In Sync for 2011

The clock will strike midnight on January 1st, and, for a moment, the world will feel aligned. We’ll imagine our town, state, country, even world celebrating another new beginning simultaneously. We all will press the reset button at the same time. We will be in sync.

Of course, this synchronicity is an illusion. Because of time zones, parts of the world will already be firmly in the next year, while others will continue to linger a bit longer in the old one. January is not the only time when all cultures and religions recognize the new year. In fact, if we think about it much at all, the idea of applying digital specificity to an analog natural world doesn’t make much sense. The earth’s revolution and rotation do not stop for even a split second to recognize one year’s end and another’s beginning.

Similarly, we kid ourselves if we pretend that children are ever “in sync” in the sense of being at a single, unified, easily defined level in all areas of development. This is true to some extent for all children, but more so for gifted children. Gifted learners are more likely than other children to experience mismatches between intellectual and psychomotor development, language ability and reasoning development, or intellectual skills and social-emotional development. A gifted elementary school youngster might read at a high school level, for example, but will not be ready emotionally to deal with themes such war or the Holocaust. A gifted youngster might try desperately to engage in conversation with an older child or adult, only to realize that she does not yet have the social experience to determine what is appropriate to ask, and what is not.

Uneven or asynchronous development doesn’t disappear at adolescence. Nadia Webb, a neuropsychologist and co-author of Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children and Adults, explains in “Tips for Parents: Surviving Your Gifted Teen”: “Phenomenal intellects can coexist with mediocre executive functioning skills.” She writes that some gifted children might do fine with short-term tasks but struggle with long-range projects that require skills of “planning, judgment, self-monitoring, and organization,” since these are “the last skills to mature developmentally.” Even more so than other teenagers, gifted children may need specific, step-by-step guidance and adult scaffolding for a longer period of time to help them to meet their goals and handle a normal workload.

The asynchronous development of gifted children and teens often leads to unrealistic expectations on the part of adults, which only exacerbate a child’s tendency toward perfectionism. If a child excels in one area, parents or teachers often expect the child to be superior in other areas, to be “even” or in sync. Unfortunately, adults might even call attention to seemingly immature responses and behaviors, with comments such as “I can’t believe you can’t keep track of your homework if you are so smart” or “I wish you would act gifted at home.”

If a child lags behind age-mates in being able to control emotions, referring to him or her as immature not only may seem insulting to the child but reinforces the expectation of such behavior. Similarly, too much attention on or praise for areas of high development may not be a good idea. Psychologist Carol Dweck explains in “How Not to Praise Your Children”: “When kids, after they performed a set of problems, were praised for their intelligence, they then did not want a challenging task afterward. They wanted to protect this idea that they were smart.” This doesn’t mean that adults should never give children positive feedback. However, rather than call attention to being smart or gifted, parents can point out to their children when they are working hard, well organized, or showing unusual effort.

Homeschooling Tangent: While grade skipping or acceleration works for some gifted children, others thrive when they are allowed to stretch out elementary and secondary education so as to begin college more or less on time with age mates. More so than any other educational option, homeschooling provides the flexibility for a specific grade’s curriculum to fit the children, rather than force the child to accommodate our ideas of what should be learned when. A homeschooled high school freshman who is learning college level math, 9th grade biology, and 8th grade English can still be a freshman. Even if a student covers all of the usual elementary or high school curriculum early, homeschooling offers the freedom of using the extra time for more focused study in areas of strength, broader learning in topics not usually covered in schools, or even travel, work, or volunteering.

Also, homeschooling parents can allow children to accelerate in individual subjects, offering individuated and appropriate challenge in areas of strength. When a child is working at a higher than age‐based grade level, parents can choose curriculum materials with the child’s other developmental needs in mind. History resources, for example, could cover high school level material in a way that respects the gifted child’s high sensitivity. Writing or keyboarding programs could accommodate the still undeveloped small‐motor skills of a young precocious learner. Conceptual physics might meet the “big idea” needs of a young child who has not yet mastered the algebra necessary for most high school physics courses.

In the end, regardless of where a child goes to school, his or her development is asynchronous only with respect to the concept of average or in comparison to other children or according to others’ expectations. If we choose to view different levels of development as in sync for the child, we avoid a lot of frustration and give young people the room and space they need to grow into who they are meant to be.

I’ll continue to update 20 Days, 20 Terrific SENG Articles, but this will be the final blog post until 2011 as I bask in the academic break. Meanwhile, I wish everyone a joyful holiday season and a happy (and safe) beginning to the New Year!