Welcome to Ten Days of Stealth Giftedness: A Crash Course on Incognito Intelligence

This is your guide to effectively hiding your giftedness from the world.

Kind of like being the James Bond or Jason Bourne of smart. Or both.

Like these boys.

Day 2:  Put down your book, slowly and carefully.

Surely you know by now that “gifted” is code for “bookworm.” Hey, you haven’t lived until you’ve gotten into trouble for reading while you walk around the house bumping into things.

True confessions: I once was roller skating in the upstairs carpeted hall while reading (proving that you can smart and unsmart simultaneously) and nearly brought my life to a sudden and dramatic end. I was twelve and should have known better. I was probably reading one of these:

But I digress. In order to be a Stealth Genius, you must pretend that you don’t read. Voluntarily.

And you would never, ever, ever read rather than do just about anything else, which is probably actually the case.

This boy gets it. See the look on his face? He knows. He’s been caught reading. Tsk, tsk. Nonfiction. A dead give away.

Did you notice the bandage on his knee?

It’s one of the oldest diversion tactics in the book.

If you get caught reading, pretend that you’re only doing it because you were seriously wounded in a rugby scrum and are only reading while you recover. You’ll go back to a more suitable hobby toot sweet.

While the truth is that even though there are many gifted kids who don’t enjoy reading, society’s view of it is that gifted kids prefer books to people (not necessarily a bad thing), food, sleep, and virtually everything else.

So, if you’re going to avoid detection as a gifted kid, stop reading.

At the very least, look forced and disinterested. Like this girl. She has got it down.

I know I’ll stop reading one day.

When they pry the books from my cold, dead hands.

I wrote about why lots of kids stop liking to read here.