Gifted Kid Syndrome

March 3, 2020
noun
noun: burnout; noun: burn-out
- physical or mental collapse caused by overwork or stress
As a junior entering second semester, I can say without a doubt that I have never experienced this amount of stress or overwork in the past. When I was young, academics felt as simple as breathing. School came easy to me: I had been testing with a college reading level since fifth grade, and my parents had taught me math ahead of the standard.
My grades were excellent. That was the start of the problem; I wasn’t trying to earn the grades I received. Going through school with an inherent skill for reading comprehension and pure memorization, plus the ability to learn on my feet, ensured that I was taking tests without studying. I was skipping homework because I knew I didn’t need to do it. I was procrastinating on projects because I had figured out how to complete assignments with minimal effort for the same credit.
This was how I survived. I thought I’d cracked the code. My parents insisted I was brilliant; my teachers told me I had amazing potential.
But this year, my first semester grades were nowhere near a 4.0. After sixteen years, coasting through academics had finally come to an end. I am taking difficult courses under the assumption I can pass these tests, too, without studying, and it has been a jarring realization to understand that I cannot. I have 0% in the homework category for certain classes.
The term “gifted kid syndrome” is essentially this. It is every child who was raised with constant praise and higher-achieving than others when they were young. It is every child who grew up, found themselves amongst other high-achieving students, and failed to adapt. It is the idea that you have never had to work for anything in the past—so at last, when you need to, you don’t know how, but you can’t get rid of the overwhelming pressure to be exceptional. That was the main problem: no matter what, I feel a need to succeed because I am deathly afraid that I am letting everyone down. I am keeping up the appearance that I can handle my workload and taking on more responsibilities without due consideration.
Today, I am struggling to discover a work ethic. If I cannot master a new subject immediately, I want to drop it. But junior year no longer has space for these excuses. As an ex- “gifted kid,” I have no concept of trying, and it’s backfiring.
It feels like I have been riding a high-speed train all my life, one that can slip through every tunnel and cross every bridge. It feels like I have hit a point where the railroad tracks are no longer built for me—and I have been so lazy that I never learned how to construct them myself. I have ridiculously poor study habits, and I avoid homework with a passion (surely, I don’t need to do it. I know the material. Right? The 60% on my math test says otherwise). I look in the mirror and these days I only see a burnout.
This is not to undermine those who never took naturally to the idea of school. Neither does it mean anyone owes a “gifted kid” their sympathy. If anything, it goes more to show that the academic system is full of loopholes and will never be perfect for any of us.
To me, it seems like the best we can do for each other is respect hard effort over the letter grade. Our values need to change. Even as parents or as teachers, we must decide to promote perseverance and teach better habits to our students. We all have the same potential, and it is crucial to treat ourselves as such.
This is exactly how I feel. I grew up as a gifted child, I never studied and I would get A’s. However I have an absolutely awful procrastination problem, and I never do homework or even assignments on time. It’s an immense struggle when you feel like you have to get perfect marks, yet you are also the thing that’s holding you back from that.
u actually retarded and just used this as an excuse to seem smart. go hit the books and stop making excuses dumbass. futanari man out.
Uh oh! Looks like you ran out of brain juice! What a shame!
Unfortunately, I don’t think you are suffering from burnout! Only real homies know what it’s like to have a 4.0 while taking the hardest classes AND still not trying! I think you just, you know, might not be a genius!
It’s ok! Over half of the population has an iq score of less than 100! Atleast you will know what it’s like to be beetlejuice!
Hey there. I’m a Tino alum, graduated a few years ago, and your post really reminded me of myself. What you described was all too real throughout my academic career – if you don’t mind me saying, I’d suggest you to look into ADHD.
What you described are issues I struggled with for years throughout HS and afterwards. Only much later did I realize these are actually textbook symptoms of untreated ADHD and so I began my journey to working around it.
In no way do I mean to imply off the bat that you necessarily have this condition – all I suggest is that you, or for that matter, anyone relating to this, might find a possible explanation for their problems by looking into ADHD.
My only intention with this post is to possibly help someone avoid the years of struggle I faced in trying to understand my own mind.
