities would have cared. The one that I transferred to didn't at all. I took the ACT. It has impacted my life approximately 0% because I didn't go straight to a four year, but I would have gotten better financial aid stuff, which is just another thing about classism and [sharp inhale].
Harvey:And even I went straight to a four year, and my SAT score has not meant anything since I got accepted.
Pen:Which is infuriating, because they scared us about it so much. Like, "It's going to impact your life." And I'm like, it did not I got a 32 on the ACT, which is a pretty good score. I did not deserve it, is my statement, or at least, it just proves that standardized testing is broken, because I didn't--I did not study in high school. I think I could count the number of times I studied for a test in high school.
Harvey:For anyone who's not familiar with the ACT, anything over a 30 is, like, kind of ridiculous.
Pen:I think it goes to, like, 36?
Harvey:36, yeah.
Pen:Yeah. And like I said, Everyone--science section, I think, was just, like, the low score for everyone. And, like, getting a 32 on the ACT, like,"Wow, that was a good job, Pen!" It has impacted my life zero. It doesn't--it does not matter at all, and I was so stressed about it.
Harvey:And I remember my teachers in high school, because I was, you know, there were--there were semesters where I was taking only honors and AP classes.
Pen:That sounds, like, miserable.
Harvey:It was I was super depressed in high school.
Pen:I've never envied an honors kid.
Harvey:You shouldn't. We don't have a good time.
Pen:No!
Harvey:It's, um, you know, I remember our high school teachers put so much pressure on us to do well, because I know that like, you know, it's state funding, and, like, they get--they get a certain amount of money based on, you know, how well schools are doing, which is another can of worms. Yeah, because that means that--because standardized testing is inherently racist, for reasons we can get into later, and...
Pen:Or perhaps in another episode, depending on the time that we have.
Harvey:Yeah, um, you know, because standardized testing is inherently racist, that's going to mean that communities primarily with people of color are going to perform lower and then, therefore, they're going to get less funding, and it is a vicious, white supremacist cycle.
Pen:Yep. Yep. Yep.
Harvey:I was going to--oh, yeah, I remember, like, my high school teachers put so much pressure on us to perform as well as humanly possible. And you know, they would always come back to that rhetoric that's like, "And your college professors are not going to be this kind you." Whereas, literally--I can literally email one of my professors and be like, "Hey, Amanda, I'm depressed. Can I like--can I just like, not come to class?" And she's like, "Yeah, I hope you're feeling okay." It's like...
Pen:Yeah, the range of college professors is truly an incredible thing. Because some of them really are, like, quite strict on things, and very particular.
Harvey:And it's like, "That's rough, buddy. If you don't show up to class, I'm failing you." And it's like, okay!
Pen:Okay, don't. Yeah, it really is just totally--but then, so many professors are a little bit more kind of middling and, like, the, "I mean, if you don't come to class, you might lose, like, points or something. But also, this seems like your problem, not mine." And then you have professors on the other end of the spectrum, where they're either very, very kind and understanding, or they literally do not care. Like, it is just, this is--you can do whatever you want. They're not going to meet you in the middle, but it's because there's, like, this wall between the two of you, where they're just doing whatever they want to do.
Harvey:And you're going to do whatever you want to do. Because I'm thinking, Dr. Littauer, she's definitely the end of that spectrum that's, like, oh, really chill. Really cool. Then I think about, like, Dr. Pillow, that I took several semesters ago, who just--he--like, I signed an email about my pronouns, and he never even referred to me. Not once.
Pen:Never refer to me. Yeah, I've definitely had instructors where I've, like, you know, sent them the pronouns email, because you know, you have to, because when you are nonbinary, that is your one option if you don't want to be misgendered in class. Even though they still misgender you in class.
Harvey:They will never stop misgendering you in class.
Pen:They will never stop, like emailing some, and they're just like, don't say anything, or some of them send back like,"Okay, thanks. Sent from my iPhone."
Harvey:Yeah.
Pen:And some of them are like,"Thank you very much. I'll do my best on all of this." And it's like, yeah, you know, sure, sure.
Harvey:Sure, you will.
Pen:Sure. But the idea that, like, "Well, your--your college professors are going to be much harder on you than this."
