The Myth of Giftedness

I spent the weekend working on my latest book project – a resource for educators, including teachers, administrators and support staff (psychologists, counselors and the like) devoted to supporting the needs of gifted students.  In doing some research for this project, I was reminded of some of the prevalent myths still circulated in the hallways of our schools.  Myths like these:

• Gifted children don’t earn poor grades
• Acceleration is socially harmful to gifted children
• AP and IB programs are enough for gifted high schoolers.

These myths negatively contribute to the educational experience of our gifted youth.

The National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) discusses the most prevalent myths and sets the record straight. Check it out.  We need to dispel this mythology once and for all if we are going to make progress in the education of our gifted youth!

Links, Links, and more Links

Hi all!  I really thought I would be coming up for air at this point and be able to regularly blog.  But my projects and such have kept me very busy.

So, while I continue to get things finished up and what not, I decided to leave you with a few new links to some of my favorite gifted websites, blogs, and other sources for great information.  Just check out the list on the right side of the blog.

See you guys in a week or so!

Current Projects and a Break…

I am in the process of completing my advice book for gifted kids, Growing Up Gifted.  To do this, I am still in need of gifted children and their parents willing to lend their two cents to the conversation. If you are interesting in finding out more information, please email at christine@christinenfonseca.com or leave a comment.

I am also busy finishing up a different project for my agent. So many irons in the fire right???

To deal with the busyness that is my life most weeks, I have decided to take one week off of blogging each month (something similar to what I do on my author’s blog). So, I will be hiding and finishing up my nonfiction projects due to my editor and agent this week.

I’ll be back online February 8, with links to great sites, information on talent searches and great ideas for summer enrichment.  See you then!

And again, if you are interested in participating in my advice book project, please leave a comment or email me!!!

What does it mean to learn…really?

One of the more common questions I get from parents involves differentiation in the classroom and the learning of “stuff”.  Sometimes the question comes as a result of significant frustration on the parent of the child at being asked to learning something they think they already know.  Sometimes the question is related to parents who want to ensure that their child is learning novel material on a regular basis.

On the surface, these are understandable frustrations, questions, or concerns.  However, as I dig deeper into the question, I discover that there are times when the parents/children and I are using very different definitions of learning and of “new” content.

Learning, in my opinion, is not about the new stuff our wonderful gifted minds can memorize and cram into their brains.  Learning is what happens to that stuff – the ways we can infer new meaning, pick up on subtle details in a story, generalize to something else…all of this is the true “art” of learning and problem solving. 

And this is what we need to make sure our gifted children (and really all children) are having an opportunity to do.

Strong teachers adept at differentiation can allow gifted children to grow and progress in alongside their grade-level peers, while still receiving an education and excites their creative minds.  The National Association of Gifted Children (NAGC) has a great article on this (click here to read the article), and highlights some of the beneficial attributes of such classroom.  Additionally, programs such as Odyssey of the Mind enable children to develop creative problem solving skills – something definitely necessary in our world at this point.

Schools are not the only places our children can develop true learning skills – the skills that can propel our learners from high achieving to autonomous (click here to learn more about these labels).  Our own interactions as parents are a key place to instill “learning”. Every moment we share with our children are opportunities for us to coach our children with regards to learning and those aspects of emotional intelligence not readily addressed in the school setting – things like intra-personal and inter-personal intelligences.

We need to instill the “art” of learning into our own children by helping them see learning as MORE than simply getting the correct answer on a test.  True learning is about the “path” towards the answer – the journey.  Helping our children see the world in more than the narrow black and white terms of right and wrong goes a long way to helping gifted children become strong problem solvers able to function in a world that is often mundane.  Furthermore, parents can often teach children how to advocate for themselves and seek the deeper meaning of the somewhat rote curricula they are often presented with.

Okay, we now have a basic knowledge base – or common language – from which to discuss this topic more fully.  I want you guys to leave questions in this post…things you need clarification on, or specific scenarios you need help with.  Nothing is off limits…so let me have it.

In the next post or so, I will attempt to answer the questions, or delve more deeply into the subjects/concerns you express interest in.

The power…and problem…with praise

We are continuing our conversation about the things we can do to help our gifted children reach their potential. The last post focused on the SENG model for parent-support groups. This one focuses on a simple, and powerful, tool we can use as parents to positively impact our children.

Praise.

According to an article by Deborah Ruf, gifted children are often unrealistically praised for their giftedness from their earliest childhood experiences. Parents delight in the ease with which they acquire skills.  The kids go on to seek out such positive feedback throughout their life – often frustrated with they don’t receive it.

The danger of praise is really two-fold.  Most researchers agree that praise that is not specific does more harm than good to children and adults alike. Children need to link the positive feedback to something they specifically did for it to have meaning. When we praise just to praise, children are unable to attribute it to anything…or worse, they attribute it to the wrong thing and wind up repeating something that could be the opposite of what you want.

