star Children

[DanieMarie]

Re: star Children

When I was in sex ed, we were told 12-14 was average, and that's when everyone in our school got it. One girl got hers earlier. A couple got theirs later. But the rest were 12-14. So maybe it was typical in that place and time? We didn't have a high rate of obesity at the time and most in my area are white or asian.

[Caelia]

Re: star Children

I started mine a week before my 12th birthday. Oddly enough I was still dancing at that time and was super-freaking skinny (my sister at the age of 5 stretched out leotards I wore at 11). I was also taught that I'd start mine around 12 in sex ed.

Nice to know the other things I'm learning about periods in this thread (I feel stupid for not learning this, but that's abstinence-only education for you). It makes me a little worried, though, about my period; if my period was delayed, how young was I supposed to start???

[yukanaoe]

Re: star Children

WOW way the crap off topic... talking about menstruation... and i was originaly talking about spiritual giftedness not mental...

where the hell are the moderators...

---------- Post added at 05:22 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:21 AM ----------

someone just ((SWEARING IS NAUGHTY!)) delete this thread i'm sick of seeing this mockery...

[Gardenia]

Re: star Children

and i was originaly talking about spiritual giftedness not mental...

Same crap, different focus. As has already been said, the whole star children thing is BS and treating your kid as any kind of special or gifted probably isn't good for them. Sorry, you weren't specially chosen to raise a specially gifted space baby, but I'm sure the both of you will cope with being normal like most of us do. (Those that can't cope with being normal make up star babies and whatever else. /shrug)

[FantasyWitch]

Re: star Children

WOW way the crap off topic... talking about menstruation... and i was originaly talking about spiritual giftedness not mental...

where the hell are the moderators...

---------- Post added at 05:22 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:21 AM ----------

someone just fucking delete this thread i'm sick of seeing this mockery...

Excuse me?
The moderators have been taking part in this thread and I am yet to see any "mockery". What we are discussing is the pressure of being seen as a "gifted" kid can put on a young person so we are not off topic at all.
As a moderator I am NOT going to lock this thread, if another moderator wants to then that is fine, but I see no need. If you don't like the how your thread has turned don't post in it.

[DanieMarie]

Re: star Children

WOW way the crap off topic... talking about menstruation... and i was originaly talking about spiritual giftedness not mental...

We're not trying to make a mockery. But it's the same idea. Spiritually or intellectually gifted, being raised as "gifted" and treated as such isn't really so positive. It's really great to encourage talents but the whole idea around being "special" has a lot of issues that come with it, some of which are very negative (hence a lot of the responses in this thread).

[FantasyWitch]

Re: star Children

But that's really how it's always been. The minute a girl has her first period, biologically she's a baby-maker (I'm not sure what the marker is that denotes boys have live sperm - nocturnal emissions? Uncomfortable bus rides?). I've known girls as young as 9 starting their periods (mine came along at 11 1/2) - and physically they're potential mommies. Mentally & emotionally, they're still playing with Barbies & think boys are gross.

For a lot of 'gifted' or 'precocious' kids, they may get treated as though they're older than they really are, because they can have intellectual conversations with an adult (they know 'stuff' even if they may not understand all the implications of stuff they know or be able to have a full critically-thinking debate), so when a 'gifted' kid hits puberty, it adds a whole crop of other situational problems to their coping with being bright and favored. Grown-ups were interested in me and what I knew, and that included grown men - so I had no social boundaries when I hit puberty. Combined with the fact that most boys my own age wouldn't socialize with me because I was a four-eyed geek made me even more dependent on adults for companionship.

I know I'm late reading up but I liked what you said here Prez!

I think this is an amazing point that once you start your period if you are an intellectual kid and are treated older you almost feel expected to act sexual faster. I started my period (as did my best friend an hour or so after me) 4 days before my tenth birthday. I already knew about sex and such because my gran was my teacher in that department and was very good so I was not worried about it or anything.

However I was sexually active from 14 and I lost my virginity to a 17 year old. I think it is very true that if you are treated older than you assume you have a right or a requirement to act older earlier. I was so sure at the time that it was the correct thing to do and that I was ready, but god I SO was not (as some older members on here will remember :P ). Feeling mature because of your hormones and BEING mature are two very different things.

[DanieMarie]

Re: star Children

And sometimes that can kick you in the face too. I wasn't sexual very early (quite late, actually) but I was always used to being treated much older than I was. But really, I was actually quite naive. I only lost my virginity weeks before I moved to Berlin, I was from Vancouver Island, which is actually pretty isolated, I came from a well-off family....basically there was a LOT that I hadn't experienced and moving to Berlin was a HUGE shock. It actually took me a long, long time to figure my life out, because when I was younger I already knew people and things in my life just seemed to get sorted out. But in a European capital, you're NEVER the smartest or most educated (I'm now one of the -least- educated people I know), social naivity will bite you in the ass, and having been a big fish in a small pond means nothing when you move to a new, different, bigger pond and no one knows who you are or cares.

