On the Social and Emotional Lives of Gifted Children

Tracy L. Cross

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781000494907
• Edition: 5
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Raising happy, successful children is a goal of every parent of gifted children. In On the Social and Emotional Lives of Gifted Children, the nation's leading authority on the psychology of gifted children offers advice and encouragement for both parents and teachers. In a thoughtful, conversational style, the author offers an in-depth look at the complex social and emotional issues faced by gifted children. This revised and updated fifth edition of the popular text contains more than 12 new chapters.

On the Social and Emotional Lives of Gifted Children tackles important and timely issues dealing with the social and emotional needs of today's gifted children, including who gifted children are and what giftedness means; how parents, teachers, and counselors can guide gifted children; the issues facing gifted students in the 21st century, such as technology and terrorism; and how the education of gifted children can adapt for the future. This concise, sensitive look at gifted children and their social and emotional world offers unique insights for both teachers and parents who support these special children.

SECTION III
Gifted Children Today

DOI: 10.4324/9781003236900-25

A recurring theme in my efforts to learn more about gifted children is how different the times in which they are growing up are from my own experiences. As I have tried to evaluate their behavior and their social and emotional needs, it comes up again and again. AIDS, guns in school, the Internet—all of these impact the lives of gifted children.

I begin to explore these ideas in “Gifted Students’ Social and Emotional Development in the 21st Century.” Rollo May’s notion that we cannot truly understand something until we have experienced it serves as a reminder to us all that we must delve ever more deeply into the psyche of young people if we want to help them succeed in these new, very different times.

In “Technology and the Unseen World of Gifted Students,” I explore the use of computers with gifted students. Using Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development, I also consider how engaging in various communication technologies could positively affect a gifted child’s identity. Social media plays an important role in the lives of all children today. In “Growing Up Gifted Amid a Culture of Social Media,” I examine what this means for gifted children. The chapter that follows, “Digital Immigrants, Natives, and ‘Tweeners’: A Glimpse Into the Future for Our Students With Gifts and Talents,” discusses the growing generation of students comfortable with technologies to a point far beyond many of the adults in their lives. “Nerds and Geeks: Society’s Evolving Stereotypes of Our Students With Gifts and Talents,” the next chapter, discusses how the vernacular surrounding academic achievement and intelligence has changed for society at large. In a time when almost every behavior is subject to diagnosis, it is helpful to recognize the perhaps unusual, yet positive, tendency among many gifted children to pursue their interests passionately, even obsessively. In the chapter, “Can the Obsessions of Gifted Students Be Positive Drivers in Their Development?” I discuss how this often-criticized tendency may actually lead to great things.

The chapters that follow also deal with many realities of gifted students’ lives. The tragic incident at Columbine High School in April of 1999 is a most potent indicator of the different times in which these children are growing up. How giftedness plays a role in their experience is the emphasis of the chapter titled “The Lived Experiences of Gifted Students in School, or On Gifted Students and Columbine.” Building on the concepts discussed in the first section (“About Gifted Children: Who They Are and Why”), this chapter explores misconceptions about gifted children and how they interact with these new times to make an even more complicated world for gifted young people. In “The Rage of Gifted Students,” I examine the various layers of influence on gifted students’ experiences and the ways these influences may generate feelings of rage in these individuals. I offer suggestions for how we can help gifted students reduce or eliminate their feelings of rage.

I have come to believe that a very real threat to the well-being of gifted students comes from a mismatch between what schools offer and what students need. I discuss this challenge in the chapter, “The Effects of Educational Malnourishment on the Psychological Well-Being of Gifted Students.” In the next chapter, “Beliefs of Supporters of Gifted Education,” I describe a study we conducted to explore preferences of the adults involved in gifted education. The parents, educators, and researchers who participated fell into two distinct camps, with implications for gifted students. Over the years, I have seen and learned of gifted students finding themselves in all sorts of situations. In the chapter, “Walking the Straight and Narrow: The Role of School Punishment in the Emotional Decline of the Gifted Student,” I describe some of the injustices that have been caused by disciplinary actions applied by adults who misunderstand our gifted children. For us to guide them appropriately, it is critical that we have an open mind to their uniqueness.

