UNDER CONSTRUCTION … bit by bit.
NOTE: If your child struggles with any of the issues below, trust me--he/she is in ample company. These issues are "normal" for GT kids, though still painful and difficult. I strongly encourage you to reach out to a fellow GT parent. You might be surprised to find out how much you have in common!
NOTE #2: While I have a strong background [personal and professional] in the affective needs of GT students, I am not a professional therapist or social worker. This page is intended to promote awareness and provide options for possible root causes/tendencies. I strong believe in giving kids whatever professional support, counseling, etc. they might need. This is just a start!
Bonus: an interesting [brief] article on how minor sleep adjustments affect kids' moods & impulsivity.
Scroll to find:
NOTE: If your child struggles with any of the issues below, trust me--he/she is in ample company. These issues are "normal" for GT kids, though still painful and difficult. I strongly encourage you to reach out to a fellow GT parent. You might be surprised to find out how much you have in common!
NOTE #2: While I have a strong background [personal and professional] in the affective needs of GT students, I am not a professional therapist or social worker. This page is intended to promote awareness and provide options for possible root causes/tendencies. I strong believe in giving kids whatever professional support, counseling, etc. they might need. This is just a start!
Bonus: an interesting [brief] article on how minor sleep adjustments affect kids' moods & impulsivity.
Scroll to find:
- Anxiety
- Procrastination
ANXIETY:
Some of the greatest strengths of gifted students are their vivid imaginations, excellent memories, and ability to think abstractly to connect seemingly disparate ideas/events. However, I believe that all strengths have corresponding weaknesses, and these powerful imaginations, memories, and connections can combine to create a lot of anxiety, from intensely vivid nightmares to disproportionate test anxiety. Here are some common manifestations of anxiety in GT kids: Below are some resources that might prompt some conversation with your gifted kiddo.
Interesting New York Times article on why "gifted" students respond so differently to high-stakes or high-pressure [i.e. timed] testing: Why Can Some Kids Handle Pressure While Others Fall Apart?
Dr. Daniel B. Peters has some highly recommended books [caveat: I have not read these--just am familiar with some of his ideas] on combating anxiety. A few helpful tips are summed up in this Huffington Post article: Taming the Worry Monster
Additionally, sengifted.org [Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted] has a plethora [overwhelming, really] of articles on almost any affective topic you could think of--including book recommendations and a ton of free articles from reputable thinkers in the area of social-emotional needs.
I also recommend a Google search for "Dr. Carol Dweck" or "Mindsets"--she is a researcher at Stanford, and has a lot to say about how kids [and adults] deal with failure and growth. Very helpful.
Some of the greatest strengths of gifted students are their vivid imaginations, excellent memories, and ability to think abstractly to connect seemingly disparate ideas/events. However, I believe that all strengths have corresponding weaknesses, and these powerful imaginations, memories, and connections can combine to create a lot of anxiety, from intensely vivid nightmares to disproportionate test anxiety. Here are some common manifestations of anxiety in GT kids: Below are some resources that might prompt some conversation with your gifted kiddo.
Interesting New York Times article on why "gifted" students respond so differently to high-stakes or high-pressure [i.e. timed] testing: Why Can Some Kids Handle Pressure While Others Fall Apart?
Dr. Daniel B. Peters has some highly recommended books [caveat: I have not read these--just am familiar with some of his ideas] on combating anxiety. A few helpful tips are summed up in this Huffington Post article: Taming the Worry Monster
Additionally, sengifted.org [Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted] has a plethora [overwhelming, really] of articles on almost any affective topic you could think of--including book recommendations and a ton of free articles from reputable thinkers in the area of social-emotional needs.
I also recommend a Google search for "Dr. Carol Dweck" or "Mindsets"--she is a researcher at Stanford, and has a lot to say about how kids [and adults] deal with failure and growth. Very helpful.
PROCRASTINATION:
If you haven't figured it out already, you will soon--"gifted" is NOT necessarily synonymous with "organized," "neat," "punctual," or even "star student." [Teachers, students, and parents all need to bust this myth!]
As with the other issues here, the strengths of gifted children can have some unexpected consequences in terms of procrastination and punctuality. Do any of the below sound familiar?
Suffice it to say, procrastination is a tricky issue to untangle. Students procrastinate for MANY different reasons. As you walk through this with your child, it can be helpful to ask--are they scared, overwhelmed, overconfident, bored, or unrealistic? The strategies to address each differ. Below, however, are some general strategies that I've found useful for myself and students.
