T-ball starts when children are about 3 or 4 years old. Parents of T-ball players look forward to watching their children fumble and frolic on the field, throwing and catching their mitts into the air as the game goes on. Spinning or sitting in on the field out of sheer excitement or boredom for the game of T-ball. Focus is nonexistent, save their focus on the butterfly flitting around or the clover patch they just discovered as they look for the lucky one with four leaves.
Now, introduce the ball into play, and you will have outtakes funny enough to submit to America’s Funniest Videos – players who don’t even notice the ball is in play, let alone right in front of their mitt. In those cases, they charge the ball, overrun it, but have the good fortune to get to it, only to overthrow it to the wrong base. As parents, we don’t care. We still cheer in a wild frenzy, making our children think they are the next great A-Rod, all the while cringing and laughing at the obvious developmental inadequacies of their age.
Not Joshua’s parents. When my daughter played T-ball, there was a little boy named Joshua on her team. You could easily pick out Joshua because he was always in the ready stance position, alert to only the ball as the batter painfully missed the coach-pitches. Out comes the T-ball stand, but still another “swing and a miss.” That didn’t distract Joshua, whose eyes were glued to the ball. From the moment the bat hit the ball, Joshua responded on instinct, getting to the ball first nearly every time, even though he was playing third base and the ball was dribbled down the first base line.
Game after game, he played with such natural ability that it created some ire among his fellow players, including my strong-willed Sarah. Sarah had the desire and will to get to the ball first but not the ability like Joshua. Joshua always got to it first.
One day, Sarah got so mad she burst into tears. Couldn’t everyone see the injustice? Couldn’t everyone see that Joshua was being a ball hog on the field? Couldn’t somebody do something to stop him or slow him down? Joshua’s parents would make feeble attempts to temper his enthusiasm, to try to calm his gazelle-like moves across the field, but he wouldn’t have it. His body just responded to every aspect of the game accurately. He was truly in a league of his own, like Dash in The Incredibles. No one was going to slow him down. His parents watched every game cringing, but not out of laughter like us other parents. Out of struggle – the struggle of watching their child try to restrain himself and “play nice” when it went against every bone in his body, against every aspect of genetic hardwiring running through him.
At the end of the season, I talked to Joshua’s parents about their son’s obvious and amazing athletic giftedness. They apologized. They knew he loved the sport and was good at it but didn’t realize he was that far advanced from his peers. In total admiration of his ability, I encouraged them to consider a competitive league for their 4-year-old son, playing with those whose talent and ability matched his. While watching Joshua on the field, one could really envision the next A-Rod.
Profound athletic talent is hard to miss, and catching the wave of excitement at a child’s success comes naturally to us. It’s as American as apple pie. Michael Phelps’ amazing natural talent and ability were so obvious that he started training with a top swim coach at 11 years old, and began training for the Olympics when he was 12 years old. Imagine his mother’s joy, excitement, admiration, and struggle to watch her 12-year-old son embark on such a journey, deep in her heart knowing that he could be the best swimmer in the world. And that he did as the world watched with excitement as he won each of his eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. We all clapped and cheered and talked about the amazing Michael Phelps. No one questioned or commented that he was pushed too hard, how unfortunate it was that he missed out on a “normal” childhood, or that he had an inflated sense of himself. We just all reveled in his dedication and drive, accomplishments, and achievements – and we should!
Though not all stellar youth athletes are as good as young Joshua or the great Michael Phelps, we don’t begrudge parents the right and the joy of sharing their child’s success. We also don’t begrudge parents who have a musically gifted child performing in a musical at a young age or are selected for a youth symphony. It all makes sense. Their talents and abilities are to be admired and talked about. But mentioning intelligence and the achievements that come along with high IQ, one may see raised eyebrows and talk of the child (and often the parent) being conceited, stuck-up, or elitist. Ours can be a lonely world… but it doesn’t have to be. We are not alone. Many of us know your world.
Intellectually Gifted Children
It’s really amazing to think about what becomes “normal” when raising an intellectually gifted child. You may be able to think back to your own experiences of what it was like for you as a child… rocket science and assorted brainiac concepts may also have been the norm for you. In third grade, it seemed natural for me to know how to spell antidisestablishmentarianism, which, at that time, was the longest word in the English dictionary.
My Son and Mechanics
At two years of age, our son developed a fascination with mechanical things. He loved the merry-go-round best because he could study the rotations of the gear mechanisms that made it move. He threw fits if I did not take him downstairs to do laundry… not because he wanted to help, but because he was mesmerized by the rotation of the washer and the resulting spill of water into the sump pump.
When he visited friends and family, his greeting was an inquiry, “Do you have a pedestal or submersible sump pump?” And that question was quickly followed up with, “Can I see it?” He was so well-studied on the cycle of the sump pump that at three years old, he warned us it was not cycling correctly. Unfortunately, we did not heed his warning, and the night we had a babysitter so we could go on a date, our sump pump overflowed and flooded our basement.
Lesson learned – the kid knew what he was talking about. Our son was the easily identified brainiac child – just a brief conversation confirmed his intelligence, highlighted by advanced vocabulary, abstract thinking, and sarcastic wit.
My Daughter and Relationships
Our daughter’s intelligence manifested much differently – my husband even questioned why IQ tested her (the results quelled his doubts). Research shows girls with older gifted brothers are IQ tested at significantly lower rates. Sadly, we often miss the intelligence of our girls.
