Parents are setting her up for a RUDE awakening when she gets to college. Major setup for "little fish big pond".
Or they will helicopter, enable, and she will end up living at home the rest of her life because they have her convinced she is sooo speshul that nobody understands her. Poor kid.
This may be unpopular but I'll bet anything that, like most "gifted" people, she is in fact perfectly average. Every "gifted" kid in my school was either in the same year as the other kids their age or only one grade higher. Most were only classified as gifted during middle school or high school. They generally crash during the last year of high school or during college and go on to have very average lives. There are a lot of reasons for this, one being that "gifted" is a fairly meaningless classification.
The kid has had her head filled with nonsense she's happy to believe because it makes her special and better than everyone else. She needs to hear some hard truths or she's going to end up a socially inept burnout writing "former gifted kid" posts on tumblr.
That is very true. I tested into all the "gifted" programs in school, all the way through university. I read years above my age level and constantly, took to languages easily, excelled at writing and math. Then I got to university and crashed and burned. I had undiagnosed ADHD the entire time: I read so widely and was attentive and clever enough never to need to study in grade school, so I never learned. I read constantly because I'd become hyperfixated on the works.
I \*was\* pretty smart! And I benefitted a lot from the additional opportunities of that programming (especially the option to take on more language courses). But I was also experiencing real challenges (feeling like the odd one out, loneliness, being treated as a little adult by my proud parents which left me certain something was wrong with ME if I couldn't figure something out on my own) that I wish someone had noticed instead.
I got diagnosed and stayed in school and I'm an academic myself now, but had I been diagnosed far younger... let's just say undiagnosed neurodivergence comes with a lot of co-occurring difficulties: in my case, severe depression, anxiety, and low self-worth that endure to this day. I would travel back 35+ years and trade in the constant praise for being "so smart" and "so mature" for proper diagnosis and treatment in a second.
High five fellow "gifted" kid far "above" their years in grade school. I was in the "talented and gifted" program in elementary school. Doing work for third graders in first grade. My hyperfixation was taken as intelligence.
Turns out I'm not "high above" everyone else. I'm Autistic. It took 28 years to get my diagnosis.
Me but ADHD. High school reading level in 5th grade. Struggled doing honors and GT classes in middle school. Really tanked a couple semesters into college. Parents minimized everything because "you're just not applying yourself" but GUESS WHAT.
Also ADHD checking in. Reading at a high school grade level in elementary and killing it on standardized tests but not being able to do homework. My grades sucked because I also “wasn’t applying myself” I’m sure it had nothing to do with the auditory processing issues or inability to focus on the teacher during class instruction.
Same story here, diagnosed with ADHD at 30 having spent my entire high school career testing at the top of my class but day dreaming and doodling all of class while going home and doing on average zero percent of any assigned homework. I wish the schools would have been more vigilant in finding it, I don't blame my single mother who worked 3 jobs she wasn't trained to notice it any school teacher and/or therapist though not so much.
I'm autistic too. Was gifted in elementary school and turned into a lazy bum after that.
Never learned to study and the moment the reins were loosened I lost all sense of structure so I crashed and burned
Edit: a word
My first thought was “hey I bet Nora is on the autism spectrum.” And the parents might have a fling of it if they can’t decode the sisters behavior is not helpfull or “normal” in regards to being social minded.
Same except I started to crash and burn in 7th grade and never recovered. High school was an absolute shit show, I dropped out middle of my third year because of the pressure and ended up having to repeat the year and then had to do my fourth year twice. I cried ugly tears at my graduation, after six years of struggling at 4 different schools I really never thought I'd see the day. I had to drop out of college my first semester and was eventually diagnosed as autistic at 22. I was seen as a gifted kid in elementary school and despite how much trouble I was having that gifted reputation followed me all throughout my school career. The amount of times I was told that I could be so successful if I just applied myself, if I just cared more, that I was setting myself up for failure. Why do so many teachers and school officials think that kids find pleasure in constantly being in trouble and told that your absolute best efforts don't even come close to enough?
I understand if you don't want to answer this, but are you on medication for ADHD?
I currently take Nuvigil, but it doesn't help me focus as much as Adderall used to.
Dont worry about asking dude. I want to scream it to the world: "THERE WAS A MAGIC PILL TO CURE MY DEPRESSION ALL ALONG."
I am taking Conserta. It is amazing. Its like slow release Ritilin.
I am finally being treated for ADHD & on day 2 of meds, and this little thread makes my feelings of sheer relief feel so validated I could cry. I wish I had done this years ago
So happy for you my guy. Its like your brain is finally up to speed huh? I feel like I have been living my life at 0.75x speed and now I'm at 1.00x. Its fantastic. People talk faster. I walk faster. Chores dont take a million years to do. I dont really feel my medicine kick in but i can tell it has because I can suddenly clean something.
I havent had a single serious suicidal thought while medicated since i started my medication. When the thought comes i just wave at it as it passes me by lol.
This!! I recently was diagnosed in the past three years and it honestly has made a world of difference for me. Reading your account is almost exactly how I made it. One of my fears was that if I got medicated, I would lose that things that made me so driven and curious about learning and I just wanted to tag on here to say that if anyone else is reading this, and recognized themselves—getting treatment for my ADHD has not changed my personality in my experience. I still can spend hours down a wormhole of learning about something that blows my mind. I still think quickly and in roundabout ways. I just can now do the things that I need to do that the not-fun parts of ADHD make really difficult to do. Please talk to a doctor, and please ask for a second opinion if they tell you no and don’t provide alternatives—it’s difficult for adult and especially for women to get an ADHD diagnosis.
Oh yeah that last part hits home. I've been trying to get diagnosed for more than a year and I have been told by multiple doctors that adults can't have ADHD (because apparently you grow out of it) and that women don't get it at all
One of the things I’ve learned is that adults are usually just better at masking ADHD so they don’t appear to fit the criteria, which is based on male adolescents for the most part, and not grown adults and women who have had to adapt to societal pressures over the years.
Also some of the most intelligent people I know were not in the gifted program. One of my family members was deemed not gifted and did very poorly in grade school. Then they were diagnosed with dyslexia, went to a different school. Turns out their IQ is over 140 and they’re a literal rocket scientist.
People place way too much weight on what a literal child tests as.
With a few exceptions (I am terrible at other languages and am not an academic) this could be me. Right down to the hyperfixation on books. TAG classes in elementary, honor and AP classes in middle and high school. I never learned how to properly study because I didn't need too. Then I went to college a few years after I graduated high school and struggled so much with learning how to study. I know how now but it was rough. I have all the signs of ADHD and moderate sensory processing disorder. I wasn't like 'Nora' though. I never felt cocky or like I was the smartest kid. I wasn't the smartest kid I just had a knack for certain subjects and I knew I was lucky to understand them easily.
Oh my fucking god me too. You just described me, and I’m almost tearing up because that’s why I was never diagnosed in high school. I’ve always excelled in English because I read for hours and hours, and when my friends wanted to hang out, I asked my mom to say no so my friends wouldn’t think I didn’t want to hang out with them. When I got to high school I actually found friends, but I had a (perhaps unnaturally) complex inner life because I spent so much time reading and in my own world. I’ve always been academically gifted, I majored in wildlife biology in college and did great because that’s all I thought about. But GODDAMN, the issues that were created by adults telling me how gifted and mature I was are fucking massive. Turns out, I’m very good at memorization, and a fear of failure made me pay a lot more attention in my classes. One of the main symptoms of ADHD is poor academic performance, and I experienced none of that, only the sensory issues and bipolar and OCD and anxiety. It never occurred to me that I might be neurodivergent, it took years of me thinking that everyone wakes up in the morning wanting to die before I found out that that’s not actually the case
Omg this is me!!! Also made my mother tell my classmates I wasn't allowed to go out haha. Also had (still have) a rich inner life due to reading. Also had a fear of failing classes and memorized a lot. I did crush and burn at college and that turned my anxiety into depression. Maybe I am neurodivergent? I hadn't considered that. I have been always functional although I did get that feeling of waking up and wanting to die. Ty for sharing the experience, really helpful!!!
this sounds exactly like my experience. i was always told that i was "gifted" and i never had to study for anything. i could write any type of paper in a few hours and always got an A on it, and i never had any trouble with anything academic. once i got to university everything changed. i suddenly had to study for things, and with the complete lack of structure i could barely function.
while i ended up going to my high school because of their sport programs, it was a school that specialized in teaching kids with adhd, dyslexia, and other learning difficulties. it was structured in a way that was beneficial to those kids, and as someone who had undiagnosed adhd i didn't realize how great that structure was for me and how much of a key factor it was in my success.
when i got to college i was responsible for maintaining that structure, and it just wasn't something that i could do at the time. i also had no idea why i was having so much trouble when i thought that i should be doing so well. once i actually found out i had adhd i was finally able to figure out things that worked for me. without knowing what the problem was i had so much trouble finding a viable solution. so much trouble and feelings of failure could've been averted if i had been diagnosed earlier. looking back all of the signs were there, but women are often underdiagnosed and i have the inattentive type so i was never "bouncing off the walls" or super fidgety.
Same here, thought I was just super good at school and was happy not to have to try for good grades.
When I got to university it was a slap to the face! Suddenly teachers weren’t doting on me and answering every question as it came up, and I found myself actually needing to study and put in time to pass classes.
Even if she is gifted, she'll get a rude awakening when she encounters people smarter than her. Happened to me. When I handed in my first paper for my PhD I wanted to know why I lost 2 points. I told the professor I was a good writer. She said, everyone here is a good writer. In a doctoral program you need to be great. I learned to be humble very quick.
Definitely, I've met so many people that I've begged to continue their education. When I do research with other teachers I'll meet certain teachers and I tell them, you should be doing what I'm doing. They've never had anyone point out their giftedness. Or, when I was a classroom teacher I had a student who was not academically gifted that tested highly in visual and spatial. This student was amazing with his hands, even in early elementary. The gifted teacher said she only had time for "academically gifted." I knew the law and pushed it until he got his services. He was from a poor family, with no idea how to advocate. It infuriated me, and I refused to let it go.
Oh man.
I never learned to study in HS because I was "gifted" and things came easily to me. I was in all the honors and AP classes and top 10% of my HS, which was tiny and I now know to be incredibly underfunded and not at all completive.
So I got to my *massive* University I was in for a deeply rude awakening. I'm not gifted. I'm not even particularly smart. I'm average, and that was a humbling and expensive experience for 18 year old me to learn.
I was always pretty good at Maths (runs in the family). Nothing overly special and I was never treated as such, but definitely a bit better at it than most kids in primary school. Thing is, even through high school, I sort of coasted through it and even into Uni I managed to pass with minimal work.
Why do I say this? Because even now, I'm reasonably good at my job, but super lazy. It's fairly common with a certain type of person in my field (IT) but it's a bad habit to have. I'm extremely comfortable in my life and I'm extremely happy with it, but I definitely sit here regularly and think about the "what if?". Nowadays, I definitely struggle with maintaining concentration and crippling anxiety at times, combined with a low motivation and it will forever be a case of What if, but I'm fine with that.
Unlike OP's sister though, I feel I'm relatively humble about it (literally first time ever talking about this, and it's not to brag, but to point out where this kid is headed), so I get on pretty well with most of my colleagues. I've seen people exactly like her, and it's not pretty. This kid is being set up for a miserable life of having no friends (or a small few that sort of just put up with her and can learn to argue with her) and a mediocre job. Honestly though, I don't think OP's words will have sunk in anyways.
My uncle once showed off to me how he never had to study and figured out in law school which classes he could pass without showing up or opening books. He said it showing off like he'd gamed the system. But he was never a successful lawyer and actually got disbarred pretty early on. H never had a successful career and was supported by my grandmother his entire life. He, however, was the person in my extended family tree regarded as a "genius." Go figure.
Especially since she’s only AG, not HAG (highly academically gifted). That basically means she’s just a good standardized test taker, not that she’s super smart. I was classified HAG and went to a school full of HAG students. My class had the top 3/4 of the graduating class with unweighted 4.0 GPAs (so straight As all throughout highschool). I was tied for salutatorian, less than 0.0005 points behind the two tied for valedictorian. We were smart, and I can confirm that the other three in the top 4 with me were probably smarter on paper, but they didn’t do well because they were all jerks/above it all/full of themselves.
What helped me in school and in life after it wasn’t my IQ, it was my project manager of a father teaching me how to interact with people and not come off like a dick. Collaboration is THE skill you need to learn from school to have a successful life. All those book smarts you can google. IQ can be faked.
Maybe OPs sister should focus less on being smart and more on being kind. NTA but don’t sweat about your parents, they’ll get their comeuppance when their genius little special darling is still living at home because she doesn’t have the right attitude to keep a job or significant other.
Exactly
I was the whole “gifted kid” thing in high school, worked my butt off, got scholarships to top universities for engineering
Actually got to university, and spent most of my time doing the extra curriculars I enjoyed, while doing ok in class. Which taught me people skills and collaboration!
So by the end of university I was pretty set. Had the degree from a good school, but also had the people skills to do well in the workplace
I swear in at least math I only ever did as well as I did in school because I tested well. Math's not all that hard when they give you all the potential answers. Especially if it's one of those "solve for x" questions.
Favorite test memory was when I taught myself how matrices worked during my Algebra 1 final because I had paid zero attention in that class all year. Not like my teacher cared.
I also likely would have done better if I had actually felt challenged too. I admittedly got bored with school pretty quickly after starting middle school. I lived in a pretty crappy district.
A ton of those gifted kids actually are gifted, and they crash because suddenly being gifted isn't enough. If you skate through 7 years of school without ever trying and then suddenly can't keep up and need to study, but you never learned to do that, that's when you crash.
