A gifted child might also challenge a teacher directly. And in the classroom, that can be disruptive. And guess what he’s going to do? Entertain himself. The other side of that is when that child is done, he has nothing to do. So, depending on the temperament of the child, the child may say, “Wow! Why should I do this?” And that can lead to problems. What will a teacher do? Give him another assignment. Frequently - this is not unusual - you have a child who will finish an assignment in a fraction of the time as it takes his peers. Why are gifted kids sometimes viewed by teachers as troublemakers?Īmunategui: Gifted kids can be very intimidating for teachers. You have a spectrum of children with different kinds of gifts at different kinds of levels, different kinds of weaknesses. You can be gifted and you can have a learning disability. Herd: Because you’re gifted doesn’t make you perfect. If my child is labeled gifted by the school, should I expect her to get straight A’s? But formal testing is best once they’re school age, at least around age 8. Help them feel very natural about who they are. Try to have as much fun as possible, playing, reading, going to parks or museums. It’s important for parents to keep the relationship with the child very close, stretching them a little bit. You’ve got a toddler who is imaginative and playful and curious about everything. But if a preschooler has a talent for music, by all means, do something to promote that, even if it’s just getting the kid an instrument and soundproofing their room so they can make all the noise they want. A kid’s IQ in preschool is much lower than the kid’s IQ in 10th grade, and again in college. What should I do if I think my preschooler is gifted?Īmunategui: The least reliable measures of IQ are the ones done early in the lifespan. We psychologists have struggled for a long time with how to measure creativity. There are not really good ways of measuring those, though we’re getting better at it. We are just getting to the point of recognizing that there’s such a thing as social and emotional intelligence. Intellect is a single factor in development and other stuff needs to be looked at.Īmunategui: A child that’s considered gifted, in the broadest sense, is measured in terms of verbal intelligence and performance intelligence. We don’t just talk about children with gifts in traditional academic related areas, but things like music and creativity, leadership, that IQ tests don’t measure. I agree with Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligence theory. Herd: I tend to look at intelligence as having lots and lots of facets. While one child might think about what’s the newest release of a video game, a gifted peer the same age might be worried about what’s going on in Lebanon. They will experience a lot of apprehension and have no means to deal with that. They will formulate scenarios and likely consequences. They will understand the implications better than other kids their age. Because of their level of insight that is not tempered by cynicism, they are likely to have more vulnerable reactions to everything from what’s going on in their family to what’s going on in the community and world. Or, they love to read, which means they may not have developed certain social skills at an early age because they’ve spent so much time reading.Īmunategui: It’s not unusual to find gifted kids who are anxious or depressed. But it may be that a child has been so smart for so long that it manifests in advanced language ability that puts off other kids. What about the image of a gifted child as depressed or a loner?Ībelman: Being gifted and being a social isolate don’t necessarily go hand in hand. We asked four experts - psychologists Felipe Amunategui, of University Hospitals, and Sylvia Herd, of Cleveland Clinic Ann Sheldon, executive director of the Ohio Association of Gifted Children and Cleveland State University professor Robert Abelman - to explain more about gifted children. In reality, gifted kids aren’t as easily recognizable in a classroom. Unfortunately, that’s a media-inspired image of the school genius. Business Hall of Fame and Community Leader of the Year AwardsĬan’t you just picture this guy? A pocket protector in his plaid shirt pants pulled above his waist but revealing too much white tube sock pointy, thick, black-framed glasses sliding down his nose sitting alone in the corner of the school cafeteria, book opened, eating an egg-salad sandwich on white and slurping milk from a cardboard carton….
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