Is your gifted child struggling with feeling rejected? Here are tips for how to help gifted kids handle rejection.
Gifted children are usually at the top of the class and attaining the highest grades and test scores. They become accustomed to academic success very quickly and see any less than perfect scores as personal failures. Parents who can help to counteract this propensity, encouraging the child to minimize the emotional impact of a less than perfect grade, will help the child adapt to realistic expectations.
How to Help Gifted Kids Handle Rejection
The Gifted Disbeliever and Reaction to Rejection
Some gifted children hold the hidden belief that they are not really gifted at all, and that a mistake has been made in identifying them as intellectually gifted. Therefore, every instance where the child does not perform to the highest possible expectation is a validation to the child, that he was right about his lack of genuine giftedness.
Some kids will outgrow this perception as more and more evidence of true giftedness becomes apparent. Others will continue to doubt their abilities into adulthood and may underperform as a “self-fulfilling prophesy.” Counseling with an expert in dealing with gifted children will often be needed for him to learn to believe in his own abilities.
Parents of a child with this issue should avoid placing additional pressure on him to perform to perfectionistic standards. Instead, they should encourage him to do his best, while congratulating his achievements in a low key manner.
Perfectionistic Gifted Children and Rejection
The gifted perfectionist knows she is gifted and expects her performance to be flawless at all times in any circumstances. She is highly competitive with other kids, particularly other gifted children with high capability. A child like this can be emotionally bereft by a score on an exam of 92, because it was less than 100, while another child would have been thrilled to get any grade of “A.”
This child needs parents who can de-emphasize grades and tests in general. The parent should stress the fact that intellectual prowess is only one element of a person and being a nice and a good person is more important than being super intelligent.
A parent should not expect nor demand perfect performance from the child on school assignments. Getting the child involved in social activities is important to strike a balance in her life. If she becomes distraught by tests, a counseling session or two will give her some tools to help alleviate the anxiety.
Social Rejection and Gifted Children
The child who is rejected because he is different and smarter than the rest of the kids sometimes feels like an unwanted freak. He may try to “dumb down” to the level of others in the class to hide his advanced abilities. Ultimately however, he will eventually accept the fact that he is different. Parents feel the pain of the child who has problems finding and keeping friendships.
Getting this child involved with other gifted children will help her understand that she is not alone and she can benefit from coping mechanisms she learns from others who have been down the same road. Also, outside interests like sports, dance or scouting can level the playing field by helping her feel more like one of the team.
Rejection is hard for anyone to handle, but for the gifted child, it can be debilitating at times. Whether it is a matter of his disbelief in superior ability or a question of perfectionism, gifted children will suffer much pain over perceived rejection. Some rejection comes in the form of less than perfect test scores and other times it is social in nature. Parents need to get involved if the child is very anxious or becomes depressed over rejection.
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