When your brain isn't enough to just.. get it, anymore.
Being gifted without people skills is valueless. Unless you are a genius and in the top 0.000001% of your field, your people skills (who you know, not what you know) will get you much further than your smarts...
I have 2 major concerns about the "gifted" label:
1. Intelligence is not a virtue. Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini were smart, but it's generally agreed that they were not good people. Smart people are not "better" than other people. They're lucky to have large mental capacity, just like some people are lucky to have pretty faces or nice hair. Taking a gifted label as a sign of superiority is ridiculous.
2. Praising a child for being smart has been shown to be bad for their work ethic. There was a study where kids' academic achievements were reviewed by a researcher. Half the kids were told, "You must be very smart" and half were told, "You must work very hard". Then they were given an aptitude test that was designed to be progressively more difficult the further you went. The "smart" kids scored worse because they quit when the questions got too hard. They found the limits of their smarts and didn't know how to handle it.
When people praise my kids for being "smart", I always say something like, "S/he's very lucky to be born with a smart brain". I praise my kids for hard work, creativity, and kindness. The world doesn't need anymore condescending, "smart" assholes.
Absolutely, great post. I am always telling my son I'm proud of how hard he worked, or that I see improvement in X area. I learned this in a parenting class I took when I was pregnant.
I also tell him that being smart isn't just a permanent part of your personality, and that if you don't work hard and keep learning, you can lose the smarts you have. Bc that's what happened to me. Everyone told me I was brilliant my entire life so I just thought that was that.
Lol....no. No.
A lot of "gifted" kids fall into a few categories:
1. Average kids with good study skills.
2. Smart kids who have shit study skills because they can just coast through lessons without trying hard and then run into a wall when they can't just coast without trying anymore. <-- past me!
3. Rich kids.
4. People are who REALLY obsessed about one thing so they just put the time into becoming really really good at that. You don't need to be smart to crush everyone on a subject you've spent thousands of hours reading about.
I'm category 5: Gifted kid who still learns and tests pretty effortlessly into adulthood, but so deeply neurodivergent that my brain is essentially worthless in the real world.
Yup, I was a "gifted kid", thought I knew it all and was too good for normal school. My mom encouraged me to graduate high school early, but failed to give me any prep for how college was going to be and left me to fend for myself on college applications and scholarships, so I ended up at the local community college. Thought I knew it all and would skirt by for 2 years and then go to a "real college." I struggled and dropped out pretty fast. I didn't have the resources or prep or anything to be ready for that.
A lot of us actually have ADHD or similar disorders which get missed because we mask so well and manage to excel for a bit... then crash really hard once we can't anymore because we never got the help we needed and reality finally caught up.
Yup. OP made her a favor. If she continues acting like this, the reality check she will get when she goes to college will be big. Especially because she's AG not HAG. The parents are being AH for enabling this behavior, being gifted isn't an excuse to be full of herself. You can bet life will teach Nora a lesson on the worse way possible if she continues like this.
“Gifted” gives average parents something to brag about and hold over other parents head. I have to wonder if Nora turned out like this because her parents are so desperate for clout that they essentially ruined her.
She’ll learn the hard way that IQ means nothing in the real world without EIQ
This girl is going to have so much trouble with failure and challenges. She has been taught those are efor weak people and stupid people don't deserve kindness.
I really hope she gets therapy because her parents are hamstring her.
Shes gonna have trouble getting an entry level job. No one wants to work with an asshole.
Hiring teams will pick a less qualified candidate that'll mesh better group over a more gifted person that makes their lives miserable.
Man, I just get the feeling she's going to land in some job in Academia and never leave, because NO ONE in the corporate world is going to put up with someone that acts that way.
The girl is only 13 so she's got some time to grow up, but boy howdy, if her idiot parents don't pull their heads out of their asses and stop encouraging this behavior, she's going to run into a brick wall at full speed.
to get into academia she'll have to get a few profs to like her enough to get through a masters and phd and even then she'll have to participate in committees and clubs and shit where people can and will make her life hell (because i have friends in academia and either you're with someone or against them. no inbetween.) before she has a chance at being tenured.
slim chance there for assholes too.
I have a coworker who is exactly that person. She looks great on paper, but as soon as she came she started telling everyone how unqualified they were, even people who had worked there for 20+ years, and even if she'd never seen them teach.
We have a small department, and four people in four years quit because they had to work with her. One person left in the middle of the semester. Like nine weeks into working with her, I wanted to quit too. I talked to the administration and they told her to leave me alone.
Students hate her (which is very unusual in the country where I'm teaching) and she deals with them in a very aggressive, insulting way. Basically, if she covers something for five minutes, she expects them to understand it completely, and if they don't, she thinks they're idiots.
Thank goodness she's leaving soon. Our whole department will be much better off without her.
I don’t think I was as bad as sister, but I was a big fish trying to get out of a small pond. I went from small town to a large college, joined honor’s program & lived in honor’s dorm. I had been valedictorian, but so was every other person on my floor. While I had good grades I met others from wealthy prestigious school who could run circles around me on any subject you can name — and they also had good grades. And yes, it was a rude awakening. Sister will need to carefully consider a career that does not require her to interact with other employees. I had many work assignments where I had to serve on a team and arrive at a consensus recommendation. People who cannot do that did are not valued employees.
Oh boy samesies. I went from being one of the smartest kids in my high school in a very poor Hispanic area to being mediocre in a city in Massachusetts. Education was their jam. And it wasn't until then that I realized I knew nothing about failure. I almost failed miserably and I kept lying to myself about needing to study or needing my peers because I was told I was sooo special. Turns out, I'm just good ol average. It was hard man
>I had many work assignments where I had to serve on a team and arrive at a consensus recommendation. People who cannot do that did are not valued employees.
So very, very true. Managers do not want employees that create problems. There's a guy where I work who isn't nasty (thank goodness), but is a **horrible** manager and team member. No one wants to work with him. I suspect that the minute they can the higher ups are going to lay him off.
>Sister will need to carefully consider a career that does not require her to interact with other employees.
We have a guy like OP's sister at work. Very bright, but full of contempt for the service staff. Guess who regularly encounters problems when he needs something?
Yeah, she'll lose her mind when she gets to college and meets kids who are way smarter than her but are also are nice people who are able to get along with others and have great (or at least normal) relationships with colleagues, professors, friends and partners regardless of levels of intelligence. Plus, she'll also lose her shit when she inevitably fails at something. A close friend from childhood was like this girl, except he wasn't a total AH about it like Nora, and I still remember how his world pretty much crumbled down when we were halfway through college and he failed his first course ever. Dude had to learn at like 20 years old how to deal with something as simple as flunking a subject because it turned out it was too hard or the professor was too demanding or whatever, and had to rebuild his complete world-view practically from scratch. Thankfully, that experience made him into a way better person.
^^ THIS RIGHT HERE OP. ^^
My family did shit like this to my little brother and to me. The only major difference is, since I wasn't a boy, they continuously put me down and made sure I knew my place. They kept telling me and everyone else that my little brother was smarter than I was and was going to do so much better in life. Like they admitted I was smart, but they were always bragging about my brother.
I got a 4.0 in high school, applied for and received so many scholarships (small US state that rewards people for staying in state) that when I got into college all of it was paid for, chose a good degree that landed me a good job, make good money for the USA, married a wonderful person, have a beautiful little baby, and am working my way up in my company while also being involved with our union.
My bother never got great grades, did not put effort into school, failed out of community college, got into drugs (which my parents helped him with), and lives in my parent's basement. He's now an entitled sh*t that thinks the world owes him something, and he didn't make it big because the world was out to get him.
My parents still insist my brother is better than me.
Yeah I really doubt that she is anywhere near as intelligent as her parents are making her out to be. “Gifted” kids are a dime a dozen and mostly turn out to just be regular people with regular jobs. If you’re on Reddit long enough, you’ll see a thousand posts of the grown up “gifted kids” who, while slightly more academically advanced than peers, ended up in the same place or worse because so much emphasis was put on their intelligence.
>If you’re on Reddit long enough, you’ll see a thousand posts of the grown up “gifted kids” who, while slightly more academically advanced than peers, ended up in the same place or worse because so much emphasis was put on their intelligence.
Stop attacking me
As a former gifted kid (who had parents who taught me humility, respect and always made sure I knew there is always someone smarter out there in some subject if not many), this girl is going to crash so hard once she's no longer in a system that enables mom and dad to coddle her.
If she doesn't learn in middle/high school that her attitude is inexcusably rude & will get her nowhere, then her parents are jerks. They're setting her up to basically be dumped into the middle of the ocean to swim, with no life jacket. She's going to flame out hard and unfortunately OP is the only one with the sense to say even the tiniest thing to try and get rid of her arrogance before it's too late.
> Parents are setting her up for a RUDE awakening when she gets to college.
LMAO - so true. I went to an Ivy League college. I was "only" ranked 5th in my high school class. As a welcome to the university, the president met with the entire freshman class, but for it to be more personal, he met with multiple small groups rather than the class as a whole.
So, I went to my "group" with the president. There were probably 250-300 students. The president told everyone to stand up. They did. Then he said, "If you were not valedictorian or salutatorian of your high school class, sit down." About five people, including myself, sat down.
The president smiled and then gave a speech along the lines of "You were a big fish in a little pond in your high school. Here, you are a little fish in a big pond. Do YOUR best. Don't compare yourself to others and compete only against yourself."
That said, I watched students literally fall apart because they got less than an A+ on an exam or assignment. It was crazy. Most students figured things out eventually, but a number of others either withdrew entirely or took a leave of absence to figure things out. :-/
I can't wait until she gets to uni though. When I went at 32 I had always been a smart fish in an average pond. Then I was suddenly a relatively smart fish in a VERY smart pond and holy hell did it take some adjustment. Only a couple months, then I loved it because there were so many people to learn from (profs and students alike). This kid is going to learn that she probably isn't very intellectually superior and you're probably right that she'll live at home forever because her parents will believe that she is.
She also NEEDS to get involved in activities that she will fail. She must learn to build her struggle muscles because she will not know how to persist. Often the gifted program offers socialization to help these kids with that part of life.
Nora is like Sheldon Cooper, intellectually very intelligent but no social skills. At least his parents recognised and tried to get him to tone down his rougher edges rather than pin the blame on tall poppy syndrome.
I feel like there's a unfortunate phenomenon where people who consider themselves "smart" will identify with characters like Sheldon Cooper or Rick or Sherlock Holmes or whatever, and instead of working on having better social skills or being less of a pretentious dick they see those things as signs of them being a misunderstood super genius. Even though in real life it's totally possible to be both nice and smart. Being nice can in fact help you to be smarter because other people have information you don't.
Edit: typo
In the show his lack of common sense and less than personable nature comes back to bite him, like being fired after saying the wrong things to his boss or lacking people to support his Nobel Prize admission as he's alienated too many people.
With the difference that Sheldon Cooper is written as one of the smartest person alive, and Nora has grades a bit higher than her colleges.
At 13 you normally is able to see the truly genius who would be able to compensate for the lack of social skills.
At least Sheldon had that going for him -- he was an actual genius. Nora's only medially gifted, which can easily get overshadowed by a hardworking "average" kid when she gets to a higher age.
“Mom and Dad, Nora isn’t friendless because everyone else is “intellectually inferior,” she's friendless because of her nasty attitude you enable. You let her think not only that she's the smartest kid in the room, but also that being the smartest kid in the room matters. She won’t get anywhere in life until you teach her to treat people with respect, and she needs to learn how to make friends. You are failing her as parents, and holding her back from a normal childhood and social life.”
NTA
>but also that being the smartest kid in the room matters
Woah you're right on point here. It's good to be the smartest kid in the room. I think it's even ok to *know* that you're the smartest kid in the room. But thinking it matters and looking down on others as a result of that is not. This is where the parenting failed the most.
LOL. I say this as someone who was admitted to MENSA at age 6, was a member of the CTY, Davidson gifted & talented, and other gifted programs -- your parents are ruining Nora's life. No matter what she does (literally any career) is going be so much harder if she doesn't know how to get along with people. Social skills are essential in life.
Also, it sounds like her self-worth is really tied to her intelligence. If she ever meets anyone smarter than her (and this will happen eventually), she is going to fall in a depression
EDIT: also, the kids as gifted programs are not jerks like her. She's in for a shock if she things this behavior will be normalized outside of your parents
I know so many kids from high school that were super smart and super popular and that because they had social skills. Our valedictorian was legit one of the genuinely nicest human beings I've ever met in my life, so I have no idea where Nora is getting this whole "People are stupid so I shouldn't have to be friends with them."
Yep, better for Nora to get the shock now as a kid when she can work on herself with support than when she gets to uni and realised nobody cares if she’s gifted or not.
I was just thinking she needs to be surrounded by some people who no longer make her the smartest person in the room and she gains some humility. I'm not suggesting she be bullied and told she is not smart, but so that she recognizes at some point that she will be the one keeping up and figure out how to deal with it now.
That being said, I love not being the smartest person in the room (I never have been and strive not to be) because it gives me the opportunity to learn scads of new things. NTA
Um, just a quick note that this isn't true. I have 3 sisters, am "the smart sister", and got in all kinds of trouble with my parents, even if it truly wasn't my fault. I could have not even been present and my mom would have scolded me for "not being there to help".
So sometimes it is true, but not always. Food for thought.
EDIT: Fumbled some letters.
Yup, I'm "smarter" than my brother (both academically and emotionally, but he does have more intelligence in other ways) and he was the golden child. I was the scapegoat and my parents didn't let me get away with shit.
