 The dark side of nurturing giftedness“Parents’ obsession with ‘creating’ or ‘nurturing’ giftedness, Alissa Quart argues, has led to a full-blown transformation of middle-class childhood into aggressive skill-set pageantry. "While Quart wonderfully details the daily grinds of genuine prodigies (in everything from violin to preaching to entrepreneurship), the real force of the book is in showing how gifted childhood relentlessly tested, totally overscheduled and joylessly competitive is being created by striving parents of all stripes. |
"Such
‘enrichment’ not only doesn't necessarily work, it can be harmful.
A chapter titled ‘The Icarus Effect’ presents child-prodigies as worn, depressed adults; ‘Extreme Parenting’ and ‘Child Play or Child Labor?’ show the bizarre (and often profit-based) forms prodigy-mongering is taking: ‘Phoenix has started her own knitwear business,’ one parent crows, ‘and though she is only 12, she can do it.’ " > From Publishers
Weekly review of Hothouse
Kids: The Dilemma of the Gifted Child - by Alissa Quart
|
 |
Most
parents like to think that their children are gifted but the irony is
that if they are, the parents are more likely to keep quiet rather than
brag about it. Parents fear being mocked, says Dr Miraca Gross who is
the Director of the Gifted Education Research and Resource Information
Centre at the University of New South Wales.
> from news story Parents shouldn't be shy about having a bright child > book: Exceptionally Gifted Children -- by Miraca U. M. Gross > image from book The War Against Excellence |
Now Hillary's a senator and she has all the power in our family, but she's proving what I always said. She has the best combination of mind and heart, conviction and compassion I've ever encountered, though I must say Chelsea is giving her mother a good run. Chelsea, your life and our love for you gave meaning to our public service. They made the presidency the second-most important job I ever had.
> Bill Clinton - at the rainy dedication of his presidential library [Los Angeles Times Nov 18, 2004]
~ ~ ~ ~
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."
> from article : Fostering adult giftedness:
Acknowledging and addressing affective
needs of gifted adults - by Sharon Lind..related page : GT Adults
~ ~ ~ ~
There are movies I won't do now, like anything about incest. I just don't need her seeing me that way. And if I play a villain, what he does is important. In "Love Field" (1992) I lay my 'daughter' down on the car seat and tell her not to look up, and a fight ensues -- Katherine cried after that. She accentuates my sensitive side and has taught me to listen.
Dennis Haysbert - about his daughter Katherine, 9 ... O, The Oprah Magazine, June 2004
photo from Far from Heaven (2002)
~ ~ ~ ~
 .. .. OLD THINKING: In this country, far too much emphasis is placed on developing babies' cognitive abilities. Some of this push came out of the promising results of the Head Start program. Middle-class families reasoned that if a little stimulation in an underendowed home environment is beneficial, wouldn't "more" be better? And the race to create the "superbaby" was on. |
Gone
are the days when parents just wished their child were "normal" and
could
"fit in" with other kids.
Competition for selective schools and the social pressure it generates has made parents feel their child needs to be "gifted." Learning exercises, videos and educational toys are pushed on parents to use in play with their children. "Make it fun," the experts say. The emphasis is on developing baby's cognitive skills by using the emotional reward of parental attention as a behavior-training tool. THE NEW THINKING: Flying in the face of all those "smarter" baby books are studies suggesting that pushing baby to learn words, numbers, colors and shapes too early forces the child to use lower-level thinking processes, rather than develop his or her learning ability. It's like a pony trick at the circus: When the pony paws the ground to "count" to three, it's really not counting; it's simply performing a stunt. from article
Four Things You Need to Know About Raising Baby,
|
~ ~ ~ ~
 .. .. In addition, having just one good friend lowers the risk of being harassed or feeling bad about it, so help from parents and teachers in establishing one friendship will be beneficial. School-wide approaches also are essential. The entire community has to take responsibility for preventing and dealing with victimization. .... |
People
used to think, "Once a victim, always a victim."
