Social and Emotional Development of Gifted Children - Research Paper Example

 Gifted Children Gifted children are those who have an Intelligence Quotient (IQ) above 130. Such children have intellectual and cognitive abilities higher than an average child does. It is important to identify such children from the early childhood in order to raise them accordingly. The gifted children possess some specific traits that the parents need to observe in the child’s behavior to identify if the child is gifted. Such children have the ability to perform any skill exceptionally well as compared to other children of their age. They can make paintings at the age of nine just like a professional artist. They might have the reading abilities like an adult at the age of three. It is difficult to identify the non-academic exceptional talents of a gifted child such as music, dramatics, or arts. In specific, “Gifted children interpret life differently from others” (Distin, pp. 22-23, 2006). They have different perceptions and believe regarding the events and issues of life. They like doing things in a different manner (Distin, pp. 22-23, 2006). Gifted children have a great potential to be the achievers. They need to be motivated to be the achievers by giving challenges in the area of their interest. If a gifted child does not perform exceptionally in school, even then he/she might be achieving something at home. Gifted children have an ability to learn easily and quickly and their retaining power is so good that they are able to succeed academically. Gifted children are highly sensitive. One minute, they may be behaving like an adult and the next minute, they might be crying like a kid on a matter that is of no significant importance for others. Gifted children have great leadership abilities as they are more creative and idealistic they can lead a group of people very well by recognizing their skills and abilities and directing them accordingly. The needs of the gifted children are more likely to be similar to those of the normal children as they both come across the same development stages in life. However, few problems and needs are more likely to appear among gifted children that need consideration in the social and emotional development of gifted children (Distin, pp. 157, 2006). Some of the common problems that arise because of the special characteristics or strengths that the special children posses includes being irresistible at times when they are full of ideas and as they have a better learning power they expects the same from others, therefore, becomes impatient. Since the gifted children are idealistic and creative they resist directions, they like to work on their own. They like to come up with new and different things and therefore hate routine practices. These children are good at organizing people but are often bossy and want others to fallow their rules. These children have advance information and vast vocabulary as compared to others of their age that is why they have problems adjusting with their peers. The peers at times get jealous of the gifted children and therefore, do not like to have a good relationship with them. As the gifted children are more likely to be perfectionists, they want others to be the same that causes trouble for both as both become depressed dealing with the situation. The gifted children concentrate more while working on an area of their interest and become totally involved when working because of which they are not able to performs their routine duties and neglects the people around as they don’t want any interruption. Such children are more stubborn and hyperactive because of having high energy level. As the gifted children are versatile and they have a lot of interest and abilities they need more time to do all they want but if they have lack of time, they get frustrated. These children try to manipulate others with the help of their reasoning abilities but the parents and peers should make sure that they do not allow the child to outsmart them as the child need to be disciplined (Moon, Reis, pp. 1-31, 2004). The tendency of gifted children to be perfectionist leads them to fear from failures in life which restricts them from trying things they are afraid they wont be able to do perfectly. Their ability to think differently about situations causes a feeling of discomfort when it comes to sharing their ideas, as they hate rejection. Such children appear to be socially shy, as they do not answer any question until they have full and proper knowledge about it. Gifted children take criticism or an anger of a person very personally because of their intense emotions and sensitivity. Such children because of their extreme sensitive nature are very concerned about the environmental situations like violence, pollution, wars, poverty etc. At times, these situations cause them to become introvert as they have a feeling that they cannot help the humanity and bring changes to the world in spite of having ideas and therefore, they goes into depression. One very serious problem with the young school going gifted children is the uneven development of body and mind. They think of doing things in a broader way like drawing, constructing and carrying things but the movement of their arms, feet, legs and the other body parts does not support them to work like an adult. This cause extreme frustration in the gifted children as it restricts them to do what they actually want. Gifted children thinks about the situation from all the positive as well as the negative aspects and because of the fact that they hate rejection they emphasize more on the negative aspects of the situation which can cause problems they try to avoid doing that activity that has greater risk and can cause failure. Although even normal children with physical disabilities face many problems and the difficulties increase when a gifted child has physical disability because they have high intellect mind but they are unable to express their potential to excel. Such children think more about what they cannot do then thinking about what they can do which increases the negativity in these children. Therefore, gifted children with physical disabilities get more frustrated. Parents play a very important role in the social and emotional development of gifted children. They need to be well educated about the characteristics of gifted children that make them different from others and the ways to deal with situations that occurs while raising a gifted child. Moreover, others who are involved in child’s development such are the teachers and day care providers must be well informed and educated so that they can provide assistance to the child’s parents and can make efforts to deal appropriately with the gifted children. If the teachers do not identify gifted children, they may not be able to help them become achievers and excel academically (Cross, pp.52-56, 2004). Gifted children need a different way of education. They need flexibility in educational system as they have more ideas and are more creative they need a medium to show their abilities. It is important that the schools try to make a separate group of gifted children where they can meet and work on different projects collectively in this way they will feel better when working with the children of their level. When teachers identify gifted children and they perform well academically, it is good for such children to skip grades so that they can have advanced courses and can have peers of the same mental level as they have (Klien, pp. 271, 2007). It is also important for the parents of the gifted children to meet other gifted children’s parents where they all can help each other by sharing the problems in raising a gifted child and come up with the solutions collectively. In this way, the parents of gifted children might get information about the different behaviors and nature of gifted children and might get idea about dealing the gifted children more appropriately. They should know that gifted children need special attention and may participate in conversations of adults raising good points that a normal child cannot. It is important to realize that the gifted children might find it difficult socially and emotionally mix with the peers of their age, as their mental level does not match with the normal children (Klien, pp. 221-224, 2007). Therefore, the parents should make an effort to help them interact with other gifted children or people older then them and those who understand them so that they will not feel different and will feel socially fit. References Cross, Tracy L. (2004). On the social and emotional lives of gifted children. Prufrock Press, Inc. Distin, Kates. (2006). Gifted Children: a guide to parents and professionals. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Klien, Barbara Schave. (2007). Raising Gifted Kids: everything you need to know to help you exceptional child thrive. AMACOM. Moon, Sidney M. & Reis, Sally M. (2004). Social/emotional issues, underachievement, and counseling of gifted and talented students. Corwin press. Read More