Don't Tell the Kids They're Gifted
Catana
25 Comments
It’s a subject that comes up over and over again. Should we tell Johnny that he’s gifted, and if so, when? Anyone who knows my opinion of giftedness as a concept won’t be surprised that my answer is “No, don’t tell Johnny he’s gifted—ever. If the term ever had any meaning, its death knell has been sounded by the increasingly shrill cries of the parents of the swarms of average kids: “Every child is gifted!” I’m sorry to drag brute reality into such a sensitive issue, but not every child is gifted, and we aren’t all geniuses from birth.
So, what should you tell Johnny, and when? That’s more easily answered if we make some important distinctions. Schools want children to learn facts, and it wants them to learn those facts as quickly and thoroughly as possible. The student who learns quickly and has a good memory has a distinct advantage, but that doesn’t necessarily amount to a special gift. “Continuum” is a useful way of thinking about this. Developmental psychologist Jerome Kagan has remarked on the preference of psychologists for “characteristics like intelligence that fall on a continuum...” Learning capacity, which is dependent on memory, and memory itself, can be measured on a continuum. So the only thing special about the average academically gifted child is that he has more of what everybody has.
Schools have difficulty with children who don’t fit conveniently along the continuum, whose abilities are what we could call “breakaway.” That could be anything from unique ways of incorporating knowledge to advanced talents that simply don’t fit into the curriculum, the scheduling, or the teacher’s experience and training. The time for discussion is when the child is starting to recognize those aspects of himself, and has suffered the first bumps and bruises of running headlong into expectations and rules that he is unwittingly violating. It’s time for the parents to put two and two together and help the child make sense of his experiences.
The way to do that is not by attempting to instill a sense of superiority, however much that may seem an appropriate defense. The teacher’s response to a “breakaway” mind is often designed to put the child “in his place.” He has to be made aware that he isn’t special, that he may be ahead in some areas, but the other children will eventually catch up, and they also have talents that are just as important as his. We don’t preface an acknowledgment of unusual grace and coordination in dancing with the ego-destroying caveat that the other kids may be good at jump-rope, so don’t think you’re special. We don’t assure the piano prodigy that his little friend does just as well at Chopsticks. But it’s taken for granted that the mentally superior child must be compared, with the specific intention of undermining any confidence or pride he may have in his abilities.
The best countermeasure is self-knowledge. The child should be encouraged to explore what’s going on in his head, and to find ways to verbalize what may be just vague feelings. He needs to know exactly what his difference from the other children consists of. If he can understand that his mental traits are tools, he can better learn how to use them properly and take pleasure in their use. With specific, detailed knowledge of how his mind works, and with the consequent self-awareness that will allow him to observe and shape his own growth, he won’t need to be fobbed off with platitudes intended to boost self-esteem.
Self-knowledge includes awareness of one’s weaknesses, and the ability to evaluate them—whether they are really important or important only with regard to others’ expectations. Can some weaknesses limit the development of strengths, and how is that to be dealt with? The young child will only be able to take tiny steps toward self-knowledge, which is a lifelong path. But it’s also the path which can lead to self-confidence and a life of fulfillment without any need for a false sense of superiority.
Reader Comments (25)
He's interested in history? Help guide his reading and location of the resources he wants to use. Heck, you might learn something yourself and that's never a bad thing.
I have a personal interest in this, as I ended up homeschooling my eldest son, now 14, who would fall into the "profoundly gifted" end of the labeling spectrum, because I thought it best for him simply to do what he did without having to compare himself constantly to others of his own age. He just did his thing, played with other kids, participated in sports, and took occasional classes at a local highschool. He is now taking classes at university, but still sees himself as "taking a few classes" as opposed to :"going to university", and the whole issue of whether or not he is "gifted" isn't an issue at all. He just does what works for him, others do what work for them, no rigid demarcations or special labels necessary.
But beyond that no attention was ever paid to the matter. My parents even went out of their way to emphasize that I did not have to be 'smart' or do well in school to earn their love. It might be as a consequence that I've always grown up feeling that any intelligence I might or might not have (being told I'm gifted by those who have never given me opportunity to prove it has always been confusing) is pointless.
I sometimes wonder if it might not have been better had someone challenged my right to be special. Then I might have had to fight for recognition rather than having it given so freely and without meaning.
I think that's essentially what being gifted winds up being about, for too many people. It's somehow supposed to make you special, but you don't know what it means, and you aren't given any tools to explore and develop that specialness. Some people praise you for it, and others resent you for it, and you get nothing usefull out of it.
But on the other hand, every child should have the right to feel special, not because of a label, but because of the fact that there is no one else is exactly the same as another (even identical siblings have vastly different emotional and intellectual experiences).
When it comes to my three children (and particularly my oldest), the potential to be gifted is high (they were going to skip my husband a grade when he was in second grade, but instead, gave him music lessons privately with the music teacher). Last night I told my husband I didn't know how to address my Kindergarten dd's progress. She's advanced, for sure, and things come fairly easy to her, but already I'm worried about overly praising her or not praising her enough. She asks me if I'm proud of her, and I say yes, but always follow it with, "but you should be proud of yourself too because you are the one who did the work."
