Fitting Square Pegs in Round Holes Gifted Kids Don’t Always Fit

Dr. Barbara L. BranchDirector, GATE/Extended Learning

Nancy Craig, M.S.Curriculum Training Specialist

Sacramento City Unified School District

Fitting Square Pegs in Round HolesGifted Kids Don’t Always Fit

Dr. Barbara Branch• GATE Teacher - 10 yrs.• Principal of a school with GATE Program – 5 yrs• Director of the GATE Program – Sac City – 7 yrs• Consultant – 7 yrs• Author• Chairman – Capital Region GATE Consortium – 9 yrs• Educator Rep to the California Association for the

Gifted State Board from the Capital Region -10 yrs• Passionate about the gifted – 35 yrs.

Who are the Gifted?

8 Gripes of Gifted Students

1. No one explains what being gifted is all about - it's keep a big secret.

2. School is too easy and not challenging

3. Parents, teachers, and friends expect us to be perfect all the time.

4. Friends who really understand us are few and far between.

When Gifted Kids don't have all the answers, by Jim Delisle & Judy Galbraith

8 Gripes of Gifted Students

5. Kids often tease us about being smart.

6. We feel overwhelmed by the number of things we can do in life.

7. We feel different and alienated.

8. We worry about world problems and feel helpless to do anything about them.

When Gifted Kids don't have all the answers, by Jim Delisle & Judy Galbraith

Bummer of a birthmark, Hal…

Differing from the norm can have disadvantages…

Social and Emotional Needs

Asynchrony

Perfectionism

Sensitivity and Intensity

Asynchrony

Uneven development Cognitive abilities surpass motor or

emotional development Seeks friends who are older Relates well to adults

Asynchrony

Gifted students are asynchronous. Their chronological age, social, physical, emotional, and intellectual development may all be at different levels.

For example, a 5-year-old may be able to read and comprehend a third-grade book but may not be able to write legibly.

Perfectionism

High expectations of self and others Sometimes leads to limited risk-taking May lead to low self-worth Highly self-critical

Healthy Perfectionism vs. Dysfunctional Perfectionism

Healthy• Reflective organism• High personal standards• Agreeable• Extroverted• Conscientious

An Empirical Typology of Perfectionism in Academically Talented Children, Parker 1997

Healthy Perfectionism vs.. Dysfunctional Perfectionism

Dysfunctional• Excessive concern about mistakes,

doubts, or parental criticism• Anxious • Disagreeable• Doubts about actions

An Empirical Typology of Perfectionism in Academically Talented Children, Parker 1997

Healthy Goal Setting

The pursuit of excellence by individuals who enjoy setting and attaining high standards is not perfectionism.

What Parents Can Do

Help your child to• Keep striving when first attempts are

unsuccessful.• Don’t quit when the going gets rough• Don’t punish yourself for failing.• Hold onto your ideas and believe in

your ability to reach them. • Recognize that there are good parts

and bad parts to perfectionism.Perfectionism, Carole C. Peters

Intensity

Emotional intensity in the gifted is not a matter of feeling more than other people, but a different way of experiencing the world: vivid, absorbing, penetrating, encompassing, complex, commanding - a way of being quiveringly alive.

INTENSITY

A salient descriptor that characterizes the personality of a gifted child is intensity. Intensity takes many forms that can be both strengths and weaknesses. Recognizing and understanding these intensities can help toward improving the social and emotional life of a child.

From J.R. Delisle, Once Upon a Mind: The stories and scholars of gifted child education. 2000.

INTENSITY OF THOUGHT

“Her mind is always whirring.”

From J.R. Delisle, Once Upon a Mind: The stories and scholars of gifted child

education. 2000.

INTENSITY OF PURPOSE

“Once he makes up his mind to do something, he’s not satisfied until it’s accomplished.”


INTENSITY OF EMOTION

“She internalizes anything anyone says about her.”


INTENSITY OF SPIRIT

“He’s always looking for someone less fortunate who needs help.”


INTENSITY OF SOUL

“She asks questions that philosophers have asked for centuries and gets upset when we can’t give her definitive answers to them.”


Gifted Kids and Brain Activity

MRI Research “Brains on Fire”

Bright red blazes of high metabolic activity burst out all over the scan. Each red patch represents millions of microcombustion events in which glucose is metabolized to provide fuel for the working brain.

Gifted brains are remarkably intense and diffuse metabolizers.


Gifted thinkers are rarely one-mode thinkers.