Harvey:No.
Pen:How long has it been since you were in college? Did you talk to any of them? Because I don't think you actually know what you're talking about.
Harvey:Yeah, but I just--I guess if we wanted to talk a little bit more about our personal experiences. You know, do you want to start us off, or do you want me to do it?
Pen:I'm fine either way, really.
Harvey:Because I definitely--I always have thoughts about tracking.
Pen:I only kind of know what tracking is. So how about we start with you, buddy?
Harvey:Yeah, I thought you called me Betty for a second.
Pen:You're not Betty.
Harvey:I am not Betty.
Pen:You're Harvey.
Harvey:I'm Harvey. So tracking is essentially this--this concept, particularly in more urban and suburban school systems, where there are essentially two, sometimes three, tracks that--of, like, a series of academics that--that a student might follow. So if you consider high school and middle school, really, classes as having three different levels, you have remedial, you have standard, and you have advanced. Generally speaking, once a student is on one of those tracks, it is very unlikely that they will move between.
Pen:Hmm, that's broken.
Harvey:That is broken. It also sounds a lot like economic class.
Pen:Yep, yep, yep. I--for a second, I thought you meant, like, a class your take on economics, and I was like, never took an economics class, so I'll have to take your word for it, but...
Harvey:No, no. Like--like--like, you know...[crosstalk]
Pen:The inherent classism in the American school system.[Clears throat]
Harvey:So that is--that is an issue. And as you might imagine, those remedial classes are disproportionately composed of students of color, which is...
Pen:Low income families, generally.
Harvey:And low income--and low income families, which is a reflection, really, of classism and racism. Never, ever use that fact to argue that nonwhite folks are not as smart, or that lower class folks are not as smart. It's because the system does not give them any attention.
Pen:Yep. And that remains true. Like, if you're in a lower income area, generally, typically, the school system--like, it doesn't score as high. Gee, I wonder why? Maybe because we don't have any kind of funding, and no teachers want to come here to teach, much less good ones.
Harvey:Right. Yeah. So, you know, I--I was supposed to be on the advanced track pretty young. Probably, you know, obviously, I don't have a diagnosis, but if I were diagnosed with autism when I was a kid, I likely--when it was still a diagnosis--I likely would have been diagnosed with Asperger's, because I didn't really have too many of the cognitive impairments. Like, you know, learning was not hard for me. It was the social aspect, and I struggled a lot with that. I struggled a lot with interacting with people. But I was like, really, quote unquote, smart. And initially, they were going to transfer me to another school, because my current elementary--the elementary school that I was attending at the time didn't have any advanced class options. But, because I also started developing symptoms of anxiety when I was, like, eight or nine, the school decided that it would be best if I did not transfer. And honestly, I think they were right about that one. I think it would have been a lot worse for me had I transferred. But in any case, I went straight into honors when I was--into honors classes when I was in sixth grade. Every single class I took sixth, seventh, eighth grade was an honors class. Fun fact, this is something that I tell folks a lot, I've actually, more or less, taken the equivalent of algebra--Algebra 1 three times, because I was really, really, really bad at math. I really struggled with math. And I took the equivalent of Algebra 1, seventh grade, barely passed that. I think I got--I think I passed with a D. Like, I had, like, a 68% or something like that. Eighth grade, passed the equivalent of Algebra 1 with a C. And then, in high school, passed Algebra 1 with an A, so it took me a couple years, but in any case, like, I was put on that track for a while, and you know, even when I was in, you know, my guidance counselor's office being like, I don't think I should be in honors math. They were like, "Well, just stick it out for another year, and let's see what happens," and it's like...
Pen:Stop.
Harvey:My mental health is falling apart at the seams, and there was so much imposter syndrome in that for me.
Pen:Yep.
Harvey:I never, ever, ever felt like I belonged in those classes, especially if they had anything to do with math or science. Actually, generally, I wasn't in honors science. I ended up having to drop to--no, I took honors chemistry. Nope, nevermind, I did--I remembered just now that I also took--every single--every single science class I took was also honors or AP. Never mind.
Pen:Sorry, I just--oh, cool. AP and honors are different things. This is--genuinely, you talk about this stuff, and it's like you're speaking either, like, a different dialect of English, or you're just speaking like you're from a different country from me, because I don't understand.
