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Counselling
the Gifted and Talented
By Joan Freeman Abstract The
gifted and talented can be expected to be emotionally at least as
well balanced as any others. In
fact, most are well equipped to face
the world, to cope with expectations and threats, as well as being
particularly sensitive to interpretation and prediction of the feelings
and behaviour of other people. But
because of their exceptionality they
do face special challenges, and so to help them a counsellor must
recognise and understand these and the effects they can have. Personality
and experience affect everyone’s reactions to challenge.
Some rise to them, seeing them merely as hurdles, while others succumb
with poor adjustment, low self-concept and anxiety, all of which can
put a break on school success and creativity. Informed,
skilled and
sympathetic counselling can be effective in helping the most able to
become well adjusted adults. This
paper is
concerned with counselling in the therapeutic/helping sense, the aim of
which is to facilitate a fully functioning person who is sufficiently
well adjusted to life circumstances to cope with them. Counselling
is
mostly, but not necessarily, non-directive in nature; that is, it does
not praise, blame, or offer advice, but accepts what the client says. Talking
about problems helps to put them into perspective and provides
a better base to deal with them. As with teaching, there are a variety of theories of counselling though most practitioners take an eclectic approach using either group or individual counselling. Yet,
school counselling is never restricted to the counsellor;
warm-hearted teachers will continue to be involved with their pupils
when they are needed. In
fact, learning about relationships and how to
learn is slowly becoming part of the curriculum. The training of
primary teachers normally includes educational psychology, though with
older age-groups, teachers become specialists and usually are less
concerned with their pupils as people and more with their proficiency
in the subject taught. This
is sufficient for most pupils, but others
need more personal help. The counsellor’s actual techniques for helping
the gifted are the same as those for other youngsters, including good
counsellor-parent communication, but with additional sound knowledge of
their special challenges and special strengths. Stress
is brought about by a situation which demands adjustment. Psychologically,
we not only respond to present threats, but also to
symbols and expectations of stress. Physiologically,
whereas shock
produces a surge of adrenaline, long-term adaptation to stress produces
a higher metabolic rate and blood glucose level, which can lower
energy, bring about depression and lower immunity to infection. Children are most susceptible to stress at critical periods in their development. Stress
is not usually due to a single bad event, but to an
accumulation. It could be that the gifted suffer more stress in their
daily lives because of their underlying situation of being different
and so succumb to anxiety about relatively small things. Yet an
adaptable intellect - one which has been well exercised in retaining
balance and working at its most efficient - should also be more
resistant to any ill-effects from the hassles of daily life. To
unbalance a well-functioning mind should take stronger stimuli than
would be needed to upset other minds. Indeed,
it is possible that
children with an advanced and wider variety of coping strategies would
be better adjusted than their peers. But for the gifted as for all others, their achievement and social relationships are diminished by emotional problems - the only exceptions being perhaps poets and artists. Stress and the gifted Most
researchers find that the emotional problems faced by the gifted
and talented are similar to those of other children. Neihart
et al
(2002) state this explicitly in an overview of the evidence, “There is
no evidence that gifted children or youth – as a group – are inherently
any more vulnerable or flawed in adjustment than any other group.” (p.
