Social and Emotional Needs of Gifted and Twice Exceptional Students

1. Social and Emotional Needs of Gifted andTwice Exceptional Students Advanced Education Services Las Cruces Public Schools “The world is too much with us; late and soon… For this, for every thing, we are out of tune.” -William Wordsworth

2. This is where AES Facilitators can make a difference in a person’s life. Ya gotta love ‘em!!!

3. “We don’t pay enough attention to trying to teach people who are highly intelligent how to cope with their lives in the adult world. Far too many of them find their drive and creativity thwarted by persons or establishments who regard them as either silly or threatening.” Marylou Streznewski, Gifted Grownups

4. How are they exceptional? Intense Sensitive Confusing

5. Intense: Anything worth doing is worth doing to excess. Acceleration, misunderstood, power strugglesSensitive: Big boys do cry. PerfectionismConfusing Asynchronous development, multipotentialed

6. How the gifted brain works • The gifted brain: More synapses and connections. • Gifted/LD brain: Missing/confused connections. • The brain of a learning disabled individual can work as much as 10 times harder than the average brain. • TimeMagazine,1986

7. Giftedness is a greater awareness, a greater sensitivity, and a greater ability to understand and transform perceptions into intellectual and emotional experiences. ---- Annemarie Roeper Giftedness when coupled with a learning disability is extremely difficult because giftedness masks the disability and the disability often masks the giftedness.

8. The “I’s” (and they hope the A’s) have it: Living the honors life. • Intense • Introspective • Imperfect • Intellectual, not emotional • Impatient with themselves and others • Individualistic

9. Asynchronous Development • Often function at one level intellectually, another socially and yet another emotionally. • Have been described as “old souls in young bodies.” • May sound like “little adults,” then are criticized when they act like the children that they are.

10. Asynchronous Development Continued • For example, a gifted/LD student might be able to play a musical instrument at a high level by ear, but will struggle with reading individual notes. Difficulties like these, unfortunately, often lead to the child just giving up instead of taking the extra time to come up with strategies which will help the child. • http://www.perceptivei.com/jason/jason2/LDkids/giftedld.htm, 11/29/2004

11. Communication • Discipline • Power Struggles • Don’t Give Up • Anti-Arguing Instructions

12. Heightened sense of Justice • Want things and people to be fair. • Want to “save the rain forests” and fix the world. • We can help them find appropriate activities to be involved in. • Limit their exposure to the overwhelming “bad news” that dominates the airwaves.

13. Hiding Their Gifts • “Play dumb” to blend in and make friends with other children their age. • Girls are especially vulnerable as they reach adolescence. • May feel overwhelmed by their abilities and just want to be “normal kids.” • Adults can help by celebrating and encouraging their abilities.

14. INTENSE!!! Intensity of thought – Her mind is always whirring. Intensity of purpose – Once he makes up his mind to do something, he’s not happy until it’s done. Intensity of emotion – She internalizes everything anyone says. Intensity of spirit – He’s always looking for someone less fortunate who needs help. Intensity of soul - She asks questions that philosophers have asked for centuries and gets upset when we cant give her definitive answers to them. From Jim Delisle Once Upon a Mind.

15. Misunderstood • A mother of a gifted child commented, “I don’t know if he’s bright and strange or strange and handicapped.” • Teachers may think these highly sensitive, intense children are emotionally disturbed, lazy or unmotivated. • Adults may think that students can succeed if they just “try harder.”

16. Multipotentialed • Their brains will help them be any (and every) thing they want to be. • Having all this potential and having to choose a course of study, a major, much less a career, is like being taken to an all-you-can-eat buffet in Las Vegas, then being told you have to choose just one item.

17. Overexcitabilities • Inborn intensities that indicate a heightened ability to respond to stimuli. • Dabrowski outlines five dimensions through which emotional intensity and sensitivity can be displayed: • Psychomotor—an augmented capacity for being active and energetic • Sensual—an enhanced differentiation and aliveness of sensual experience • Intellectual—constant search for knowledge and truth • Imaginational—the power of thought through creation • Emotional—experiencing the world with an intensity of feelings

18. Perfectionism • Why people become perfectionists. • What perfectionism does to your mind and body. • Ways to gain control in your life. • How to ease up on yourself. • How to get others to ease up on you. • When to get help. • Gifted/LD may give up or not even attempt something because it can’t be done perfectly.

19. Resiliency • “… bouncing back from problems and stuff with more power and more smarts”… as defined by a 15-year-old high school student. • The ability to spring back from and successfully adapt to adversity… as defined by Webster.

20. Building resiliency • Communicate the Resiliency Attitude: “What is right with you is more powerful than anything that is wrong with you.” • Focus on strengths more than weaknesses…ask: “How can strengths be used to overcome weaknesses?”

21. Factors that factor resiliency • Caring and support • High expectations • Opportunities for meaningful participation • Positive bonds • Clear and consistent boundaries • Life Skills

22. Have Patience!!!!!! • Successfully bouncing back from trauma or crisis takes time… • Researchers are concluding that each person has an innate capacity for resiliency, “a self-righting” tendency that operates best when people have resiliency-building conditions in their lives.

23. Self-Concept • Self-esteem is accepting yourself as you are right now--as an imperfect, changing, growing, worthwhile person. • A student enters school as a unique individual, molded by genes, environment, and a certain spark within himself. However, as he winds his way through the curriculum, frequently a desire to fit in grows, diluting the spark that makes him unique. • Gifted/LD students have a large global consciousness and are quite sensitive. They can become quite frustrated with each swing from feeling “brilliant” to “stupid,” which leads to feelings of frustration and sometime causes them to feel the need to overcompensate for their disabilities. • http://www.perceptivei.com/jason/jason2/LDkids/giftedld.htm, 11/29/2004.

24. 8 Great Gripes of Gifted Kids • 1. No one explains what being gifted is all about. • 2. School is too easy and boring. • 3. Parents, teachers and friends expect us to be perfect all the time. • 4. Friends who really understand us are few and far between.

25. 8 Gripes Continued • 5. Kids often tease us about being smart. • 6. We feel overwhelmed by the number of things we can do in life. • 7. We feel different and alienated. • 8. We worry about world problems and feel helpless to do anything about them. Dr. Jim Delisle and Judy Galbraith, When Gifted Kids Don’t Have All the Answers. What can we do to help these kids?

26. Gifted Parenting Groups • Groups for parents, including P.A.G.E., P.O. Box 654, Las Cruces, NM 88004. • Support Groups based on the SENG Model (Supporting Emotional Needs of Gifted). Contact Niki Mott, 527-9640, Ext. 122.

27. Gifted Adults: Their Characteristics and Emotions • Sophisticated, global, complex thinkers. • Retain childlike emotions. • Others may ignore, elevate or disparage them. • Have no choice but to think, explore, create and strive.

28. Gifted Adults Continued • Need time for solitude. • Search for meaning and purpose in life. • Have a variety of abilities and interests. • Have a strong sense of justice and morality. • Gifted/LD may become more aware of their giftedness as adults.

29. National SENG Conference Albuquerque, New Mexico July 8-10, 2005 Gifted adults Multicultural Outreach Parenting Grandparenting Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses

30. “We were born to make manifest the glory that is within us.” – Nelson Mandela And, as AES Facilitators we have chosen a career in which we can “make manifest” the joys and abilities within these kids.