The other day on Social Media, I saw yet another post from a mother of a sweet, highly sensitive, highly gifted young seven year old. The post went like this,
My almost 7yo 1st grade said the other day that he kind of doesn't like school because the other kids aren't like him. He said I kind of wish I had never met the number blocks (who he loved) because sometimes he just wants to be like everyone else.
I asked him why he feels different and he said “I'm just so smart.”
It really hurt my heart and of course we talked about how amazing that is, but it has been on my mind.
Of course, this was not the first time I had seen a post like this or heard a parent say this. In fact, our team hears similar statements from families in the BRIGHTLinks community ALL THE TIME. For the BRIGHTLinks team, this is our "why." No other organization that serves gifted students really focuses on the social needs of highly gifted students like BRIGHTLinks does.
Personally, I know this mother's pain, because I have felt it, too. I saw first hand how the school environment affected my children, especially my son. Elementary school was really difficult not only academically, but also socially. My son was an extrovert socially which made it even more difficult for him. He was excited to start Kindergarten. He could not wait to learn and meet other kids who were as excited about learning as he was. His expectations were high.
As his mom, I was as excited as he was for him to start school in 2012. I was excited for him to have an opportunity to learn as well as find friends. I was hopeful that the playdates would start immediately. I was sure given my son's extroverted personality that he would make social connections quickly that would turn into life long friendships. Little did I know that those opportunities would not truly exist for my highly gifted child and he would miss out on a whole lot of social skill building and reciprocal play opportunities from day one of his school experience.
There is nothing like being immersed in an environment where you stand out from others. Some kids might notice, “I am different." They notice that adults respond to them differently, that children in their class respond to them differently, that their own responses and ideas are different from their classmates, that teacher is teaching and other children are happily learning things now that they learned before school, that teachers used to call on them, but they don’t anymore, and that other children don’t passionately love to discuss topics or play the same games as them. Imagine feeling this way, now imagine it for 6 hours a day, five days a week. Imagine what feeling like an "alien" does to your self-concept or self-esteem. How does one learn social skills when social engagement is difficult for a child in a classroom?
We all know play is so important to optimal child development. It is essential to development because it contributes to the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children and youth. When one looks into the causes of “limited social interaction,” one finds reasons such as:
Attention Problems
Developmental Delays
Neurological differences (i.e. Autism or ADD)
Cognitive deficits
Look at the potential causes.
Notice something missing from this list?
It is interesting that with the research in the gifted world regarding the importance of finding true peers that psychiatry does not acknowledge that advanced cognitive abilities could also cause limited social and play interactions, therefore affecting the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children. .
Back to the social media post. My heart went out to this mother as I had been in her shoes and now had the parental hindsight along with my therapeutic recreational specialist lenses. So I responded,
It's not that the kids think that they are "smarter," they just realize they are way ahead and are not the same as the rest. This is alienating.
Just here to say, if your sweet PG-let feels alone because no one in their class is interested in discussing the same things that your child does, it is NOT (necessarily) a social skills issue. This is a lack of peers who share common leisure interests & accelerated conceptual thinking issues. This cannot necessarily be helped by "more social skills training."
Other kids connect & interact socially based on common leisure interests according to ability. The connection of leisure interests is a major part of healthy social development. This is why so many of our kids feel lonely and then end up with anxiety, confidence, and other issues. Healthier social development comes through play, especially early on.
Our kids' leisure interests and ideas of play are generally different than most kids. Healthier social development is difficult if there are no peers. In our community, finding peers for our children must be more intentional. For the most part, school fails to realize that the acceleration not only helps academically, but also in many cases socially.
For us: Finding other PG-like kids in our area to allow our children to play with on a regular basis is more helpful than any OT or social skills class we ever did. That way they can talk about space, dwarf planets, music, dinosaurs, or whatever it is to their heart's content while playing on level games with their true peers.
Another mother responded to my response:
Omg this is so well written. May I share this? And do you have references that you got any of this info from? So when I share with my son's school, etc, I have some evidence based research or at least books/experts to reference for them. They (the teachers) all tell me he just needs to work on his social development but he's totally fine when the kids are twice his age because he can relate, bc they have the social skills to get along with him.
My response:
The reasons I mentioned above are the reasons why your child does better socially with kids twice his age. Those kids can hang on to similar leisure discussion topics and can actually read and understand the games rules, cards, etc in the games your kid likes.
Of course you can share this. I am a former Therapeutic Recreation Specialist, so this is how I know. I can see if I can find some things on social development to help.
But think about it, a child who has been reading since age 2 and is now in Kindergarten and wants to play Settlers of Catan or Ticket to Ride with his classmates (those games aren't even an option in a Kindergarten classroom because most kids in that class can't read). It's fine if another child asks your child to play Candyland, for example, and for your child to play. The problem is, when your child wants to play Catan, that's never an option, except maybe at home. There's not even a chance that a kid who can hang on during Candyland and can't read could even reciprocate the request and action of your PG-let playing Candyland. Think about the number of times a PG child has to relent in order to only ever play what everyone else is able to play. The PG-lets' interests and ideas get dismissed even in play.
