I absolutely believe all kids are gifted in one way or another. And that some kids unwrap their gifts sooner than others.
In our case, we’ve got a girl who has always been a few steps ahead of the curve – and a whole lot of steps ahead of this mama. She’s got the classic symptoms of a gifted academic learner.
On one hand, it’s exciting. The ease with which she picks up new concepts and facts. The way she reasons and puts things together and comes up with her own theories and hypotheses. The possibilities. The potential.
On the other hand, I’m scared. With much brilliance comes much responsibility? Or something along that line?
I love focusing on the academics – where my girl excels. I enjoy putting together curriculum plans that challenge her and build on her strengths while keeping her interested and engaged.
But I’ve started lurking around “gifted” forums, hoping to pick up wisdom from other parents who have been there. And what keeps coming up is this: Academic excellence comes naturally with these kids. You don’t need to focus on it. Just about every time, the parents of older gifted kids wish they had focused more on character development when their kids were younger.
Ouch. Can’t we stick with the easy stuff? I’d far rather help Esmé whiz through the planets and bones and math and reading than try to enforce patience and kindness and gentleness and self-control, let alone obedience…
Yet this advice makes so much sense. Gifted kids have a tendency to think they are on par with grown-ups, have you noticed? Others are enamored with their abilities; they’re given special status. If you don’t capture their respect and instill self-control while they are still young, your chances are slim to none as they get older.
I know my daughter will be able to outwit me soon enough. I know she’ll find flaws in the things I ask her to do. I want her to do things because she knows they are safe and respectful and responsible, and mostly because God has a say in her heart. Oh, sometimes – so often – I wish she would just obey me “because I said so.” But it’s exciting when I watch her reason through and make the right choices on her own accord.
Here are some pieces of advice I’ve gleaned:
1. Model the behavior you expect. Kids are excellent hypocrisy detectors.
2. Explain the “why” of rules and requirements. You may need to do a little research – dig up the medical research on sleep, for instance.
3. Validate their feelings. Help them identify what triggers inappropriate behavior and appropriate ways to handle their feelings in the future.
4. Teach empathy. Act out scenarios with them in the other person’s shoes; talk through what the other person must be feeling.
5. Teach the value of nonacademic gifts. Help your child realize that success requires attributes beyond academics, and that it can be measured in many ways.
Do you have a gifted child? Any advice for those who are just starting down the gifted educational path?
Monday’s Preschool posts are written by our preschool writer and homeschooler, Jane
The biggest challenge I’ve faced is to keep the balance between feeding them enough challenge and stimulation withouth overwhelming them with work, just can they can do it. Realizing that their emotional abilites and needs don’t match their intellectual abilities (which gets to the point you made about character development). GREAT article.
Have you seen Social Network or Searching for Bobby Fishcer? Cautionary tales.
Good point on “not overwhelming them just because they can do it.” I sometimes struggle with knowing when to stop “pushing” my daughter – she’s often capable of much more than she puts out, and I’m not sure if it’s a control/disciplinary issue or her just being a 4yo. Other times she’s on a roll and astounds us with what she says or writes, and it’s eerie how she’ll synthesize and repeat what I’ve taught her when I was sure she wasn’t paying attention.
Dr. Elkind, developmental psychologist and author, writes about the ‘early ripe/early rot’ syndrome in his book “Preschoolers at Risk” and addresses the very thing you are struggling with… Truly gifted students and many other bright students get burned out, often because they were pushed so hard in the early years. I think that is where the ART of parenting and teaching really comes in. Knowing when to provide opportunity, but being quick to step back and not push. Kids don’t learn at a steady upwards trajectory. There are usually bursts of rapid growth and development followed by periods of ‘maintenance.’ We burn our children out when we expect them to always grow/develop/learn at the same rate.
And YES, you totally hit on a huge point of the benefits of character development – especially in the early years. I’ve been reminding myself of that daily as there are many days where I feel like we focus more on character development than anything else… I’ll take this post as another great reminder to keep up with it!
And not that it certainly isn’t present in everyone else, but I loathed teaching ‘gifted’ groups when I worked at our zoo for several years. The children and parents certainly were more arrogant, obnoxious, impatient and had a general lack of respect for authority. It made our job teaching them about conservation and the animals of the zoo much more difficult and unpleasant. Knowing the importance of character development, as you do (and now others via your post) will probably go a long way to averting many of these common characteristics.
I have found it’s very important for me to show respect to my gifted learners. I listen to their input when it’s civilly and respectfully given. My children are used to being taken seriously. This doesn’t mean we do things their way. I often listen and then explain why we can’t do it that way and then we move along. The caution with this is don’t get sucked into arguing or debating. It’s a fine line that must be walked carefully. I am amazed at the number of times my kids have come up with a workable solution for a problem we’re facing that I didn’t think of.
The other thing I’ve learned to do is let them devour books without turning every moment into a teaching moment. My 7YO just read a world atlas book from the library. I asked her if she liked it, she did, end of conversation. I flipped out my now 15YO a few times by trying to determine his reading comprehension on everything he read.
Ever read the book: the First 7 Years?? It talks about the importance of developing character, etc. My daughter also seems to have a ‘gifted’ memory and speed of learning, but there is plenty of time for her to learn facts and ABCs and Math. What is important is that she learns to be a decent human being, who loves God, has compassion for others and self-control (that’s the REALLY hard part, especially modeling it….) I let her learn by doing, reading and talking about stuff. Hardly do any curriculum stuff at all, just as she asks about it or shows interest, and she already knows numbers/ABCs etc, without much actual ‘teaching’ from me. So, just want to encourage you to keep at the hard stuff, you don’t have many years before the character is pretty much set and VERY hard to change.
I often find myself feeling a bit challenged to keep up with my granddaughter’s learning curve. I can see where it is easy to get so involved in feeding their minds that one can easily forget to feed the character. I agree with your pieces of advice about character building in the gifted child. Keep up the good work, and for confirming to me that I do need to look closer and make sure that I am working on the character, then just the mind.
My son is ahead of me every second he’s awake. He walked early, climbed before he could actually “walk”, and is now (at 16 months) making sentences with sign language! Your advice is wonderful! Thank you for a great post!