GIFTED AND TALENTED CHILDREN

Although we place high hopes for a worthwhile future on the gifted and talented youth of today, we often neglect this group. While many schools like Plainview-Old Bethpage have programs for these students, many gifted children spend most of their school day in regular classes. For large portions of their day, at school and home, they are left to their own devices.

Contrary to the popular misconceptions that they will do better without interference and that they will succeed on their own, some gifted children experience academic, social, and personal problems when they do not receive support from society and parents. Of primary importance in the recognition and the development of the special abilities of these individuals is the active support of the parent, at home and in school.

Gifted children display their abilities in a variety of ways, each unique to the individual child. In general, for most children giftedness is demonstrated by performance of tasks and understanding of concepts usually associated with much older children. Reading signs, magazines, and books, and performing mathematical computations at ages three to five, speaking complete sentences and using abstract vocabulary at age two and three-all indicate superior intellectual abilities.

The suggestions that follow are intended to help parents cope with these challenges.

Often the gifted child feels isolated from the rest of the world because of the exceptional abilities he or she possesses. Facing these feelings of difference alone can create emotional problems, disruptive behaviors, or withdrawal from the frustrating situation.

Discuss feelings of difference with the child as they arise. While we do not want to create problems when they do not exist, we should always be ready with an understanding attitude when problems appear.

• Help the child relate to friends who may not be so gifted. While gifted children should recognize their abilities, they should also learn to put them into perspective with the abilities and interests of others. Instead of setting themselves above others, they should learn to look for strengths in friends as well as for ways to share their abilities in a productive manner.
• Explore the difficulties that arise from too many viable choices. As gifted individuals mature, they usually find that they are able to excel in many areas, which at first may seem exciting and fortunate. As classmates begin to focus on areas of specialization in which they can excel, however, the gifted may be faced with making a difficult decision among many equally viable alternatives because they may excel in any of them.
• Provide structure and boundaries for behavior. Often gifted children are able to argue very convincingly about their "rights" to be excused from conventional behavioral requirements. At times the requirements may be examined, but at other times they should be accepted on the basis of adult perspective even when they seem illogical to the child.
• Encourage the gifted and talented to challenge themselves. Because of their superior abilities, the gifted often work at only partial capacity in various areas and still succeed. This approach to learning, however, may ultimately create difficulties because the individuals may acquire extremely poor learning habits that they may not be able to overcome when they are sufficiently challenged.
• Help gifted children set realistic self-expectations. Because of their exceptional abilities, such individuals are often expected to perform at high levels at all times. After a while they internalize these expectations and sometimes feel inadequate when they fail to maintain consistently high levels of performance in all areas.

Parents play an important role in the development of exceptional abilities in children, especially in encouraging a favorable attitude toward these tendencies.

• Encourage children to play an active, real role in family decisions. Listen to their suggestions, applying them wherever possible.
• Try to encourage integration of ideas by drawing relationships among ideas and events. Discuss possible consequences of actions, both personal and societal, building upon daily activities and current events.
• Encourage storytelling and use of the imagination. Allow flights of fancy, even projecting ideas to the absurd. Explore and laugh with the children, developing a sense of humor as well as an interest in the fanciful.
• Encourage experimentation, even when possibilities of success are slim. Treat lack of success as part of the learning process, examining some of the possible causes for failure and other roads that may have been more successful.
• Provide opportunities for a variety of methods of expression, includifig photography, an, tape recording, dramatic and other activities.
• Provide a variety of books, magazines, puzzles, and games that promote use of the imagination, logical thinking, drawing inferences, and making predictions.
• Help gifted and talented individuals become critical viewers and readers by discussing influences the mass media such as television and literature may have on personal and social values.
• Establish open communication with teachers and administrators about educating the gifted and talented. Some parents are reluctant to admit that their children may be gifted and assume that schools will automatically take care of them or that they will get along by themselves.
• When discussing a gifted child with teachers, provide anecdotes illustrating the child's exceptional abilities and interests outside school. Teachers may not alwavs recognize such abilities because the child mav not demonstrate them in the classroom.
• Seek out other parents of gifted children and share concerns and ideas. Such communication may not only help each parent feel less alone but may also provide resources for the children, including contact with other gifted children of similar interests, trips, or even programs for the gifted. As a group, parents of gifted and talented may be able to promote program development in schools for their children.
• Explore what is being done elsewhere for gifted and talented through readings, visits, or writing school districts with programs for the gifted. Information about the issue and about various approaches may help your child's school initiate its own program. Share such information with other parents.

Because of their heightened perceptions and sensitivities, many gifted children need an environment that is secure emotionally and stimulating intellectually to allow their abilities to flourish. Too many adults overlook their needs, however, assuming that these children already have advantages others lack. Consequently, much is left to parents to provide for the gifted. Working with the child, with other parents, and with the school, parents can accomplish this awesome, often frustrating, task.