But we now know that victim status can change. With consciousness-raising and sound, research-based tools, schools can become healthier places for all sorts of kids to grow up. Sandra Graham, PhD from article Saved by the bell? Serious science brings hope to victims and bullies - by Nancy K. Dess, Psychology Today, Nov-Dec, 2001 photo from book The Bully, the Bullied, and the Bystander: From Preschool to High School, How Parents and Teachers Can Help Break the Cycle of Violence - by Barbara Coloroso ...Peer
Harassment in School: |
--...related page: .....social reactions / interactions: teen/young adult............~ ~ ~ ~
--
At 15, Amy is master of ceremonies for her family's very congenial talk show. She is funny, self-assured, and bright... she is doing poorly in high school.
..
..Amy's father, Doug, says that he doesn't want to fight with her and that because she is so likable it's hard to confront her. ...
A Stanford graduate and owner of a Silicon Valley firm, Doug is both bright and skilled enough to handle this situation well.
His predicament with Amy is illustratative of one particularly flawed response of parent who themselves underachieve when faced with the challenges of rearing HPPs [High Potential Persons]. ....
As one SLHPP [Self-Limiting High Potential Person] said, "I have learned that if I am pleasant and mean well, people make allowances."
A winning smile has gained SLHPPs with whom we have worked everything from extended deadlines for papers to passing grades on driver's license tests. .... Like Doug, parents of easygoing, adaptable SLHPPs usually want to stay on good terms with their exceptional child and tend to make their child's activities the central axis around which the family revolces. ....
Children easily draw unwarranted conclusions about their own significance, and this can have destructive implications.
If you were such a child, a significant amount of work is required just to excape the corrupting influence of having been too indulged, too central, and too much in charge of the figures who should have guided you.
from book: Your Own Worst Enemy: Breaking
the Habit of Adult Underachievement -
by Kenneth W. Christian, PhD [site]photo from unrelated book: Surviving Ophelia:
Mothers Share Their Wisdom in Navigating the
Tumultuous Teenage Years -
by Cheryl Dellasega, Ph.D. [site]--~ ~ ~ ~--
Crises such as depression, anorexia, drug abuse, pregnancy, bullying, or other issues that face an alarming number of young women are hushed and hidden. Mothers of girls who struggle with these problems are often invisible, grieving silently and alone. I know. I was one of them.
Cheryl Dellasega, Ph.D.
from excerpt on her site - from her book Surviving Ophelia: Mothers Share Their Wisdom in Navigating the Tumultuous Teenage Years
~ ~ ~ ~
 .. .. "I think what the film does is portray very well the life of a disturbed teenager," said Dr. David Feinberg, a UCLA child psychiatrist... Even among 13-year-olds, around 80 percent have no problems with family or peers, says Feinberg. "It's really a small minority of people, but those are the kind of people I see." |
"Some
girls go through this. Most don't," agrees Don Elium, a Walnut Creek
family
therapist and the co-author, along with Jeanne Elium, of the book "Raising
a Daughter."
