Don’t Call Your Smart Kid Smart.
And 3 other things research shows parents about raising gifted children.
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- Don’t call your smart kid smart
Dr. Carol Dweck, one of the pioneering founders of the concept of Neuroplasticity at Stanford decades ago, has a book called “Mind Set,” in which she coins the term “academic ego.” Gifted kids in the US, from a young age, are, to begin with, given a label with a connotation like the word “gifted.” They are then taken to a special classroom periodically in the week away from the majority of their classmates, where they are usually given a space that is more fun than the regular classroom, which they are told they deserve because they are smart. This is, of course, a complete oversimplification of gifted programs, and overlooks the scientific need for these programs and the white matter of gifted childrens’ brains which requires this “fun” stimulation that the gifted program provides, but it is, in essence, how kids and most adults see gifted program. These kids often finish classwork faster, sometimes grouping up and working together in the regular classroom, they frequently score higher in the regular classroom- you see the picture. They are not unfamiliar with praise and pride. At an age so impressionable, this pride is the foundation of Dr. Dweck’s “Academic Ego,” research.
So children develop an academic ego. So What? The problem, ultimately, is not the academic ego itself. The academic ego is harmful for the impacts it imposes on a child’s learning capacity. When a child has feelings of intellectual superiority, the learning process becomes innately stumped. Children become frustrated sooner when they are stumped, because it feels like a blow to their ego to be challenged beyond a scale of what they find entertaining. Gifted teachers report that they are quicker to look to cheat off their neighbors when they don’t know an answer, because they are conditioned into valuing the speed of their work and success over the process. Teachers also find gifted children are, with each year, habitually “giving up” on assignments they find difficult at earlier and earlier ages. All of these are symptoms of a larger term we refer to as “gifted burnout,” and they all stem from the deep rooted fear of failure that we unintentionally instill in gifted children through praise. So how do we counteract that fear of failure?
2. Let your kid sink.
Parenting a young child is all about encouragement. It’s about building a child’s confidence in their abilities so they can venture out and explore, learn, and create. It’s about empowerment. When raising gifted children, however, there’s a careful dance that has to be practiced in that process. “Don’t call your kid smart,” doesn’t mean “don’t encourage your kid.” It means be intentional about the environments you introduce your kid to, and when you display that praise.
Firstly, a parent of a gifted child should especially and uniquely make an effort to challenge their kid, even and especially in situations where there might not be a happy ending and the experience might end in failure. Putting kids in situations where they aren’t the most talented is integral. They haven’t mastered swimming? Parents shouldn’t be afraid to place them in a class one level higher than they should be in (at the parents’ discretion for safety and with consideration for the child’s enjoyment of the experience,) and push the child. If the child gets frustrated, parents shouldn’t rush to give in. This process isn’t about being cold and cruel, in fact, this is when a child should receive the most praise. But there’s a method to the rhetoric a parent should employ in the praise they offer as encouragement. Praising a gifted child’s grit, hard work, problem solving, learning ability, perseverance, or any other process-related adjective is crucial. It’s compliments like “smart,” “great swimmer,” “so good at math,” “ naturally talented,” etc., that perpetuate a child’s early idea that things should come easy to them as a gifted individual.
As a parent, it can be difficult to put this practice into implementation. It’s important to remember that while the exercise of letting a child fail is meant to tear down the academic ego, that should not be confused with tearing down the child’s confidence. This process is ultimately a means of building confidence in a child, but it’s building confidence in their resilience and their skills, rather than a sense of confidence in their effortlessness, which, at some point or another, will fail them. Whether it’s by third grade, when they reach their first day of college, or later, there are hundreds of thousands of examples of gifted people hitting a wall when their natural capabilities inevitably are not a match for the complexities of the real world at some point. Confidence in a child’s talent-based-skills and their process-based-skills are not mutually exclusive, but they have to be exposed to an erosion in their talent based skills in order to see and appreciate their own process based skills, and that is received better sooner than later.
3. Pay attention to their struggles.
In general, giftedness is closely correlated with different types of neurodiversity. In fact, research on neurodiversity’s relationship with the IQ bell curve suggests that the more gifted a person is, the more likely they are to be neurodiverse and to have asynchronous development. It’s common enough that there’s a word for it, called “twice exceptional,” which is when a person who is gifted also has one neurodivergent trait. When a gifted individual is neurodivergent in two ways, they are “thrice exceptional.” Many gifted people go their entire school lives with their giftedness masking different learning disabilities, only to find out later they have ADD, or fall on the spectrum. Still others will experience a smooth education until high school or university, when the complexities of higher education draw to light challenges that they have always had, and they suddenly disengage with education or feel a drop in self esteem. The age at which the so-called “masking game,” in which giftedness masks neurodiversity, ends, or switches roles, is completely dependent on the child and their experiences, so paying attention as a parent to early signs is crucial when dealing with a child who is firstly more predisposed to being neurodivergent, and secondly, a child whom the school system is uniquely likely to miss those signs in. Parent’s ought to be careful of falling into the “child x is smart and functions well” red herring that a school system which holds thousands of children will likely fall for. Parents of gifted children should educate themselves as early as possible on the types of neurodiversity and their signs, reading not only about the short listed symptoms, but about the underlying struggles of neurodivergent people from different traits.
Asynchronous development is when a child is disproportionately talented in one area or region and average or behind the curve in another skillset. Gifted children are often asynchronously developed, because extreme talent in one skill is often a heightened ability of one part of the brain. In addition to neurodiversity, parents should also look be aware of asynchronous development, and prepare themselves to nurture their child’s areas of giftedness while providing them with resources to understand and develop their other skills.
Knowledge of neurodiversity and awareness on these topics is something parents should carry into a child’s teen years. Just because a child has not developed signs of neurodiversity yet, it does not mean they never will, or that the signs are not just being missed. Many gifted children do not burn out until they reach high school, the first time neurodiversity will visibly present itself in their life.
4. Be prepared to be an advocate. A lot.
Gifted children are overlooked a lot in school systems. In high schools in Georgia, gifted students in AP classrooms are directly profited off of by schools without being provided the resources practically that they should be given on paper. In elementary schools, money directed towards gifted education is short and limited, and majority of it is spent in the identification process, which leaves the actual gifted education almost entirely up to the teacher, who, in the state of Georgia, is frequently waived of hundreds of important certification hours for cost efficiency. Arguably, Georgia is one of the better states for gifted education in the country. Chances are, any gifted child in the public school system will be, at some point, bored, disengaged, ignored, or overlooked. The stimulation of their mind and their learning processes are more difficult than their peers. Like students who fall to the left side of the curve with mental or learning disabilities, gifted children’s physical brains are different and require different resources. However, unlike students to the left side of the curve, gifted children are not usually a source of profit for schools, and are generally met with less education, empathy, and resources for their brains. A NM Robinson study done in 2000, “Two tails of the normal curve,” explores this discrepancy in great detail, and twenty two years later, progress in this realm has been remarkably miniscule. Options like schools for gifted children or online programs can be helpful, but they aren’t for everyone. With parents who are educated on the ins of raising a gifted child, and a school that is willing to make necessary accommodations, a gifted child can receive a strong education and create within this world as they were born to do. We just need to listen to and celebrate their needs.