Harvey:Okay, so, oh, go ahead.
Pen:No, I was gonna say you were like, "I think I took honors chemistry," and I was, like, just--my first thought was, I took chemistry with a sub. We had a substitute teacher the whole year. She was not qualified to teach chemistry. I essentially did not take chemistry, but I sure have the credit for it.
Harvey:So essentially, the difference between honors and
AP:Honors is typically something that happens more within a school. So, a school can decide to offer a regular and then, like, an honors section of a class. And you know, that honors section will be open to students who are, quote unquote, advanced enough for it. AP is something that is--is something that is regulated by the College Board, and the College Board is--are the same folks who do the ACT and the SAT.
Pen:They're--I have decided, with very limited understanding of them, that I hate them.
Harvey:Oh, yeah. And AP--the thing that really sets honors apart from AP, is that taking AP classes, it's--well, one, essentially, an AP class is equivalent, more or less, to an intro class in college, except spread across an entire year instead of a semester. So when I took AP Psychology when I was a sophomore in high school, that was the equivalent of taking, like, PSYC 102, at my--at my current university.
Pen:Don't do that!
Harvey:Yeah, um, no, that was really what it was like. Because I took PSYC 102. I would have gotten the credit for it, but somehow that score I got on AP Psych, like, just got lost somewhere.
Pen:Oh, right. There's weird tests that you guys take.
Harvey:Yeah.
Pen:You guys talk about this sometimes that I'm just, like--sitting over here like, I have no idea.
Harvey:So that's the other part/quote unquote, benefit of
AP:You can pay about $100 per test, yes, it's paid.
Pen:Well, there we go.
Harvey:You can pay about $100 per test to take a standardized test on the class that you took the AP class for.
Pen:Wow.
Harvey:So, and if you score--and at least in the state of Illinois--if--it gets scored on a 1 to 5 scale, a 5 being the highest, 1 being the lowest.
Pen:Uh-huh.
Harvey:If you score a 3, 4, or 5, legally, any state university in the state of Illinois is required to give you some kind of credit for it.
Pen:So here's the thing that--here's the thought that I have on the idea of AP courses that are essentially, like, a college course just spread out slightly longer. Well, doubling the--double the time. Two semesters instead of one. So high school students uniformly take more classes than the vast, vast, vast majority of college students. Literally just, like, you take approximately seven classes in high school.
Harvey:And you're there for, like, seven or eight hours.
Pen:Yep. And in college, I took, Oh, geez, like, five or six classes, maybe? You know, because--and that was, like, each semester. And obviously, like, the intention is it's more rigorous in college, et cetera, et cetera. If you are taking the equivalent of a college course, much less multiple, even if it's spread out over two semesters, you are doing things more intensely than you might do once you graduate.
Harvey:That's the thing. Like, when I'm thinking about my--my schedule next semester, I only have class three days a week, and in that entire--in that entire time, I spend a whopping 14 hours in class a week.
Pen:Yeah. High school students do not get free time. They don't get, like, space to do things. Like, maybe they're doing college coursework over two semesters instead of one. They are in school for approximately eight hours a day.
Harvey:It's--they're doing school as a full time job. And then, a lot of the time, they're also being expected to find a part time job...
Pen:Yep.
Harvey:...and get extremely good grades.
Pen:And participate in extracurricular activities, because if you don't, even if you have very good grades, you're told that colleges will not seriously consider you, or at least that you won't get into, like, the good stuff.
Harvey:And look, here's--here's the secret that I'm going to tell you about college, if you are, like, a current high school
student:no one cares where you went to college.
Pen:Where you went to college or high school? Did you mean college?
Harvey:College. I did mean college.
Pen:Okay.
Harvey:It really does not matter which one you--like, for a career.
Pen:Oh, you mean, like, yeah, for status things. Depend--there are some situations in which it matters more, usually because of elitism.
Harvey:Yeah, but...
Pen:Like, specifically that, and, like, if you have--sort of--if you're a legacy kid,
Harvey:Yeah. But I am gonna say, 7 to 8 times out of 10, it doesn't really matter.