He readily confirms that shoplifting, cutting, drug experimentation and oral sex all do occur among even middle school girls. from
article: Growing pains: Teens on film - |
--~ ~ ~ ~
|
Parental support and expectations -- as well as a strife-free environment while growing up -- have more to do with women's success in life than does socio-economic status, according to a study by Sigrid Gustafson, assistant professor of psychology and senior author of the book Female Life Careers: A Pattern Approach. Status, concluded Gustafson and colleague David Magnusson of the University of Stockholm, really did not mean much as long as a girl's parents believed in and expected her success. "We found patterns where parents were very low in socio-economic status -- in income and education -- but were upwardly mobile in their expectations for their children. They wanted their children to go on and believed they could," Gustafson says. "The patterns set up early in a child's life cause them to have different life courses." Gustafson and her colleagues looked at a large sample of Swedish families at all rungs of the socio-economic scale over 30 years. Gustafson paid particularly close attention to the parents' expectations about their daughter's continuing education and success, as well as their belief in her capability for continuing her education. They looked at the girls at ages 13, 16, and 26. The highest achievers in all groups came from households where the parents believed the daughter would succeed. One group of 13-year-olds actually had higher abilities and achievements than the average at that age, but their perception of their ability and their family's encouragement was low. |
 .. .. By age 26, they held only part-time jobs, had more children, reported fewer personal friends, and expressed less satisfaction with their use of leisure time. The same group of girls also had some strife in their families. On the other hand, the 13-year-olds with high perceptions of their abilities and high adaptations to school came from families who "thought they were hot stuff." They went to college, established careers, married later, and had fewer children. "The whole environment -- schools and families -- rewarded their staying in that pattern," Gustafson says. Gustafson says the study simply points out things parents can do to increase children's chances of success. "Parents can reinforce their childrens' abilities," Gustafson says. "The underachievers were not dumb. They were normal at 13. But by 16 they were lower. The overachievers had lower IQs, but their high achievement came from families going 'rah, rah, rah.'" Virginia Tech Magazine Volume 14, Number 3 Spring 1992 image from book: Ophelia Speaks |
~ ~ ~ ~
------
Gifted girls continue to face special conflicts in resolving society's expectations of them as women and as gifted people, despite the impact the women's movement made on role definitions during the 1970s. ... In junior and senior high school, girls are exposed to many deep-seated cultural taboos which make it difficult for them to comfortably display their intelligence and pursue excellence as aggressively as boys.
from book: When Gifted Kids Don't Have All the Answers: How to Meet Their Social and Emotional Needs by James R. Delisle, PhD et. al. - also co-author of The Gifted Kids Survival Guide: A Teen Handbook
 .. .. Implicit memory is a form of memory that is outside of conscious awareness. Implicit memory records those memories, those emotional experiences that are not part of our conscious, explicit memory. It is our implicit memories that can cause us the most difficulty in fostering the emotional development of children. It is these memories that are beyond our conscious control, which can lead us to relate to children as if they are objects from the past rather than to the present circumstances of children's lives. This is often observed in a pattern of human interaction known as repetition compulsion, which refers to our drive to one degree or another to duplicate our earlier relationship patterns. For example, Joan's mother was withdrawn and emotionally unavailable to her children, making Joan feel like a bad child. |
Now,
when Joan's own child, Tim, sulks, Joan again feels like a bad child
and
therefore withdraws from Tim. So Tim's emotional experience of Joan is
similar to Joan's experience of her own mother.
In this way, Tim inherits an emotional legacy that is passed down from preceding generations. It is an emotional legacy that is registered in implicit memory. .... However, as a number of researchers have shown the good news is that the brain has plasticity or flexibility and therefore past emotional issues registered in implicit memory can be consciously worked through or resolved. In order to work on these emotional experiences a parent needs to become aware of the past feeling states that are being triggered by our children's emotions and behaviors. Thomas Paris and Eileen Paris in their book, I'll Never Do To My Kids What My Parents Did To Me, mention several feeling states that can cue you to the possibility that you are experiencing past feeling states which have intruded on the present relationship with your child: * Feeling
helpless or abandoned. from
article : |
~ ~ ~ ~
------
One risk of over-interpreting the importance of experience can be found in the simplistic and potentially harmful suggestion for early and excessive amounts of sensory stimulation during infancy.
..
..Attachment research suggests that infants thrive not on excessive stimulation, but rather on forms of collaborative communication within interpersonal relationships that appear to promote emotional well-being.
This collaborative, contingent form of communication can be taught to parents.
Daniel J. Siegel, MD. PBS / Frontline transcript [Jan 2002]
Reflective dialogues could be just one kind of contingent verbal communication, but the way I use that term, is that the parent is actually talking to the child about the nature of the mind. More specifically, this means talking about thoughts, feelings, perceptions, memories, sensations, attitudes, beliefs and intentions.