268). In
agreement, Hodge and Renzulli (1993), also overviewing
research evidence found that in comparisons of gifted and nongifted
students the gifted were normal in self-esteem, but that their
exceptionality sometimes did sometimes bring them challenges. In
Australia, Richards et al (2003) compared the emotional and behavioral
adjustment of 33 intellectually gifted adolescents with a matched group
of 25 adolescents of average ability. There
was no significant
differences between the groups in either parent or teacher ratings, nor
in the youngsters’ self-reports. Indeed,
the gifted reported fewer
depressive symptoms, a better attitude towards teachers, greater
self-reliance and a greater sense of adequacy. Czeschlik & Rost (1995) found that high intelligence was of positive benefit in the popularity stakes as did Freeman (2001). Unfortunately,
much of the literature on the social-emotional needs of
the gifted lacks a scientific outlook, relying instead on case studies,
anecdotes, programmes and ‘expert’ opinion, from which unjustified
generalisations may be made (Richards et al, 2003). Publications
list
school phobia, loneliness, depression and suicide, anxiety, and
alienation (e.g. Cross et al, 1991; Silverman, 1993; Plucker &
Levy, 2001). This
negative view is further skewed by the inclusion of
at-risk sub-groups such as the disabled and the disadvantaged (Davis
& Rimm, 1998). Indeed,
in her overview of the international
scientific research Freeman (1998) found that evidence is often taken
from clinical and case studies where the sample may be self-selected,
which is then presented without comparison with other children. If,
for
example, the gifted child invents stomach-aches to avoid school (Gross,
1992) the problems cannot be said to be due to giftedness unless this
behaviour is compared with that of matched children, preferably in the
same class. In
accord, in Freeman’s long-term (2001) study, the gifted from unhappy
homes were more likely to be unhappy, as with any children. Their
emotional problems, though, were very often blamed on their gifts. Post
(1994) found in his study of 291 world-famous men that with few
exceptions they were sociable and “admirable human beings”. He wrote: “Genius as a misunderstood giant is one of the many false stereotypes in this field” (p.31), although the artists rather than the scientists were somewhat likely to have emotional problems. It is
easier to write about the problems of the gifted than the
non-problems. It not only makes a better story, but it is difficult to
write about something that is not normally there. Consequently, so much of this paper on counselling must be concerned with dealing with problems of the gifted and talented, thus not reflecting the overwhelming evidence of their normal psychosocial well-being. Some special stresses on gifted and talented children The gifted do experience some potentially stressful challenges which other children do not share. These usually come from people’s attitudes to them and from inappropriate education - two overlapping and interacting factors – which present as follows. Stereotyping The gifted suffer
particularly from a wide spectrum of
distorting stereotyping and its expectations, from being incompetent in
every day life to being perfect at everything. Children
can either
attempt to fit in with the stereotype they are given, or reject it. A
typical problem created by others happens when an intellectually gifted
child (usually a boy) becomes known as the ‘little professor’. At six
this reputation can bring glory, when class-mates look up to him and
teachers and parents find him ‘cute’. Even though it is perhaps a
little worrying that he has no friends, this is only to be ‘expected’
because of his superior thinking abilities and consequent boredom with
others. But by the age of 15, having developed few social skills and being afflicted with the normal problems of adolescence, the gifted youth may in fact have been prepared for a life of loneliness. The
author’s British follow-up study, started in 1974, of labelled
gifted, non-labelled gifted and a random control group, took a deep
counselling-style approach (Freeman, 2001). When
the children were
young, it was clear that the description of ‘gifted’ by the parents was
often associated with the stereotyped behaviour expected of a gifted
child and not just with ability. But
statistical analysis showed that
emotional problems were not associated with the possession of a gifted
IQ score – rather with other circumstances of the child’s life. Fortunately,
over the years, many of the emotional differences between
the groups disappeared. This may have been either because the labelled youngsters had grown out of their childhood problems or because as adults they had left the pressures and expectations of home and school behind them. Family attitudes All
long-term studies on the development of
exceptional talent have shown the cumulative effects of the interaction
of family attitudes on the gifted child (e.g. Bloom; 1985; Heller,
1991; Freeman, 2000). Problems can arise because a child’s gifts produce reactions in others which may be too difficult for the child to adjust to. For instance, in a family where the child is considerably more advanced than the siblings, the parents may become confused so that they act inconsistently and perhaps produce an exaggerated rivalry in the siblings. The
parents of gifted children can themselves have resulting emotional