Pen:No, it's not--there is--I want to say something that's very important to me that I hold close. I did not originally want to go to community college, and that is a very complicated thing that I'm not going to get into. It had nothing to do with the quality of the community college. I wanted to just, like, be in a different location, basically.
Harvey:Yeah.
Pen:Community Colleges tend to get a bad rap as being, like, not as good. I hate that so much.
Harvey:Yeah.
Pen:My community college was great. I had some really, really excellent teachers there. Like, they were awesome. Maybe not all community colleges have great teachers. Not all universities have great teachers. Can tell you that 100% for sure.
Harvey:I've had plenty of terrible professors at my four year university, like...
Pen:Community colleges are great. They're cheaper.
Harvey:Yes.
Pen:And it's easier to take, like, summer classes and stuff, because it's cheaper, and you don't have to pay, like, the ridiculous costs of--I've taken summer classes at the university I graduated from--it was so much more expensive. Community college is more accessible. You're not required to live on campus for any portion of it, and that has, like, mixed--like, some people need to live on a campus, so it's not there. It's also more open to non traditional students, if you're older and things. Community colleges rule...
Harvey:Yeah.
Pen:...and if you are in a good position, like the one I went to had deals with every school in the state that they had to take their transfer credits. So, I entered as, functionally, like, a junior, and it was great. It was way cheaper. And I got just as much good information as I would have otherwise.
Harvey:Yeah, but you know...
Pen:It's shameful.
Harvey:Kind of just to wrap up my thoughts, so I can give you...
Pen:Oh, sorry, sorry.
Harvey:No, it's okay to--so I can also give you space to talk about some of your experiences with gifted kid syndrome. Every--the overwhelming feeling of every class I was in was that I was not good enough, was that I was not smart enough, was that I was a mediocre performer, and that I wouldn't be as successful as my peers. And I still put that tremendous amount of pressure on myself to perform, and essentially to be perfect. And this is going to be the embarrassing thing. I'm actually really not satisfied with my GPA. I want it to be higher.
Pen:Oh, buddy.
Harvey:I know. And I know how ridiculous that is and sounds. But it's--the reason why I bring that up is because I really want folks to know how long-lasting the impacts of putting that kind of pressure on your children causes. I am nearly 21 gosh darn years old. [Chuckling] I know. I am nearly 21 years old, and I still stress about my ridiculously good grades. That is the situation that I'm in because my parents and my school put too much pressure on me.
Pen:Yep.
Harvey:So, anyway.
Pen:So here's the thing, speaking as someone who did not have a gifted program, or an honors track, and I'm deeply grateful for that, from the outside in--here's a fun fact about pretty much every, I feel--I don't want to make, like, broad sweeping statements, but I think, like, the majority of kids who are in advanced programs, from my understanding, they're miserable. They get anxiety and depression and are deeply unhappy, and are under an incredible amount of pressure. Like, high school students, in general, have way too much pressure put on them. We're hurting our kids. We are. We are harming our children by the way that we treat them and the way the system is broken.
Harvey:It's like, look, either we need to make the school day shorter, or we lighten their workload, [both] or both.
Pen:Go for it. And, you know, reorganizing the system so it's not [unintelligible] one kind of intelligence, and also actually is more functional for learning, because memorization is not a good form of learning if you really want to know the things. From the outside, honors kids get messed up by the system. Like, they are miserable. Maybe there are some who are not. I was not an honors kid, so this is just from the outside. I was not an honors kid, I was still miserable, because of the pressures and expectations put on me. I burned out hardcore. I got wicked depressed in high school, and always had anxiety from a much younger age, but the generalized anxiety was still just, like, really high. And that was for many reasons that didn't all have to do with my grades, but grades were a major source of stress for me. I failed a class in college, and honestly, it was a good thing, because I got this kind of reset for myself. Because for the first time, I was the only one who got to know my grades. Like, my parents didn't hold anything over me because they could just not know, and thank God for that. It's FERPA, I think, is what protects that? And it's great. And then I did, like, kind of middling, and then I transferred to university, and my first semester, at least, was pretty middling, and, eventually, I did get the motivation to actually really care about my grades again. And I'm glad that I did. Like, I graduated with a pretty good GPA. I qualified for the honors thing--like, not fraternity, exactly, but you know, the cool thing in my major, and I went to like a couple of meetings then was like, actually, I want my Monday evenings. But--and you know, I'm very glad that I eventually did care more about my grades. I needed that period of just not caring. Of just like, it's fine. If you fail, like, well, that's kind of inconvenient, because then you have to figure out a different class to take. But if you get a C, it doesn't matter.