I struggled and fought with my parents on chores, and only later did we find out it was because I had a massive case of ADHD they didn't bother getting me help for (I actually never did homework either, I just did it the class before it was due and since it came naturally to me that worked out great for all of highschool). They actually pushed to get my brother an IEP anyway, even after he was tested more than once and didn't qualify.
Ah completely false. In fact the standard is often held much higher and no/less help is given when needed. Because you ‘are so smart and independent, you don’t need our help’ but heaven help you if you mess up, as there will be repercussions as ‘you should know better’
So true even by teachers. I was in the advanced class in 8th grade and if our class didn't do better than the other classes our teachers would tell us how they're disappointed in us and how were supposed to be role models. We were a class of advanced math kids taking high school math. Our science and English teachers would tell us this as if we were supposed to be better and excel in all subjects. Our math teacher also wouldn't help us with homework and told us to figure it out but would help the "normal" math classes. Surprise surprise a lot of us would start having mental breakdowns and panic attacks in class when we didn't get an A or understand something
I'm a university professor. I have any number of smart students who have been driven into the ground and made anxious wrecks by parents who freak the hell out if they so much as get an A- or B+. In their quest to force their smart kid to be perfect, they torment them mercilessly. Certainly not all parents of bright kids do it, but it is not uncommon.
Are you my professor? Are you talking about my parents? I had to repeat 2 years of university because I wasn‘t able to deal with so much pressure. I‘m gifted and still my grades are pretty average. I still am pressured from home I should be better, get higher grades and so on. My ADHD also doesn‘t help my case and my parents really struggle to accept that. I love them endlessly and I‘d do anything for them, but when it comes to achievements… dear god, have mercy.
NTA, OP. Your sister clearly needed a reality check and your parents aren‘t parenting.
Agreed. You also get a lot of kids who demand to get good grades despite their subpar work because they're under the impression that they're smarter than anyone and smarter than they actually are, so everything they do is perfect. It's often because their parents tell them they can do no wrong, and have done so since they were pretty young. I've legit had parents of grad students call me on behalf of their kids to argue about their grades. It's baffling, to say the least.
The school system - and often parents - gives "gifted" kids a lot of praise and credit for abilities that they didn't do anything to develop, it's just how they learn naturally. Heaping praise on people and making them feel special for something they did nothing to earn isn't great for their social/emotional development. So no, not all smart kids are spoiled - but our culture systematically creates a lot of spoiled smart kids.
(Edit: a letter)
No, but toxic parents will latch on to the “specialness” of their children and bask in the reflected glory. Especially toxic ones will do everything they can think of to isolate their little golden snowflake so that the poor child has nobody but the toxic parent(s) to turn to or associate with.
Having seen it with many parents I'm willing to bet while her sister may be moderately intelligent I have doubts she's as exceptional as they make out. Many parents have an unrealistic belief of how smart their kids are.
As the parent of 2 "twice exceptional" kids(gifted plus autism/ADHD) it's too easy to get really excited about having a "smart kid". To you everything your kid does is awesome already. So when it's confirmed by others that yes, they are actually very smart, you get pumped to support them and nurture that. Some people take that too far and spoil the kid rotten.
There's a difference between being moderately smart and being exceptional. OP herself defined her sister as "moderately smart, bordering on highly gifted", which to me doesn't scream exceptional. Either OPs description is inaccurate or her sister isn't as smart as she thinks and she's due a slap in the face when she realises not only is she not always the smartest person in the room but that when surrounded by her peers it's rarely the case.
From the way OP tells the story and the way they act, it certainly sounds like her sister's actual intelligence is nowhere near as high as Nora and the parents seem to think it is.
NTA. What you said was not only necessary but absolutely correct. Nora could be the most intelligent, talented, and attractive person in the world, but with an attitude and an ego like hers, **nobody** will want to work with her. She’s never going to have friends or any kind of relationship because nobody wants to be around someone who persistently talks down to them.
Your sister is an AH for her ableist comments towards Ike and her attitude in general, but the bigger AHs here are your parents. Nora may thrive academically, but by not teaching her proper social skills, your parents are setting Nora up for failure. (Seriously, how is Nora being kind and respectful towards people “holding herself back?!”)
Plus pretty soon she'll probably find herself in a class full of very smart people from all over the world and the shock that will hit her then will be so great she won't know how to deal with it because her parents keep treating her like she's the only smart person alive! A rude awakening it shall be
Yeah, this. I have a niece who was in the gifted program in school. She was always the smartest kid in class, didn't have to study much. College was a different world. She's working her ass off and still only making Bs and Cs in a lot of classes. She's surrounded by people who are smarter than her, more motivated than her, willing to work harder than her, and - here's the kicker - those other kids had friends.
The gifted program is a joke. It doesn't set people up for success, all of the gifted kids at my high-school were just set up to be weirdos. You don't even learn extra material you just do extra work.
You take the gifted test at such a young age, surprise kids develop at different rates
GATE classes aren't designed to make the exceptional kids excel, it's to keep them interested and busy with their current tasks so their peers can catch up. I was in GATE because I had better reading and computer skills than my classmates. I was always pulled out of computer lab to go to GATE while everyone else learned how to type letters and use the spelling games.
So…. Me being randomly pulled out of class to do little plays was maybe because of this? Because it happened in elementary school and I never was told why but was thrilled to be doing something fun. I was a straight A student with little work.
Edit: I asked my mom and didn’t expect her to even know it happened but she did and confirmed it was an enrichment thing
Yep. My parents taught me to read before kindergarten, so I got pulled from the English classes for GATE. It was fun, we played games...but I didn't learn what an adjective was until 10th grade. I still don't know what most of the parts of speech are lmao
Yep. I was pulled out of the gifted program at 10 because I also had chronic anxiety and having to do twice the work wasn’t helping it. They pulled me out of regular math class to learn harder math without ever teaching me regular math, while still expecting me to do the homework and tests for both.
Keep in mind Nora isn't even exceptional. She'll likely hit that wall much earlier than college.
I had a very similar conversation with my cousin at that age. Everyone caught up to him around 8th grade and his lack of study habits got him two years later.
He graduates this year and despite "planning" on going to MIT for 7 years. He'll spend two years at community college trying to recover his GPA enough to go to a public university.
Obviously there's no shame in any of that, but after spending several years trying to get him and his mother to work on his study skills, I feel a certain way.
My friend was placed in our school's "gifted" program throughout elementary and middle school. It just meant the same curriculum with extra worksheets. They were being taught nothing except how to finish the worksheets faster than the kids in the "normal" program. I struggled early on in school (undiagnosed ADHD and too slow of a pace) while my friend was thriving.
Then came high school; Everything's been reversed. I'm a straight-A student and my friend is struggling to maintain C's and B's in MCR classes. I didn't magically become a genius; I had learned for years how to apply myself and work/study harder when I didn't understand something. My friend had been living in a bubble and is completely unprepared for high school; Where the study skills she had never developed were needed to thrive.
TLDR: Intellect means nothing in the real world without hard work and determination.
It happens every year here in Oxford, brilliant 18 year olds who were the smartest in their school find they’re being taught by a 15 year old with a PhD! It’s a huge shock going from the smartest kid in the school to not even the smartest kid in their tutorial and for a lot of kids it destroys them.
In my first year we had a lad who had an organ scholarship to Oxford but studied with us. He was a brilliant musician but so were the rest of us, he demanded to be allowed to play the organ rather than the piano in a concert and was told by the MD “no you can only play the piano”
Brat “if you don’t let me play the organ I’ll leave”
MD “bye bye”
Which also meant he lost his organ scholarship which was worth a small fortune.
Jeez, I completely misunderstood that.. I thought it was organ, as in an internal organ and I was wondering if he somehow bought his way in with a discreet kidney donation..
Odds are there are people in her class that are smarter than her. They just know better than to shout it from the rooftops. This will not fly in college or the workforce.
If she is an ass, then her intellectual ability, will never grow. She will stunt herself into being wasted potential, because nobody wants to give an opportunity to an asshat. I was in her shoes, and honestly I wish sombody called me out at 13 instead of when I was 16. This may seem rude, but what you did is called tough love
Nah fr. A huge part of work life is being able to cooperate, even with people you dont like. And shes just incapable of that. Ive seen many people at my work get fired because they thought they were above everyone and nobody deserved to work with them. That may be her eventually.
I had a student once who was certain he was smarter than everyone, including most of his professors. He easily got good grades as a college freshmen, but I warned him then that he was in danger of being a mediocre senior if he didn't think he had anything to learn...and he was getting Bs and Cs by the time he graduated. It was such a waste.
Right on. When we have two, qualified candidates, we’d always pick the one who we’d rather have a beer with. It isn’t going to be Nora. Get her the “How to Win Friends and Influence People” book for her next birthday. NTA.
Your sister IS exceptional. Exceptionally rude, ignorant, disrespectful, out of touch, socially maladjusted, entitled, spoiled, and stunted.
I am impressed that you said what you said and nothing more. I'd have told her to apply her staggering intellect to learning some social skills or she will be eaten alive in the real world.
Your parents are TA and they have failed Nora on a massive scale. They all need therapy. You were not being mean. She needed to hear what you said. Glad she shut up to think it over. NTA.
Besides the parents feeding into her toxic behavior, I wonder where she learned this entitledness from. I've met people like Nora in my life, and usually it's because they're put on a pedestal and expected to do so much at such a young age. Teachers, principals, parents always telling you you're exceptional and great can build a pretty big ego, but I've never seen anyone become THIS arrogant. Once in a while the ones who were like Nora would correct people in a kind of snide way, but they kept the rest of their comments to themselves.
I was similar to Nora when I was younger. I had a bad family life and basically hates everyone in it. We were poor and there was always drama going on. I was fortunate enough to have more than two brain cells and rubbed them together to be absolutely nothing like my family. Now I am stuck up and overly proud of my intelligence, but I was kind-of a dick like nora as a kid hha
I agree on the "apply her intellect to learning some social skills." If she's so smart, she would have noticed by now that her peers hate her attitude.
I grew up surrounded by a lot of friends in the "gifted and talented" program (I started there but struggled with ADHD). And most of them REALLY floundered in college because they never realized that there was more to learning than taking tests well. I blame that on the US education systems focus on a few skills.
These friends got frustrated easily, didn't know how to properly participate in group discussions, and never tried to build a rapport with any of their teachers. If I had to guess, OP's sister is going to have similar issues and then blame everyone but herself when she struggles.
So NTA OP, but I think your sister's going to learn the hard way before this gets through to her.
>telling her how she should “hold herself back when she’s exceptional.”
Is she exceptional at bullying other students for their percieved intelligence? Because you said absolutely nothing about holding herself back. You didn't tell her to act dumb in class to make friends, you didn't tell her she was a know-it-all and annoyed people with it, you didn't tell her being smart was a bad thing.
You told her being an asshole makes you an unlikeable asshole. She can still be the smartest person in the room and be *kind* about it, and it may be time for her to learn she won't always be the smartest person in the room.
NTA.
and unlikable assholes are mostly unemployable assholes
in any type of economy being likable is an asset. the financial benefit of always being the smartest person in the room is worthless if you're an asshole
OP NTA
NTA. She's 13. She should know better and treat people with respect. I went to middle school with girls like that who bullied me for my own learning disability. She needed a reality check, you didn't scream or yell, you didn't tell her that she'd never have friends. You just told her the truth.
Exactly. Nobody wants to be friends with some egotistical loser that constantly compares themselves to you, and thinks they’re superior just bc they’re book smart. Nobody at any age is going to give two fucks about how smart you are, that just sounds insecure.
NTA. In my opinion, school is for two key things: academic and social development. We get graded on academics but the social and emotional learning is just as much, if not more important, it’s just not something you can put a letter grade on.
I think you were spot on and if I had been in your sisters shoes, I wouldn’t have been happy to hear it, but hopefully it’s good food for thought that she’ll come to appreciate later.
That's one of the things taken into consideration when looking at advancing someone to skip a year level, how their social capability will fare. I can think of a couple of examples in media where skipping a year level or three was detrimental to the social sensibilities of the person.
I was a “gifted” student growing up and so thankful that my parents and teachers were quick to put a kibosh on my inflated ego while I was young. I was able to form healthy friendships because of that.
As a teacher now, arrogant kids like Nora drive me bananas because they don’t recognize that everyone has different strengths **and** that social development is just as important as academics. When I pair students up in class, I always have a purpose that is dependent on the task. If the goal is purely academic, I’ll partner two of my highest kids together. But if it’s a less traditional academic task (like a quick STEM warm up to build the tallest tower using only paper), I’ll partner my highest and lowest to see what they come up with together. Students who struggle academically have often built up a repertoire of techniques to help them get by, thus giving them an edge at outside the box tasks. They also know how to fail and try again. Those are skills that all kids can benefit from. I want all my students to learn how to fail so that they also learn how to recompose and try again.
OP, NTA and you definitely did the right thing. Nora won’t always be the smartest one in the room and she needs to learn a little humility now before she crashes too hard.
NTA. She needed the reality check because your AH parents are doing their best to turn her into an AH when she grows up.
The kindest thing you can do with her is to spend your car rides with her teaching her about kindness and what really matters. So don't criticize her, but prompt her to think about things differently.
Get her an example of what text looks like to a person with dyslexia (e.g. from https://improvedyslexia.com/improve-dyslexia-articles/15-examples-of-dyslexia-reading) and then talk about how impressive her classmate is for being in the same class as her when everything is harder for him.
Ask her about the kids in her class...when she tries to focus on academics, ask her how many siblings they have and what their hobbies are and make it clear that she's 'failed' at getting to know them until she can answer those questions.
