Gifted children should be reminded frequently that their value is not based on their grades or performance alone. While there is debate about whether perfectionism comes in both good and bad varieties, the issue for many gifted students is that this pressure to be perfect comes from their inability to see themselves beyond their role as the “smart student” in class. Perfectionism is often related to self-esteem when the gifted child, or those around the child, expect them to be gifted all the time, in every subject. Perfectionist children may display a range of challenging behaviors, such as competitiveness with others, achievement at the expense of socializing, or avoidance of activities they fear they will fail at. PerfectionismĪs we wrote about in our article “ Parenting Gifted Children: Challenges and Tips,” perfectionism can look like regular high-achieving behavior until it starts to damage the child’s wellbeing. When it comes to gifted friendships, there is a notable discrepancy between classmates, or age mates, and someone that they consider as a true peer. Their difficulty making friends within a classroom may have nothing to do with their ability or desire to socialize, but instead be a result of not having like-mind peers whom they can form a connection with. Depending on the educational environment, these children may be labeled with problem behaviors like being bossy, snobbish, anti-social, etc. As a result, it can be difficult to make friends who share their interests or hard to know how to appropriately express themselves in group settings. These students may be college age intellectually but still 12 in terms of their social skills. Asynchrony, or uneven development, is often considered a core trait of giftedness. Gifted child problems with socializing often stem from their asynchrony and educational setting. Social SkillsĪs laid out by Nancy Robinson, many make the mistake of believing gifted children are inherently awkward and bad at socializing, which is simply untrue. Understanding how over-excitabilities or sensitivities manifest in your child may help parents find suitable solutions for problem behaviors. Sensory or emotional sensitivity may contribute to a range of feelings, like frustration or sorrow, and a variety of gifted behavior problems, like acting out or withdrawing. Children who are overexcitable in the intellectual and psychomotor areas may not be able to sit still at their desk and interrupt their teachers with questions. For example, a perceptive child may see something on the news that frightens them and refuse to sleep alone at night. Because of these unique characteristics, gifted children may have adverse reactions to intense stimuli, which can look like problem behavior on the surface. These abilities are often put within the framework of Dabrowski’s concept of overexcitabilities, which describes the heightened sensitivity and intensity for gifted children in the areas of psychomotor (surplus energy and movement), sensual (keen sense of smell, touch etc.), emotional (rich inner experience), intellectual (curiosity and search for knowledge), and imaginational (vivid imagination). Research has shown that gifted students experience heightened sensitivities and advanced emotional processing. Some of the most common problem areas for gifted children include the following: To help parents and educators navigate common gifted behavior and emotional problems, here is a list of some of the most common challenges for gifted students as well as advice on how to help students through these challenges. While all children must navigate the bumpy road of identity formation and social belonging, gifted children may experience these problems differently and more intensely as they develop and mature. While most individuals think of giftedness in terms of academics alone, giftedness also applies to a child’s social and emotional development. Gifted children have differently-wired brains that make them unique compared to their neurotypical age-mates. The challenges that gifted students can face can be surprising to those who believe the myth that they do not need help, and that they’ll do fine on their own.
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