I ve never (ever ) coment on something . But damn , that was an incredble article . I am in collegue in my 2d year and i felt it (really hard) and i am trying to change that. Its never too late to realize and your article helped me to understand what was going on . Thank you and damn, you are awesome (i want to clarify that english is not my native language , and i am not from the usa . Sorry if i misspelled something )
This rimgs a bell. As a young kid, 99.9 percentile across the board on standardized tests and was skipped ahead in math and later Enhlish. Developed anxiety, learned that nothing was going to be good enough for my parents. Decided that I wanted to be popular and started to coast. Later I found sports which gave me self discipline and time management. I thought I could turn it on when I wanted (96th percentile on SAT). 1st semester of college was rough, spent the last 2 months digging out of a hole. But I graduated and eventually got a master’s. I have had a successful career by most standards. But I never, ever shook the anxiety and later depression issues. The structure provided by sports may have saved me from flaming out…so if any tips that’s what I would say.
This rings a bell. As a young kid, 99.9 percentile across the board on standardized tests and was skipped ahead in math and later Enhlish. Developed anxiety, learned that nothing was going to be good enough for my parents. Decided that I wanted to be popular and started to coast. Later I found sports which gave me self discipline and time management. I thought I could turn it on when I wanted (96th percentile on SAT). 1st semester of college was rough, spent the last 2 months digging out of a hole. But I graduated and eventually got a master’s. I have had a successful career by most standards. But I never, ever shook the anxiety and later depression issues. The structure provided by sports may have saved me from flaming out…so if any tips that’s what I would say.
Wow. Really resonated with this. I’m a junior this year, and I am definitely burned out. I feel like there’s the person my peers have grown up with, the smart, witty, hardworking person and then there’s the shell of me that’s cracked under all of the pressure. My parents always say stuff like “you were the brightest kid when you were younger” or “you had so much potential” or “you peaked in elementary school”. I find it really hard to keep up this façade of being the “perfect” all-around student, especially with other pressing issues like mental health, but it kind of just keeps building up and up as teachers hear or develop an impression that i’m a “really good and hardworking student” and stuff. it’s like too many things on my plate because that’s what people expect, but i can’t show them how much it hurts because they know me as the “gifted” and “impressive” kid, yknow?
I feel this on so many levels. Even though I am a gifted student and can usually get an A effortlessly online learning has proved to be a new challenge for me. I have to have the motivation and mindset to put in the effort to get my work done. Also my gifted program briefly touched on this gifted kid burnout thing but never taught us how to handle it. So ya.
Same here. I am a second year Med student who got here with minimum effort and push from my parents and luck at entrance exam. I even passed the entrance exam with so so little effort but as soon as i started Med school i started failing. Because its all about the memory and nothing about intelligence. I baarely finished first year and now in my second year i am failing really hard. I am in pain because i am sooo fucking lazy and do not know how to work. How to study. And everyone around me got here with their efforts and they are so collected. Idk what to do.
Holy. Freaking. Crap. This describes me in every way possible. I used to have all As and Bs, and nothing else. I did tons of work with little to no effort because things came easy to me. I learned quick. Then, at the end of 7th grade, COVID hit and everything changed. School was online and confusing. We could only see each other through a screen. Things were harder. More work was being spouted at me at a time. Stress was pouring on me like hail. Grades dropped faster than you could say “Meme culture”. I was heartbroken, my parents were… actually, still are heartbroken, and I feel worse than ever because I’m putting all the blame on myself. And it is my fault. I’m the one who hates doing the work, I’m the one who procrastinates until the assignment is late, and I’m the one who’s failing. And I wish I could just be a good student for once in my life and not be a total failure to everyone around me. I hate myself. I wish I were never a thing so that this horrible excuse for a person wouldn’t be such a burden on his parents.
You know, I couldn’t have said it better than you or the people in the comments. It’s hard to get to work sometimes, I don’t think I’m completely burnt-out yet but I have a foreboding feeling it’s coming to hit soon. My English, literature and math are as easy as they’ve always been but instead of usual B in math I got a C for my mid-year grade and it’s making me really disappointed in myslef. I have really good memory so if I DO get to studying I get it but it’s trying to find the motivation that is the hard part. For some reason people think it’s so easy, living most of your life as the ‘golden child’; always the good kid, the talented kid, they don’t think about the consequences, they usually don’t SEE them as such. It’s really disheartening, I lose motivation even more.
This is so relatable for me.