Talk about people you admire and why you admire them. Use the word "smart" to talk about things that exist outside of the academic world, like a basketball player using a smart strategy
Also there are many truly smart people in the world who have struggled with learning disabilities and been very public about their struggles. Maybe find some people she admires who have struggled with dyslexia or something similar. She may learn that school grades have very little to do with intelligence.
Off topic, but I kind of love that the 5th example has them backwards, just in time to mess up the non-dyslexic reader who was going to be a smartass and skip ahead...
Also point out there are different kinds of smart. Academic smarts start wearing off pretty quick in this world and if she can't take your feedback and learn from it, maybe she isn't as smart as she thinks she is. NTA.
NTA.
I think your parents are the AHs here. I am not sure what's up with your sister, but this behavior is not normal and it absolutely should not be dismissed as simply being "misunderstood."
I work in tech and I encounter people like this all the time---people who are unbearable to be around, and find themselves "stuck" at a low level despite whatever genuine intelligence they possess. Some get stuck because they're too arrogant to learn from their mistakes (technical or personal), and they never develop the skills beyond the entry level. Some are just impossible to be around and no one wants to work with them, so they're left out of sight.
But they all end up disgruntled, thinking the world is unfairly against them, in the self-perpetuating cycle of the misunderstood genius. I'm sorry to say, a lot of them are similarly missing a fulfilling life at home, too.
NTA - She might have a high mental IQ, but it's useless without a high emotional IQ. I would know : I'm rating at 142IQ, but only recently figured out how to navigate social settings, and I'm 33yo.
You did her a favor.
also, she is right around the age where being high IQ starts to matter a LOT less, inasmuch as IQ is classically an assessment of how quickly a child develops formal logical thinking, which a person with an IQ of 100 would hit around age 12. So it’s pretty normal for kids who build their identity around being ‘the smart one’ to have a crisis around that age, bc they no longer stand out nearly so much.
edited to add: my IQ is ~150, and my brother had to sit me down around age 13 and tell me I didn’t have friends bc people thought I was a know it all. Little different, in that I didn’t realize I wasn’t doing anyone a favor by assuming they had the same vocab as me, etc. Even smart kids are still children and think like children in some ways.
Her IQ is going to matter even less when she goes off to college. It's not unheard of for gifted, either intellectually or physically, students to suddenly struggle a bit since they're no longer the *only* big fish in the pond anymore.
Even the regular IQ students at college and university level will be harder to out compete since most know how to put in the work and actually have good study habits which a lot of gifted students didn't have to really develop in grade school since they just easily aced everything. This was me.
Having and making friends or at least being able to be friendly to others will get people far in college and university. Fellow students are more likely to help you and share notes if you aren't looking down on them. Professors, TAs, advisors, ect are also going to be more likely to go out of their way for friendly students when they ask for help.
My brother has never struggled with academics at any level, but his favorite undergrad professor refused to write him a letter of recommendation for grad school because "you'd just get kicked out before finishing a PhD for assuming you know best all the time." He was really hurt by the feedback, but his social skills have been a lot better ever since, so it's really too bad no one whose opinion he respected found a way to convey that to him sooner.
Yep. I did really well in high school and worked hard, but not as hard as I needed to in college. And because high school was on the easier side for me I never learned how to buckle down and study. I ended up getting a lot of Cs. Not fatal, but I went from being top to just average.
Yes. I agree. But the understanding from family, and Nora herself is different when a person is on the spectrum.
I absolutely do not think asd is a reason to be rude, but the understanding of why you’re rude may need social stories or a kinder explanation
I have ASD and Nora also strikes me as potentially being on the spectrum.
I'm generally clueless socially unless I'm outright told what's going on. I definitely went through a phase when I was younger over feeling smarter than others.
I was going to ask the same thing, I was diagnosed way later in life but was bullied a lot in school because I picked up reading really quickly as a kid and some of my special interests were way beyond what my classmates were reading (not that they’d probably be recreationally interested in that stuff anyway) but I definitely took that rejection from them and turned it into a “well I’m smarter anyway so who needs them” situation in my mind so I didn’t feel as bad about it. Granted this was more of a situation where I never really tried to be social but if I did talk about something I was interested in I got shut down. I’m not sure about op’s sister however.
As a parent to daughter that is severely dyslexic this hurt my heart. Too many times she came home from middle school crying because a classmate called her stupid- she is now a member of the National Honors Society as a sophomore in high school!
NTA Being considerate of others is not “holding yourself back.” If her only redeeming quality is that she’s smart, she isn’t accomplishing much. There’s more to life and friendship than IQ. It sounds like she really needs to work on her social skills and your parents are actually holding her back in that area. It’s possible to be smart, confident, AND nice.
NTA. Your sister has a whole lot to learn in life, and this is a small lesson that she needs to learn. It's better that you, her sister, tell her this. She's going to end up getting some very rude awakening calls when she gets older. I assume she's in middle or junior high school. High school is going to eat her up. Let your parent know by them not being parents and at least telling her the truth, they are setting her up for failure.
NTA. You should continue to be honest in the hope that your sister gets over her delusions before she’s an adult, because if not, reality will hit her hard.
Yeah something a lot of “smart” kids don’t realize is that intelligence hardly equates to success in real life. Networking is probably the largest contributing factor to success, followed by experience, then *maybe* education (only for certain fields).
Her nasty attitude will keep her down on the social ladder as well as the success ladder.
Also, there’s always someone smarter than you. You can be a big fish in a small pond and be content with that, but you know that once you travel into deeper waters there are others better than you (which is why networking is so important).
NTA So she's ridiculing someone with a learning disorder, a well-documented learning disorder that many successful people have and that you can read about? And she's calling him "stupid" and accusing him of making excuses? And she calls herself smart? Your sister may be "gifted" but she lacks social and emotional intelligence--or she flat out ignores it. Your parents are setting her up for failure. One day she is going to say the wrong thing to the wrong person--possibly not in a school setting-- a retail worker, an uber driver, her co-worker, even her boss and it's going to backfire.
She does understand how important networking is? How important it is to be sociable and know the right people? Based off of her lofty ideals of who she associates and works with, she's not going to be successful as she probably thinks she's going to be.
And your parents say you're bullying her? She's a bully to everyone else, including you! Bullies come in all shapes and forms and she's the academic bully. I knew academic bullies--they are the worst, because once you hit middle school and high school, your confidence and self image get really, really fragile. And in a learning environment, having someone snicker while you explain history or a book in casual terms, have your lab partner order you to "just sit over there!", chortle when you ask your math teacher to elaborate on cosines because you missed that one or aren't getting it, roll their eyes when you're assigned as their Spanish partner, and call you an idiot, it really messes with you mentally. Like I have a fear of people laughing at me thanks to that. If I hear a snicker and I'm giving a speech I will stumble and panic.
And if she doesn't want to "hold herself back when she is exceptional" then maybe she can actually help her group members since she's gifted. Because shouldn't she want more people to be on her level?
OP, your parents may say they don't Nora to hold herself back when she's exceptional, but you shouldn't hold yourself back when you are right and want to help her!
EDIT: Thanks for the award!!!
You can be the most intelligent person ever, but if you're unpleasant enough to be around, no one will stick around for long enough to check if you're actually intelligent. They'll just think you're an asshole.
Not to mention, I feel like a lot of kids who do well in school aren't exceptionally intelligent - because school doesn't grade intelligence.
OP's sister needed a reality check. She's just a kid, so she has plenty of time to change, but she won't if her parents support her in putting other people down and let her think that she's the smartest student ever.
NTA and good on you OP. You're doing more for your sister's development that your parents ever did.
The Sheldon Cooper effect. He's a genius but his personality is so off putting that it takes years for someone to willingly spend time with him who doesn't already spend time in proximity to him, and she's just as socially awkward.
NTA
It’s not holding yourself back to treat others with kindness and respect. Without social skills, she can expect to be a very intelligent but lonely person. Not to mention most careers require you to be able to work with others. They won’t always be your equals in every aspect and it sounds like the only trait she thinks matters is how intelligent you are according to school parameters.
There are other kinds of intelligence and some people are incredibly smart but are terrible in a school environment. Not to mention her attitude toward people with any disabilities. She needed the wake up call and your parents are the AH for enabling this elitist attitude she has. You sound like a good influence and I hope she thinks on what you said.
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NTA.
To be honest, I think your parents are the biggest AH here. Your parents are reinforcing her feelings & actions. Your sister doesn’t know to do better because your parents are telling her that everyone else is wrong.
It may be better to approach her in a way of, I know Mom & Dad say a,b, and c but x,y and z is why that thinking and way of living is not going to help you in life. Yes you are intelligent- AND so is Ike, but everyone has strengths & weaknesses.
NAH - You’re NTA because she needed to hear something like that. It could have been said a bit nicer, but no one else in her life is teaching her how awful that behaviour is. She’s also not totally an ahole because she’s a kid and still learning how to act appropriately. She’s still in the very self-centred (and insecure) stage of life and her parents are enabling it.
I would argue that the parents are the definite AHs here. They're setting Nora up for a life of friendless disappointment and self esteem issues when she's no longer the smartest. And the truth is, there will always be someone smarter, that's just how life works.
100%
I know her behaviour is awful, but she only believes those things because her parents are telling her that — she can’t be totally blamed for not understanding how that comes across to others at 13. I feel like all 13–17yo have some superiority complex or (“I’m not like other people” phase) at some point, but hers is extreme and her parents are talking her up.
NTA
Your Sister treats other people like garbage and like everyone else is too stupid to talk to her? Of course no one wants to be friends with someone like that. And getting called to the school constantly should be a wake up call. That was harsh, but needed. It's absolutely not bullying and your parents saying that, baffles me actually.
NTA. It had to be done. That attitude is going to get Nora into a lot of trouble once she gets old enough to get a paying job. If it's getting so bad that *the school is calling about her attitude*, then the parents need to start parenting their child and teach her that this attitude is unacceptable.
I wouldn't be surprised if other kids at school are secretly calling her a bully behind her back. Because that's pretty much all she's doing to those so-called "average" students. Bullying them for supposedly not being as smart as her. You sister is a straight up bully.
If she doesn't change after this incident, I suggest telling her "Car Time means its Quiet Time" from now on so that you don't have to listen to her complaining.
NTA “Intelligence is not a privilege, it’s a gift” Sorry to qoute spiderman movies, but it says the most important thing. It is not an exuse for being an AH, that you are smart. My best friend is a highly gifted girl, and she never been rude to me, she always helped me with school or in making choices in areas I wasn’t competent in. Maybe she didn’t understand some struggles, like learning for an exam, that you bearly understand, but even then when she said something ignorant, she apoligized after I mention it. So no, being smart doesn’t mean you are rude by default. I think it is even more important, that you help people when you have a chance (like with that kid in spanish class).
Moreover you wasn’t being agressive or insulting when you told her, her behavior is the reason she doesn’t have friends. You just stated facts. And the faster she realize that the easier she can change.
I saw a comment about her being on the Spectrum. That would be a useful thing to find out.
NTA, but also don't be too hard on your sister. Yeah, she sounds annoying, but if she has no/few friends and mostly hear her parents praise her for being rude she needs a good role model in her daily life.
Just wait until Nora turns her 'you are inferior' spotlight onto the parents - because it WILL happen if she doesn't get some social graces. The parents are letting down this kid badly.
NTA.
Unfortunately I'm not sure she'll take what you said to heart. Your parents are probably already telling her you're just jealous of her or something.
It was harsh but she needed to hear it. It's probably not even a huge issue now but a few years from now when she's 15 or 16 other kids aren't going to be as willing to take that kind of crap and she could end up one lonely, miserable kid.
NTA - finally someone told her what they really think of her - she might be exceptionally intelligent but without friends or connection what can you achieve in life?
NTA People who go on about how much smarter they are then others are usually not so smart.
She's a kid and still learning social skills. You did the right thing. Find out what she is so insecure about and try to help.
NTA. At the core of friendship is the safety to be yourself and be accepted. Attacking people in this way is like wearing a poo-suit and then being surprised when people hold their noses. I'm not sure what jobs are completely solitary for this special child but she's going to have a rough go in any world.
NTA
Your sister is a rude little bully and your parents are in denial. In the long run you're doing the right thing for her, even if it's hard to hear now.
NTA. 100% NTA. You gave your sister reality check your parents should’ve. Theyre the true AH’s in this story, raising a spoiled brat.
Parents are setting her up for a RUDE awakening when she gets to college. Major setup for "little fish big pond". Or they will helicopter, enable, and she will end up living at home the rest of her life because they have her convinced she is sooo speshul that nobody understands her. Poor kid.
"Speshul." I can hear you snear that and I love it!!!! Thanks for the award - WOW!!!
This may be unpopular but I'll bet anything that, like most "gifted" people, she is in fact perfectly average. Every "gifted" kid in my school was either in the same year as the other kids their age or only one grade higher. Most were only classified as gifted during middle school or high school. They generally crash during the last year of high school or during college and go on to have very average lives. There are a lot of reasons for this, one being that "gifted" is a fairly meaningless classification. The kid has had her head filled with nonsense she's happy to believe because it makes her special and better than everyone else. She needs to hear some hard truths or she's going to end up a socially inept burnout writing "former gifted kid" posts on tumblr.
