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From Mensagenda - September 2002
Social and Emotional Needs of Gifted Adults and Children
by Deborah Ruf
Basic needs do not vary from one individual
to another; the ways to meet those
needs, however, vary from one person to
another. All of us need love and acceptance,
and a sense of purpose and fulfillment.
It is my goal to help people understand
how high intellectual functioning
affects children and their development. I
believe that once parents, teachers, and
others who have influences over children’s
lives know what these bright children need
in order to flourish and become emotionally
healthy, fulfilled, productive adults,
they will gladly give it.
Any differences we have from those
around us affect their perception of us. In
our times of political correctness we are
loath to imply that intellectual giftedness
is the same as intellectual superiority. We
use terms including “able learners,” “academically
advanced,” “bright,” and so on.
The term “gifted” implies that the person
thus “blessed” was given special intellectual
tools. A burden is placed on the
“advantaged one” that one must earn the
gift through hard work, accomplishment,
and good attitude. Many people view high
intelligence with a mixture of fear, interest,
admiration, resentment, contempt,
suspicion, and appreciation. Most of us
are familiar with the sometimes rather
delighted observation, “Even though he
was really smart as a kid, he hasn’t
amounted to anything.”
An intellectually gifted child begins
life receiving feedback that she is a surprising
delight to her family. She receives
positive feedback for her speech and vocabulary
and for how quickly she figures
things out and learns to do things. I believe
many gifted people spend much of
their remaining lives trying to re-create
this positive feedback and wondering what
they are doing wrong.
This is one of the reasons I believe
people should be given clear feedback on
their giftedness. In most any other aspect
of life we are willing to discuss openly
with people their assorted handicaps and
strengths. It is unhealthful to pretend
there is nothing wrong or different, that
we don’t notice these differences. It is
certainly preferable to try to address and
talk about the impact it can and does
have on the individual’s life. Then, the
adult can guide the child to problem solve
ways to cope and adjust, work on
how to play up strengths and positives,
and move on from there.
Sylvia Rimm (1986) and Susan
Winebrenner (1994) make the connection
between good self-esteem and the opportunity
to engage in challenging learning.
“The surest path to high self-esteem is to be
successful at something the learner has
perceived to be difficult. Each time we steal
a student’s struggle, we steal the opportunity
for him or her to feel capable by stretching
to reach worthwhile goals.” Ms.
Winebrenner specializes in meeting the
needs of gifted learners in the inclusion
classroom through a combination of curriculum
compacting, differentiating, pretesting,
and individual lessons and projects.
She gives many examples and samples and
tries to make it sound like doable fun. I
used to teach this way, and it was challenging,
fun, and rewarding. It takes lots of
organization, follow-through, time, and
effort. We must convince teachers that some
children really do need special attention
before they will go to that much effort.
I favor ability-grouping and clustering
for the average gifted child, not a universally
popular notion, but one supported
by the research literature. Kulik and Kulik
(1984, 1990) and Rogers (1991) have conducted
meta-analyses on grouping research
results. The bottom-line statistic
when all the research is pooled indicates
that there is no harm to anyone in either
self-esteem or achievement. When schools
go from heterogeneous to ability-grouped
instruction, the kids in the slower two thirds
show slight achievement gains, and
they show slight to no increase in academic
attitude and self-esteem. How the
highest-third group reacts depends on
what they receive by way of instruction. If
the curriculum content and delivery are
not modified to meet the ability levels of
the students, the achievement gain is slight.
When appropriately paced and challenging
material is presented, high-ability grouped
students make significant gains
over their comparably gifted, nongrouped
peers. Their self-esteem scores take a slight
initial dip, but recover as the students
adjust to the challenge.
Grouping and clustering can be done
informally or formally. The principal can
assign children to classrooms based on
demonstrated academic ability and performance.
Teachers can cluster or group among
themselves at grade level. Kids can be sent
to higher or lower grades for instruction
with other children who are
working at a similar instructional
level. The primary
advantage of grouping over
compacting and differentiating
is that it is less work for
the teacher. It takes less time
and preparation. When a
grade-level team divides the
children into ability groups
for a particular subject, each
teacher plans for just one
level. Differentiation and individualizing
can still take place within that group if the
teacher feels the need and chooses to do so.
There are obvious advantages to an
ability-grouped approach. The teacher can
assign more-complex material, work at a
faster pace, and work on such skills as timemanagement
and organizational skills for
the rapid learners. The children have less
reason to exhibit their impatience and lack
of tact with the poor readers and slower
learners. A big problem with non-abilitygrouped
classes is the lack of tolerance the
brightest kids seem to show for the leastable
learners. In young, gifted children who
have not had the time to learn about and
understand these differences, it is natural
that their responses and observations would
appear insensitive and rude. “Why,” they
wonder, “am I not supposed to notice when
so-and-so reads worse than I did when I
was in preschool, and the teacher tells him,
‘very good, Johnny,’ and tells me to be
quiet?” Young, gifted children do not yet
see the big picture, and sometimes we make
it very hard for them indeed. In an ability grouped
classroom we can more easily give
the gifted child that positive feedback all
human beings crave, without worrying
about hurting someone else’s feelings or
treating the gifted child as a pet student.