I discuss another aspect of the social milieu of schools in “The Many Faces of Bullies.” Gifted students are growing up in a world filled with many real and perceived threats to their physical and social safety. Appreciating the historical context in which gifted students live is an important step in guiding their social and emotional development. In the final chapter of this section, “Modeling, Vicarious Learning, and Basic Needs: Helping All Children (Including Gifted Children) Recover From an Incendiary Political Season,” I discuss the tumultuous political season of 2016 and the effects it may have on gifted students.

CHAPTER 23
Gifted Students’ Social and Emotional Development in the 21st Century²³

23 Note. Adapted from “Gifted Students’ Social and Emotional Development in the 21st Century,” by Tracy L. Cross, 2000, Gifted Child Today, 23(2), pp. 14–15.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003236900-26

KEY CONCEPTS

• Generational influences on psychosocial development
• To know something, one must experience it (idea from Rollo May)
• Global economy’s influence on psychosocial development

The complications involved in raising children increased significantly during the second half of the 20th century. Charles Dickens’s famous line, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” from his novel A Tale of Two Cities, seems an apt statement to describe societal changes since 1960. These changes have been so dramatic and pervasive that they are, in fact, hard to fully comprehend. The last 40 years have seen many changes, from what were once considered global issues, such as population growth and environmental concerns (seemingly so distant and unrelated to those of us living in the United States 40 years ago), to the daily activities in which we each engage. As we guide today’s youth, we must consider both the broad and specific contexts of our children’s times. In the last 40 years, we have moved from only three available television channels to literally hundreds, from curable types of venereal diseases to herpes and AIDS, from 16k of computer memory to terabytes at roughly the same cost, and from letter writing to e-mail to texting, and the world’s population has grown from 3 billion to 7.5 billion people.

Given the important ways in which our world has changed and will continue to change, those of us who grew up in earlier generations need to appreciate that we can only know about what it is like to be growing up gifted in the new millennium. Despite the breadth and depth of the changes, one might argue that small-town life has not changed much over the past 40 years. Although this can be a true statement, I would note that YouTube is one example of how a generation has been connected through image and sound, unlike all previous generations. This one simple example brings to bear all of the considerations associated with psychosocial development. For example, historically, as a young child moved from his or her parents being the ones with the greatest influence on his or her immediate behavior to friends being more influential, the small groups of friends tended to carefully reflect the child’s immediate communities in terms of values, appearance, and conduct. Via YouTube and other similar channels, today’s young people make a visual and auditory connection with youth throughout the United States. Consequently, the reference groups of youth are no longer so closely tied to immediate communities. Issues such as fitting in, developing a peer group, and understanding one’s role in his or her family and the broader culture are but a few of the issues that emerge to influence the needs of gifted children. All of these concerns and experiences occur as children are forming their identities.

The following are two examples of ways that children’s experiences vary significantly from those of previous generations and illustrate meaningful variations within the past 20 years.

Schooling practices have gone from:

• ✧ textbooks and worksheets to computers,
• ✧ teacher-directed to students-as-teachers, and
• ✧ classroom lectures to students becoming responsible for the construction of their own learning through processes of inquiry.

Access to information has gone from:

• ✧ slow and sometimes unattainable to immediate and overwhelming,
• ✧ being out in the world collecting information to collecting information from home, and
• ✧ collecting information manually to relying on computers.

As adults, we must realize that, while we try to understand our children’s lives, in many important ways they are unlike our own. A famous psychologist, Rollo May (1969), wrote that we must recognize the difference between knowing about something and truly knowing something. May described how he came down with tuberculosis and was on his deathbed. He dealt with the salient aspects and issues of preparing for death. He recovered and came to realize that, before this experience, he only knew about death. After having experienced the life of a dying person, he truly knew death. To know something, one must experience it. Most of our lives are spent merely knowing about things. As newborns, we learn in a prelingual manner largely determined by our parents until our mobility allows for our own experimentation. Even with trial-and-error experiences, we are being taught to learn vicariously by watching and listening to others. We also learn how to create and understand the world as mental activities without relying on others’ input or examples.