This doesn't even consider the leisure conversation & camaraderie that occurs is leisure discussion during game play, which most kids also generally can't relate to intense PG leisure discussion. Often academic topics ARE ALSO our children's play.
Remember, especially if your child was an early reader, your child is not only advanced in reading, but also highly capable and, likely, has already been playing advanced games at home. Being advanced in math also allows more advanced games that require more logic and reasoning than most five year olds are capable of. Their imaginations are much more developed due to early reading and imaginational overexcitabilities, so imaginary game play and rule development are off the charts as well.
Per her request, I looked around to find the many articles that our team had curated from various sources to share with this mother so she may share them with her school. For the record, there do not appear to be articles specifically addressing leisure interests and abilities in context with highly/profoundly gifted children, especially when they are elementary age. There are several that discuss that there are social issues and that peers are important, but none that speak plainly as to leisure interests and the wide gap between highly gifted students and same age peers. With this in mind, I wanted to put things in perspective first using the idea of the Leisure and Well-Being Model.
I shared the following:
Strengths-Based TR Program Development Using the Leisure and Well-Being Model: The Leisure and Well-Being Model (LWM) (Carruthers & Hood, 2007; Hood & Carruthers, 2007) is a strengths-based therapeutic recreation (TR) service delivery model that provides a theoretical framework for TR practice designed to facilitate clients’ development of the skills, knowledge, and resources essential to well-being.
The LWM incorporates research literature from a variety of fields, including positive psychology, leisure behavior, youth development, and social work, to describe causal pathways through which TR professionals can guide and support clients’ efforts to achieve greater well-being.
Research is quite clear that developing abilities related to experiencing positive emotion, as well as knowing, using, and cultivating one’s individual and environmental strengths and resources, are directly linked to increased well-being.
This model identifies five subcomponents of leisure to enhance leisure experience which directly affect well-being:
Savoring leisure: Learning to purposefully foster, appreciate, and extend the positive emotion associated with leisure engagement
Authentic leisure: Using and cultivating one’s most self-defining signature strengths, interests, and virtues lead to the realization of one’s full, unique human potential
Leisure gratification: Once an activity becomes too easy, engagement no longer produces the same deep immersion and satisfaction, so individuals move to the next level of challenge/skill match either within the same activity or by pursuing another optimally challenging activity. This upward spiral of growth.
Mindful leisure: Mindfulness can be cultivated through leisure experiences that incorporate formal, informal, and movement-based meditative practices
Virtuous leisure: Learning to select and engage in leisure experiences that allow one to use one’s strengths to make a contribution to the world in some way contributes to the realization of one’s full human and life potential
While the article discusses much about program design for TR programs, imagine any child starting out in school, their first real long term social experience, and having access to these opportunities and community engagement found by most children at school. Often, the opportunities to access these subcomponents of leisure that are available to the general population of children are missing for highly gifted students starting in kindergarten. One must have the opportunity for engagement, before being able to savor leisure. Authenticity is often stifled in the classroom environment for our children. Their brains crave the chance to be challenged during reciprocal play just like they crave to fill their brains up with knowledge. Our children come with a high sense of justice and a need to make a contribution in the classroom and in their community. Missing these aspects of leisure affects the well-being of our children.
Another resource that shines a light on these issues is the Gifted Development Center. Their description of socialization vs. social development is worth a read.
Social Development of the Gifted: Socialization means adapting to the needs of the group, whereas social development indicates positive self-concept and concern for the welfare of others. The former may result in alienation from one’s inner self, while the latter leads to self-actualization. Gifted children have positive social development when they are respected in their families; when their parents value the inherent worth of all human beings; when they find true peers of similar ability at an early age; and when they interact with the mainstream after they have developed a strong sense of their own acceptability.
Socialization is defined as adapting to the common needs of the social group (Webster, 1979, p. 1723) or acquiring “the beliefs, behaviors, and values deemed significant and appropriate by other members of society” (Shaffer, 1988, p. 2). Gifted youth do have the inclination to adapt to the group, but at what price? If one works very hard at fitting in with others, especially when one feels very different from others, self-alienation can result. In their desperation to belong, many “well-adjusted” gifted youth and adults have given up or lost touch with vital parts of themselves.
Social development is a much broader concept than socialization; it may be thought of as awareness of socially acceptable behavior, enjoyment of other people, concern for humanity and the development of mutually rewarding relationships with at least a few kindred spirits. Lasting friendships are based on mutual interests and values, not on age. Self-acceptance is a related goal, as people who like themselves are more capable of liking others. When framed in this way, social development becomes a precursor to self-actualization, whereas socialization is merely the desire to conform, which may inhibit self-actualization.
Stay tuned to read PART TWO to learn more about the other important articles related to the social development of highly gifted children next time!
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