What is Gifted? Ways to help gifted students at home
Welcome to Vanguard Gifted Academy’s, educational blog. This is article five and I'm Elizabeth Blaetz, the Head of School at Vanguard Gifted Academy. Today we're going to be talking about your role as a parent in ensuring that your gifted child is challenged and how you can help them through those challenges.
Gifted children oftentimes aren’t faced with as many challenges as other children, and when they are, they often don't know how to handle those challenges. One thing you could do at home with your child is to be sure that he is challenged in some way. It doesn't have to be an academic challenge, it can be anything that pushes him outside of his comfort zone.
Your child will say things like, “I can't do it” or “it’s too hard”. They aren’t familiar with not being able to do something and they most likely won't want to try harder. It’s your job to teach them how to try harder, teach them to muscle through the challenge and build persistence. These are important life skills that every child needs to learn. Oftentimes gifted children just aren’t challenged in school; they become so accustomed to being good at something they don't know how to handle NOT being good at something.
One of the books that I recommend for parents is called Mindset by Carol Dweck. This book offers advice for helping your child overcome perfectionism and understand that mistakes are oftentimes the first step to discovery. So many inventions, so many amazing things have been created as a result of mistakes! Gifted children are so accustomed to being good at things that when they make a mistake they're devastated and they don't understand the opportunity that they’ve been given.
A mistake is just the stepping stone to the next great thing.
It’s also important to help your gifted child know who they are. Any child who understands who they are, what they are good at and what tends to be difficult for them, is really good at building strategies. They're really good at finding ways to help themselves, and they accept themselves for who they are. So when you’re at home, laugh and giggle and share your child’s funny idiosyncrasies because gifted kids certainly have them and they're amazing. If your child can look at himself and his idiosyncrasies and think, “Oh my gosh, this is so funny” or “Oh my gosh, I know this is really going to bother me”, then he can consider what he’s going to do to prepare himself.
Your child will be set up for a lifetime of success, academically, socially and emotionally if he knows how to manage his own strengths and challenges.
Sometimes gifted kids aren't so great at joining a big group. They prefer to stay on the fringe and just watch what's going on. That's actually okay. It's a strategy for being successful; as long as you help them with social skills so that while they're on the fringe they can still talk to other people. They shouldn’t be isolated, but it's ok if they feel comfortable on the edge.
The other book that I want to recommend is The Gifted Kids Survival Guide. There are actually two editions of this book, one for kids 10 years and under and one for teenage gifted kids. These are great books written to gifted kids to help them know themselves and learn strategies about themselves.
A story I often share with parents is about an amazing and bright boy that went through school with extra books that he read under his desk during class because the classroom learning did not require his full attention. He could do what needed to be done in class while enjoying extra reading. He got his homework done and he went through school just fine.
Then he went on to high school and his mom says, “Ok, he'll get challenged in high school, then he'll learn how to handle challenges”. Well, he went to high school and he still wasn’t challenged, because for him the curriculum was easy. So he did great on the SAT and then went off to college. This was the first time in his life that he was academically challenged. He needed to work at learning but he didn’t know how to manage learning challenges, and he failed. He was miserable and ended up dropping out of school. It's actually not that unusual for gifted children to drop out of college because they haven't had the opportunity to fail. When their first experience with failure is in college, it is devastating. They’re away from home where they don't have the support of family and close friends, and they don’t know what to do.
Every child needs to fail and learn that it's not the end of the world. They need to know they can come back and that they can be even more successful. That internal sense of pride will empower them the next time they face a struggle, whether it's at home, at school or later in life.
Raising and educating a gifted child is a wonderful experience, but it’s also full of challenges. As a parent, don’t be afraid to make mistakes, you also may be on the verge of a new breakthrough! Share your parenting challenges with us here.
The conversations that have come from these posts have been wonderful. I love to hear the stories that you share and I think it's really nice to be part of a community of people who understand what it's like to be the parent of a gifted child. I hope what I have shared with you is something that you can use and pass on to other friends to help us build a community of people who care about gifted kids.
Resources:
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck
The Gifted Kids' Survival Guide: For Ages 10 & Under by Judy Galbraith M.A.
The Gifted Teen Survival Guide by Judy Galbraith M.A.