Harvey:You passed.
Pen:Like, genuinely, it didn't--it was fine, I got Cs, and--the reason that I did was because I was not doing well. I was super, super depressed, and that's not great. But I--that pressure just lowered so intensely for me, and it was, one of the better things that happened to me in college, was learning how to just let go of that overwhelming pressure. And there's still trauma there. Like, I think about the grades that I got in high school, and there's just this incredible tension there. But as soon as it was just my problem, and I got to decide things about that, and who to share it with, and who to not share it with, it helped so much. The pressure and expectation to do well never did me any favors. It messed me up from day one. Don't expect your kids to be smart. Let them just be kids, please. If they do well, that's great. Support them. Tell them you are proud of them. And also, if they're not doing well, don't punish them for that. Try and figure out what's going on. If they have a sudden, like, their grades start tanking out of nowhere, care about them. Ask them, like--if you ask them what's wrong, don't do it like,"What's wrong with you? What's going on?" say, "Hey, is everything, like, going okay, kiddo? Like, are you stressed out? Like, what can I do to help you with this?"
Harvey:And, you know, that's obviously not saying, like, don't set expectations for your child. It's healthy and good for children to have expectations. And honestly, it's okay if those expectations are, you know, like--like, if they are, like, something that would take effort to achieve.
Pen:Absolutely.
Harvey:But you can only take that so far. You can't set those expectations so high that they're either inattainable, or they're going to take a tremendous amount of effort to achieve.
Pen:There's nothing wrong with expecting your children to put an effort to things. Like, that's--that's a good thing. You know, teach your kids to be able to do stuff, and teach your kids to be able to overcome adversity. Help them to do that. Teach them to do that, and have those expectations on them, and then show them how to. Love your children. Tell them, "Hey, I w nt you to be able to do this I will help you to do this. If ou don't do this, my love will ot be taken away from you." Bec use that's what it gets transl ted to, especially if you are q ite gifted, quite young. our parents love? It is so easy for that to get linked to these igh expectations that they hold, and you are scared that, if you ail, no one will love
Harvey:Yep. For me, it was not necessarily that I--I don't know if I ever consciously had the thought of, like, "Oh, my parents don't love me if I don't do well."
Pen:I don't think it's much of a conscious thought.
Harvey:They only ever told me--I--not so much my dad. But--no, my dad was generally better about this. But I usually only got told, and I still really only get told that I--that they're proud of me when I do well in school. And it's hard to not conflate that with love.
Pen:Yeah.
Harvey:So...
Pen:or, at least, like--that was something--here is the thing for me is I did well in school, and still was never told that anyone was proud of me. So I got punished if I didn't do well. And if I did well, there was no benefit. So it was only, like--I was still kind of searching for affirmation, and if I messed up even once than I was going to get the negative. There was not just a positive reinforcement that existed. And that's--that's not unique to me.
Harvey:And psychologically speaking, genuinely, punishing your kids is much less likely to get them to do what you want them to do than rewarding them.
Pen:Like, it's ineffective. It also leads to scared kids. Like, there's a reason that gifted kid syndrome is something we talked about, and gifted kid burnout. We're broken. It breaks our brains. This is not healthy. It's actively unhealthy, and it hurts us incredibly, and can continue to do so far too easily for the rest of our lives.
Harvey:Now, of course, it's--I mean, I think it's at least partially on me to try and work on...
Pen:Oh, totally.
Harvey:...to try and work on the feelings that I have. But--but the--the thing is, like--the thing that caused me to have such low self-esteem was nowhere near my fault.
Pen:No.
Harvey:But I'm the one who has to pick up the pieces.
Pen:And, like, the thing about the low self-esteem, and, like, constant imposter syndrome, and, like, the depression and anxiety that results from these expectations is that not only are these expectations set and we are harmed, we are given zero coping skills to deal with any of it. Like, if you say, hey, I'm feeling really overwhelmed, the best you might get is, "Oh, everyone feels like that."