My husband joked with her yesterday and said "does your head hurt because you're so smart?". And I was questioning whether or not even joking about being smart is a good idea. I'm still not certain about what the best approach is.
I am very proud of my girls, but I don't want it to go to their heads, or not value effort as much as intelligence.
The problem with not acknowledging giftedness in the academic realm is that it can cause problems too. A result of not being skipped a grade in school, my husband actually didn't ever have to work hard for his grades. Consequently, he met a major roadblock when he actually had to start working hard for grades in college. So he started giving up because it got hard - he simply never had to put forth effort to study, and so his grades suffered. And so did his self esteem. Though that also had a lot to do with his father not recognizing his gifts too - instead of taking pride in his own son, he would constantly brag about his friends' son's accomplishments. We have been dealing with self-esteem issues with my husband for a large part of the 13 years we've been together (being laid off as an engineer for a year and not finding comparable work for 5 years gave him a major hit as well). It's been getting better, and becoming a father himself has helped a great deal (though finally getting another engineering job has also helped a lot). He knows he wants to be supportive of his girls, well, we both do, but we aren't exactly sure of how to go about it.
On the subject of grade skipping, I really think that it should be done more often. I've just downloaded a copy of http://www.nationdeceived.org/ and really can't wait to read it and have my husband read it too.
I know I felt smarter than a lot of kids in class most of my life (though there were at least 1 or 2 exceptionally smarter than I was), and I learned pretty early that most kids don't like it when you are a know-it-all and they pick on you. I don't want my dd to be teased for being "different". It hurt a lot. I'd like to spare my child that experience like any parent would.
Right now, there are other children in her class that seem to be on her level, so that helps. I hope she will always be grouped with at least 1 peers of similar ability so that she has friends.
So that's where I'm at right now. I want my daughters to soar, no matter what their abilities/gifts, but also know that society is unkind to those who are different - I imagine things are not much different than 20 years ago. And equipping my children with a healthy self-esteem while they pursue their dreams is really important to me. Thanks for posting, I'll be keeping this topic for reference.
Thanks for your great comment. By the way, I subbed to your blog as soon as I read the post. Keep it up. Every parent who writes about bringing up their gifted kids adds to the sum of knowledge.
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Oh, I also want to elaborate a little bit on my old post. The document I linked to is called A Nation Deceived - a study done on the effects of grade skipping., and you should be able to get to a downloadable version of the report, or request a free copy of the report. I've done both. I want a hard copy to take to my dd's school if it ever comes to that.
Thanks for checking in at my blog, I do appreciate that I'm not writing in a vacuum. And I have this website linked to mine, because I want others to read what you have to say. A lot of your perceptions of things really resonates with me and there are a lot of insightful things here. Keep up the great work!
At any rate, I can see that there is a lot to be gleaned from your blog and it is going to be interesting how things play out in my children's lives. I'm trying to equip myself now since I have a feeling I may need the information in the future.
Still, our children experience themselves as different in many ways and often run into difficulties with peers because of the ways that they express themselves or their expectations in peer relationships. Somehow, we have to give them an understanding of the roots of that experience so that they don't interpret it (as so many do) as people thinking they're boring or weird.
I don't have an answer--at least, not a universal one--just a conundrum.
As for me, during my teen through young adult years, I had spent a great deal of time simply observing and analyzing the personality and behavior of those around me (predominantly my family, because those are the ones I was constantly at odds with) and discussing the issues I had with extremely insightful friends. I also talked a lot with the parents of those friends for an adult perspective. I had been lucky enough to come across some really supportive people at a relatively young age. I believe to this day that had it not been for those friends and their parents that I would not be as self-confident and well adjusted as I feel I am.
Tiffany - what an experience you had. I'm sorry it had to be that way. In that light, I agree, focusing on the label was the wrong thing to do. But, overall, it really doesn't seem like much has advanced or became much clearer since the 70's (that makes you around my age too). You'd think with all the gifted people around, someone would come up with something more effective; but maybe there are no gifted people in positions to make decisions? Or maybe they are, but their hands are severely tied?
It's a bit discouraging about school in general - my own daughters could be challenged more than they are, but they are so limited by what the other children can do. Right now I'm just keeping my kids in tune with the natural world around them, offering them fun and interesting enrichment activities at home, and learn all I can about my children's personality's and unique qualities. I anticipate coming up roadblocks with school officials in the future because I really think my daughters are able to learn more than what they are taught in school. And I believe I see what I think are OE's in my middle child that are common with gifted children. But of course, I'm not 100% sure.
At any rate, I find it all rather fascinating, and I love learning more about the topics you questioned. So much that I took a human development class a few semesters ago just because I wanted to know more about those topics (well, that and I really needed to feed my brain after being away from the work world for 3 years).
Thanks for the discussion.