Wow… This really hit close to home. I’m in first year university now but I knew something was wrong in high school when I first started to feel some pressure but I still managed with procrastination and minimal effort that everyone assumed, I was just extremely hardworking. When it came to exams though and I didn’t study, expecting to do well without putting work in, I lied and said I panicked. I did panic a little but more so because I was so unprepared but it was the perfect excuse to hide the fact I didn’t work. Anyone going through something similar, I will tell you, the pressure is immense but from experience, lying to parents, teachers etc. about how much work you put in isn’t worth it. Especially for the amount of stress and burnout you endure.
At that point you lose all idea of why you’re doing what you’re doing and it becomes a method of keeping up appearances and making your parents happy. It becomes difficult to enjoy what you’re doing and learning. I felt it so much and am still feeling it. I hated the things I used to love and I’m slowly realising I liked them so much because I had a small amount of talent in them and it was effortless. And I got so much praise for them as I child. Anything that required effort I didn’t enjoy. And now I don’t know what effort looks like.
Now that I’ve realised these things I hope to change things. It’s not going to be easy…
Wow, I really feel this article. I had A’s and B’s all through elementary and most of middle school, I was put ahead in math programs and had a reading level much higher then my actual grade, I was regarded as a “gifted kid”… now I’m in my last year of middle school and my grades are terrible, I have little to no motivation, terrible anxiety, and what I’m beginning to suspect is ADHD. My mom and other adults around me are so confused and disappointed with my grades and I hear them talk to each other about how I’m “the smartest kid they know.” It makes me upset at myself that I can’t live up to their expectations.
Hi, I’m a Freshman in high school and my grades have been steadily decreasing the past 3 years. I have no work ethic as I’ve never really had to have one. I get the highest standardized test scores in every subject, but I can’t complete homework assignments. I struggle to find motivation to do just about anything. My test scores aren’t all 95%+ anymore because I actually have to study now. But I lack discipline and motivation. I’ve been told that my IQ is over 140 but I don’t know how much over. I’ve failed 3 classes in the past 2 years and I just want to be able to turn assignments in.
I’m only in 9th but has this shit happen to me. I still consider myself young, so do you think I can do anything about it…? Struggling a ton is not fun. I have absolutely no work ethic, and it frustrating since both my parents grew up in poverty and have a lot. So ye. I’ve given up on trying at this point but what can you do. You even said there’s no point in giving us sympathy, so why not just hope next generation doesn’t suffer, OR the earth just explodes before that point. _(:3 」∠)_
So ive been struggling on things like stressing myself out and unrealistically high expectations from me for myself, overwork or no work done at all, either procrastination at its finest or just no motivation to do anything at all. So upon all my researches i stumbled across this.. im not good at studying or never have i ever been a good student but i relate to this through art. And its an everyday struggle especially since everything in art is so competitive, like it may not seem that way but it just is. for artists nowadays like digital artists or traditional, theres more platforms out there and i have this constant “goal” that like i SHOULD be SUCCESSFUL or something and its really overwhelming and i feel like im falling behind every second and it keeps scaring me in every nook and cranny in my body and mind and i just cant, painting used to be my passion and my escape but now its like a task that i have to achieve for self validation. So im kinda glad that im kinda finding a place where its validating that what im feeling isnt just because “im lazy” or something.
I know this feeling by heart (even though I’m only a freshman in high school). I hate the amount of pressure put on me to succeed so much it makes me not want to do work. I have no work ethic and I am still trying to gain even a bit of some. Itś even worse because I’m in sports yet always fall behind because of procrastination and having no time in general. I hope we all move past this stupid burnout stuff and move on with life because it really sucks. Have a nice day lol. 🙂
Quarantine do be hitting different and in the wrong places
I completely relate to this. I was in gifted classes since kindergarten. School was a breeze. Awards left and right. Then middle school came, and covid hit. This was my downfall. The end of 7th going into 8th grade is so far the worst point of my academic career. I procrastinate way too much, and have little to no motivation anymore. I never felt like I had to try when it came to academics, but now it’s a different story. I don’t even want to know what 9th grade will bring.
Lol, you and 99.99999999999% of the people who claim to be gifted weren’t “gifted” at all. You just had internet access. Wow, you’re so unique.
Especially European and US schools have only “stable family life” and “internet connection” as sufficient and necessary condition to have an above average trajectory. Take your heads out of your asses you play pretend pointdexters.