Dig around--there are many more clever ideas. Here are two books [one read, one yet to be published but of good repute] that might prove helpful. You can check out the first from my office.
If you haven't figured it out already, you will soon--"gifted" is NOT necessarily synonymous with "organized," "neat," "punctual," or even "star student." [Teachers, students, and parents all need to bust this myth!]
As with the other issues here, the strengths of gifted children can have some unexpected consequences in terms of procrastination and punctuality. Do any of the below sound familiar?
- hyperfocus/absorption--might mean that students can produce volumes of stuff when they're "into" it, but struggle to even start when not engaged; might also mean students struggle to transition between projects/assignments/ideas. **Hyperfocus is like having a spotlight on an idea … which, while AWESOME for the thing under the light, can mean there's a lot of details or tasks left out there in the dark …
- abstraction/perfectionism--gifted students have the wonderful capacity to envision an assignment, drawing, task, etc. as it really should be. Often their ideal is well beyond what would be developmentally normal or appropriate--often with wonderful results. However, students may have no idea how to work backwards from this ideal and realize the steps/parts necessary to arrive. Additionally, they may struggle mightily with the gap [asynchrony] between their actual skill level and what they can abstract. For example: a first grader can read Harry Potter, but struggles with spacing, spelling, and putting together sentences coherently. How will he physically express the rich ideas in his imagination?
- effort/fear/confidence--gifted students are often able to complete tasks quickly and with comparatively less effort. Students might fear the effort required of a more difficult assignment. Waiting until the last minute can provide relief in the present. Alternatively, the student might be overconfident, believing that [like so many other assignments] the task really will only take a day/night/hour to finish.
- busyness/multipotentiality--sometimes gifted students, by nature of their "giftedness," are committed to too many activities and assignments. They might not yet have the skills to break tasks down into steps or to prioritize. They may also simply be wiped out or feel over pressured by the many things they can do well. Often giftedness requires "losses" as students must make choices about which strengths they will pursue--the myth of "having it all" can be a very, very tough one to break.
Suffice it to say, procrastination is a tricky issue to untangle. Students procrastinate for MANY different reasons. As you walk through this with your child, it can be helpful to ask--are they scared, overwhelmed, overconfident, bored, or unrealistic? The strategies to address each differ. Below, however, are some general strategies that I've found useful for myself and students.
- MODEL, MODEL, MODEL--show your student how you break tasks down, and practice dividing their assignments into parts with them. Example: A writing assignment [often a battleground]--you will need to brainstorm ideas, organize ideas, develop the ideas with examples [perhaps involving research or stopping for an evening to think about it], write, revise--are my ideas/examples effective?, and edit … that's a lot of tasks to save until one night!
- Timer Magic #1--I actually use this myself. Give your student a timer that he/she can set for an appropriate chunk of time--maybe 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes. They can work on the task ONLY for that amount of time, and then they HAVE to take a break and move, do something fun, etc. The break can be as short as 5 minutes or as long as a few days. This helps students avoid the "looming foreverness" of big tasks. It tends to be more effective if the students themselves run the timer
- Don't assume you know what your child wants as the end product. Sit down with them and really be curious about what they hope to achieve. Why do they want that? Is it realistic or too difficult? Is it actually growth, or too easy? What would it need to look like if they were to be proud of it? Ashamed? Is this something that is worth the amount of effort or not? Triage!
- Timer Magic #2--students often have unrealistic expectations of how much time a task will take [both over and underestimations], and/or undeveloped conceptions of time. Ask them to estimate how much time they think a task will take. Then use a timer to keep track of how long it actually took. How did their estimate compare? I found this super helpful in terms of home & work. As it turns out, neither dishes nor emails take 15 minutes … which explained why my "to do" list always felt like a tool of shame! :)
Dig around--there are many more clever ideas. Here are two books [one read, one yet to be published but of good repute] that might prove helpful. You can check out the first from my office.
- Procrastination: Why You Do It, What to Do About It Now Jane B. Burka (Author), Lenora M. Yuen (Author) The last chapter has helpful tips on dealing with procrastinating loved ones. Goes deeper into personality, varieties/motivations, etc.
- Not Now, Maybe Later. Helping Children Overcome Procrastination Joanne F. Foster. Comes out early 2015.