Is your gifted child having trouble with his or her siblings? Learn how to help the gifted child with sibling rivalry!
When siblings fight, particularly over getting attention from the parents and positive strokes for excelling in some way, gifted children tend to be at the root of the conflict. Gifted kids are competitive and many of them learn how to get the best attention from parents at an early age. This leaves other kids in the family in a losing struggle to get the focus on them.
How to Help the Gifted Child With Sibling Rivalry
Sibling Rivalry in Families with One Gifted Child
Gifted children tend to experience more dramatic developmental milestones since they are experiencing asynchronous development. This equates to high speed intellectual growth that is out of sync with other aspects of their development. Physically, for example, the gifted child may look like other children her age, but her brain is experiencing precocious changes that equate to changes that happen to a child who is two or three years older than she is.
Parents are tempted to do special things for her in terms of hiring a tutor or finding a mentor, elaborate testing, purchasing books, computer equipment and other tools for her to maximize her brain development. This is fine and appropriate, but the parents need to ensure that they do not overly favor the child above the normal kids in the family.
The other children will notice the special attention and will grow to resent the child if the parents do not minimize the extra attention. Further, they need to keep intellectual development in balance with other qualities. From a values perspective, intelligence should be treated as only one area of the person’s value to the family.
The parent who supports emotional maturity, physical prowess, artistic abilities and other attributes that may be exhibited by the other kids in abundance, will help to de-emphasize the gifted child’s uniqueness. All kids are unique and each needs to be nurtured for the person he will become in the future.
In family units where the gifted child is seen as superior, rivalry will be the norm and will result in dysfunctionality in sibling relationships. Unfortunately, this kind of unresolved conflict often carries right into adulthood and is harmful to the gifted child as well as the others. The gifted child who believes he is better than less intelligent children will have relationship issues that could interfere with his ability to form healthy friendships.
Multiple Gifted Children in the Same Family
When some or all of the children in the family are intellectually gifted, the normative tendency is intense competitiveness for attention, family assets, parental time and praise. The older child in this unit often has the upper hand in attaining these things, much to the chagrin of the others in the family.
Parents have a need to minimize the competition and value the contributions of each child and his unique personality and capabilities. Dividing time equitably between each child and discouraging conflict and discord is key in this situation to avoid unhealthy rivalry.
Sibling competition will occur in all families to some degree. Children, whether gifted or not, will experience the need to one-up each other based on personality attributes as well as intellectual prowess. The parent who can objectively recognize who in the group is the more naturally competitive child can work with her to help her assuage the tendency to push the envelope with her brothers and sisters.
As in all aspects of modern life, balance is the key to maintaining a healthy mind and body. A little competition is good, and a lot is often harmful. When a parent feels he cannot control the situation effectively, bringing in outside help, whether it be a clergy member, trusted relative or counselor, an unbiased perspective can make a difference and help the family get back on the right track.
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