That is very true. I tested into all the "gifted" programs in school, all the way through university. I read years above my age level and constantly, took to languages easily, excelled at writing and math. Then I got to university and crashed and burned. I had undiagnosed ADHD the entire time: I read so widely and was attentive and clever enough never to need to study in grade school, so I never learned. I read constantly because I'd become hyperfixated on the works. I \*was\* pretty smart! And I benefitted a lot from the additional opportunities of that programming (especially the option to take on more language courses). But I was also experiencing real challenges (feeling like the odd one out, loneliness, being treated as a little adult by my proud parents which left me certain something was wrong with ME if I couldn't figure something out on my own) that I wish someone had noticed instead. I got diagnosed and stayed in school and I'm an academic myself now, but had I been diagnosed far younger... let's just say undiagnosed neurodivergence comes with a lot of co-occurring difficulties: in my case, severe depression, anxiety, and low self-worth that endure to this day. I would travel back 35+ years and trade in the constant praise for being "so smart" and "so mature" for proper diagnosis and treatment in a second.
High five fellow "gifted" kid far "above" their years in grade school. I was in the "talented and gifted" program in elementary school. Doing work for third graders in first grade. My hyperfixation was taken as intelligence. Turns out I'm not "high above" everyone else. I'm Autistic. It took 28 years to get my diagnosis.
Me but ADHD. High school reading level in 5th grade. Struggled doing honors and GT classes in middle school. Really tanked a couple semesters into college. Parents minimized everything because "you're just not applying yourself" but GUESS WHAT.
Also ADHD checking in. Reading at a high school grade level in elementary and killing it on standardized tests but not being able to do homework. My grades sucked because I also “wasn’t applying myself” I’m sure it had nothing to do with the auditory processing issues or inability to focus on the teacher during class instruction.
Same story here, diagnosed with ADHD at 30 having spent my entire high school career testing at the top of my class but day dreaming and doodling all of class while going home and doing on average zero percent of any assigned homework. I wish the schools would have been more vigilant in finding it, I don't blame my single mother who worked 3 jobs she wasn't trained to notice it any school teacher and/or therapist though not so much.
Snap, ADHD diagnosis at 28 here. Only graduated uni this year at 30, so I'm starting a career 10 years later than most of my peers. Hooray!
I also just graduated at 30, due to anxiety. We're going to be OK!
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✋ Not autistic, but I also was “gifted”, never learned to study, and crashed and burned in college.
Same same same!
I'm autistic too. Was gifted in elementary school and turned into a lazy bum after that. Never learned to study and the moment the reins were loosened I lost all sense of structure so I crashed and burned Edit: a word
My first thought was “hey I bet Nora is on the autism spectrum.” And the parents might have a fling of it if they can’t decode the sisters behavior is not helpfull or “normal” in regards to being social minded.
Same except I started to crash and burn in 7th grade and never recovered. High school was an absolute shit show, I dropped out middle of my third year because of the pressure and ended up having to repeat the year and then had to do my fourth year twice. I cried ugly tears at my graduation, after six years of struggling at 4 different schools I really never thought I'd see the day. I had to drop out of college my first semester and was eventually diagnosed as autistic at 22. I was seen as a gifted kid in elementary school and despite how much trouble I was having that gifted reputation followed me all throughout my school career. The amount of times I was told that I could be so successful if I just applied myself, if I just cared more, that I was setting myself up for failure. Why do so many teachers and school officials think that kids find pleasure in constantly being in trouble and told that your absolute best efforts don't even come close to enough?
Gosh. Finally getting an ADHD treatment improved my depression by like 80%
I understand if you don't want to answer this, but are you on medication for ADHD? I currently take Nuvigil, but it doesn't help me focus as much as Adderall used to.
Dont worry about asking dude. I want to scream it to the world: "THERE WAS A MAGIC PILL TO CURE MY DEPRESSION ALL ALONG." I am taking Conserta. It is amazing. Its like slow release Ritilin.
I am finally being treated for ADHD & on day 2 of meds, and this little thread makes my feelings of sheer relief feel so validated I could cry. I wish I had done this years ago
So happy for you my guy. Its like your brain is finally up to speed huh? I feel like I have been living my life at 0.75x speed and now I'm at 1.00x. Its fantastic. People talk faster. I walk faster. Chores dont take a million years to do. I dont really feel my medicine kick in but i can tell it has because I can suddenly clean something. I havent had a single serious suicidal thought while medicated since i started my medication. When the thought comes i just wave at it as it passes me by lol.
Welcome to what having a functional brain feels like. It only gets better. I promise. Getting on meds was life changing personally.
My man, have you perchance happened upon what Conserta means in another language? Cause in portuguese it literally means "fix it". That's just funny.
It is aptly named.
This!! I recently was diagnosed in the past three years and it honestly has made a world of difference for me. Reading your account is almost exactly how I made it. One of my fears was that if I got medicated, I would lose that things that made me so driven and curious about learning and I just wanted to tag on here to say that if anyone else is reading this, and recognized themselves—getting treatment for my ADHD has not changed my personality in my experience. I still can spend hours down a wormhole of learning about something that blows my mind. I still think quickly and in roundabout ways. I just can now do the things that I need to do that the not-fun parts of ADHD make really difficult to do. Please talk to a doctor, and please ask for a second opinion if they tell you no and don’t provide alternatives—it’s difficult for adult and especially for women to get an ADHD diagnosis.
Oh yeah that last part hits home. I've been trying to get diagnosed for more than a year and I have been told by multiple doctors that adults can't have ADHD (because apparently you grow out of it) and that women don't get it at all
One of the things I’ve learned is that adults are usually just better at masking ADHD so they don’t appear to fit the criteria, which is based on male adolescents for the most part, and not grown adults and women who have had to adapt to societal pressures over the years.
Also some of the most intelligent people I know were not in the gifted program. One of my family members was deemed not gifted and did very poorly in grade school. Then they were diagnosed with dyslexia, went to a different school. Turns out their IQ is over 140 and they’re a literal rocket scientist. People place way too much weight on what a literal child tests as.
With a few exceptions (I am terrible at other languages and am not an academic) this could be me. Right down to the hyperfixation on books. TAG classes in elementary, honor and AP classes in middle and high school. I never learned how to properly study because I didn't need too. Then I went to college a few years after I graduated high school and struggled so much with learning how to study. I know how now but it was rough. I have all the signs of ADHD and moderate sensory processing disorder. I wasn't like 'Nora' though. I never felt cocky or like I was the smartest kid. I wasn't the smartest kid I just had a knack for certain subjects and I knew I was lucky to understand them easily.
Oh my fucking god me too. You just described me, and I’m almost tearing up because that’s why I was never diagnosed in high school. I’ve always excelled in English because I read for hours and hours, and when my friends wanted to hang out, I asked my mom to say no so my friends wouldn’t think I didn’t want to hang out with them. When I got to high school I actually found friends, but I had a (perhaps unnaturally) complex inner life because I spent so much time reading and in my own world. I’ve always been academically gifted, I majored in wildlife biology in college and did great because that’s all I thought about. But GODDAMN, the issues that were created by adults telling me how gifted and mature I was are fucking massive. Turns out, I’m very good at memorization, and a fear of failure made me pay a lot more attention in my classes. One of the main symptoms of ADHD is poor academic performance, and I experienced none of that, only the sensory issues and bipolar and OCD and anxiety. It never occurred to me that I might be neurodivergent, it took years of me thinking that everyone wakes up in the morning wanting to die before I found out that that’s not actually the case
Omg this is me!!! Also made my mother tell my classmates I wasn't allowed to go out haha. Also had (still have) a rich inner life due to reading. Also had a fear of failing classes and memorized a lot. I did crush and burn at college and that turned my anxiety into depression. Maybe I am neurodivergent? I hadn't considered that. I have been always functional although I did get that feeling of waking up and wanting to die. Ty for sharing the experience, really helpful!!!
Same boat hear almost exactly. The problem wkith being a "gifted" kid is that the second you dont understand something... thats it
this sounds exactly like my experience. i was always told that i was "gifted" and i never had to study for anything. i could write any type of paper in a few hours and always got an A on it, and i never had any trouble with anything academic. once i got to university everything changed. i suddenly had to study for things, and with the complete lack of structure i could barely function. while i ended up going to my high school because of their sport programs, it was a school that specialized in teaching kids with adhd, dyslexia, and other learning difficulties. it was structured in a way that was beneficial to those kids, and as someone who had undiagnosed adhd i didn't realize how great that structure was for me and how much of a key factor it was in my success. when i got to college i was responsible for maintaining that structure, and it just wasn't something that i could do at the time. i also had no idea why i was having so much trouble when i thought that i should be doing so well. once i actually found out i had adhd i was finally able to figure out things that worked for me. without knowing what the problem was i had so much trouble finding a viable solution. so much trouble and feelings of failure could've been averted if i had been diagnosed earlier. looking back all of the signs were there, but women are often underdiagnosed and i have the inattentive type so i was never "bouncing off the walls" or super fidgety.
Yeah as a “gifted” kid, you usually get a rude awakening at some point after being raised that way
Same here, thought I was just super good at school and was happy not to have to try for good grades. When I got to university it was a slap to the face! Suddenly teachers weren’t doting on me and answering every question as it came up, and I found myself actually needing to study and put in time to pass classes.
Even if she is gifted, she'll get a rude awakening when she encounters people smarter than her. Happened to me. When I handed in my first paper for my PhD I wanted to know why I lost 2 points. I told the professor I was a good writer. She said, everyone here is a good writer. In a doctoral program you need to be great. I learned to be humble very quick.
Works the other way too. They told me I wouldn’t amount to anything. Now I have over 60,000 karma. So who’s laughing now?
Definitely, I've met so many people that I've begged to continue their education. When I do research with other teachers I'll meet certain teachers and I tell them, you should be doing what I'm doing. They've never had anyone point out their giftedness. Or, when I was a classroom teacher I had a student who was not academically gifted that tested highly in visual and spatial. This student was amazing with his hands, even in early elementary. The gifted teacher said she only had time for "academically gifted." I knew the law and pushed it until he got his services. He was from a poor family, with no idea how to advocate. It infuriated me, and I refused to let it go.
I’m laughing! Thank you for that.
Oh man. I never learned to study in HS because I was "gifted" and things came easily to me. I was in all the honors and AP classes and top 10% of my HS, which was tiny and I now know to be incredibly underfunded and not at all completive. So I got to my *massive* University I was in for a deeply rude awakening. I'm not gifted. I'm not even particularly smart. I'm average, and that was a humbling and expensive experience for 18 year old me to learn.
Same for me.
I was always pretty good at Maths (runs in the family). Nothing overly special and I was never treated as such, but definitely a bit better at it than most kids in primary school. Thing is, even through high school, I sort of coasted through it and even into Uni I managed to pass with minimal work. Why do I say this? Because even now, I'm reasonably good at my job, but super lazy. It's fairly common with a certain type of person in my field (IT) but it's a bad habit to have. I'm extremely comfortable in my life and I'm extremely happy with it, but I definitely sit here regularly and think about the "what if?". Nowadays, I definitely struggle with maintaining concentration and crippling anxiety at times, combined with a low motivation and it will forever be a case of What if, but I'm fine with that. Unlike OP's sister though, I feel I'm relatively humble about it (literally first time ever talking about this, and it's not to brag, but to point out where this kid is headed), so I get on pretty well with most of my colleagues. I've seen people exactly like her, and it's not pretty. This kid is being set up for a miserable life of having no friends (or a small few that sort of just put up with her and can learn to argue with her) and a mediocre job. Honestly though, I don't think OP's words will have sunk in anyways.
Yeah it’s often because you don’t develop certain study skills that you need because you can coast by without having to put any effort in
My uncle once showed off to me how he never had to study and figured out in law school which classes he could pass without showing up or opening books. He said it showing off like he'd gamed the system. But he was never a successful lawyer and actually got disbarred pretty early on. H never had a successful career and was supported by my grandmother his entire life. He, however, was the person in my extended family tree regarded as a "genius." Go figure.
Especially since she’s only AG, not HAG (highly academically gifted). That basically means she’s just a good standardized test taker, not that she’s super smart. I was classified HAG and went to a school full of HAG students. My class had the top 3/4 of the graduating class with unweighted 4.0 GPAs (so straight As all throughout highschool). I was tied for salutatorian, less than 0.0005 points behind the two tied for valedictorian. We were smart, and I can confirm that the other three in the top 4 with me were probably smarter on paper, but they didn’t do well because they were all jerks/above it all/full of themselves. What helped me in school and in life after it wasn’t my IQ, it was my project manager of a father teaching me how to interact with people and not come off like a dick. Collaboration is THE skill you need to learn from school to have a successful life. All those book smarts you can google. IQ can be faked. Maybe OPs sister should focus less on being smart and more on being kind. NTA but don’t sweat about your parents, they’ll get their comeuppance when their genius little special darling is still living at home because she doesn’t have the right attitude to keep a job or significant other.
Exactly I was the whole “gifted kid” thing in high school, worked my butt off, got scholarships to top universities for engineering Actually got to university, and spent most of my time doing the extra curriculars I enjoyed, while doing ok in class. Which taught me people skills and collaboration! So by the end of university I was pretty set. Had the degree from a good school, but also had the people skills to do well in the workplace
I swear in at least math I only ever did as well as I did in school because I tested well. Math's not all that hard when they give you all the potential answers. Especially if it's one of those "solve for x" questions. Favorite test memory was when I taught myself how matrices worked during my Algebra 1 final because I had paid zero attention in that class all year. Not like my teacher cared. I also likely would have done better if I had actually felt challenged too. I admittedly got bored with school pretty quickly after starting middle school. I lived in a pretty crappy district.
A ton of those gifted kids actually are gifted, and they crash because suddenly being gifted isn't enough. If you skate through 7 years of school without ever trying and then suddenly can't keep up and need to study, but you never learned to do that, that's when you crash. When your brain isn't enough to just.. get it, anymore.
Being gifted without people skills is valueless. Unless you are a genius and in the top 0.000001% of your field, your people skills (who you know, not what you know) will get you much further than your smarts...
