More Than Academics: Fostering Social-Emotional Growth in Gifted Children

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The first clue that my son B was profoundly gifted came when he was only two years old. He learned his entire alphabet and the accompanying sounds very early. Then I noticed that he would memorize just about any book that I read to him after hearing it only once or twice. His vocabulary grew extremely quickly and he seemed to be a sponge for knowledge by the time he was three. While I was proud of his advanced abilities, I also began to notice him struggling when trying to relate to his peers and he had intense emotions that would spiral out of control over minor incidents. It soon became clear that his giftedness came with just as many challenges as strengths.

Like many parents of profoundly gifted children, I didn’t know where to turn for guidance on how to best support B’s emotional development alongside his intellectual precociousness. While profoundly gifted children need an environment that stimulates their intellect, we must not neglect the importance of building empathy, managing emotions, and developing meaningful connections. I’m still learning how best to help my gifted child but I have learned a few key strategies to help promote his emotional growth and self-awareness. With patience and understanding, we can help our gifted children thrive both academically and socially-emotionally.

Defining ‘Gifted’

The term ‘gifted’ has a specific meaning in the context of child development. Gifted children are those who demonstrate outstanding levels of aptitude or competence in one or more domains compared to their peers. While there is no single agreed-upon cutoff, children with an IQ of 130 or higher are generally considered gifted.

Intellectually gifted children often display some common characteristics and traits tied to their advanced cognitive abilities. These include:

• Extreme intensity and focus when interested in a topic. Gifted kids may become completely absorbed in their area of interest, dedicating hours of intense focus.
• Perfectionism. Gifted children may hold themselves and others to unrealistically high standards. Their keen awareness of flaws can make them highly self-critical.
• Overexcitabilities. Gifted kids often experience heightened sensitivities and intensities emotionally, intellectually, imaginatively, sensually, and energetically. Their high arousal levels lead to experiencing life vividly.
• Advanced reasoning abilities. Gifted children tend to grasp concepts and abstractions earlier and enjoy analyzing complex ideas. They are often strong critical thinkers.
• Enhanced memory retention. Gifted kids can quickly absorb and recall large amounts of information, especially in areas of interest. Their learning capacity is high.
• Early moral concern and sense of justice. Gifted children tend to develop a strong sense of right and wrong at a young age and feel a sense of idealism about how things ‘ought’ to be.

Understanding these common traits can help parents and educators nurture the growth of profoundly gifted children. If you want to learn more about recognizing giftedness you should check out my post What is Giftedness and Why is it Important to Recognize?.

Social/Emotional Challenges

Raising a profoundly gifted child comes with unique social and emotional challenges. Gifted children often experience asynchrony between their intellectual and emotional development. Their cognitive abilities can be far ahead of their age, while their emotional maturity lags behind same-age peers. This mismatch can leave them feeling isolated and misunderstood. For example, B has a much easier time associating with teenagers and preschoolers then he does with his fellow elementary aged peers.

Profoundly gifted children often report feeling different from their peers and having trouble relating to others their own age. Their advanced abilities and interests set them apart, making it difficult to find common ground. This can lead to social isolation and anxiety. Last year when B was in first grade he came home so upset that no one wanted to play with him at recess. He just couldn’t understand why none of the other first graders wanted to play “Math Tag” with him!

Gifted children tend to experience emotions with greater intensity. Their heightened sensitivities, perfectionism, and drive for meaning can be difficult to manage. Meltdowns, anxiety, and depressive tendencies are more common among highly gifted children if their needs are not nurtured appropriately.

Perfectionistic tendencies are another hallmark of profound giftedness. Extremely high personal standards, hypercritical self-evaluations, and discomfort making mistakes can take a toll. Without proper guidance, perfectionism can increase stress, undermine self-confidence, and inhibit risk-taking. Earlier this year I noticed that B never wanted to “guess” or even make and “educated guess” because he might be wrong. If he didn’t “know” the answer he flat out refused to answer the question. We’ve really had to work hard on it being okay to not be perfect, to make mistakes, and to not know everything.

