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How Can We Raise a Child with Healthy Self-esteem?
by Dennis O’Brien
Gifted children are an at-risk group precisely because they are gifted. Parents who want to raise a well-rounded, durable child with healthy self-esteem face a real challenge. Here are some strategies that will help concerned parents raise a healthy, well-rounded, confident and socially competent child.
- First, acknowledge what a real challenge you face. To parent successfully, you must understand why it is so important and why it is so difficult.
Here’s how it works. A child with superior cognitive ability may have difficulty relating to children her own age and gravitate toward adults. As she becomes increasingly focused on pleasing adults, she loses both the ability to form healthy peer relationships and the natural support such relationships provide. Intellectual success comes easily, and soon the child’s sense of self depends on her ability to outperform all those around her and gain recognition by adults for her intellectual prowess.
The result? A bright child whose brittle self-esteem is based on the narrow and ultimately untenable notion of being the best.
- Assess your priorities. Are you as aware as you should be of the importance of helping your child to grow emotionally and socially? Do you sometimes get too caught up in what your child can learn or accomplish at the expense of her development as a well-rounded person? If so, your well-intended, though misguided, emphasis on intellectual growth at the expense of overall personal development can make it harder for your child to have real-life success and happiness.
When cognitive abilities become the center of a child’s life and the primary focus of parental responses, academically talented youngsters may grow up without the interpersonal skills that would allow them to form nurturing friendships and be sadly lacking in experiences that teach them to cope with adversity. Is this what you want for your child?
- Next, assess your child’s situation. How well does your child interact with peers? Has she learned to cooperate? Does she have friends? How frequently does she have them over to play? Do they call her? Is she willing to do what others want to do, or does she push her own agenda? What do her teachers say about her relationships with other students? What kind of coaching and support does she need from you to improve her relationships?
- Agree on priorities with your spouse. Both of you must share the same values for your child and agree on what the current priorities are for her personal growth if you expect her to take you seriously.
- Make your priorities clear to your child. Let her know how important it is to get along with others and that you want her to have same-aged friends who may or may not be her intellectual equals. Encourage her to respect others, to listen to them, to compromise and cooperate. Discuss the social aspects of her day at school: Whom does she recreate with? What did they do? How did she handle herself? Coach when you need to.
Make sure that your child is engaged in activities like sports, drama, Scouting or Junior Achievement that teach cooperation with others. Gifted children accustomed to working independently may lack the social and communication skills necessary for teamwork and emotionally satisfying participation in their peer community. They need frequent opportunities to interact in situations where the focus is on teamwork, not individual performance, on cooperation, not competition.
- Encourage your child to become involved in activities where she will probably not be "the best." This will help her learn that she is OK as a person, valued and valuable just for being who she is. To be resilient in life, a child needs to learn to try things, to enjoy activities without measuring the results, and to continue despite frustrations. Should you force your child to participate? If you must. Obviously it is better if your child participates in activities that interest her, but sometimes a child who fears "not-being the best-at-everything" must be compelled to participate. "You must try soccer now. If you really don’t like it at the end of the season, you can switch to swimming, dance or theater," you could say. Of course, these activities also help your child become more well-rounded.
- Praise your child for participating, not for excelling. Most children experience frustration and failure repeatedly in the normal flow of their lives and, with support from nurturing adults, learn to cope with it. But things come so easily to the gifted that they often breeze through school seemingly without effort or failure. They are so accustomed to dominating in the areas of their strengths that they tend to restrict their participation in areas where they may not excel. Learning to cope with the frustration of being average broadens their sense of self beyond the constrictions imposed by their intellectual prowess, helps them understand others who do not have their special talents, and develops a healthy persistence in the face of adversity.
Team sports provide wonderful opportunities for a gifted child to both experience the frustration that most of us feel at being just good enough at something, not great, and to learn about working together with others.
- Take advantage of GRC’s carefully designed programs. Your child will be challenged by peers who are his intellectual equals and nurtured by master teachers specially prepared to make it a safe environment for children who may be facing this situation for the first time in their lives. GRC instructors promote cooperation, not competition, and focus on the process of learning and discovery, not on the product. Talk to your child in advance about what to expect and what you expect from her—to cooperate, to enjoy the experience and to respect the talents of others. "Perhaps nothing we do is more important than helping parents raise healthy, well-adjusted children," said Sue Flesch, executive director of Gifted Resource Council. "Our holistic approach provides academically talented children with challenging, hands-on learning experiences in a nongraded environment while nurturing their social and emotional development as well."
With parents setting the right priorities, gifted children can grow to be healthy, happy and extremely productive people. Gifted kids are like intellectual sharks—relentless eating machines that seek out and devour information. What they need the most help with is learning how to develop the emotional and social aspects of their lives.
Parents who make it safe for their children to experience frustration and the "failure" of not being the best, who encourage participation in team activities and nurture the development of friendships are doing the most important things they can to help them develop the healthy self-esteem and interpersonal skills necessary for lasting success.
For more information regarding Gifted Resource Council, please call the GRC office at 314-962-5920.
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