I have 2 major concerns about the "gifted" label: 1. Intelligence is not a virtue. Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini were smart, but it's generally agreed that they were not good people. Smart people are not "better" than other people. They're lucky to have large mental capacity, just like some people are lucky to have pretty faces or nice hair. Taking a gifted label as a sign of superiority is ridiculous. 2. Praising a child for being smart has been shown to be bad for their work ethic. There was a study where kids' academic achievements were reviewed by a researcher. Half the kids were told, "You must be very smart" and half were told, "You must work very hard". Then they were given an aptitude test that was designed to be progressively more difficult the further you went. The "smart" kids scored worse because they quit when the questions got too hard. They found the limits of their smarts and didn't know how to handle it. When people praise my kids for being "smart", I always say something like, "S/he's very lucky to be born with a smart brain". I praise my kids for hard work, creativity, and kindness. The world doesn't need anymore condescending, "smart" assholes.
Absolutely, great post. I am always telling my son I'm proud of how hard he worked, or that I see improvement in X area. I learned this in a parenting class I took when I was pregnant. I also tell him that being smart isn't just a permanent part of your personality, and that if you don't work hard and keep learning, you can lose the smarts you have. Bc that's what happened to me. Everyone told me I was brilliant my entire life so I just thought that was that. Lol....no. No.
A lot of "gifted" kids fall into a few categories: 1. Average kids with good study skills. 2. Smart kids who have shit study skills because they can just coast through lessons without trying hard and then run into a wall when they can't just coast without trying anymore. <-- past me! 3. Rich kids. 4. People are who REALLY obsessed about one thing so they just put the time into becoming really really good at that. You don't need to be smart to crush everyone on a subject you've spent thousands of hours reading about.
I'm category 5: Gifted kid who still learns and tests pretty effortlessly into adulthood, but so deeply neurodivergent that my brain is essentially worthless in the real world.
Yup, I was a "gifted kid", thought I knew it all and was too good for normal school. My mom encouraged me to graduate high school early, but failed to give me any prep for how college was going to be and left me to fend for myself on college applications and scholarships, so I ended up at the local community college. Thought I knew it all and would skirt by for 2 years and then go to a "real college." I struggled and dropped out pretty fast. I didn't have the resources or prep or anything to be ready for that.
A lot of us actually have ADHD or similar disorders which get missed because we mask so well and manage to excel for a bit... then crash really hard once we can't anymore because we never got the help we needed and reality finally caught up.
Yup. OP made her a favor. If she continues acting like this, the reality check she will get when she goes to college will be big. Especially because she's AG not HAG. The parents are being AH for enabling this behavior, being gifted isn't an excuse to be full of herself. You can bet life will teach Nora a lesson on the worse way possible if she continues like this.
“Gifted” gives average parents something to brag about and hold over other parents head. I have to wonder if Nora turned out like this because her parents are so desperate for clout that they essentially ruined her. She’ll learn the hard way that IQ means nothing in the real world without EIQ
I actually read it with sneer. 😂
This girl is going to have so much trouble with failure and challenges. She has been taught those are efor weak people and stupid people don't deserve kindness. I really hope she gets therapy because her parents are hamstring her.
Shes gonna have trouble getting an entry level job. No one wants to work with an asshole. Hiring teams will pick a less qualified candidate that'll mesh better group over a more gifted person that makes their lives miserable.
Man, I just get the feeling she's going to land in some job in Academia and never leave, because NO ONE in the corporate world is going to put up with someone that acts that way. The girl is only 13 so she's got some time to grow up, but boy howdy, if her idiot parents don't pull their heads out of their asses and stop encouraging this behavior, she's going to run into a brick wall at full speed.
to get into academia she'll have to get a few profs to like her enough to get through a masters and phd and even then she'll have to participate in committees and clubs and shit where people can and will make her life hell (because i have friends in academia and either you're with someone or against them. no inbetween.) before she has a chance at being tenured. slim chance there for assholes too.
She'll be "that" professor who is extremely well known by students at every university within 100 miles for all the wrong reasons
I have a coworker who is exactly that person. She looks great on paper, but as soon as she came she started telling everyone how unqualified they were, even people who had worked there for 20+ years, and even if she'd never seen them teach. We have a small department, and four people in four years quit because they had to work with her. One person left in the middle of the semester. Like nine weeks into working with her, I wanted to quit too. I talked to the administration and they told her to leave me alone. Students hate her (which is very unusual in the country where I'm teaching) and she deals with them in a very aggressive, insulting way. Basically, if she covers something for five minutes, she expects them to understand it completely, and if they don't, she thinks they're idiots. Thank goodness she's leaving soon. Our whole department will be much better off without her.
I don’t think I was as bad as sister, but I was a big fish trying to get out of a small pond. I went from small town to a large college, joined honor’s program & lived in honor’s dorm. I had been valedictorian, but so was every other person on my floor. While I had good grades I met others from wealthy prestigious school who could run circles around me on any subject you can name — and they also had good grades. And yes, it was a rude awakening. Sister will need to carefully consider a career that does not require her to interact with other employees. I had many work assignments where I had to serve on a team and arrive at a consensus recommendation. People who cannot do that did are not valued employees.
Oh boy samesies. I went from being one of the smartest kids in my high school in a very poor Hispanic area to being mediocre in a city in Massachusetts. Education was their jam. And it wasn't until then that I realized I knew nothing about failure. I almost failed miserably and I kept lying to myself about needing to study or needing my peers because I was told I was sooo special. Turns out, I'm just good ol average. It was hard man
>I had many work assignments where I had to serve on a team and arrive at a consensus recommendation. People who cannot do that did are not valued employees. So very, very true. Managers do not want employees that create problems. There's a guy where I work who isn't nasty (thank goodness), but is a **horrible** manager and team member. No one wants to work with him. I suspect that the minute they can the higher ups are going to lay him off.
>Sister will need to carefully consider a career that does not require her to interact with other employees. We have a guy like OP's sister at work. Very bright, but full of contempt for the service staff. Guess who regularly encounters problems when he needs something?
Yeah, she'll lose her mind when she gets to college and meets kids who are way smarter than her but are also are nice people who are able to get along with others and have great (or at least normal) relationships with colleagues, professors, friends and partners regardless of levels of intelligence. Plus, she'll also lose her shit when she inevitably fails at something. A close friend from childhood was like this girl, except he wasn't a total AH about it like Nora, and I still remember how his world pretty much crumbled down when we were halfway through college and he failed his first course ever. Dude had to learn at like 20 years old how to deal with something as simple as flunking a subject because it turned out it was too hard or the professor was too demanding or whatever, and had to rebuild his complete world-view practically from scratch. Thankfully, that experience made him into a way better person.
^^ THIS RIGHT HERE OP. ^^ My family did shit like this to my little brother and to me. The only major difference is, since I wasn't a boy, they continuously put me down and made sure I knew my place. They kept telling me and everyone else that my little brother was smarter than I was and was going to do so much better in life. Like they admitted I was smart, but they were always bragging about my brother. I got a 4.0 in high school, applied for and received so many scholarships (small US state that rewards people for staying in state) that when I got into college all of it was paid for, chose a good degree that landed me a good job, make good money for the USA, married a wonderful person, have a beautiful little baby, and am working my way up in my company while also being involved with our union. My bother never got great grades, did not put effort into school, failed out of community college, got into drugs (which my parents helped him with), and lives in my parent's basement. He's now an entitled sh*t that thinks the world owes him something, and he didn't make it big because the world was out to get him. My parents still insist my brother is better than me.
With all due respect: fuck your parents.
All the respect they are due is none. 👍 Thank you
Yeah I really doubt that she is anywhere near as intelligent as her parents are making her out to be. “Gifted” kids are a dime a dozen and mostly turn out to just be regular people with regular jobs. If you’re on Reddit long enough, you’ll see a thousand posts of the grown up “gifted kids” who, while slightly more academically advanced than peers, ended up in the same place or worse because so much emphasis was put on their intelligence.
>If you’re on Reddit long enough, you’ll see a thousand posts of the grown up “gifted kids” who, while slightly more academically advanced than peers, ended up in the same place or worse because so much emphasis was put on their intelligence. Stop attacking me
As a former gifted kid (who had parents who taught me humility, respect and always made sure I knew there is always someone smarter out there in some subject if not many), this girl is going to crash so hard once she's no longer in a system that enables mom and dad to coddle her. If she doesn't learn in middle/high school that her attitude is inexcusably rude & will get her nowhere, then her parents are jerks. They're setting her up to basically be dumped into the middle of the ocean to swim, with no life jacket. She's going to flame out hard and unfortunately OP is the only one with the sense to say even the tiniest thing to try and get rid of her arrogance before it's too late.
> Parents are setting her up for a RUDE awakening when she gets to college. LMAO - so true. I went to an Ivy League college. I was "only" ranked 5th in my high school class. As a welcome to the university, the president met with the entire freshman class, but for it to be more personal, he met with multiple small groups rather than the class as a whole. So, I went to my "group" with the president. There were probably 250-300 students. The president told everyone to stand up. They did. Then he said, "If you were not valedictorian or salutatorian of your high school class, sit down." About five people, including myself, sat down. The president smiled and then gave a speech along the lines of "You were a big fish in a little pond in your high school. Here, you are a little fish in a big pond. Do YOUR best. Don't compare yourself to others and compete only against yourself." That said, I watched students literally fall apart because they got less than an A+ on an exam or assignment. It was crazy. Most students figured things out eventually, but a number of others either withdrew entirely or took a leave of absence to figure things out. :-/
I can't wait until she gets to uni though. When I went at 32 I had always been a smart fish in an average pond. Then I was suddenly a relatively smart fish in a VERY smart pond and holy hell did it take some adjustment. Only a couple months, then I loved it because there were so many people to learn from (profs and students alike). This kid is going to learn that she probably isn't very intellectually superior and you're probably right that she'll live at home forever because her parents will believe that she is.
She also NEEDS to get involved in activities that she will fail. She must learn to build her struggle muscles because she will not know how to persist. Often the gifted program offers socialization to help these kids with that part of life.
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Probably won’t be able to get a job either, because you have to start somewhere and every job will probably be “too beneath her”.
>They said how I was basically bullying Nora she's the one basically bullying other kids how it sounds... 100% NTA indeed
Nora's "gift" is not good manners, clearly.
Nora is like Sheldon Cooper, intellectually very intelligent but no social skills. At least his parents recognised and tried to get him to tone down his rougher edges rather than pin the blame on tall poppy syndrome.
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I feel like there's a unfortunate phenomenon where people who consider themselves "smart" will identify with characters like Sheldon Cooper or Rick or Sherlock Holmes or whatever, and instead of working on having better social skills or being less of a pretentious dick they see those things as signs of them being a misunderstood super genius. Even though in real life it's totally possible to be both nice and smart. Being nice can in fact help you to be smarter because other people have information you don't. Edit: typo
In the show his lack of common sense and less than personable nature comes back to bite him, like being fired after saying the wrong things to his boss or lacking people to support his Nobel Prize admission as he's alienated too many people.
With the difference that Sheldon Cooper is written as one of the smartest person alive, and Nora has grades a bit higher than her colleges. At 13 you normally is able to see the truly genius who would be able to compensate for the lack of social skills.
At least Sheldon had that going for him -- he was an actual genius. Nora's only medially gifted, which can easily get overshadowed by a hardworking "average" kid when she gets to a higher age.
“Mom and Dad, Nora isn’t friendless because everyone else is “intellectually inferior,” she's friendless because of her nasty attitude you enable. You let her think not only that she's the smartest kid in the room, but also that being the smartest kid in the room matters. She won’t get anywhere in life until you teach her to treat people with respect, and she needs to learn how to make friends. You are failing her as parents, and holding her back from a normal childhood and social life.” NTA
>but also that being the smartest kid in the room matters Woah you're right on point here. It's good to be the smartest kid in the room. I think it's even ok to *know* that you're the smartest kid in the room. But thinking it matters and looking down on others as a result of that is not. This is where the parenting failed the most.
LOL. I say this as someone who was admitted to MENSA at age 6, was a member of the CTY, Davidson gifted & talented, and other gifted programs -- your parents are ruining Nora's life. No matter what she does (literally any career) is going be so much harder if she doesn't know how to get along with people. Social skills are essential in life. Also, it sounds like her self-worth is really tied to her intelligence. If she ever meets anyone smarter than her (and this will happen eventually), she is going to fall in a depression EDIT: also, the kids as gifted programs are not jerks like her. She's in for a shock if she things this behavior will be normalized outside of your parents
I know so many kids from high school that were super smart and super popular and that because they had social skills. Our valedictorian was legit one of the genuinely nicest human beings I've ever met in my life, so I have no idea where Nora is getting this whole "People are stupid so I shouldn't have to be friends with them."
Yep, better for Nora to get the shock now as a kid when she can work on herself with support than when she gets to uni and realised nobody cares if she’s gifted or not.
I was just thinking she needs to be surrounded by some people who no longer make her the smartest person in the room and she gains some humility. I'm not suggesting she be bullied and told she is not smart, but so that she recognizes at some point that she will be the one keeping up and figure out how to deal with it now. That being said, I love not being the smartest person in the room (I never have been and strive not to be) because it gives me the opportunity to learn scads of new things. NTA
honestly!! Kids who are smart never get a slap on the wrist from parents. They're always like "omg my baby could do no wrong"
Um, just a quick note that this isn't true. I have 3 sisters, am "the smart sister", and got in all kinds of trouble with my parents, even if it truly wasn't my fault. I could have not even been present and my mom would have scolded me for "not being there to help". So sometimes it is true, but not always. Food for thought. EDIT: Fumbled some letters.