Gifted brains are essentially "hyper-sensitive


Enhanced Sensory Awareness / Sensitivity

Enhanced Memory Efficiency and Capacity

More Efficient Organizational-Analytic Capacity

More Extensive Associational-Synthetic Capacity

Greater Potential for “Creative-Corporate Thinking”

Neurological characteristics carry a number of potential drawbacks• sensory, emotional, and memory overload, • sensory hypersensitivities, • personal disorganization, • sensory distractibility, • delayed processing due to "analysis

paralysis" (or getting "lost in thought" due to an excess of options)

• mental fatigue


What Parents Can Do

Accept children's' emotions:

Exercise appropriate discipline as this helps develop a sense of security

Discuss feelings openly

What Parents Can Do

Take time to listen to children's ideas, opinions and feelings.

Appreciate their sensitivities, intensities and passions.

• Reassure them when they are afraid and help them to find ways of expressing their intense emotions

• Realize that they become frustrated when their physical capabilities do not match their intellectual abilities

• Honor emotions in boys as well as girls.

What Parents Can Do

• Realize that sensitivity does not mean weakness.

• Find like-minded peers for them to

prevent social isolation.

• Provide professional counseling where appropriate; it is important both to support healthy emotional development and to prevent social and emotional problems.

What Parents Can Do

What Parents Can Do

Encourage your child to explore all of the possibilities for his or her talents.

Find mentors for your child in the areas

of their passion.

What Parents Can Do

When children protest that something doesn’t bother them, it could be the thing that is hurting them; for example, what others think, lower than typical grades, not winning a competition, or not being selected for a team or activity.

What Parents Can Do

Help your child with decision-making skills.

Help your child prepare for college (6-8 grade)

What Kids want you to know

Come into my bedroom at night, tuck me in and sing me a song. Also tell me stories about when you were little.

Give me hugs and kisses and sit and talk with me privately.

Spend quality time just with me, not with my brothers and sisters around.


Give me nutritious food so I can grow up healthy.

At dinner talk about what we could do together on the weekend.

At night talk to me about anything; love, school, family etc.


Let me play outside a lot.

Cuddle under a blanket and watch our favorite TV show together.

Discipline me. It makes me feel like you care.

Leave special messages in my desk or lunch bag.

What Gifted Adults Want You to Know

There aren’t any models of high achievement in our lives, so we don’t even know what is possible for us. We don’t know what others can do so we don’t ever explore what we can do.

Gifted but Underachieving, Sonia Dabboussihttp://giftedforlife.com/

http://giftedforlife.com/author/admin/


We know our talents and abilities, but being comfortable is very important to us so we don’t do anything that may jeopardize that. And standing out from the crowd in any way is definitely uncomfortable.




We have a lot of interests and can’t choose which one or two we want to pursue in depth. We get lost by getting caught up in, or being reasonably good at, too many things.




We are extremely perfectionistic and would rather not do something at all than be wrong or inadequate at it. We avoid trying to avoid failing in any way.


We decide not to decide. When offered a choice, we find ways not to make a decision and either let someone else do whatever it is for us, or put it off until it becomes forgotten.


We move forward in life, but stop just before reaching the goals we set for ourselves. We are perfectionistic and fear not being able to have what we want so we quit before we get close enough to find out.


We set impossibly high standards and then blame ourselves when we can’t reach them. We consider any success only an accident.




There aren’t any models of high achievement in our lives, so we don’t even know what is possible for us. We don’t know what others can do so we don’t ever explore what we can do.




We’ve gotten very good at talking our way out of just about any situation and use this skill to avoid completing our tasks or being prepared for our responsibilities. We make excuses with a smile and people accept this from us.




We thrive on excitement and spend life totally on the edge. We take risks on a grand scale, even if we aren’t prepared for them or their consequences.




We want things our way and have a lot of trouble listening to authority. Though it seems we are very outgoing, we just want to do enough to get by so that people will leave us alone.




We think we know a whole lot more than everyone else and tend to blame our failures on others’ ‘incompetencies’. We’re right, they’re wrong.




We only take on challenges at which we know we will succeed. We win, but at levels much below our potential.















SummarySocial and Emotional Needs

Asynchrony

Perfectionism

Sensitivity and Intensity

Multi-potentiality

Make Yourself Aware

Educate yourself about the needs of your gifted

child.

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Fitting Square Pegs in Round Holes Gifted Kids Don’t Always Fit