Harvey:Or "You're too young to feel that way."
Pen:And it's like, oh, cool. So a total dismissal of my emotions? So I learned to internalize them, and suppress them, and never actually express any of it, because I know I'm going to be punished for doing so or at least dismissed? And that harms me as well, so it just keeps growing ,and growing, and bottling up, and eventually I crack under the pressure. And I was lucky that the breaking under the pressure led to a depression that did not kill me. And I'm gonna be real, folks: luck was definitely a factor in it. Just sheer luck. And hard work that I did, but we need to stop doing this to our kids.
Harvey:So, we should wrap up? Do you have any more closing thoughts?
Pen:I know I got pretty intense, especially in the latter half of the episode. If you expect your child to be smart, or to value themselves with intelligence, you're not doing them any favors. Let kids be kids. And help your kids. Pay attention to them. If they're struggling, it could be for a number of reasons. And also, hey, let's not--let's--let's work on the stereotypes that we've got, okay? For a lot of things, including like, you know, I didn't get into this at all, but having ADHD is seen as something that's--you're probably struggling in school and that stuff.
Harvey:And now the issue with the push toward "differently abled" rather than disabled means that pretty much all autistic kids are thought of as savants until they act up, and then, you know, we get called retards or whatever. So, hmm, this intersects with disability.
Pen:Yeah, it's--it's busted. Like, one, ADHD kids are not always going to be struggling in school. Hi, I just spent 45 minutes talking about gifted kid burnout. But also, you're making neurodivergent and mentally ill kids with this. Some of us, like autistic and ADHD folks, were born this way. Thanks, Lady Gaga. Thank you. And everybody else, probably gonna have anxiety and depression. You're making mentally ill children. That's not a great system.
Harvey:No.
Pen:What about you, Harvey? You got any closing thoughts?
Harvey:No, I think that pretty much sums up what I would say.
Pen:Oh, there's one other thing I wanted to say. If you're in high school, and if--and/or, if you are feeling this, like, gifted kid syndrome stuff, if that's resonating with you, you're doing good, however you're doing right now, and I am proud of you. You are--you are putting in so much work, or you did, and it's okay to love yourself, and to be proud of yourself for that, or to just not want to do it anymore. Like, you're enough just as you are.
Harvey:There's no threshold that decides at what point you are worthy of love.
Pen:No. You are worthy of love right now. You're enough, kid.
Harvey:All right. Well. Let's stick around, just a few more moments, we'll tell you a little bit more about how this podcast is run and our Patreon. Beyond Introspection is an independently-run podcast by Pen Novus and Harvey LaFord. Music by Girl Lloyd. You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at ByndPodcast or you can email us at beyonddotpodcast@gmail.com. That's beyond d-o-t podcast, no spaces. We publish on Buzzsprout, iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can find the links to our social media and email in the podcast description.
Pen:We also have a Patreon. You can find us at patreon.com/beyondintrospection. That's all one word. We also have links to it on our site and on our social media. Our podcast is entirely independent, so we pay for hosting fees and transcript service subscriptions out of pocket. This is a passion project that we're really happy to do, and any support you're able to give us would really make a difference. On our Patreon, there are four tiers: $2, which gives you access to test audio and other bloopers; $5 which will give you access to bonus episodes that will make in the future, on topics like how angry we are at Freud, our frustrations with our respective fields of studies and even guest episodes; $10 will get you a direct line and priority access to request episode topics and new bonus content; and $15, which will give you access to monthly AMAs--that's ask me anything for those who don't know--where we can answer questions ranging from the podcast process and we figure out what to record, more in depth questions about our neurodivergences, and more. All of those tiers will include benefits from lower tiers of course. And also, just to note, unlike our regular episodes, Patreon bonus content is likely to include swearing, so if that's not your vibe, please know that ahead of time. We'd also love it if you're able to share this podcast with people you know. Our only advertising is word of mouth and we want to reach as many people as possible.
Harvey:Got feedback for us? Want to request an episode topic? Just feel like saying hello? Feel free to reach out on social media, or via email. We'd love to hear from everyone. Take care of yourselves.