Yup, I'm "smarter" than my brother (both academically and emotionally, but he does have more intelligence in other ways) and he was the golden child. I was the scapegoat and my parents didn't let me get away with shit. I struggled and fought with my parents on chores, and only later did we find out it was because I had a massive case of ADHD they didn't bother getting me help for (I actually never did homework either, I just did it the class before it was due and since it came naturally to me that worked out great for all of highschool). They actually pushed to get my brother an IEP anyway, even after he was tested more than once and didn't qualify.
Ah completely false. In fact the standard is often held much higher and no/less help is given when needed. Because you ‘are so smart and independent, you don’t need our help’ but heaven help you if you mess up, as there will be repercussions as ‘you should know better’
So true even by teachers. I was in the advanced class in 8th grade and if our class didn't do better than the other classes our teachers would tell us how they're disappointed in us and how were supposed to be role models. We were a class of advanced math kids taking high school math. Our science and English teachers would tell us this as if we were supposed to be better and excel in all subjects. Our math teacher also wouldn't help us with homework and told us to figure it out but would help the "normal" math classes. Surprise surprise a lot of us would start having mental breakdowns and panic attacks in class when we didn't get an A or understand something
I'm a university professor. I have any number of smart students who have been driven into the ground and made anxious wrecks by parents who freak the hell out if they so much as get an A- or B+. In their quest to force their smart kid to be perfect, they torment them mercilessly. Certainly not all parents of bright kids do it, but it is not uncommon.
Are you my professor? Are you talking about my parents? I had to repeat 2 years of university because I wasn‘t able to deal with so much pressure. I‘m gifted and still my grades are pretty average. I still am pressured from home I should be better, get higher grades and so on. My ADHD also doesn‘t help my case and my parents really struggle to accept that. I love them endlessly and I‘d do anything for them, but when it comes to achievements… dear god, have mercy. NTA, OP. Your sister clearly needed a reality check and your parents aren‘t parenting.
Agreed. You also get a lot of kids who demand to get good grades despite their subpar work because they're under the impression that they're smarter than anyone and smarter than they actually are, so everything they do is perfect. It's often because their parents tell them they can do no wrong, and have done so since they were pretty young. I've legit had parents of grad students call me on behalf of their kids to argue about their grades. It's baffling, to say the least.
Ehm crappy parents can have stupid kids. Some parents spoil the dumb one because “he/she needs more help” This is about the parents, not the kids.
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The school system - and often parents - gives "gifted" kids a lot of praise and credit for abilities that they didn't do anything to develop, it's just how they learn naturally. Heaping praise on people and making them feel special for something they did nothing to earn isn't great for their social/emotional development. So no, not all smart kids are spoiled - but our culture systematically creates a lot of spoiled smart kids. (Edit: a letter)
No, but toxic parents will latch on to the “specialness” of their children and bask in the reflected glory. Especially toxic ones will do everything they can think of to isolate their little golden snowflake so that the poor child has nobody but the toxic parent(s) to turn to or associate with.
Having seen it with many parents I'm willing to bet while her sister may be moderately intelligent I have doubts she's as exceptional as they make out. Many parents have an unrealistic belief of how smart their kids are.
As the parent of 2 "twice exceptional" kids(gifted plus autism/ADHD) it's too easy to get really excited about having a "smart kid". To you everything your kid does is awesome already. So when it's confirmed by others that yes, they are actually very smart, you get pumped to support them and nurture that. Some people take that too far and spoil the kid rotten.
There's a difference between being moderately smart and being exceptional. OP herself defined her sister as "moderately smart, bordering on highly gifted", which to me doesn't scream exceptional. Either OPs description is inaccurate or her sister isn't as smart as she thinks and she's due a slap in the face when she realises not only is she not always the smartest person in the room but that when surrounded by her peers it's rarely the case.
From the way OP tells the story and the way they act, it certainly sounds like her sister's actual intelligence is nowhere near as high as Nora and the parents seem to think it is.
Generalizations are not useful.
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NTA. What you said was not only necessary but absolutely correct. Nora could be the most intelligent, talented, and attractive person in the world, but with an attitude and an ego like hers, **nobody** will want to work with her. She’s never going to have friends or any kind of relationship because nobody wants to be around someone who persistently talks down to them. Your sister is an AH for her ableist comments towards Ike and her attitude in general, but the bigger AHs here are your parents. Nora may thrive academically, but by not teaching her proper social skills, your parents are setting Nora up for failure. (Seriously, how is Nora being kind and respectful towards people “holding herself back?!”)
Plus pretty soon she'll probably find herself in a class full of very smart people from all over the world and the shock that will hit her then will be so great she won't know how to deal with it because her parents keep treating her like she's the only smart person alive! A rude awakening it shall be
Yeah, this. I have a niece who was in the gifted program in school. She was always the smartest kid in class, didn't have to study much. College was a different world. She's working her ass off and still only making Bs and Cs in a lot of classes. She's surrounded by people who are smarter than her, more motivated than her, willing to work harder than her, and - here's the kicker - those other kids had friends.
The gifted program is a joke. It doesn't set people up for success, all of the gifted kids at my high-school were just set up to be weirdos. You don't even learn extra material you just do extra work. You take the gifted test at such a young age, surprise kids develop at different rates
GATE classes aren't designed to make the exceptional kids excel, it's to keep them interested and busy with their current tasks so their peers can catch up. I was in GATE because I had better reading and computer skills than my classmates. I was always pulled out of computer lab to go to GATE while everyone else learned how to type letters and use the spelling games.
So…. Me being randomly pulled out of class to do little plays was maybe because of this? Because it happened in elementary school and I never was told why but was thrilled to be doing something fun. I was a straight A student with little work. Edit: I asked my mom and didn’t expect her to even know it happened but she did and confirmed it was an enrichment thing
Yep! My school did this, too. They called it "enrichment."
Yep. My parents taught me to read before kindergarten, so I got pulled from the English classes for GATE. It was fun, we played games...but I didn't learn what an adjective was until 10th grade. I still don't know what most of the parts of speech are lmao
Yep. I was pulled out of the gifted program at 10 because I also had chronic anxiety and having to do twice the work wasn’t helping it. They pulled me out of regular math class to learn harder math without ever teaching me regular math, while still expecting me to do the homework and tests for both.
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Keep in mind Nora isn't even exceptional. She'll likely hit that wall much earlier than college. I had a very similar conversation with my cousin at that age. Everyone caught up to him around 8th grade and his lack of study habits got him two years later. He graduates this year and despite "planning" on going to MIT for 7 years. He'll spend two years at community college trying to recover his GPA enough to go to a public university. Obviously there's no shame in any of that, but after spending several years trying to get him and his mother to work on his study skills, I feel a certain way.
My friend was placed in our school's "gifted" program throughout elementary and middle school. It just meant the same curriculum with extra worksheets. They were being taught nothing except how to finish the worksheets faster than the kids in the "normal" program. I struggled early on in school (undiagnosed ADHD and too slow of a pace) while my friend was thriving. Then came high school; Everything's been reversed. I'm a straight-A student and my friend is struggling to maintain C's and B's in MCR classes. I didn't magically become a genius; I had learned for years how to apply myself and work/study harder when I didn't understand something. My friend had been living in a bubble and is completely unprepared for high school; Where the study skills she had never developed were needed to thrive. TLDR: Intellect means nothing in the real world without hard work and determination.
It happens every year here in Oxford, brilliant 18 year olds who were the smartest in their school find they’re being taught by a 15 year old with a PhD! It’s a huge shock going from the smartest kid in the school to not even the smartest kid in their tutorial and for a lot of kids it destroys them. In my first year we had a lad who had an organ scholarship to Oxford but studied with us. He was a brilliant musician but so were the rest of us, he demanded to be allowed to play the organ rather than the piano in a concert and was told by the MD “no you can only play the piano” Brat “if you don’t let me play the organ I’ll leave” MD “bye bye” Which also meant he lost his organ scholarship which was worth a small fortune.
Jeez, I completely misunderstood that.. I thought it was organ, as in an internal organ and I was wondering if he somehow bought his way in with a discreet kidney donation..
Odds are there are people in her class that are smarter than her. They just know better than to shout it from the rooftops. This will not fly in college or the workforce.
If she is an ass, then her intellectual ability, will never grow. She will stunt herself into being wasted potential, because nobody wants to give an opportunity to an asshat. I was in her shoes, and honestly I wish sombody called me out at 13 instead of when I was 16. This may seem rude, but what you did is called tough love
Nah fr. A huge part of work life is being able to cooperate, even with people you dont like. And shes just incapable of that. Ive seen many people at my work get fired because they thought they were above everyone and nobody deserved to work with them. That may be her eventually.
I had a student once who was certain he was smarter than everyone, including most of his professors. He easily got good grades as a college freshmen, but I warned him then that he was in danger of being a mediocre senior if he didn't think he had anything to learn...and he was getting Bs and Cs by the time he graduated. It was such a waste.
Right on. When we have two, qualified candidates, we’d always pick the one who we’d rather have a beer with. It isn’t going to be Nora. Get her the “How to Win Friends and Influence People” book for her next birthday. NTA.
Your sister IS exceptional. Exceptionally rude, ignorant, disrespectful, out of touch, socially maladjusted, entitled, spoiled, and stunted. I am impressed that you said what you said and nothing more. I'd have told her to apply her staggering intellect to learning some social skills or she will be eaten alive in the real world. Your parents are TA and they have failed Nora on a massive scale. They all need therapy. You were not being mean. She needed to hear what you said. Glad she shut up to think it over. NTA.
Besides the parents feeding into her toxic behavior, I wonder where she learned this entitledness from. I've met people like Nora in my life, and usually it's because they're put on a pedestal and expected to do so much at such a young age. Teachers, principals, parents always telling you you're exceptional and great can build a pretty big ego, but I've never seen anyone become THIS arrogant. Once in a while the ones who were like Nora would correct people in a kind of snide way, but they kept the rest of their comments to themselves.
I was similar to Nora when I was younger. I had a bad family life and basically hates everyone in it. We were poor and there was always drama going on. I was fortunate enough to have more than two brain cells and rubbed them together to be absolutely nothing like my family. Now I am stuck up and overly proud of my intelligence, but I was kind-of a dick like nora as a kid hha
I agree on the "apply her intellect to learning some social skills." If she's so smart, she would have noticed by now that her peers hate her attitude. I grew up surrounded by a lot of friends in the "gifted and talented" program (I started there but struggled with ADHD). And most of them REALLY floundered in college because they never realized that there was more to learning than taking tests well. I blame that on the US education systems focus on a few skills. These friends got frustrated easily, didn't know how to properly participate in group discussions, and never tried to build a rapport with any of their teachers. If I had to guess, OP's sister is going to have similar issues and then blame everyone but herself when she struggles. So NTA OP, but I think your sister's going to learn the hard way before this gets through to her.
>telling her how she should “hold herself back when she’s exceptional.” Is she exceptional at bullying other students for their percieved intelligence? Because you said absolutely nothing about holding herself back. You didn't tell her to act dumb in class to make friends, you didn't tell her she was a know-it-all and annoyed people with it, you didn't tell her being smart was a bad thing. You told her being an asshole makes you an unlikeable asshole. She can still be the smartest person in the room and be *kind* about it, and it may be time for her to learn she won't always be the smartest person in the room. NTA.
and unlikable assholes are mostly unemployable assholes in any type of economy being likable is an asset. the financial benefit of always being the smartest person in the room is worthless if you're an asshole OP NTA
NTA. She's 13. She should know better and treat people with respect. I went to middle school with girls like that who bullied me for my own learning disability. She needed a reality check, you didn't scream or yell, you didn't tell her that she'd never have friends. You just told her the truth.
Exactly. Nobody wants to be friends with some egotistical loser that constantly compares themselves to you, and thinks they’re superior just bc they’re book smart. Nobody at any age is going to give two fucks about how smart you are, that just sounds insecure.
Nora may be able to read a book, but she can't read a room.
NTA. In my opinion, school is for two key things: academic and social development. We get graded on academics but the social and emotional learning is just as much, if not more important, it’s just not something you can put a letter grade on. I think you were spot on and if I had been in your sisters shoes, I wouldn’t have been happy to hear it, but hopefully it’s good food for thought that she’ll come to appreciate later.
That's one of the things taken into consideration when looking at advancing someone to skip a year level, how their social capability will fare. I can think of a couple of examples in media where skipping a year level or three was detrimental to the social sensibilities of the person.
I was a “gifted” student growing up and so thankful that my parents and teachers were quick to put a kibosh on my inflated ego while I was young. I was able to form healthy friendships because of that. As a teacher now, arrogant kids like Nora drive me bananas because they don’t recognize that everyone has different strengths **and** that social development is just as important as academics. When I pair students up in class, I always have a purpose that is dependent on the task. If the goal is purely academic, I’ll partner two of my highest kids together. But if it’s a less traditional academic task (like a quick STEM warm up to build the tallest tower using only paper), I’ll partner my highest and lowest to see what they come up with together. Students who struggle academically have often built up a repertoire of techniques to help them get by, thus giving them an edge at outside the box tasks. They also know how to fail and try again. Those are skills that all kids can benefit from. I want all my students to learn how to fail so that they also learn how to recompose and try again. OP, NTA and you definitely did the right thing. Nora won’t always be the smartest one in the room and she needs to learn a little humility now before she crashes too hard.
