For Parents Curious About Gifted Child Social Skills
… in which I answer questions about gifted issues
Over the years I have taken on many different roles to stay connected with gifted children and their families. One such role was that of Gifted Children Program Coordinator for American Mensa for five years and answered letters from parents of gifted children, and sometimes about the gifted adults themselves. If you like seeing these ideas, let me know and I can share more with you. And, you can ask me questions now, as well! Here are a couple to get us started.
Dear Dr. Ruf,
Do you have any suggestions on how to explicitly teach social skills to the highly and profoundly gifted? It seems they don’t just naturally pick it up but can handle the theoretical approach.
-Sharon, mother of 7 year old very highly gifted son
Dear Sharon,
I believe that very smart people sometimes need special help developing social skills because the very highly gifted are not around others like themselves often enough to give them sufficient and appropriate practice at reading social cues.
If a highly intelligent child approaches a fellow first grader on the soccer field by saying, “I don’t believe we’ve met; my name is Colin,” his age-mate is very likely to mock him, roll his eyes, or otherwise react strangely. The conclusion Colin will sometimes draw is that he did something wrong. He will try other approaches in an effort to get it right and fit in and be accepted. Was Colin’s approach wrong? No. What he said would be perfectly fine with adults or other very bright or slightly older bright children. It is not always about manners and social graces; it is about being around people who understand you and give you accurate feedback.
First, we can always be kind and polite, of course, and that’s something to encourage and model regardless of another person’s intellectual qualities! If he’s there to play soccer and run around, let your son know it’s not the best time to get into deep conversations anyway. Let him know that as his whole age group gets older and develops more mature social skills themselves, the highly intelligent individual who has been supported in his development will also arrive with confidence and social skills intact and finally be “right” for his group regardless of its intellectual level.
So, in the meantime, rather than try to teach an exceptionally bright child how to get along with possibly much less intelligent age-mates on a day in and day out basis, I encourage putting that child in as many different environments you can arrange where his social abilities can be nurtured by more mentally and socially mature people.
For those times when such an adjustment is not possible, explain what I’ve suggested here. It may help him gain a tolerance and understanding of circumstances where real social and emotional “connecting” aren’t always easy or even possible.
~ Dr. Ruf
Dear Dr. Ruf,
My 10-year old daughter doesn’t fit in socially at school, but she really wants to. There are different social cliques. Do you have any strategies for helping a gifted child fit in better?
-Meaghan
Dear Meaghan,
Almost anyone can remember sometimes feeling unpopular or unhappy about not being part of the group during childhood. We certainly want to spare our children this pain!
I can’t say it often enough: search until you find at least one regular setting for your child that includes other very bright children. Some kids are lucky; they have other smart kids, just by luck, in their class or neighborhood. Sometimes like-minded children end up in your scout troop or Sunday school confirmation class or acting classes or camp. I cannot stress strongly enough that how we perform socially is hugely related to the intellectual levels of those with whom we spend most of our time when we are young and developing our self-concepts and social graces.
If your daughter is feeling left out of the cliques and friendship circles you can discuss my answer to your question with her first. Ask her to recall when she has felt popular (if ever) and get her to describe what the other kids who liked her were like. I believe it is crucial for gifted children to be around others who understand their jokes, like or enjoy their talents, and appreciate them. If they spend too many years without this opportunity it will become more and more difficult to turn them into the socially confident and adept adults we hope they will be.
Sometimes the school will respond favorably to your request for more social and learning configurations that include children of like mind and ability level so they can successfully bounce their higher-level humor and ideas off appreciative audiences and thereby benefit socially.
In extreme cases I recommend removing exceptionally bright children from the company of other children until the children are all older and more mature and will be able to treat each other better. In these cases, I see very positive benefits from having children spend most of their time with caring and attentive adults until their naturally higher level behavior is caught up to by age-mates whose maturity levels make the intellectual differences less important as they share different interests together.
~ Dr. Ruf