While it is generally held that gifted students are among the best and the brightest among today’s students, there are issues that make them special beyond their high IQ’s. Because of their giftedness these students often
have issues that you might not expect.
Expectations of Others
Gifted students often have a hard time meeting expectation of parents and teachers who think that because they are gifted they should be uniformly gifted. This is not the case. In fact, it is not unusual for gifted students to have what is called asynchronous development. Gifted students might be amazing students in math, yet be merely average in language arts. It is even possible for a gifted student to be below level in a subject. But just because they are gifted the expectations of those around them to excel in everything puts an incredible amount of pressure on students who already feel their difference.
It is important for teachers, parents, and other involved adults to consider that a gifted student might not have all the answers and might, in fact, need a little bit of extra help in some subjects. It does not change the fact
that they are gifted for them to need extra help in a subject. This leads to another issue.
that they are gifted for them to need extra help in a subject. This leads to another issue.
Expectations of Self
By the time a student discovers that they learn faster, or easier, or differently than other students they have already been assigned a label. When that labelis gifted not only are the expectations of the adults set, but often the student has expectation that gifted means that they will not have to work as hard to achieve top grades.
Self-esteem sometimes suffers in gifted students because of these expectations or assumptions. In one example, a gifted student who normally did not have to review, or even study for tests hit a concept that wasparticularly difficult for her. She scored a 70% on a test, far from her normal upper 90s to perfect scores. She began to think that that one score defined her and her ability to learn.
The student began to think of herself as stupid. While this seems extreme, considering that she had never scored below a 90% on any test, in nine years of school, the lower score was a harsh blow. She decided that she hated math, and was no good at it. Her teachers and parents assured her that one score did not define her, or her ability to learn. They tried to explain that she was still as gifted as ever, but that she might actually have to study to achieve the higher scores she was accustomed to. The student believed that having to study for something actually made her less bright. Her expectations of her own abilities took a hit, and so did her overall self-esteem.
Drive or the Lack of It
Some gifted students are programmed to excel. It is part of their makeup to strive for the highest scores, and the maximum amount of knowledge accumulation. These students are driven to finish faster, with better scores, so that they might quickly move on to the next educational achievement.
Other gifted students are programmed to rest on their laurels, so to speak. These students do not feel the drive to excel, but are content to do nothing and still achieve passing scores. This is frustrating for students and parents who both see wasted potential. It is hard for the adults to see why a student with greater potential is willing to coast instead of speed ahead. Both of these traits occur in gifted students. It is important to determine which category a gifted student falls into and direct them as needed.
Gifted Students are Special
In many school districts around the country gifted programs are incorporated under the special education department. At first glance this might seem odd, after all special education is usually thought of as education provided to students who have learning disadvantages. Giftedness is not a disadvantage, but sometimes requires special handling. There are many issues that are particularly pronounced in gifted students.
One of these is the issue of maturity. Gifted students are often capable of work beyond that of their age peers. However, just because they may be more advanced academically than their age peers does not mean that they are more mature than their age peers. This sometimes poses a dilemma, should the student be advanced to a higher grade so that they are academically challenged, or should they be kept with their age peers because they might not be ready for social issues they might face when placed with older students.
Some school systems opt for gifted programs that are enrichment programs, offering gifted students grade level work, and providing more opportunities to learn such as music and art classes that are not offered to the general student population. Other school systems choose accelerated programs, which allow the gifted student to move on to higher grade work sooner. Both programs have merit, but depending on the gifted student, one program might work better than the other.
Finally, all things considered, giftedness is an advantage. Gifted students have an advantage when it comes to most academics. Because giftedness is as individual as each student it is important to consider why each gifted student is special, and guide them so that they might achieve their full potential.
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| Claire Champkin with her son Toby, who has autism. Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian |
Jane McCready is used to her 10-year-old son being gawped at "as if he were a circus freak" but she will never be reconciled to it. "Children are one thing, they don't know any better. But these are adults. They look at Johnny and their mouths fall open and they just stare. And I think: didn't anyone ever tell them how rude that is?"
Johnny has severe autism and learning disabilities. "He looks like any other child, but he behaves oddly – for example, he might sit there banging two toys together – and he sometimes makes strange noises." Especially when he was younger, he might have a massive meltdown – at the supermarket checkout, for instance. "I'd feel 300 pairs of eyes on us – all watching us, all judging us for being disruptive and difficult," says Jane. Perhaps the worst day was when, at the swimming pool, another mother pulled her child away from Johnny "as though he had something catching".
This, she says, is what you are up against when you have a child with special needs: other people tend not to be very kind. Which is particularly awful "because you've already got so much on your plate as it is. The odds seem stacked against you, and if people just gave you a bit of space and support, it would go a long way. But the opposite is more often the case: you're struggling to start with, then people knock you down further. They make assumptions about you, they find you wanting, they treat your child as though he or she is dangerous or badly behaved. It's soul destroying. It's so bad, so hard to deal with, that I have friends with special needs kids who don't even take them out any more."
Jane, 49, who lives in south London, turned to Mumsnet to vent her feelings; and she was not the only parent in her situation to do so. Mumsnet members who didn't have children with special needs were shocked at their stories, and so too were the women who run Mumsnet. "We realised how incredibly hurtful some of the behaviour they were describing was, and realised we should do something," says co-founder Justine Roberts. "It's about letting judgmental feelings go and stopping all the tutting from the sidelines.