problems, either feeling inadequate or trying to gain social advantage
from living vicariously through their child. This
may happen because a
child is brighter than his or her parents, who may offer too much
reverence to their exceptional youngster, feeling that the normal
structuring of good parenting is inappropriate for such a ‘genius’. Parents
may also raise their all-round expectations, even though the
child is only gifted in a specific area. Since no child can perform at
a high level all the time, both fear of failure and feelings of failure
and of disappointing the parents will inevitably occur, with possible
poor emotional consequences. Whatever problems already exist in the family, these can sometimes be intensified when there is a gifted (and so unusual) child present (see Freeman, 2000). It is
the secondary effects - the problems caused by other people -
which become more obvious during the adolescent years. This is not
because the disturbing factors were not present earlier, but because
the child’s reactions to them are often more acceptable at an early age
- an angry 8 year-old is not as difficult to cope with as an angry 15
year-old. Lopsided development Although it happens to most children, abilities in the gifted may develop at different and extreme rates (Terassier, 1985). This can bring difficulties of developmental coordination and balance, or parents may also raise their overall expectations, even though the child is only gifted in a specific area. Vocational challenges
Youngsters who have a heightened perception of
what could be done can set themselves impossible expectations. An
example is a young child whose hands are not big enough to span an
octave on the piano. She
knows what it should sound like, but has to
make a little jump between thumb and little finger, rather than
bringing both down together - so that the sound is wrong. This can be
intensely frustrating, stressful and discouraging. Without adequate
emotional support, even the most talented child may simply give up. Although
some youngsters have specific gifts and thus can see their
career route quite clearly, such as perhaps in music or physics, there
are others who seem to be able to do almost anything to a high level. For
them the stress of deciding what to do can be severe. Before he
left school, one highly talented boy in the Freeman (2001) longitudinal
study had acquired degree-level music qualifications, but he also had
top marks in science. His dilemma was whether to study music or medicine. After great anguish, he decided to take the sensible option, medicine. The distress did not stop. He has now given up medicine and runs a music agency. Schools
do not always prepare their gifted pupils emotionally for
university life, although many of the students will be exceptionally
young when they get there. Freeman
(2001) found that the transition
from the relatively structured and disciplined school day to the
freedom of university life sometimes brought emotional problems. Quite a number in her sample complained of feelings of inertia, and of lack of concentration and motivation, once they had passed the magic barrier to all that had been held up to them as the ultimate goal in life - university. Gender has emerged as the strongest
single variable across many studies
of exceptional achievement, and it has a decided emotional root. Not
only do boys and girls respond differently to their educational
experiences, but also to their measured abilities. Even
today, gifted
girls in mixed-sex schools sometimes feel that if they show their
brilliance they will not be seen as feminine. What
is more, while boys
tend to react to failure by becoming disruptive, girls tend to react by
becoming withdrawn, and so it is the boy’s response which is likely to
attract the most teacher attention (Galloway & Goodwin, 1987). When selection of children as gifted is made subjectively, whether by teachers or parents, more boys are chosen than girls. However, mentoring and action to improve self-esteem have been found to be effective in promoting a more realistic presentation of girls’ abilities (Noble, et al, 1999; Heller & Ziegler, 1996). Pressure to succeed The
gifted are sometimes under extra pressure from
parents and teachers to be continually academically successful leaving
them feeling intellectually unexercised. Youngsters
are sometimes
pushed into the competitive race for advancement - a race in which
their other abilities may wither by working too hard in too narrow a
field, as well as sacrificing leisure interests. Too
much competitive
striving can build up a ruthless, aggressive outlook. The dilemma for
educationalists is that development of a playful, creative approach to
their work and general outlook may thus be stunted (Cropley, 1995,
Sternberg & Lubart, 1995). Additionally,
their time to find out
about life at their own pace and in their own ways can be drastically
reduced - a situation often complained about by the subjects of the
follow-up of 1964-1968 Presidential Scholars in America (Kaufman,
1992). Although the ex-scholars continued to do well, they often
described how they relied on school-type achievement to provide them
with an identity. 
Continued in Part 2~ ~ ~
Articles: high ability - gifted/talented Intensity / sensitivity resources : articles sites books Introversion /
shyness. ~ ~ ~
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