If parents can remember those 8 factors, or some of them anyway, and put them on a list and just remember to talk to kids about them, it would be so helpful.
These eight elements are what help kids develop compassion.
It is the combination of just these 2 things, of contingent non-verbal communication and parents who promote the development of mind-sight (the ability to basically examine those 8 or more aspects of mental functioning in themselves and others), which really allows a child to develop a deeper understanding and empathic view of others.
Kids who do well in school and in life have pretty well developed mindsight that allows them to develop an understanding of themselves and others.
Daniel Siegel, MD [Mental Help Net interview]
~ ~ ~ ~----
Leelee Sobieski (Never Been Kissed, Deep Impact), who normally avoids the tinseltown party scene, was shocked at the lengths to which the "adults" went in order to please the youngsters. "They kept going, 'Hey, you want some wine? You want some beer?' " she tells Details. "This one agent said to my friend, 'Anytime you want some pot, I'll hook you up.' I was shocked..." Dealing with the elders who don't want to lead them down the substance path is odd in its own right, Sobieski adds.
"All these grown-ups are working for you," she says. "They want to get you into their game. They want to make their money off the money that you're making. And you're thinking, 'I should be working in an ice-cream place.'"
[from "Leelee Sobieski Maintains Her Innocence", tvguide.com, July 24, 1999]
--~ ~ ~ ~
Marge: I'm afraid we're going to need a bigger house. Homer: No, we won't. I've got it all figured out. The baby can have Bart's crib and Bart'll sleep with us until he's 21.
Marge: Won't that warp him? Homer: My cousin Frank did it.
Marge: You don't have a cousin Frank.
Homer: He became Francine back in '76. Then he joined that cult. I think her name is Mother Shabubu now.
~ ~ ~ ~
....articles:
Cultivating otherwise untapped potential - by Deborah Smith [APA Monitor]
Psychologists are developing programs to identify gifted children earlier--and to ensure their success. Psychologist Frank Worrell, PhD, has seen countless adolescents develop into highly talented college students in the Academic Talent Development Program at the University of California, Berkeley -- a program that offers summer enrichment and acceleration classes to children in kindergarten through 11th grade. Students who struggle with introductory courses when they enter the program can earn As in the program's most difficult classes by the end, says Worrell, the program's lead researcher. But that talent doesn't flourish on its own, he says: "People have talents in various areas, but if those talents aren't developed, they're not going to mean anything." Without extra supports, many children with potential are left behind, agrees James Gallagher, PhD, professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill...External barriers experienced by gifted and talented girls and women - by Sally M. Reis [Gifted Child Today Mag.]
Gifted and talented females face conflicts between their own abilities and the social structure of their world. They confront both external barriers (i.e., lack of support from families, stereotyping, and acculturation in home, school, and the rest of society) and internal barriers (i.e., self-doubt, self-criticism, lowered expectations, and the attribution of success to effort rather than ability).Fostering the Emotional Development of Your Children - By Glenn A. Peters, Ph.D.
