| Why
do half of gifted children underachieve? Why are between 10%
and 20% of high school dropouts in the very superior range
of tested ability? Of the top 5% of our high school graduates,
why do 40% not graduate from college? What do case studies
involving anxiety, suicide and eating disorders tell us about
gifted children’s feelings and the pressures they feel?
Parents
have been blamed too frequently and too easily for the pressures
felt by bright children. It is time to take a fresh look at
the stresses that these children feel and the reasons for
these stresses. It is time to relieve parental guilt and,
instead, guide and support worried mothers and fathers. It
is surely time to help their children.
The
Main Pressures
Keys to understanding children’s pressures frequently
come from bright adolescents who are struggling to understand
their feelings. Behavioral observations by parents and teachers
provide further insights into gifted children’s emotional
struggles.
Young
adults, looking back on their own childhood, add insights
which help us to understand the emotional issues that go with
giftedness.
The
Pressure to Be Extraordinary
The intense feeling that one must be the smartest all the
time shows itself in many ways. It is the child whose waving,
enthusiastic hand indicates that he will willingly monopolize
class discussion with his display of brilliance, or the child
who puts others down as dumb or stupid so as to feel intelligent.
It is the youth who rushes through his work because smart”
has come to mean quick and easy,” and the one who cannot
get started on her writing assignment because she cannot find
a topic perfect enough to write about. It is the young person
who argues endlessly with parents and teachers and appears
to be completely blind to another’s point of view.
The wish
to feel extremely intelligent is important in motivating children
to learn. But when self-expectations feel impossibly high,
children may invent and discover many activities to avoid
learning for fear that they can’t live up to those expectations.
These exercises in avoidance temporarily protect them from
feeling dumb but result in many problem behaviors, adversely
affect self-confidence and may, indeed, lead to underachievement.
The
Pressure to Be Creative
Every reader has experienced that sense of wanting to complete
a project or activity in a unique or unusual way. That is,
in miniature, the pressure that children feel to be different
or to do something creative. Now multiply those feelings of
pressure to be different by a thousand and you may have a
sense of what some children feel when they get dressed in
the morning, when they write a story or composition, or when
they speak up in a class discussion. The inner pressure to
be different is illustrated by statements such as these:
- I
would like math if I could have six apples and eight apples
equal something different every time.
- I
can’t possibly hand my reports in on time. It always
takes me longer to make them as unique as I want them to
be.
Creative
for these children means being different and, most important,
nonconforming. They see no area in school sufficiently unique
for their infinitely personal expressions of being different.
The
Pressure to Be Popular
Parents consider being popular being “well-adjusted,”
and they see that goal as more important than being intelligent.
Elementary teachers call it ‘good peer relationships”
and typically place it ahead of intellectual challenge. If
bright children internalize these messages, they often do
adjust well in elementary school and do not appear pressured.
They learn to enjoy the comforts of social acceptance, and
they play down their intelligence, even minimizing their use
of extensive vocabulary
This
facade of “good adjustment” brings forth a different
pressure by pre-adolescence. By then, adjustment translates
to popularity. Becoming peer-adjusted forces children into
a value system that may differ significantly from what their
parents and teachers earlier described as social adjustment.
Depending on the peer environment, the popular message may
involve positive activities, or it may mean alcohol, drugs
and sexual promiscuity Popularity means not getting all As
and no excitement about learning. For African-American children,
being too interested in learning may include being chastised
as “acting white.” Peers may call Native Americans
“apples” (red on the outside, white on the inside).
There
is a fine line that divides pressure and motivation. Pressure
takes place when children don’t believe they can achieve
expected outcomes. Motivation occurs when children have learned
the process that leads to realistic outcomes. Stated more
simply, motivation means that children believe their hard
work will achieve results. The Rimm’s Law (#2),
which summarizes the appropriate achievement relationship,
follows:
Intellectually
gifted children who rarely have challenge in the early years
of school may equate smart with easy. They don’t see
a connection between effort and outcome. For adolescents
who are called nerds if they make effort and are put down
by their peers for that effort, the connection between effort
and social outcomes does not exist. It isn't surprising
that children protect themselves in defensive ways by not
completing assignments, blaming teachers for their problems,
acting “cool,” shipping classes and generally
underachieving. Gifted and creative children internalize
pressures easily which may cause school problems and mental
health problems. Understanding these pressures is the first
step to helping them use their capabilities.
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