Problems of a gifted child
John is in seventh standard. He is a brilliant student and has always done well academically since his childhood. It is very easy for him to learn new things as he has an excellent memory, reasoning skill, and a great interest in learning. His curiosity to know about many things and of course his habit of asking questions to others also helps him a lot in his learnin. Many of his friends often tell him that he is one of the luckiest persons to be blessed with such high intellectuality.
Like his classmates, many people often feel that such gifted children lead an easy life as they are endowed with an excellent memory. People also often expect such children to perform better in life. But we often hear and read about children who were intellectually gifted disappearing into oblivion after showing lots of potential in their childhood.
Who are gifted children?
A psychologist would classify the intellectually gifted child to be the children with the intelligent quotient of above 120. They tend to be more intelligent than an average child of same age groups. Generally gifted children begin to show their uniqueness from their childhood. They learn the basic skills like walking, speaking, etc at a very early age. They have high vocabularies. They are also very curious about many things around them. Most of them prefer self learning and take little help from others. When they become interested in something, they tend to do it with such intensity that they often become obsessed with it. They also tend to be a perfectionist in whatever work they do.
Problems faced by gifted children:
Gifted children often have to face various challenges in life, the most important being learning to accept that they are different from others. They also have to continuously face the challenge of making others accept as they are. In most cases, it becomes a futile task. Apart from it, they also face many other problems. Some of which are mentioned below:
Rejection by others:
Normal children usually find it difficult to accept gifted children among them for various reasons. For instance, gifted children usually enjoy organizing things which may be considered as bossy nature by other children. Another trait of a gifted child which makes other reject him is that he is very inquisitive by nature and ask lots of questions to others which may be taken as a show off by his peers, and as a result often ends up being labeled as an over-smart kid. Some children also reject him as they get jealous of the attention he receives. Because of such rejections, some gifted children prefer to hide their talents and interests so as to fit in with others. They would purposely underachieve in examinations and when with friends discuss only those topics which interest them. Because of rejections, many gifted children also turn into a shy and sensitive person.
Asynchronous development:
Gifted children are highly intellectual which can be comparable to children of older age. But their emotional and physical growth is at par with their age-mates. Such uneven development often cause problem for him as most of the people equate the intellectual level with the emotional maturity level of an individual. As a result, people often forget that in-spite of high intellectuality; they are still children and should be treated like one.
Peer bonding:
A gifted child is usually poor in social bonding. He often faces difficulty in relating himself with his age mates. For instance, in the classroom being a highly intellectual person as compared to his age mates, he gets impatient with their inability to understand what he perceives to be an easy task. As a result he generally prefers to work independently or seeks the company of like-minded individuals such as older people or other gifted children.
Expectation from others:
A big problem for the gifted children is the fact that they often have to deal with the very high expectations from others. Such expectations are often unrealistic in nature. For instance, some parents when they notice that their child is brighter than is usual of his age, starts to train him rigorously to further develop his intellectuality. Such parents are so much focused on it that they totally ignore the other interest of their child such as enjoying with friends, socializing with others etc. Even at schools, these gifted children have a hard time especially if they attend the normal schools. In such schools, many teachers do not understand the needs of the gifted children and end up with very high expectations from them. Some of the teachers feel that they do not need to pay any attention to them as they are smart enough to manage by themselves. While some teachers make a big issue about mistakes which are considered minor in other normal children. They adopt an attitude of ‘if a child make a mistake, he cannot be a gifted one’. However, such attitudes can be very damaging to the child’s confidence. The child will be more concerned with his results than satisfying his natural curiosity. It stresses him out and can lead to early breakdown.
Perfectionism:
As a gifted child can learn very easily, he often tends to be a perfectionist in his work. Trying to attain perfection is helpful as long as the child is not obsessed with being a perfectionist. It helps him to achieve greater success in life. But for a gifted child, striving to achieve perfection often turns into unhealthy practise as he cannot accept easily that he too can make mistake. High expectations from others aggravates the situation.
Conclusion:
Like any other child, a gifted child too has his share of problems and challenges in life. The others can help him to lead a normal life by accepting the difference in him or her.
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