By Kayla Cheung
Gifted Kid Burnout is somewhat of a new term, coined by teens and young adults on the internet that have had similar childhood experiences in school. It is characterized by lifelong perfectionism, inexplicable lack of self-esteem, and a decline in surface ingenuity caused by growing up a “gifted kid,” causing them to feel unequivocally less than their peers.
Children were granted the National Defense Education Act in 1958, with additional legislature coming later to propel advanced programs. There is a series of explanations for what it feels like to be a former gifted, now below-average, or just an average student, but it all begins with one central point: time.
School years go on and a child develops into their “gifted” potential and is discovered and placed on a pedestal early on. They are encouraged to take harder-than-average courses, separated from their average peers. Then they ascend into adolescence and slowly fade out of their golden years, no longer breezing through classes and having to learn later than other children how to study, plan or even try as hard as other children.
“Jokes aside, it has definitely hurt my work ethic because I find it hard to do things that require genuine effort. For example, Physics I’m not the best at and it’s challenging; and when I don’t immediately understand something, my motivation to actually try goes to something else,” says a sophomore at MAST Academy, Benjamin Quintero.
In a survey, we asked students where they stand with academic motivation. Out of the people who responded, 87% confirmed that they have gradually lost interest and a sense of accomplishment in academics.
With the introduction of difficult, complex material, and exposure to similarly gifted students, the facade of perfection, and drive to be divinely intelligent manifests and causes them to feel infinitely disappointed with themselves. Schools feed into this burnout-inducing behavior by primarily nurturing the minds they see as great, only as long as they perform well and make the institution appear attractive to possible future students or competitions.
“I think [schools pride themselves on their highest-achieving students] because they want to say their kids are taking advanced classes; they are not truly trying to make us educated individuals…simply making education selective”, explains Anabelle Ballate, Miami Lakes Educational Center junior and Cambridge Engineering student.
Feeding gifted children’s thirst for knowledge and robbing them of certain necessary life experiences to make a school look better are significantly different things, and should not be considered in tandem. Schools are supposed to meet the needs of all children, and any sort of hierarchy, whether among students or schools themselves is harmful to a young developing mind.
Students are put in a position of academic superiority young only to suffer in the future because they never learned the necessary skills to succeed in academic life. Studying skills become an alien concept to these children and they should not be considered as such. Students’ potential should mirror their progress, instead of outshining it, in an effort to reduce Gifted Kid Burnout among the future generations of students.