The larger problem that occurs when gifted children are praised for things that are “normal” for gifted children, is that they are often NOT corrected for their relative weaknesses. Adults tend to be so taken with the strengths exhibited by the child, that thee is not frank conversation about their areas of weakness.  Teachable moments – those golden opportunities to help coach a child with regards to some of the child’s difficulties – are lost as we parents ignore or just don’t see the things a child needs to improve on.

The overall message here….

Use praise, but only in small doses and only tied to specific things your child has done.  And do not praise at the expense of honest conversations about the things your child needs to work on.

Tomorrow we will talk about the true meaning of learning…and how to help our child achieve in any setting!

Parent Support Groups – the SENG model

My last post talked about the ways in which our educational system, as it is currently set up, fails many gifted kids. The rest of the posts this week will focus on possible solutions.

The first solution I want to discuss…Parent Support Groups.

The parents I work with regularly tell me that managing the academic and emotional needs of their gifted children is a monumental task. Most don’t have the information they need to help their children, have to deal with society’s misperceptions about giftedness, and are left feeling very alone.

Enter Parent Support Groups.  Groups have long been used to support all kinds of unique populations.  In 1981, this model was adapted for the specific needs of the gifted by the organization Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted (SENG).  They have developed a specific strategy for facilitating parent support groups based on the book by James Webb, A Parents Guide to Gifted Children.

As specified on the SENG website, the groups “are structured to bring together…parent of (gifted) children to discuss such topics as motivation, discipline, stress management and peer relationships.”

FANTASTIC!!!  In this way, parents are able to share their knowledge and facilitate/coach one another.  I love it!

For more information on the SENG model, or to find a group near you, visit the SENG website.

Are we failing our kids?

 “Future breakthroughs and discoveries in science, medicine and technology will be impossible if we fail to identify and serve today’s brightest young minds. The time to act is now” – Dr. Ann Robinson, U of Arkansas at Little Rock, President of NAGC

The National Association for Gifted Children published their State of the States in Gifted Education 2008-2009. This document is the only national look at the state of gifted education in the United States (click here to see the report).

The findings were not surprising…we are NOT doing a good job of meeting the needs of our gifted youth. With approximately three million children falling into the category of gifted, it is amazing to me that we lack a cohesive national framework for educating our gifted youth.  Many states do not identify giftedness, and many more mandate very few, if any, services once kids are identified.

Parents are left to find their own ways to enrich and enhance the lives of gifted children.

Given the emotional nature of giftedness, as well as the unique learning profile most gifted children possess, this is a monumental task for parents.

So, what do we do?

We could get involved in politics, talk to law makers and insist that the three million identified gifted kids voices do not go unheard.  While this is definitely a worthwhile endeavor, and one every parent of every gifted child should participate in, we need other things we can do at home, right now, today – things that will make a positive impact on our children, now and in the future.

This week, I will focus on practical things we can do at a local level to help enrich the lives of our gifted youth.  From parent support groups, to after school clubs, to household activities, let’s talk about it all.

 

Overcoming Your Fear – Tips for Gifted Adults

This week has been pretty focused on the world of gifted adults.  We started with an interview, topped it off with a minor explanation and exploration of the world of the gifted adult and now will talk about strategies.

As we established in previous posts, most of the issues facing gifted adults are associated with the attributes of giftedness – in particular, emotional intensity and fear – fear of failure, fear of taking risks, fear of success…just plain old fear!

So, here are a few practical strategies to overcome fear and talk yourself through those rough moments and emotional intensity:

• Realize that most fear of success is really a fear of taking the risk required to achieve success.  Fortunately, risk-taking in a learned skill.  Therefore, you can LEARN to take risks with more ease.
• Take the time to analyze your personal strengths and weakness.  Compare your goals against the objective look at your profile.  This can help you manage the type of risks you take, and help with regards to accurately understanding the nature of your fear.  For example, if you want to be a writer, you must first assess your strengths and weakness in the field of writing.  If you, for example, determine that you are good with your ideas, but bad with pacing – than you know you are going to have to deal with your pacing problems if you are going to be successful.  As you strengthen that weakness in your own profile, you can build confidence and be more willing to take a risk.
• Positive goal setting – retrain yourself to phrase goals in terms of positive outcomes – not things you DO NOT want.  For example, saying “I will stop writing mediocre ending to my stories” has a very different feel than this goal – “I will learn to write strong endings to my stores”.  By focusing on outcomes, you direct your focus in a way that will lead to positive action.  Remember, the thing you focus your energy on – be it positive or negative – is the thing you will likely achieve.
• Be flexible.  Don’t limit yourself by deciding HOW the world is going to unfold for you.
• Positive self-talk .  Remember that fear and the paralysis that sometimes occurs with it is a choice.  And as such, you can CHOOSE to change that feeling.  By saying this, I am NOT saying this will be easy.  It is not.  But it can be done.

