What can you do when your gifted or twice-exceptional child does not fit in?
You watch from the sidelines as other children easily bond on the playground, receive party invitations, and seem to effortlessly attract friends. But your child’s attempts to socialize are more frequently declined by peers — sometimes with aloof avoidance and other times with overt refusal. It is heartbreaking to witness the exclusion of your child.
From an early age, gifted and twice-exceptional children recognize their differences. They notice how they grasp information more quickly and with more depth and complexity than their same-age peers. They become frustrated when their friends don’t understand the rules of a complicated game or don’t get their jokes. They also feel the sting of rejection when they are excluded or teased because of their differences. Some internalize mocking comments lobbed toward them. Geek. Weirdo. Nerd. Or much worse …
What Can Parents Do?
How can you help your child navigate the social climate, find like-minded peers, and remain true to himself? What will guide her toward developing the necessary social skills — without excessive conformity and compromise? And how do you address these concerns without conveying anxiety, criticism, or frustration? The following are a few suggestions:
1. Help Your Child Understand Their Giftedness
Help your child appreciate that giftedness is just one aspect of who he is. A clear, no-frills explanation that conveys the facts without suggesting that he is better than other children will provide a context for what he already senses about himself. Tailor your language to your child’s age and capacity for understanding and help him recognize that giftedness may affect how he learns, thinks, reacts emotionally, and interacts with others. He might have difficulty finding friends who are on the same wavelength and share his interests or intense focus. Some gifted children resent their differences and try to hide their abilities. Remind your child that you will love him no matter what and will help him navigate and respond to any comments or difficulties with peers.
2. Encourage Social Skills Development
Some gifted and twice-exceptional children struggle with how to fit in with same-age peers, attributable to factors like intellectual differences, disdain for cultural norms, or asynchronous development where their social skills may lag behind their intellect. These difficulties increase their sense of awkwardness, shyness, and isolation, and they can become the target of teasing, rejection, and even bullying.
[perfectpullquote align=”left” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]It is heartbreaking to witness the exclusion of your child.[/perfectpullquote]
An advanced intellect is no reason to ignore the development of social manners, patience, and empathy for others. If your child has difficulty containing her feelings and is prone to exhibiting rage or meltdowns, help her learn to control and more appropriately express emotions. In contrast, some gifted children are empathetic to a fault and overthink every interaction. If your child is anxious or shy, or your teen is socially isolated, offer advice about how to engage with other children and suggest ideas about how she might respond to various social challenges. Role playing, brainstorming ideas, and imagining successful interactions can be helpful. Even if she acts bored and complains that your advice is pointless, she will hear it and most likely use what you have to offer.
3. Support Your Child’s Unique Interests
Gifted children thrive when immersed in a creative, engaging, meaningful activity. They also long for both intellectual and social connection with peers who understand their view of the world. Sometimes these opportunities occur at school; more often, they must turn to extracurricular interests or activities to find a place to belong.
As a parent, it may be up to you to discover additional resources for your child, or to advocate for changes at his school. Advocacy may involve subject or grade acceleration, compacting or clustering (where gifted children are grouped together in classrooms), ability-grouped classes, or immersion in areas of intensive interest, such as art, science, robotics, music, creative writing, or math. Extracurricular activities or summer camps that stimulate creativity, curiosity, or a sense of purpose can provide a safe harbor where your child can openly express who he is while also exploring his abilities. The experience of true connection with peers that gifted children long for may not occur until they find such an extracurricular activity or class. Many of these activities are expensive, though, so look for low-cost, free, or scholarship opportunities when they are available.
4. Help Your Child Uncover the Problem
Even very young gifted children can problem-solve and generate useful strategies. Enlisting your child’s ideas builds her confidence and gives her a sense of responsibility for solving the dilemma. Help your child learn how to brainstorm, analyze the facts, and choose a strategy for success. Young children can become junior “detectives” or “scientists” as they seek out the truth or analyze the data, and challenge their misconceptions or fears.
[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]An advanced intellect is no reason to ignore the development of social manners, patience, and empathy for others.[/perfectpullquote]
Brainstorming helps your child recognize a wide range of possibilities and curtails the tendency to quickly form conclusions. For example, if she is upset that a friend is avoiding her, ask her to list 10 possible reasons for the avoidance. Even if most of the reasons seem far-fetched, this will help your child question her initial assumptions or rigid beliefs.
Then, help her identify strategies for addressing the situation. These might include changing the situation or removing the offending agent (such as dropping a class that is causing distress), taking action (telling her friend what is bothering her), or changing her attitude (challenging beliefs that contribute to self-doubt). Encourage her to sort out the benefits and drawbacks of each strategy and devise a plan of action, along with a backup plan.
5. Providing Additional Support
Sometimes brainstorming, changing the situation, and devising even the most creative plans are not enough. Shyness, social anxiety, asynchronous development, managing twice-exceptional challenges, feeling different from peers — all of these can take their toll. Gifted children and adolescents sometimes benefit from the support, guidance, and input of licensed mental health professionals who are experienced with giftedness. These professionals can help the children embrace their strengths, accept who they are, and find solutions. This is particularly helpful should symptoms of depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, or problem behaviors emerge (such as eating disorders, drug or alcohol abuse, or self-harm). Therapists also support you in your role as a parent.
Gifted and twice-exceptional children and teens thrive when they understand the social, emotional, and cultural impact of their giftedness, when they feel understood and accepted, and when surrounded by like-minded peers. As parents, we must help them navigate the path to adulthood, find activities where they can develop healthy social relationships, and encourage them to accept, work with, and embrace their unique differences.