[Caelia]

Re: star Children

WOW way the crap off topic... talking about menstruation... and i was originaly talking about spiritual giftedness not mental...

where the hell are the moderators...

---------- Post added at 05:22 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:21 AM ----------

someone just ((SWEARING IS NAUGHTY!)) delete this thread i'm sick of seeing this mockery...

I think you're overreacting. It isn't like we evoked uterine goblins or anything.

The truth is the issue of "star babies" and whatnot is a complex one that permeates Western Culture. Even if you don't see them as "spiritually mature" they may be seen as "mature" in other ways which they aren't fully realizing / can't fully realize, and that can be a B-I-G problem.

So calm down.

[FantasyWitch]

Re: star Children

Exactly.

That is why this whole "star children" stuff is just setting a kid up for failure and a world of hurt.

[Tylluan Penry]

Re: star Children

We didn't have star children when I was young.... we did however have 'refined children' 'clever clogs' and 'children who could do no wrong.'
One of my aunts had a tribe of the latter. She was talking about this one day to my mother, and announced proudly, 'I can see no wrong in my children.'
'Can't you?' asked my mother, 'Because you should. Because your children are arseholes.... just like mine.'

[Ophidia]

Re: star Children

... and i was originally talking about spiritual giftedness not mental...

But shouldn't they go hand-in-hand? I mean, take a look around the site. Here you have a forum called 'paganforum.com', and it is full of people who are not only spiritually gifted, with many religious and spiritual outlooks, from a multitude of cultures and backgrounds, educational levels, age brackets, genders, you name it, but almost every single one of them has some type of contribution they make to the website, almost every single one of them is gifted in some way (I say almost because, well, we do attract some interesting non-contributors and I'm not particularly active myself).

Would you prefer your 'star child' or 'indigo child' or whatever you want to think of your kid as to only have one singular facet to show the world? The Dalai Lama isn't just a spiritual leader, he's also a gifted politician, a fine speaker and has a great sense of humor. Nelson Mandela isn't just a figurehead for freedom and equality - and neither was the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

And besides, if your 'star child' was a girl, it's been held by many New Agers that their particular 'gifts' manifest most strongly when they hit puberty (along w/those who believe in poltergeist activity connected to teen-agers), so menstruation might be more than a little relevant to your interests.

[Hawkfeathers]

Re: star Children

Healthy, balanced children are all a bit gifted, are they not? They have imagination, they are without prejudice, they have a sense of wonder and fascination with the world, an appetite for knowledge, and they give and accept love freely. What better gifts could one ask for?

[DanieMarie]

Re: star Children

I came across some Albert Einstein quotes that i thought were really applicable to this thread:

“I am neither especially clever nor especially gifted. I am only very, very curious.”
“It's not that I'm so smart , it's just that I stay with problems longer .”
"A person starts to live when he can live outside himself."


---------------------------------------------
I didn't really elaborate much on this earlier, but I'd like to. Einstein wasn't thought to be a particularly bright kid, but his parents encouraged him. I don't know that they thought he was a genius but they encouraged him to pursue his curiousities. It's rumoured that his teachers labelled him slow and stated he'd never been good at anything but manual labour, probably because he was a bit random (and I can see this, the German system is still fairly strict and I can imagine that thinking outside the box in his time would be totally unacceptable), and confirmed that he had troubles with the system. It goes to show the dangers of labelling in one way, but people don't often talk of the dangers of labelling in the other. If Einstein hadn't had to prove himself, would he have gotten as far as he did? If he had been hailed early on as a genius, would he have been as humble as he was and put that effort in to find the answers he sought?

And once again, I know this thread is originally about spiritual talents over intellectual ones, but I don't see much of a difference. and I think my point above could go for that as well. If you're told your whole life that you have spiritual gifts, do you really put in the extra effort and hard work to truly develop them, and try to forge your own path?

[Medusa]

Re: star Children

WOW way the crap off topic... talking about menstruation... and i was originaly talking about spiritual giftedness not mental...

where the hell are the moderators...

---------- Post added at 05:22 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:21 AM ----------

someone just ((SWEARING IS NAUGHTY!)) delete this thread i'm sick of seeing this mockery...

I think you are just upset no one wants to talk about your kid....again.

I was thinking about the whole 'gifted' label a bit more today. You know alot of time those 'gifted' kids get into a lot of trouble because they are too bored in school. Or they are outcasts by their friends and peers and end up 'dumbing' themselves down. Imagine being a kid who is 12 and goes to high school or 14 and goes to college. Not everyone is going to turn out all great like Dougie Howser.