"The truth is that it's incredibly tough to have a child with a special need such as ADHD or autism. In many cases, it's a 24/7 job and to have to suffer the prejudices of others on top of that is just too much. There's a strong feeling on Mumsnet that how we look after our most vulnerable says a lot about our society and you don't get much more vulnerable than children with special needs. So we need to up our act a bit, as a society."
To that end, Mumsnet this weekend launches This is My Child, a campaign aimed at getting us all to think a bit more about the realities of life for families with children who have special needs and to check our behaviour accordingly.
"A little bit of help goes a long way," says Jane. "One time Johnny was melting down and this woman approached me. I thought she was going to complain – you get people who say things like, all he needs is a good slap. When she said 'What can I do to help, dear?' I could have hugged her. It must have taken some bravery for her to do it, but it made such a difference to me. I felt someone was on my side rather than the usual wall of hostility."
Claire Champkin, 40, who lives in Twickenham, Surrey, knows just how Jane feels. she says the biggest difficulty about life with six-year-old Toby is the negative attitudes of others. Her son has moderate-to-severe autism, and is largely non-verbal, but dealing with the realities of his condition pale next to dealing with the unkindness she encounters from strangers who decide for themselves that he is simply a badly behaved child with an inadequate mother. "One day we were in the park, and a father who was sitting on a bench pushed his glasses down to the end of his nose and sat there staring at Toby in evident disapproval. I felt like heading across to shout and swear at him, but you can't do that.
"What do people think gives them the right to behave that way? And the irony is, they think they're making a judgment on my child's bad behaviour."
Amanda Marlow, 43, who lives in Milton Keynes, says she has survived by growing a skin so thick she doubts anyone's disapproval could penetrate it. "Sometimes I think if I marched through the shopping centre with 'fuck off' written on my forehead, I couldn't be more obvious about it," she says.
She has four children, twins Elizabeth and James, 13, Oliver, seven, and Alex, six. Elizabeth has Treacher Collins syndrome (which causes craniofacial abnormalities); James has Asperger's syndrome and Alex has severe autism.
"What I'd like people to understand," she says, "is that these are my children. This is my life. It's not a bed of roses, but we try to make the best of every day. What would be nice is if people were kind and considerate once in a while, and gave us a bit of space. We're dealing with issues that most people haven't got a clue about, and it's intrusive when you get someone coming up to you and saying, he needs a clip round the ear when one of them has a tantrum."
If Amanda, Claire and Jane could ask the rest of us to do just one thing, it would be to stop staring. "It's fine to do a double take, but once you've taken in that our children have a disability, get on with what you're doing. It doesn't give you the right to gawp," says Claire.
Beyond staring, what angers Amanda is when strangers ask about Elizabeth. "They say, what's wrong with her? And I say, nothing's wrong with her. She's fine."
Claire agrees: it's not a tragedy, she says, that her child has a disability. "We don't need pity; we're a very happy family and we just want to get on with our lives. I hate people calling me 'special' or thinking I somehow have extra qualities that enable me to deal with all this. The truth is that when it happened to me, I thought I couldn't cope.
"But a very wise person said to me: 'You'll cope because you have to.' And that's what anyone would do. Calling us 'special' or alluding to our great qualities makes us different, sets us apart, and we don't want that at all."
What is also irksome to many parents is when other people take it on themselves to reassure them that all will be well. "I get that all the time," says Ellie Grant, from Wiltshire, whose three-year-old daughter Roberta has the chromosomal disorder Kabuki syndrome. "Roberta had hip dysplasia and, when she was in plaster, people would say: 'She'll be walking soon enough and you'll wish she wasn't.' That's so hurtful – the idea that when she does one day walk, I'll wish she couldn't."
The other thing they often say is how gorgeous and cute Roberta is, as if that is somehow incompatible with a disability. The people you value most are those who just treat you as they would any other family. I love it when people meet us and they try to engage with Roberta, just as they would any other child; that's so good. What I don't need is sympathy; I'm hugely proud of my little girl and all she's achieved. She and her baby brother are the centre of my world and the idea that people feel sorry for me is just so misplaced."
There are around 770,000 disabled children in the UK and, says Justine Roberts, their families deserve better. "A lot of it is about raising awareness about the reality of their situation, and busting some of the many myths. There's a myth that some disorders, such as autism and ADHD, are a fashionable excuse for bad behaviour and bad parenting. Wrong: these conditions are real and disabling and it is terrible that the parents and families of those with them are stigmatised.
"Another myth is that children with disabilities are given the help they need. In fact, Mumsnetters tell us time and again about how little help there is, how much they have to fight for everything they're given and how long it takes even to get their child's condition diagnosed."
Another myth, says Justine, is that language around disability doesn't matter. "You get a lot of people who use words like 'retard' and 'mong' and for some reason that's tolerated, while language that's racist or sexist or homophobic definitely wouldn't be. We've learned how hurtful it is to families where there are disabilities, and now we clamp down on it on the site – and we'd like others to do the same. It really is important. It really does make a difference."
What you can do
• You can't always tell when someone has a disability. Respond kindly, not judgmentally.
• Don't make assumptions about a child's potential based on a label. People with disabilities have a range of capabilities, just like anyone else.
• If people seem to be struggling, ask: "How can I help?" or "What do you need?"
• Saying "at least it's not cancer" is not helpful.
• If there is a child with a disability in your child's class, invite him or her over to a playdate, or include him or her on the birthday party list. Too many parents of children with special needs kids say their kids miss out on peer activities.
• And one last time: don't stare. Really. Just don't.
Source: mumsnet.com/campaigns/this-is-my-child