My daughter has always been very relational in her thinking. As a preschooler, she would cluster everything in terms of relationships. She would even line up quarters, nickels, pennies, and dimes and give them attributes of family members based on size (i.e. Daddy was the quarter, Mommy was the nickel, and so on). At a very young age, her deep empathy and supersensitivity were profound to witness as she would lament about the plight of animals and poor people when sensing any type of injustice.
She was hysterically crying as she left me a voicemail one afternoon – I thought something tragic had happened! When I called her back and could eventually decipher what she was saying between sobs, her angst was due to watching one of those heart-wrenching commercials about puppy mills. That was tragic to her. She wailed during the movie Eight Below when one of the dogs died. At the end of the movie, I asked her what she thought. She said, “It was a great movie, but I never want to see it again.”
As a parent and professional working with gifted and profoundly gifted kids, my perspective is unique. Raising my children has been both delightful and draining.
Giftedness and Special Needs
Gifted kids are special needs kids on the other end of the IQ spectrum. Asynchrony rules their lives and challenges our lives as parents! Our precocious cherubs may have the vocabulary of a 16-year-old, the passion for world peace like a 34-year-old, and then meltdowns and outbursts like a 2-year-old… all at a ripe young chronological age of maybe 6 or 7. It’s hard to tell them to act their age because their age is variable. They are often exhausting and frustrating. It is important to remember that genetics plays a big part in this (they don’t lick it off the lead in the paint). You were likely as exhausting and frustrating to those who tried to parent and teach you as a child!
Dabrowski identifies five overexcitabilities or super-sensitivities that manifest in the gifted population:
- Psychomotor
- Sensual
- Emotional
- Intellectual
- Imaginational
Gifted children tend to have more than one of these intensities, although one is usually dominant. Learning how to manage these OEs becomes the balancing act and survival skill for gifted kids and their parents. It’s the blessing and the burden throughout life.
Parenting a Gifted Child
The rocket science of parenting becomes how to feed a gifted child, especially in a society that seeks to marginalize intellectual giftedness.
First of all, don’t apologize for your child’s giftedness. It’s in their hardwiring – it is what it is. Now, the question becomes what to do.
I’ve had many conversations with adults who judge that parents of gifted children push their kids. Anyone who has walked in our shoes knows better. We are just struggling to keep up with them, finding the right nourishment to satiate their insatiable hunger and thirst – their desire to learn more, absorb all they can intellectually, connect with others like them, express their deepest emotions, experience knowledge in a way we may never understand, and the list goes on.
Attending the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) Conference in Indianapolis in 2003 was the entree into the gifted world for my husband and me. For the first time, we felt normal. Other parents like us simply wanted to feed their gifted kids. I have learned a lot personally and professionally since that first conference – mostly that parents of gifted are not unlike our gifted kids. We, too, want to learn, absorb, connect, express, and experience.
Resources
For parents just starting this journey, here are some of my top picks that I always professionally recommend:
- Read Guiding the Gifted Child by James Webb and Stephanie Tolan. It’s an oldie but a goodie. It was the first book I read that validated my journey and began to shed light on the path of what to do for my kids.
- Get your child’s IQ tested (request an IQ and an achievement test). We know they are smart, but it is valuable to know how smart. Many schools do not typically have a favorable response to IQ testing because IQ measures potential, not performance. Achievement testing is a language schools understand and offers room for negotiations regarding acceleration options.
- IQ testing also opens doors to resources such as Mensa (top 2% IQ), the Davidson Institute for Talent Development (top 1% IQ), talent searches, etc. Explore these for your child. Traditional schools are the only place where kids are grouped by age rather than interest. Gifted children need to be with intellectual peers, not just age-mates.
- Central Indiana Mensa’s Gifted Family Program is a place for gifted children to be with peers, not just age-mates. Get them involved. Most programs are free of charge. All children and teens who have been identified by parents or schools as gifted or high ability are welcome to attend.
- Embrace the parental mindset “Advocate, don’t alienate.” This is critical with schools, programs, and adults involved in your child’s life. We want to open doors for opportunities in their lives as we teach our kids to navigate life and create a meaningful life for themselves.
Finding the people and places where intelligence is valued and appreciated becomes our life’s journey. There are others who desperately long to find a place for their children to belong and thrive. We are out here –many of us have found the place where rocket science is the norm and not the exception! Welcome – it’s a delightful and draining ride!
About Christine Turo-Shields
Christine Turo-Shields, LCSW has a personal and professional passion for working in the world of the gifted, raising both a gifted and a profoundly gifted child. She has worked with hundreds more, including children, teens, and adults. She knows the blessings and burdens of minds of our brightest! Many gifted individuals struggle with emotional angst, relationships, academic achievement, and personal fulfillment. They often struggle with special needs/twice-exceptionalities as well. As an expert in the GT/HA world, she has consulted with multiple school districts on case consultations regarding gifted students as well as conducted and coordinated trainings and presentations for educators and parents. She coaches gifted parents, introducing them to resources that will aid in navigating their children’s world emotionally, socially, and behaviorally. Christine has been an integral part of developing the Gifted Family Program for Central Indiana Mensa – a program so successful that it won the American Mensa Gifted Children Program Award in 2010. She has been published in the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) newsletter and was a presenter at the NAGC national conference in 2013.