Issues in the social and emotional development of gifted children

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Issues in the social and emotional development of
gifted children

• CTYI Workshop
• Understanding Gifted Education
• DCU, February 23rd 2008
• Sarah McElwee, University of Oxford
• sarah.mcelwee_at_psy.ox.ac.uk

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Issues for discussion

• Are gifted children more likely to have
  social/emotional problems?
• Issues in developing friendships sibling
  relationships
• Sources of stress for gifted children
• Promoting self-esteem and coping
• Preparing for future careers

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Better adjusted or worse off?

• Stereotypical views of isolation, intolerance,
  poor social relationships
• Evidence from Termans studies
• Little evidence for the current wisdom of
  emotional vulnerability
• group vs individual perspectives
• Bias in subject selection
• Different challenges.

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Issues of Gender

• Young boys
• Underachievement starts young
• Passivity to challenge from females
• Few male role models in primary school

• Older boys
• Compensate for unacceptable academic
  performance
• Socially acceptable activities
• Pressurised into high-performance careers

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Issues of Gender.

• Young girls
• Societal expectations
• Teacher perceptions
• Cautiousness being shouted down
• Motor skills language development free play

• Older girls
• slide in self-esteem from about age 12
• Stereotype of a popular female dumbing down
• Peer groups reward conformity
• Teacher interactions

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Friendships in gifted children
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Friendships

• Gifted children often sought by age-mates due to
  social skilfulness but prefer company of older
  children
• Inclusion, control, affection
• Effects of isolation
• Two challenging periods early childhood
  adolescence
• Conflict between need to achieve and need for
  approval

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Moderately vs. Highly Gifted in Friendship

• Moderately Gifted
• Positive peer relationships even without
  intellectual peers
• Prefer playing with other children to
  adults/alone
• Few find it hard to make friends
• View self as friendly

• Highly Gifted
• Harder to make friends
• Observation is verified by parents
• Adult emphasis on intellectual pursuits
• Perception of self as different from age peers
• Accounts for 20-25

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Identifying socially at-risk children

• Issues for concern about social skills
• They have very few friends
• Little time spent playing with other children
• Type of play is inappropriate for their age
• Unhappy with friendships say they feel lonely
• Notice rejection in classroom or play situations
• Be cautious none of these indicators is perfect!

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Other friendship issues facing gifted children

• Loneliness
• Structure of girls play
• Lack of competitiveness
• High demands of others
• Misunderstandings of other children
• Leadership
• Accepting individual differences in ability
• Sibling relationships

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Promoting social inclusion

• Locate intellectual peers
• Cooperative learning
• Teach group entry skills

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Stress

• A biological reaction to a perceived inability
  to cope with a situation
• Young children generally experience less stress
  than average learners, despite possible pressure
  to succeed.
• Advanced reasoning ability to hypothesise may
  predispose them to worry.
• Gender differences

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Sources of stress

• High expectations
• Perfectionism
• Low expectations frustration.
• Involvement in adult issues
• Older children
• Exam stress
• Outlet to express fears

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Self-esteem

• A reflection of how we value our own
  characteristics how well we measure up to the
  standards we set ourselves
• Gifted children generally have higher global
  self-concept higher academic self-concept

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Big-Fish-Little-Pond effect.

• Gifted children can find transition from primary
  to secondary school, or placement on gifted
  programme stressful
• Gifted programmes social physical appraisal
  improves, academic can decrease
• Resulting academic self-concept may be more
  realistic!
• Children interested in doing their best rather
  than being the best fare better

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Fostering self-esteem

• Accept yourself children watch how you deal
  with disappointments, failure etc
• Accept childs behaviour feelings
• Think about how you ask questions
• Encourage independence
• Promote realistic ideals and accept mistakes
• Give acknowledgement beware of how you praise

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Career planning and support
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Career planning and support

• Multipotentiality
• Often score highly in all subscales of career
  aptitude tests
• With your brains you can do anything
• Relevant work experience and mentors
• Discriminate between subjects they simply achieve
  in and those they really enjoy.

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How can we promote resilience?

• Promote autonomy
• Be sensitive to childrens stress
• Make responsibilities clear
• Attribution training
• Model successful behaviours
• Provide intellectual peers mentors
• Teach coping skills