Fostering Emotional Awareness

As a parent of a gifted child, it’s important to help your child identify and express their emotions in a healthy way. Gifted children often experience emotions more intensely than their peers, so teaching them emotional awareness is key.

Start by helping your child name their feelings. Provide them with a rich emotional vocabulary and engage in regular check-ins to understand what they are experiencing. Validate their feelings by saying things like “I understand why you feel sad/angry/frustrated right now”. This shows them that all emotions are acceptable, even the difficult ones. I got a emotions flipbook that has allowed B to put a picture to his feelings and begin to recognize and put names to them.

Make sure to model healthy emotional expression in your own life too. Verbally identify your feelings in the moment so your child can learn from your example. This has been really hard for me to do but extremely helpful for my children. Help them recognize physical signs of emotions, like a racing heart when nervous or tears when sad. Promote creative outlets like drawing or journaling as healthy ways to process emotions.

When big feelings arise, empathize and help your child talk it through. Say things like “It’s okay to feel this way. Let’s take some deep breaths together”. Offer comfort and reassurance that these intense emotions won’t last forever. Your support and guidance will help build their emotional intelligence. With time and practice, your gifted child will thrive at understanding and expressing their rich inner world.

Building Empathy

Role playing, books, films and community activities that connect your child to others are powerful ways to build empathy. Though your gifted child may relate better to older kids or even adults in some ways, it’s still important for them to learn to empathize with peers their own age.

Role playing different social scenarios can help expand your child’s understanding of others’ perspectives. Read children’s books and watch age-appropriate films together, pausing to discuss the characters’ emotions and motivations. Seeing things from someone else’s point of view, even a fictional character’s, builds empathy. I like to role play scenarios that have happened throughout the day when B hasn’t handled the situation the best. I’ll present the situation and we role play from both perspectives how it could have been handled better. I find that this better prepares him for when a similar situation occurs in the future.

Look for volunteering opportunities in your community where your child can connect with and help others face-to-face. Animal shelters, food banks and children’s hospitals often welcome volunteers of all ages. Working side-by-side to help others allows your gifted child to step out of their own shoes and into someone else’s for a little while. Volunteering as a family can nurture empathy while also giving your child a sense of purpose and agency.

The social and emotional growth that comes from walking in another’s shoes is invaluable for gifted children. Make role playing, exploring stories through books and media, and real-world community service a part of life. These activities help cement empathy, compassion and kindness.

Promoting Social Skills

Children with advanced intellectual abilities often struggle with age-appropriate social interactions. As parents, we need to take an active role in modeling and teaching social skills to set our gifted children up for success. Below are some strategies:

Modeling positive social behaviors is one of the most effective ways to teach social skills. Children learn from observing our real-world interactions. Demonstrate how to initiate conversations, take turns in discussion, read social cues, show interest in others, and handle disagreements calmly. Explain your thought process during and after social situations.

Enroll in social skills groups or classes specifically designed for gifted students. These provide a structured way to practice skills like joining group discussions, compromising, and resolving problems through role playing with peers. Look for programs led by counselors experienced with gifted learning needs.

Encourage participation in extracurricular activities like sports teams, theater, or coding camps. These hobbies give gifted children a common interest to bond over with classmates in a natural peer setting outside academics. Shared activities lead to natural conversations and friendships. Allow your child to choose clubs aligned with their passions. I find that B does better socially in situations that he chooses such as sports teams and after school programs then he does in mandated situations such as the school classroom.

With dedicated guidance in real-world settings, gifted children can master social strategies tailored to their maturity level. These efforts help them feel socially confident among classmates and community members throughout life.

Managing Perfectionism

Perfectionism is common among gifted children, who may impose unrealistically high standards on themselves. They feel the pressure to perform exceptionally well academically and in extracurricular activities, which can lead to anxiety and negative self-talk when they inevitably make mistakes.