These are just a few strategies that can move you to a place of action – and the action is what can push you trough your fear!

Failure is death: The trials of gifted adults

On Monday, I posted an interview that was a compilation of my conversations with gifted adults.  Today, I want to build on that topic a bit.  How many of you gifted adults have been afraid of making a mistake – of failing?  My experience with both myself and the gifted adults with whom I speak is that this is a very common feeling.

Like gifted children, adults struggle with allowing room for error, interpreting it as a measure of failure instead of the learning curve that it is.  Many gifted adults spend far to much of their energy “shoulding” themselves – you know, “I should have done this” or “I should have done that”.

Being a writer has given me first hand experience with this particular aspect of giftedness – profoundly so.  As with most gifted adults, I am talented at many things.  I am driven and have learned to channel that aspect of my personality in a way that enables me to achieve pretty easily in the workforce.

For this reason, I thought I would “master” writing with similar ease.

NOPE!

I work hard – very hard – to learn this craft and understand an industry I have little previous knowledge of.  I struggle with the internal voice of doubt that speaks so loudly at times that nothing shuts it out.

Sound familiar?

The problem isn’t related to skill in writing – the problem has to do with my own perfectionism as it relates to giftedness. 

So, what do I do?  How do I remember that it is through our failures – our own learning curve – that we grow?

For me, it is a conscious decision I make daily (heck, sometimes hourly) – a deliberate act of reminding myself that it is through the perceived hard things that I grow.  Failure, once looked at as a sure sign that I was not as talented as I thought, is now an indicator that growth is on the horizon – that I am challenging myself in new ways.  Perfectionism, once looked at with disdain, is appreciated as the driving force behind my work ethic.

Does that mean I never have off days?  Those of you with whom I speak on a daily basis KNOW I have very off days at times – just like anyone.  But I have found a way to use the logical aspects of my giftedness to assist the more emotional sides of my personality – and for me, it works.

Most of the time.

What do you do?  Do you every have these kinds of feelings?

Through gifted eyes: An interview with gifted adults

Giftedness is not something that ends with childhood – it is a way of seeing the world and processing information that remains throughout your life. That is especially true with the emotional aspects of giftedness.  The intensity takes on a different look, as the gifted child becomes a gifted adult and develops different coping skills.  But, the emotional intensity remains is just as much a part of the gifted adult as it is the child.

Many of my friends are gifted – as are many of the parents of gifted children that I work with.  I decided to talk with them about their shared experiences as gifted adults, looking at their memories of growing up gifted and the things they wrestle with now.  Here is a bit of their view:

(disclaimer – I merged their answers into a collective response, using GA (gifted adults) as their initials)

CF: When did you find out you were gifted?

GA: I started participating in some unique activities and classes in school.  That’s when I figured out that I had some sort of label. But it wasn’t until high school that I found out I actually had the label of being gifted.

CF: What did the label mean to you:

GA : Nothing really.  Maybe that was smarter than some of my friends – that school was a little easier.

CF: Does it mean anything to you as an adult

GA: Yeah, as I’ve come to understand more about the intensity that typically goes along with giftedness (thanks for that Christine), I am realizing that some of my somewhat crazy behavior in my teens and as an adult may actually be related to being gifted.

CF: Crazy behavior? Tell me more about that:

GA: Oh you know, things like overreacting to stress, through things around my room in high school when I was stressed out about school; feeling like the world would end when I made a mistake or got a score below 100% on something.  Even now, as an adult, I get a little freaked when my boss tries to tell me I made a mistake on something.  It isn’t that I think I can’t make a mistake, it’s just that I am mortified when I do. Then I get mad at myself for my reaction – for the emotional aspects of it.

CF: Are there any other kinds of things that you do that you relate to your giftedness.

GA: HA! I describe myself as passionate. But really, that just means that I am very very emotional.  For years I thought it was hormones, or some chemical imbalance.  But as I’ve developed a deeper understand of what it means to be gifted (I have attempted informational meetings for my kid on this topic), I realize that I’m not imbalanced – just intense.  Now I am learning to embrace the intensity; make it work for me instead of against me.  I have learned that I need to take breaks, find friends that process the world in a similar fashion and reel in my overactive brain from time to time. But, as long as I do these things, I can keep the more negative aspects in check.

CF: Thanks for sharing a little bit with us!

Later this week I will talk about how gifted adults find balance and some strategies that may help.  Until ten, it’s your turn – what do you find most challenging about being a gifted adult? What is the best part? Does it even matter in adulthood?