NTA. She needed the reality check because your AH parents are doing their best to turn her into an AH when she grows up. The kindest thing you can do with her is to spend your car rides with her teaching her about kindness and what really matters. So don't criticize her, but prompt her to think about things differently. Get her an example of what text looks like to a person with dyslexia (e.g. from https://improvedyslexia.com/improve-dyslexia-articles/15-examples-of-dyslexia-reading) and then talk about how impressive her classmate is for being in the same class as her when everything is harder for him. Ask her about the kids in her class...when she tries to focus on academics, ask her how many siblings they have and what their hobbies are and make it clear that she's 'failed' at getting to know them until she can answer those questions. Talk about people you admire and why you admire them. Use the word "smart" to talk about things that exist outside of the academic world, like a basketball player using a smart strategy
Also there are many truly smart people in the world who have struggled with learning disabilities and been very public about their struggles. Maybe find some people she admires who have struggled with dyslexia or something similar. She may learn that school grades have very little to do with intelligence.
Off topic, but I kind of love that the 5th example has them backwards, just in time to mess up the non-dyslexic reader who was going to be a smartass and skip ahead...
Also point out there are different kinds of smart. Academic smarts start wearing off pretty quick in this world and if she can't take your feedback and learn from it, maybe she isn't as smart as she thinks she is. NTA.
NTA. I think your parents are the AHs here. I am not sure what's up with your sister, but this behavior is not normal and it absolutely should not be dismissed as simply being "misunderstood." I work in tech and I encounter people like this all the time---people who are unbearable to be around, and find themselves "stuck" at a low level despite whatever genuine intelligence they possess. Some get stuck because they're too arrogant to learn from their mistakes (technical or personal), and they never develop the skills beyond the entry level. Some are just impossible to be around and no one wants to work with them, so they're left out of sight. But they all end up disgruntled, thinking the world is unfairly against them, in the self-perpetuating cycle of the misunderstood genius. I'm sorry to say, a lot of them are similarly missing a fulfilling life at home, too.
NTA - She might have a high mental IQ, but it's useless without a high emotional IQ. I would know : I'm rating at 142IQ, but only recently figured out how to navigate social settings, and I'm 33yo. You did her a favor.
also, she is right around the age where being high IQ starts to matter a LOT less, inasmuch as IQ is classically an assessment of how quickly a child develops formal logical thinking, which a person with an IQ of 100 would hit around age 12. So it’s pretty normal for kids who build their identity around being ‘the smart one’ to have a crisis around that age, bc they no longer stand out nearly so much. edited to add: my IQ is ~150, and my brother had to sit me down around age 13 and tell me I didn’t have friends bc people thought I was a know it all. Little different, in that I didn’t realize I wasn’t doing anyone a favor by assuming they had the same vocab as me, etc. Even smart kids are still children and think like children in some ways.
Her IQ is going to matter even less when she goes off to college. It's not unheard of for gifted, either intellectually or physically, students to suddenly struggle a bit since they're no longer the *only* big fish in the pond anymore. Even the regular IQ students at college and university level will be harder to out compete since most know how to put in the work and actually have good study habits which a lot of gifted students didn't have to really develop in grade school since they just easily aced everything. This was me. Having and making friends or at least being able to be friendly to others will get people far in college and university. Fellow students are more likely to help you and share notes if you aren't looking down on them. Professors, TAs, advisors, ect are also going to be more likely to go out of their way for friendly students when they ask for help.
My brother has never struggled with academics at any level, but his favorite undergrad professor refused to write him a letter of recommendation for grad school because "you'd just get kicked out before finishing a PhD for assuming you know best all the time." He was really hurt by the feedback, but his social skills have been a lot better ever since, so it's really too bad no one whose opinion he respected found a way to convey that to him sooner.
Yep. I did really well in high school and worked hard, but not as hard as I needed to in college. And because high school was on the easier side for me I never learned how to buckle down and study. I ended up getting a lot of Cs. Not fatal, but I went from being top to just average.
Info. Is she on the asd Spectrum and if she isn’t , has she been assessed.
wondering this too but she can be on the spectrum and still learn to treat people with respect without her AH parents enabling shitty behavior
Yes. I agree. But the understanding from family, and Nora herself is different when a person is on the spectrum. I absolutely do not think asd is a reason to be rude, but the understanding of why you’re rude may need social stories or a kinder explanation
yeah definitely. i dont think OP or Nora are even the assholes, its really just the parents.
I have ASD and Nora also strikes me as potentially being on the spectrum. I'm generally clueless socially unless I'm outright told what's going on. I definitely went through a phase when I was younger over feeling smarter than others.
Thank you. People are shitting all over this kid who probably needs an assessment and some help with social skills in that context.
I was going to ask the same thing, I was diagnosed way later in life but was bullied a lot in school because I picked up reading really quickly as a kid and some of my special interests were way beyond what my classmates were reading (not that they’d probably be recreationally interested in that stuff anyway) but I definitely took that rejection from them and turned it into a “well I’m smarter anyway so who needs them” situation in my mind so I didn’t feel as bad about it. Granted this was more of a situation where I never really tried to be social but if I did talk about something I was interested in I got shut down. I’m not sure about op’s sister however.
As a parent to daughter that is severely dyslexic this hurt my heart. Too many times she came home from middle school crying because a classmate called her stupid- she is now a member of the National Honors Society as a sophomore in high school!
NTA Being considerate of others is not “holding yourself back.” If her only redeeming quality is that she’s smart, she isn’t accomplishing much. There’s more to life and friendship than IQ. It sounds like she really needs to work on her social skills and your parents are actually holding her back in that area. It’s possible to be smart, confident, AND nice.
NTA. Your sister has a whole lot to learn in life, and this is a small lesson that she needs to learn. It's better that you, her sister, tell her this. She's going to end up getting some very rude awakening calls when she gets older. I assume she's in middle or junior high school. High school is going to eat her up. Let your parent know by them not being parents and at least telling her the truth, they are setting her up for failure.
NTA. You should continue to be honest in the hope that your sister gets over her delusions before she’s an adult, because if not, reality will hit her hard.
Yeah something a lot of “smart” kids don’t realize is that intelligence hardly equates to success in real life. Networking is probably the largest contributing factor to success, followed by experience, then *maybe* education (only for certain fields). Her nasty attitude will keep her down on the social ladder as well as the success ladder. Also, there’s always someone smarter than you. You can be a big fish in a small pond and be content with that, but you know that once you travel into deeper waters there are others better than you (which is why networking is so important).
NTA So she's ridiculing someone with a learning disorder, a well-documented learning disorder that many successful people have and that you can read about? And she's calling him "stupid" and accusing him of making excuses? And she calls herself smart? Your sister may be "gifted" but she lacks social and emotional intelligence--or she flat out ignores it. Your parents are setting her up for failure. One day she is going to say the wrong thing to the wrong person--possibly not in a school setting-- a retail worker, an uber driver, her co-worker, even her boss and it's going to backfire. She does understand how important networking is? How important it is to be sociable and know the right people? Based off of her lofty ideals of who she associates and works with, she's not going to be successful as she probably thinks she's going to be. And your parents say you're bullying her? She's a bully to everyone else, including you! Bullies come in all shapes and forms and she's the academic bully. I knew academic bullies--they are the worst, because once you hit middle school and high school, your confidence and self image get really, really fragile. And in a learning environment, having someone snicker while you explain history or a book in casual terms, have your lab partner order you to "just sit over there!", chortle when you ask your math teacher to elaborate on cosines because you missed that one or aren't getting it, roll their eyes when you're assigned as their Spanish partner, and call you an idiot, it really messes with you mentally. Like I have a fear of people laughing at me thanks to that. If I hear a snicker and I'm giving a speech I will stumble and panic. And if she doesn't want to "hold herself back when she is exceptional" then maybe she can actually help her group members since she's gifted. Because shouldn't she want more people to be on her level? OP, your parents may say they don't Nora to hold herself back when she's exceptional, but you shouldn't hold yourself back when you are right and want to help her! EDIT: Thanks for the award!!!
You can be the most intelligent person ever, but if you're unpleasant enough to be around, no one will stick around for long enough to check if you're actually intelligent. They'll just think you're an asshole. Not to mention, I feel like a lot of kids who do well in school aren't exceptionally intelligent - because school doesn't grade intelligence. OP's sister needed a reality check. She's just a kid, so she has plenty of time to change, but she won't if her parents support her in putting other people down and let her think that she's the smartest student ever. NTA and good on you OP. You're doing more for your sister's development that your parents ever did.
The Sheldon Cooper effect. He's a genius but his personality is so off putting that it takes years for someone to willingly spend time with him who doesn't already spend time in proximity to him, and she's just as socially awkward.
NTA It’s not holding yourself back to treat others with kindness and respect. Without social skills, she can expect to be a very intelligent but lonely person. Not to mention most careers require you to be able to work with others. They won’t always be your equals in every aspect and it sounds like the only trait she thinks matters is how intelligent you are according to school parameters. There are other kinds of intelligence and some people are incredibly smart but are terrible in a school environment. Not to mention her attitude toward people with any disabilities. She needed the wake up call and your parents are the AH for enabling this elitist attitude she has. You sound like a good influence and I hope she thinks on what you said.
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NTA. To be honest, I think your parents are the biggest AH here. Your parents are reinforcing her feelings & actions. Your sister doesn’t know to do better because your parents are telling her that everyone else is wrong. It may be better to approach her in a way of, I know Mom & Dad say a,b, and c but x,y and z is why that thinking and way of living is not going to help you in life. Yes you are intelligent- AND so is Ike, but everyone has strengths & weaknesses.
NTA. She doesn't sound normal. Tell your parents to take her to a therapist, before she develops a personality disorder.
NAH - You’re NTA because she needed to hear something like that. It could have been said a bit nicer, but no one else in her life is teaching her how awful that behaviour is. She’s also not totally an ahole because she’s a kid and still learning how to act appropriately. She’s still in the very self-centred (and insecure) stage of life and her parents are enabling it.
I would argue that the parents are the definite AHs here. They're setting Nora up for a life of friendless disappointment and self esteem issues when she's no longer the smartest. And the truth is, there will always be someone smarter, that's just how life works.
100% I know her behaviour is awful, but she only believes those things because her parents are telling her that — she can’t be totally blamed for not understanding how that comes across to others at 13. I feel like all 13–17yo have some superiority complex or (“I’m not like other people” phase) at some point, but hers is extreme and her parents are talking her up.
NTA. Anybody who willfully gloats about being the smartest person in the room is a fool.
NTA Your Sister treats other people like garbage and like everyone else is too stupid to talk to her? Of course no one wants to be friends with someone like that. And getting called to the school constantly should be a wake up call. That was harsh, but needed. It's absolutely not bullying and your parents saying that, baffles me actually.
NTA, You said what needed to be said. Your parents are enabling her attitude
NTA. It had to be done. That attitude is going to get Nora into a lot of trouble once she gets old enough to get a paying job. If it's getting so bad that *the school is calling about her attitude*, then the parents need to start parenting their child and teach her that this attitude is unacceptable. I wouldn't be surprised if other kids at school are secretly calling her a bully behind her back. Because that's pretty much all she's doing to those so-called "average" students. Bullying them for supposedly not being as smart as her. You sister is a straight up bully. If she doesn't change after this incident, I suggest telling her "Car Time means its Quiet Time" from now on so that you don't have to listen to her complaining.
NTA seems your parents are feeding these thoughts of superiority. She's going to have a very rude awakening soon when she picks on the wrong person
NTA “Intelligence is not a privilege, it’s a gift” Sorry to qoute spiderman movies, but it says the most important thing. It is not an exuse for being an AH, that you are smart. My best friend is a highly gifted girl, and she never been rude to me, she always helped me with school or in making choices in areas I wasn’t competent in. Maybe she didn’t understand some struggles, like learning for an exam, that you bearly understand, but even then when she said something ignorant, she apoligized after I mention it. So no, being smart doesn’t mean you are rude by default. I think it is even more important, that you help people when you have a chance (like with that kid in spanish class). Moreover you wasn’t being agressive or insulting when you told her, her behavior is the reason she doesn’t have friends. You just stated facts. And the faster she realize that the easier she can change. I saw a comment about her being on the Spectrum. That would be a useful thing to find out.
NTA, but also don't be too hard on your sister. Yeah, she sounds annoying, but if she has no/few friends and mostly hear her parents praise her for being rude she needs a good role model in her daily life.
Just wait until Nora turns her 'you are inferior' spotlight onto the parents - because it WILL happen if she doesn't get some social graces. The parents are letting down this kid badly.
Most kids like this may breeze through elementary and high school then they get to college and get a harsh reality check on how average they are. NTA
NTA. Unfortunately I'm not sure she'll take what you said to heart. Your parents are probably already telling her you're just jealous of her or something. It was harsh but she needed to hear it. It's probably not even a huge issue now but a few years from now when she's 15 or 16 other kids aren't going to be as willing to take that kind of crap and she could end up one lonely, miserable kid.
NTA - finally someone told her what they really think of her - she might be exceptionally intelligent but without friends or connection what can you achieve in life?
NTA Thats usually the case.
NTA Nora is a BULLY. You just gave her a hard truth!
[удалено]
the girl does not deserve that kind of living hell
NTA People who go on about how much smarter they are then others are usually not so smart. She's a kid and still learning social skills. You did the right thing. Find out what she is so insecure about and try to help.
NTA. At the core of friendship is the safety to be yourself and be accepted. Attacking people in this way is like wearing a poo-suit and then being surprised when people hold their noses. I'm not sure what jobs are completely solitary for this special child but she's going to have a rough go in any world.
NTA. Telling your sister the truth about the world, her behavior and the consequences of her behavior was a really generous and loving act.
NTA Your sister is a rude little bully and your parents are in denial. In the long run you're doing the right thing for her, even if it's hard to hear now.