As a parent, it’s important to reassure your child that mistakes are a normal part of learning. Frame them as opportunities for growth rather than failures. Praise effort over flawless results, which focuses on the process rather than the outcome. Instill a growth mindset by explaining that abilities are developed through hard work over time. Demonstrate that you value who they are as a person over their accomplishments. I like to ask my children in the evening “what is one thing you did today that was hard?” If the can’t think of anything I take the time to discuss with them the importance of doing hard things and that that is how we learn and grow.

Just make sure to avoid setting rigid expectations and criticizing missteps. Allow your child to make mistakes without fear of disappointment. Celebrate progress and perseverance and hard work, not grades or awards. Emphasize enjoying the process of discovery and creation over the end product. With your support, they can adopt healthy attitudes about success and failure to develop resilience. Managing perfectionist tendencies ensures their self-confidence isn’t tied to unrealistic standards.

Supporting Special Interests

Gifted children often develop intense, obsessive interests in specific subjects like dinosaurs, geography, or astrophysics. B’s interests are math and space. While parents may be puzzled by their child’s peculiar preoccupations, these passionate interests provide intellectual stimulation and boost self-esteem. Special interests also help gifted children enjoy learning and pursue knowledge intrinsically.

Rather than discouraging your child’s special interest, look for ways to nurture it. Help them find books, activities, online resources and local groups related to the topic. Take them to museums, events and educational destinations that align with their passion. Support diverse learning opportunities like summer camps focused on their special interest. Validate that their love for this subject is meaningful.

Connecting your child’s special interest to social activities can also help build relationships. Help them find peers who share the interest by contacting teachers to identify other gifted students or joining local groups and online forums. Encourage social interaction through activities like starting a club at school, volunteering as a junior docent at a related museum exhibit, attending conferences, or collaborating on projects that revolve around their special interest.

Finding Like-Minded Peers

As a parent, helping your gifted child find peers who share their abilities, interests, and experiences is crucial. Here are some strategies to help them connect with kindred spirits:

Gifted Programs and Specialized Schools

Look into gifted schools and programs in your area that offer accelerated academics. Many districts offer self-contained gifted classrooms or pull-out programs. Attending school alongside intellectual peers provides social-emotional benefits and a sense of community. If no options exist locally, some families choose specialized private schools or boarding schools for the gifted.

Online Forums and Pen Pal Programs

The internet opens up possibilities for meeting gifted kids globally. Forums like 2e-learning.com allow users to chat by age group and interest. Sites like PenPalWorld.com connect pen pals internationally. While virtual friendships lack the depth of in-person bonds, they do provide connections with peers who “get it.” Having an intellectual peer to discuss new concepts with or share the latest obsession can make a child feel less alone.

Parent groups like your state’s chapter of the National Association for Gifted Children can also help families connect locally or virtually. Building community with those walking a similar path helps gifted kids and parents feel supported as they navigate the unique joys and challenges of the profoundly gifted experience.

Raising a profoundly gifted child comes with its own unique set of blessings and challenges.

While their intellectual abilities may be far beyond their peers, their emotional intelligence requires just as much nurturing. By fostering self-awareness, building empathy, and providing a supportive environment, parents can help their gifted child thrive holistically.

The profoundly gifted child not only needs an outlet for their active minds, but also emotional support and understanding as they navigate the world. Perfectionism, struggles with peer relationships, and asynchronous development must be handled with compassion. At the same time, their intensities and passions can be encouraged, and opportunities can be provided for them to pursue subjects they care deeply about. With patience and care, these children’s heads and hearts can flourish in tandem.

The goal is to appreciate and cultivate your gifted child’s beautiful mind without neglecting their emotional needs. By giving them room to feel understood, accepted and supported, not only will they succeed academically, but they will have the interpersonal skills needed to lead a fulfilling life. Though the road is not always smooth, the profound gifts these children possess are worth nurturing in their full complexity. With empathy, patience and unconditional love, you can nourish the whole gifted child.