Recently I had the pleasure of participating in an Internet conference with parents in Australia about the social and emotional needs of gifted children. During the two weeks of dialogue one parent, Michelle, said:
My own experience (and I suspect that of many other parents of gifted children) is that my awareness of giftedness came about after becoming a parent. In the process of learning about how to respond to the child’s needs, we parents often find ourselves discovering many things about ourselves and perhaps even dealing with a few painful memories of our own childhood experiences.
She went on to say:
It’s something I’ve noticed in my discussions with other parents — while many of them accept their child’s giftedness and associated traits, they seem to be in “denial” about their own giftedness, or at varying stages of dealing with it.
Michelle’s comments are not unusual. Frequently parents and teachers express concerns about fostering growth in gifted children while dealing with the often painful process of coming to terms with their own giftedness and potential. It is difficult — a sort of developmental double-whammy — to go through your own developmental phases while at the same time teaching, guiding, and/or parenting gifted children.
Giftedness in adults can be viewed through a number of lenses. For this article, I want to focus on five key affective needs of gifted adults: acknowledging your own gifts; nurturing your identity development; giving yourself permission to be a growing, changing, imperfect person; taking advantage of and coping with overexcitabilities; and learning practical coping skills. In order to improve self-esteem and self-efficacy, it is vital for adults, as well as children, to have a firm affective foundation from which to act. By focusing on these five needs, adults can begin to foster their own giftedness and will become better role models for gifted children by showing them the importance and value of addressing personal strengths and needs.
Acknowledge Your Own Gifts
The first step towards building a strong social and emotional base is to recognize and acknowledge one’s own strengths or gifts. For many adults this facet of who they are has either gone unnoticed, been ignored or was not expressed for cultural reasons. If you have not already done so, take time to list your personal assets and seek input and validation from friends or family.
Be honest with yourself and open with others about your concerns or confusion surrounding your giftedness. Self-evaluation should enable adults to feel more comfortable with who they are and to become more willing to share themselves with others. This openness leads to modeling for children, pride in our assets, and a willingness to work on our weak points.
Nurture Your Own Identity Development
Often gifted adults focus on the development of their children, students or partners while ignoring their own needs. The key is to find reinforcement, encouragement, and nurturing of one’s strengths and passions. Andrew Mahoney (1998) described four constructs that shape identity:
- Validation: Personally acknowledging one’s giftedness
- Affirmation: Gaining continual reinforcement and acknowledgment about one’s giftedness from others
- Affiliation: Allying oneself with others of similar interests, passions, overexcitability, talents, etc.
- Affinity: Developing a sense of calling or purpose — connecting oneself with the world
Making an active effort to meet your needs for validation, affirmation, affiliation, and affinity is instrumental to fostering adult giftedness.
Give Yourself Permission To Be A Growing, Changing, Imperfect Person
Give yourself permission to be a person in a growth process. Try to accept personal imperfections and recognize that growth tends to move through peaks and valleys. Many gifted individuals have loftier ideals and higher expectations placed on them, which can lead to perfectionism. It is important to develop realistic and satisfying expectations for yourself and others.
Take Advantage of and Cope with Overexcitabilities
Understanding innate characteristics that may accompany giftedness helps foster adult giftedness. Kazimierz Dabrowski described overexcitabilities (OEs) as heightened responsiveness to stimuli. Dabrowski identified five areas — Psychomotor, Sensual, Intellectual, Imaginational, and Emotional — and a person may possess one or more of these. These intensities can be a blessing or a burden; adults may need to take advantage of their intensities and learn to manage them.
Accepting that OEs are part of a person’s essence can be freeing. Individuals with differing OEs may feel out of sync with others, leading to misunderstandings and relationship strain. Difficulties can include:
- Mutual respect, credibility, and understanding may be hard to establish because there is a lack of shared experience or reality.
- Finding a common language to describe experience and express needs is difficult and takes work.
- Others may be perceived as warped or psychologically damaged and thus incapable of holding up their part of a relationship.
- Values may differ greatly, creating fractures in relationships.
- Finding common areas of interest or passion may be difficult.
To counter these negatives try the following:
- Respect and honor individual differences.
- Model acceptance of differences.
- Adjust expectations to incorporate individual differences.
- Assume that the reality described by the other person is valid — don’t automatically look for pathology.
- Ensure both people in the relationship are knowledgeable about OEs.
- Reframe for one another; use metaphors or examples that make sense to the other person.
- Seek like-minded people to provide emotional, intellectual, imaginational, sensual, and physical support.
- Remember that overexcitabilities are innate abilities that should be accepted with grace.
Learn Practical Coping Skills
The first four affective needs can be facilitated by two basic coping skills: recognizing and dealing with stress, and learning effective communication skills. These skills help individuals manage increased stress, intensity, and feelings of differentness often associated with giftedness.
Recognizing and Dealing with Stress
Gifted individuals may have increased stress reactions due to their psychomotor, sensual, intellectual, imaginational, and emotional makeup. Key components include: (1) identifying stress symptoms, (2) developing coping strategies such as relaxation, exercise, meditation, asking for help, and improving organization, and (3) developing prevention strategies like making time for fun and building a supportive network.
Learning and Using Effective Communication Skills
Good communication skills reduce stress and increase understanding. Include both verbal skills (listening, responding, questioning, problem solving) and nonverbal skills (use of time, interpersonal distance and touch, gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice). These skills improve interpersonal communication and help individuals better fit in or change systems when necessary.
REFERENCES
Faber, Adele and Elaine Mazlish. 1980. How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk. New York: Avon.
Lind, S. (1994). Understanding intensity in gifted children. CAG Communicator, 25(5), 22-24.
Lind, S. (1996). Teaching about overexcitabilities in the classroom. The Dabrowski Newsletter, July, 1996, 3-4.
Mahoney, A.S. (1998). In search of the gifted identity: From abstract concept to workable counseling constructs. The Roeper Review, 20(3), 222-226.
Nowicki, Stephan et al. 1992. Helping the Child Who Doesn’t Fit In. Atlanta: Peachtree Publishers.
RESOURCES
Adderholdt-Elliot, Miriam. 1986. Perfectionism – What’s Bad About Being Too Good. Minneapolis: Free Spirit Publishing.
Hipp, Earl. 1985. Fighting Invisible Tigers. Minneapolis: Free Spirit Publishing.
Margulies, Nancy. 1991. Mapping Inner Space: Learning and Teaching Mind Mapping. Tucson: Zephyr Press.
Simon, Sidney. 1988. Getting Unstuck: Breaking Through Your Barriers to Change. New York: Warner Books.
Watts, Jean. 1990. In Search of Perspective. Columbus, OH: Ohio Psychological Publishing Company.