Clusters are small groups within a classroom.
Clusters are intended to be for the
two or three children who have demonstrated
such superior learning abilities that
it is clear most of the regular classroom
material and pace is inappropriate. Typically,
these two or three children are spread
out across the grade level and need to be
either assigned to the same teacher or
brought together periodically during the
day for instruction together.
These are the children who
are more than moderately
gifted. I must add here that
there really are some rare individuals
who won’t even fit
in a grade-level cluster, especially
in elementary
school. Their reading and
comprehension skills, and
sometimes mathematics reasoning
abilities, so far outpace
other children that the early school
years can be quite painful for the child, the
parents, and the teachers.
Home is an important place for all of
us. A gifted child needs the same basic
parenting as any other child. Because it is
harder to find age mates who can be soul
mates, gifted kids often prefer the company
of their parents to that of other
children. Many parents, themselves survivors
of a difficult, gifted childhood, are
thrilled to be developing such a close,
wonderful relationship with their child.
Danger. Enmeshment is more damaging
for the child than the adult. When you
talk to your child the way you would a
friend, you violate adult-child boundaries.
The child can take on a peer or even
spousal position. This robs the child of
his childhood. Gifted children are often
so eager to please and to accept responsibility
that it is difficult for the parent to
see this problem coming. The long-range
damage includes eventual adult relationship
problems for the grown child, as
well as an inability to separate from parents
in a healthy emotional sense. What
do you do instead?
Maintain your own healthy adult relationships.
Don’t become over-invested
in your child. Parents should be raising
their children together, not taking sides
with the child against each other. (That’s
whether you’re together or not.) Have an
outside social life. Family activities are
good, activities with just the parent and
the child are good, but encourage and
facilitate friendships and activities for
your children. Guide your children toward
involvement in sports, lessons, music,
classes at the zoo or museum, scouts,
church or synagogue activities. Make it
clear to your children that although they
are an important part of your life, you
have important parts of your life that do
not include them. Encourage them to do
the same. Then, most important, believe
it yourself and act on it.
Gifted children, like all children,
need responsibilities. Give your bright
child household chores and expectations.
Increase your expectations as the
child matures. It is important for the
child to see himself as a whole, competent,
independent person. Let him budget
his time for activities, chores, homework,
play. When he budgets that time
poorly, follow up as quickly as possible.
“You didn’t leave time before
school to make your bed. You’ll have to
come straight home from school to do it
before you go out to play” (...or have
your snack, or play computer, etc.). Even
the most brilliant person needs love,
companionship, and relationships. Be
sure to teach your child how to function
accordingly. Paying other people to do
things for us is not fulfilling and does
not create intimacy. No matter how successful
your child may eventually be,
he will be well prepared if he knows
how to get down to basics and take care
of himself and others personally.
Prepare your child to find happiness
in the real world. Being polite, sensitive,
and patient are all valuable character
traits, even for doctors, business executives,
movie moguls, scientists, neighbors,
parents, and spouses.
Help your child find balance. It is a
mistake to think a gifted child should be
good at everything. Just like anyone else,
it is pleasurable and gratifying to develop
our best areas. It is not necessary or advisable
to make the gifted child bring deficient
areas up to her best talent areas,
unless the deficient area is below an age-appropriate
level. Legible handwriting is
important. Following directions is necessary
in life. If your child resists certain
activities, ask yourself why you care. Is
the activity something your child really
needs, or simply something you want for
some reason? I believe it’s reasonable to
tell a non-athletic child that physical fitness
is important. You may reasonably
insist that your child brainstorm physical
activities with you and select from the list.
Brainstorm a frequency schedule and have
the child help decide her schedule. Gifted
children respond well to research results,
facts, and statistics. Use them to guide the
child into activities you know are important,
i.e., fresh air, sunshine, exercise, or
challenging reading to develop denser
dendritic connections.
Finally, give your child space. Overscheduled
children do not have time to
process what they are seeing, reading,
feeling, thinking, and learning. Sometimes
educators suggest getting your
child into challenging activities outside
of school time. Be careful not to overdo it
or let your child overdo it. We grow and
gain maturity during our alone time, our
down times. It is when we get to know
ourselves. Model that behavior yourself.
If you are overbusy, you are sacrificing
your own growth. Psychologists say that
chronically tired, overbusy people are
running away from self-examination.
Take the time to integrate all that you are
learning into the person you are constantly
becoming. That may be the greatest
gift you can give your gifted child.
Have a good time.
©1994,2002 Deborah L. Ruf, Ph.D.
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