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Healthy Self-Esteem Requires Friendships...and Failures!
by Dennis O'Brien
Parents who are raising a gifted child face many unique challenges, including that of developing a well-rounded and durable child with healthy self-esteem.
It isn't as easy as it might seem. If things go awry, gifted children can be handicapped for real life success by their parents' well-intended, though misguided, emphasis on intellectual growth at the expense of overall personal development. With cognitive abilities so precocious that they become the center of the child's life and the primary focus of parental responses, talented youngsters may grow up bereft of the interpersonal skills that would allow them to form nurturing friendships and are sadly lacking in experiences which teach them to cope with adversity.
Here's how it works. A child with superior cognitive ability may experience some difficulty relating to children of his own age and gravitate toward adults. As the child becomes increasingly focused on pleasing adults, he loses both the natural support of healthy peer relations and the ability to form such relationships. Intellectual success comes easily, and soon the child's sense of self has come to rest on his ability to outperform all those around him and be recognized by adults for these achievements. Beneath the facade of competence and success, this child is vulnerable because he has been unable to develop satisfying friendships and self-esteem rests on the fragile underpinnings of his demonstrable intellectual superiority.
What can concerned parents do? Here are some valuable strategies to begin addressing potential problems.
- First, assess your priorities. Are you as aware as you should be of the importance of helping your child 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?
- Next, assess your child's situation. How well does your child interact with peers? Has he learned to cooperate with them? Does your child have friends? How frequently does he have them over to play? Do they call him? Does he seem to be attuned to doing the things others want to do, or does he push his own agenda? What do his teachers say about his relationships with other students? What kind of coaching and support does he need from you to improve his relationships?
- Make your priorities clear. Let your child 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 she played with and what they did. Coach if you need to.
- Make sure that your child is engaged in activities like sports, drama, Scouting or Junior Achievement which teach cooperation with others. Typically, gifted kids who are used to working on their own may lack the social and communication skills necessary for teamwork and participation in their peer community. They need frequent opportunities to interact in situations where the focus is on teamwork, not individual performance.
- Encourage your child to become involved in activities in which she may not be "the best" so that she learns she is ok as a person, valued and valuable for whom she is. To be resilient in life, a child needs to learn to try things, to enjoy activities without measuring the results, and to keep participating.
Should you force your child to participate? If you must. Obviously it is better if your child participates in activities which interest her, but sometimes a child who fears "not-being-the best-at-every-thing" 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." Of course, these activities also help your child become more well-rounded.
Why is experiencing "failure" so important for gifted children? Most children experience 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 and certainly without failure. What's more, they are so accustomed to dominance in their areas of strengths that they tend to restrict their participation in other 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.
Incidentally, 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.
- Enroll your child in GRC Summer Academies and Saturday Learning Labs where he will be challenged by chronological 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. Every year GRC trains its instructors to promote cooperation, not competition, and to 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 him — to cooperate, to enjoy the experience and to respect the talents of others.
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, 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 they will need for lasting success.
For more information regarding Gifted Resource Council, please call the GRC office at 314-962-5920.
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