Gifted students don’t really have issues standing up for themselves. Anyone with a gifted child knows that he has no trouble “making his case.” I started requiring my students to compete with students from other schools just so that I could bust some of the bravado down until earned. It’s the standing up for friends with which gifted kids sometimes have troubles.
Remember in college when your professor wanted you to do a group project. If you were the gifted one in the group, you did not mind doing the whole thing, if the others would just let you. After all, you had the best idea, right? If you were a slacker, you prayed that you would get a gifted kid in your group so she’d want to take the whole thing over!
That same drive that tells a gifted person that he has all the answers makes him think that true friends would just let him have his way. When friends grow tired of being pushed around, very few gifted will apologize and adjust their behavior. Instead, many decide that the person wasn’t a true friend in the first place. It is very important that you, as the parent, teach your gifted child how important having a true friendship is. At a young age, gifted kids think friends are a dime a dozen. Unfortunately, by high school, they come to realize that kids talk and friends are few and far between.
Standing up for friends begins on the playground. It’s no secret that gifted kids often pick friends based upon intelligence. Because of that intelligence, the gifted kids will often seem different than the majority of the kids in the class and sometimes will be made fun of because of it. If you teach your child early that the unique kids end up being the innovators of tomorrow, your child can learn how to stand up for his friend without picking a fight. As that friendship grows, so does the feeling that your child is accepted, and that increases his self-image.
Your teen will struggle again with friendships in college. There will be a real desire to have no roommate and to just have acquaintances rather than real friendships. Once in a relationship, making time for friends will become even less important. But couples who rely on the partner for all relational needs are strained at best. You have to teach your child, through words and modeling, that he will meet different relational needs through different people in his life. Your son will enjoy recreational friendships, while your daughter will enjoy conversational relationships. It is good to have friends besides our partner.
Often gifted adults are so busy solving problems and over-achieving that they forget to make time for friends. I identify with this tremendously! When we left our last duty station during JT’s time in the Army, I was ready to shed the friends of that station and move on to the next friends, as I always did. One friend refused to let go, though, and she is still my best friend to this day. I am so glad that she wouldn’t just let me walk away. It is so nice to have someone with whom I can just pick up where we left off… even if it has been months since we’ve seen each other.
Self-image is how we see ourselves, and good friends can make sure we see ourselves realistically!
- Michelle