Much of what we come to know about and believe comes from our environmental teachings and mental constructions, and far less through our own experiments. This distinction is important for many reasons. The first is that no two people can have the exact same understanding of any situation or construct. Another is that historical analysis has taught us that cohorts in history often reveal patterns of thought and value formations that are similar. For example, in the United States, the young adult population living during the Watergate scandal has maintained a level and type of political skepticism different from those of the young adults of the Reagan era. A third is that, along with the acceleration of technological advances over the past 40 years, there has been tremendous growth in the knowledge of virtually all subjects. Various means, such as the Internet and personal computers, now provide access to the expanding information base in increasingly easier and faster ways. There now exists a “digital divide,” a serious and expanding gap among the knowledge, opportunities, and wealth of those in the world who have regular and easy access to this information and those who have neither. The relationship between young children’s access to self-selected material and their social and emotional development has yet to be studied. Therefore, it is difficult to predict the effects on typical development patterns in young children of the immediate access to and consumption of material that cuts across topics and age appropriateness.

Another major confluence of events radically changing current experiences (and hence all that are affected by them) is the movement to a world economy. Opportunities and expectations are becoming influenced by what is and is not perceived as possible. For example, many Indiana natives who grew up between the 1950s and the 1980s aspired to and relied on manufacturing jobs upon graduation from high school. This possibility allowed families to remain physically close and often work together. In recent years, however, the move to a world economy has drained the manufacturing jobs that once defined the state’s economy. Despite the fact that the state has relatively low unemployment rates of 4%–5%, the adult population is often underemployed and earns a fourth to a third of their previous incomes, while their children grapple with giving up on their aspirations. This evolution is slow and often painful. More importantly, these changes are being played out on a world stage where being a consumer is characterized as being a good citizen.

As concerned adults interested in helping the psychosocial development of gifted students, we should first heed Rollo May’s words: To truly know and understand another’s experiences, we must live them ourselves. Secondly, we should maintain a healthy respect for those experiences consistent across generations and those that are not. We must be aware of the differences in children’s experiences and in our own. With our new appreciation for the profound differences of experience, we should draw on all resources available to assist our children. It also would be helpful for adults to learn some basic theory about human development, particularly as it pertains to the psychosocial development of gifted students. There are certain aspects of human development theory that are resistant to change over time.

By realizing our limitations in being truly empathetic to others’ experiences and by utilizing the strategies noted above, we have the opportunity to provide effective guidance to the gifted youth of the 21st century. I am sure that Rollo May, by asking us to experience another’s suffering in order to know it, never meant to encourage the pain and suffering of even one additional person in order to widen expertise in the face of any specific tragedy. I am quite confident that he would have advised us to operate in a climate of trust and with an appreciation for the child’s experiences as meaningful and valid. Our role should, therefore, be one of compassion and respect for the uniqueness of all gifted children as they struggle with the development of their identity while on the path to self-actualization.

FOR DISCUSSION

• Provide two further examples of how gifted children’s experiences today differ from those of previous generations.
• What strategies (as mentioned in previous chapters) do you think would be most effective in dealing with generational or global influences on gifted individuals’ psychological development?

CHAPTER 24
Technology and the Unseen World of Gifted Students²⁴

24 Note. Adapted from “Technology and the Unseen World of Gifted Students,” by Tracy L. Cross, 2004, Gifted Child Today, 27(4), pp. 14–63.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003236900-27

KEY CONCEPTS

• Gifted students’ experiences with computer-based communications technologies fall into four categories: freedom of expression, control, power, and feeling connected
• Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development
• The positive influences of technology on Eriksonian crises

The social and emotional development of gifted students can be influenced by many factors. Genetics, experiences, learning, family values, perceptions, and interactions all contribute to the development of gifted children. Under the heading of experiences is students’ use of computers. This chapter will highlight some of the uses of computers by gifted students. The potential effects of using these technologies will be discussed using two stages of Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development as a framework.

For almost two decades, chi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction A Continuum of Psychological Services: Setting the Stage for the Chapters
• Section I About Gifted Children: Who They Are and Why
• Section II Guiding Gifted Children
• Section III Gifted Children Today
• Section IV Suicidal Behavior and Gifted Students
• Section V Where We Have Been and Where We Are Going
• References
• Resources
• About the Author