Internal barriers, personal issues, and decisions faced by gifted and talented females
by Sally M. Reis, PhD
"Research with talented females has revealed a number of internal barriers, personal priorities, and decisions that have consistently emerged as the reasons that many either cannot or do not realize their potential... identified in hundreds of interviews conducted with girls and women at various ages, stages across the life span and in a variety of occupations. ... These include dilemmas about abilities and talents, personal decisions about family, decisions about duty and caring (putting the needs of others first) as opposed to nurturing personal, religious, and social issues. [Gifted Child Today Magazine, Wntr, 2002]Parenting Emotionally Intense Gifted Children - by Lesley Sword
Giftedness has an emotional as well as intellectual component. Intellectual complexity goes hand in hand with emotional depth. So gifted children not only think differently from other children they also feel differently. Emotional intensity in gifted people is not a matter of feeling more than other people, it is a different way of experiencing the world.Psychological Factors in the Development of Adulthood Giftedness from Childhood Talent
by Paula Olszewski-Kubilius, PhD
In early childhood, some children come to the attention of parents and teachers because of very advanced abilities or exceptional interest in an area. ... However, many of these children will not go on to be very exceptional in adulthood. ... Researchers within gifted education assert that personality factors and motivation are the most important elements of creative achievement and distinguish creative producers from others.Social & Emotional Needs of the Gifted (Adults and Children) by Deborah L. Ruf, PhD
"An intellectually gifted child begins life receiving feedback that she is a surprising delight to her family. She receives positive feedback for her speech and vocabulary and for how quickly she figures things out and learns to do things. I believe many gifted people spend much of their remaining life trying to recreate this positive feedback and wondering what they are doing wrong."What Gifted Adults Say About Their Childhoods - by Deborah L. Ruf, Ph. D.
"Because I believe that giftedness is an inborn trait, I also believe the qualities of giftedness are present throughout people's lives, even if they are underachievers or hide their abilities. ... I gathered detailed case study information from 41 adults who scored in the 99th percentile and were between the ages of 40 and 60. The following excerpts illustrate some of the feelings and conclusions that subjects had depending on their exposure to ability grouped classes, explanations about intelligence, and emotional support from family, schools and friends."What Is This Thing Called Giftedness, and How Do We Develop It? A Twenty-Five Year Perspective
by Joseph S. Renzulli, Director, The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented~ ~ ~
< more......articles......articles : giftedness......articles.: mental health......articles.: teen / young adult
--
-....books:
Peter L. Benson, Pamela Espeland, Judy Galbraith. What Teens Need to Succeed: Proven, Practical Ways to Shape Your Own Future
Some teens lead healthy, productive, positive lives. Others are troubled, self-destructive, and negative about themselves and the future. What makes the difference? The presence of specific assets in their lives - not financial assets, but developmental assets including family support, self-esteem, a caring school climate, adult role models, structured time, and positive peer influence. ... [This book] inspires and empowers teens to build their own assets. It invites readers to identify the assets they already have and the ones they need, clearly describes the 40 assets identified as most essential, then gives hundreds of suggestions teens can use to develop the assets at home, at school, in the community, in the congregation, with friends, and with youth organizations. [from publisher site freespirit.com]Don Elium, Jeanne Elium. Raising a Daughter
Julie Ellis. Girls, Women and Giftedness
"When a gifted young woman shies away from full development of her gift, we must ask why. Why would someone leave an important resource untapped? We have looked for answers in education, culture, economics, biology. We have found doors closed; opportunities lacking; society saying, 'Girls can't do that.' ... Why do we go along with status quo feminine roles? Why do we believe the stereotypes?... We need to know how and why forces external to ourselves can squelch vital parts of our true selves." Carolyn Weyand, PhD from the book.Lisa Rivero. Creative Home Schooling for Gifted Children: A Resource Guide
To nurture full potential, home schooling integrates and synthesizes the intellectual, social, and emotional realms by giving a child the space, time, and understanding necessary to begin the process of discovering his or her true self. We could call it "whole child" home schooling, or home schooling for the love of learning, since learning is an inherent part of being human. Home schooling for full potential is neither self-serving nor isolating. Rather, it can be an ongoing, lifelong process of becoming more fully who we are and who we are meant to be, both as individuals and as members of society. [from publisher site: giftedbooks.com]Thomas Paris, Eileen Paris. "I'll Never Do to My Kids What My Parents Did to Me!": A Guide to Conscious Parenting
Daniel J. Siegel, MD., Mary M. Hartzell, M.Ed. Parenting from the Inside-Out: How a Deeper Self-Understanding
Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive
~ ~ ~ ~
nurturing mental health............nurturing talent : teen / young adult............motherhood
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