“Window-licking moron”–that phrase made me giggle. 
Probably when I enjoyed and understood a great Carly Simon record at a very early age. 
Being as smart as I am has always been a trial - from the time I was a wee tot just barely able to raise my head. Ahhh, the tribulations! Dealing with all the bumbling babies just starting on “Goo goo, gah gah!” Morons. All of them, morons.
It’s hard being me.
Oh, wait. Then I realized…I’m not that smart. The more I know about anything, the stupider I feel. So no matter how “smart” I get, no matter how much useless or not-so-useless information I know about anything, there’s still more to learn. In fact, the older I get, the more meaningless the idea of being smarter than anyone else becomes.
It’s trite but true: every single kid is gifted in their own way. Being smart means absolutely nothing if you can’t communicate it. Being able to communicate means nothing if you have nothing of substance to communicate. Yes, some kids seem light years ahead of others, but 99% of the time, they catch up to each other or excel against each other in ways that make that “giftedness” or “otherness” go away.
That’s great that certain skills come so easily to some people. My particular skill is language - I catch on very quickly. Regardless, that good fortune is a tool I use, not any indication of my intelligence.
I won’t comment on myself but my 5 year old daughter started being told this by all kinds of people starting at about age three. I am not really bragging. It is something we have had to deal with as parents. So many people have told her she is smart that she is getting the impression that everything will come easy for her and that simply isn’t true. We were advised to stop using the word smart with her in our own house and try to prevent other people like relatives from telling her that as well. Instead, we need to make it task specific and say things like “Good job” if she works hard at something no matter what the outcome.
Maybe we are defining “gifted” differently, but I respectfully disagree with this sentiment. I taught grade school students a few years ago and there are plenty of unremarkable kids out there. I’m not saying that this devalues them as people or that they don’t deserve equal attention from their teachers, but saying every child is gifted “in their own way” is a bit silly. There will always be students who don’t stand out from their peers: students that earn neither praise nor ire from their teachers; students that teachers always end up combing their brains over when faced with the “Teacher’s Comments” section of the report cards. Not every student has a quirk or skill that makes them memorable.
Some kids are more gifted than others. Whether that ultimately makes them more successful or better people in the long run is another matter.
My birthdate is 8 days after the cut-off for the school year, so my parents had me specially tested and put in kindergarten a ‘year’ early. I guess that was when I started being told I was smart. Not sure I bought it, though - I was never one of those kids who didn’t need to work for it. I liked reading and math and all, and did a lot of learning in my spare time, but I’m not sure that made me do any better in school. I was always a good student who had to work hard for it.
Anyway, my bachelor’s made me feel pretty dumb, and I have never felt as not-naturally-gifted as grad school makes me feel.
Perhaps I was taking the OP too literally, but he/she asked “When did you see yourself as smarter than the masses of children around you?” That seems to me like the OP is asking people to compare themselves against their peers rather than what you’re suggesting, which appears to be a rather more objective observation based on a teacher’s evaluation of a student.
And I admit that my comment was Pollyanna-ish, but the older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve found it to be true. There will always be people around me, even if I’m surrounded by people I think are idiots, who are skilled where I fail.
im in ur sk00lz
dist0rtin ur gradcurvz
I never really did. I know that I scored really high on those stupid tests (passed the Mensa thing but thought they were a bunch of losers), graduated fairly high in my class, and enjoy learning stuff, but I don’t see myself as anything but “normal”. It always surprises me when I notice that someone isn’t very bright, or doesn’t like to read, or doesn’t understand physics. I usually figure they could learn anything they want, they just have different priorities and probably think I’m a little slow because I don’t know what a quarterback sneak is.
In my mind, as I said, I’m normal. I hung around in school with some really smart characters and some nearly brain-dead burnouts. Sure, I’m better than everyone else. But that’s as much my dazzling good looks and charm as anything. 
At some point I thought to myself, “This paste doesn’t taste very good, I shouldn’t be eating it.”
So somewhere around 5th grade or so.
Well, I got sent for gifted testing in kindergarten but got lost on the way to the office so didn’t get tested.
In first grade, I got the testing and was put in the program but all it meant was this neat extra class to go to where we did things like rehearse abridged versions of Shakespeare.
In second grade, we had a reading assignment and me and a couple of other kids got done very quickly. The teacher didn’t believe us and actually took us out in the hall to give us a special quiz.
In sixth grade, in math class, we had the progression: 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, etc. I was the one who knew it was squares.
But I don’t know if I was smarter or just better at specific things. I do very well on standardized tests and I read a lot which helps you on those types of test. And now that I’m older and don’t read as much, I think I can actually feel myself getting dumber…
ETA: Despite being very good at tests, I was always a complete moron when it came to interpersonal skills. I’ve gradually taught myself them but I’ve always felt that the ability to easily read people is a type of intelligence as well.
I first realized I must be a genius in the summer of 2000. That’s when I joined this message board. It wasn’t long after joining that I noticed someone say how smart we all are. "Really? We? Me too?"Since then, there’s never been a lack of people reminding me how smart we members are. At first I was skeptical. But now I’m convinced! Dopers are all geniuses. Me too!
I wasn’t fully aware of it but I did recognize that I was “special” when I was put in the second grade reading class when I was in first grade. The second graders made fun of me and I didn’t realize why I was being moved, but I figured it wasn’t something good. Shortly after that, I had a bunch of tests done and apparently I already had a 10th grade reading level. I do remember realizing that that was something to be proud of. I also do very well on standardized tests and even though I’m an engineer and surrounded by “smart” people every day, I sometimes can’t believe how dumb they can be. That having been said, a lot of them have encyclopedic knowledge of engineering that I can’t begin to approach, as I’ve only been at it a few years.
Well, yeah, you’d like to think that. Those of us who joined in the summer of 99 were the actual smart ones. If the threads from that time existed you’d realize the many “how smart we are” threads of the time were smarter than these later ones. We’ve just been humoring you ever since.
What really sux is that, though I’m smarter than average (tested in high school), I’m only smart enough to know what it would be like to be really smart. I can see it, but I just can’t get there.
When I started reading the SDMB.
Probably in the first or second grade, when people in the “fast” reading group couldn’t really read fluently. My teacher always remarked on my inflection, adding a bit of realism to the written word. The other kids were still sounding out individual words. By the time I was in the third grade, I had to go in for testing to show that I needed advanced math, so that I would be allowed to go to a school across town. I didn’t like it one bit, at the time.
ETA: Damn it, I didn’t see Bear_Nenno’s post before I posted. Maybe my reading comprehension isn’t that good, after all! :smack:
My parents started telling me I was special when, as an infant, I amassed a considerable repertoire of animal noises to entertain party guests.
“What sound does the dog make?”
“Bow wow.”
“What sound does the pig make?”
“Oink.”
Then I started to chew on the furniture.
So … shall we get off your lawn, then?
Damn. A day late and a dollar short, as usual.
Like Anastaseon, I still feel like a moron even when I know I’m not and am not unoften complimented by others who I admire for their intelligence for being smart.