As many of you know, my wife and I recently had our oldest son Jaken tested for “giftedness.” The results indicated that he falls in the low end of the “Profoundly Gifted” or “Highly Gifted” category.  Because they were testing a four-year-old child who may or may not have been willing to do his best on any given day or cared, for that matter, we were told that the true scores could be higher than the test reflected.

All this began at a parent teacher conference we had with Jaken’s pre-school teacher.  We were there to try and figure out why Jaken was having such a hard time adjusting to his school.  He certainly was doing very well academically, but he hated going. He didn’t want to play with other kids; he said school was boring, and every day the drop-off was a battle. It kept getting worse. My wife and I went to the conference to try to figure out what was going on.

We certainly weren’t prepared for his teacher’s assessment of a possible reason for Jaken’s difficulties. His teacher told us that Jaken was probably highly gifted, and that we should have him tested. We have gathered a ton of information since that day, but initially I had two big concerns. One was that I couldn’t figure out how being gifted could explain Jaken’s difficulties in pre-school, and the other had to do with the possible implications for us as parents of a highly gifted child.

Barb Menton, who has two PhD’s, one in child development and one in counseling, and who also has a highly gifted child, tested Jaken. She confirmed his preschool teacher’s suspicions. She also gave us some information that really helped—both on-line resources and some books to read so we could better understand what we were facing. Barb also advised us to pull him out of the pre-school and consider alternatives.

Barb explained that any child with a normal intellect would have difficulty hanging out with kids with much lower IQ’s, especially in the areas of intellectual stimulation, feeling understood and fitting in.  She then pointed out that this was exactly was what was being asked of Jaken when he was in a class of children in the normal IQ range.  That statement punched me right in the gut and helped me understand Jaken’s aversion to school.

We had, and still are having, a hard time understanding how off-the-charts Jaken is.  We see him as a pretty normal little guy who struggles with shyness, transitions, and is quite sensitive, but we know that everyone comes to the “table of life” with some battles.

The literature on Highly Gifted Children is very interesting. It answers a lot of questions we had about Jaken and his idiosyncrasies. HCG’s are usually perfectionists. They will often not start tasks rather than try something at which they think they may not succeed.  They NEED to win and become very frustrated when they struggle with anything.

They also have a super sensitivity to environmental stimuli, smell, taste, touch, sound, etc.  Jaken will only wear soft clothing and is a very picky eater, especially about the texture of his food.  He only likes a certain kind of music and will battle us to listen to it—hard rock, of all things.

HGC’s will take “adult issues” and try to apply them to themselves, but struggle because of their low experience levels.  An example of this is that Jaken is very concerned with nutrition and its impact on his health; he’s four years old, for Heaven’s sake.  Issues of war, the economy and death are also big ones for HGC’s.

When they are very young they begin to realize that they are different and isolate or act out as a result because just like everyone else, they want to belong.  We are noticing that Jaken is becoming aware that he’s different and it is very hard for us to watch. He goes into shut-down mode in groups of kids and has to do “deep breathing” to be around large groups.

Jaken is advanced in his awareness of rules and feels a massive injustice has been served when other kids don’t feel the same way.  In his mind they become threats, and he chooses to withdraw from anyone he sees in the “rule breaker” category, which is about every other four-year-old on the planet.  He will ask things like, “What are the rules of the park?” before he is willing to go to a new park to play. Because of his tendency to be introverted and his hyper rule-awareness, Jaken would literally be a shut-in if we allowed it.

He struggled with full-on stuttering for a period when he was three and after a few sessions with a speech therapist, he learned compensating techniques.  He has shown that he can learn skills very quickly which has led us to our next order of business which is, what do we do with him until he’s old enough to take advantage of the type of schooling that will be best for him. There is nothing really available for children like him until the first grade.  We are looking at HGC type schooling because it will allow him to be with other kids his age who are also gifted.

For the time being we have hired a tutor who specializes in social/emotional development in small children. While he is teaching him the three R’s wrapped within current areas of interest for Jaken (earth quakes, fungus, magnets), he is also including social skill lessons in the curriculum to help him better deal with being around and interacting with other children.  Because he is a quick skill learner, we are hoping he will be able to learn how to cope and take care of his anxieties and difficulties with transitions, a trait he also shares with other HGC’s.

We are trying to avoid home-schooling for him in the future because we believe that social piece is so imperative.  It is our belief that home-schooling works well with extroverted personalities, but with Jaken’s tendencies, we feel that should be a last resort.  We are seeking external activities that interest Jaken which involve mixed -age children like sports, learning programs, and play-groups. He often says older kids are “more nicer.”

At this point, my wife and I want Jaken to continue to develop his love of learning and to feel that he can thrive socially in his own way.  We feel a duty to surround him with the best possible opportunities to learn those two things and feel that the three R’s will happen naturally because of his intellect.  We feel a duty to help Jaken to blossom personally first, and educate him second.  We long to see him feel comfortable around his peers and to feel that he is a part of something outside the “safety” of our family.

As a last note, you would have a hard time believing what I am speaking about if you met Jaken.  He relates very well to adults and feels comfortable there.  He is well spoken, curious, and enjoyable to be around.  My interest in writing this blog is to potentially be a resource for people who are exploring the possibility that their children are highly gifted, as well as a resource for people who want to understand the plight of at least one pair of parents dealing with this situation.  Support groups for parents of gifted kids exist because it’s not easy.  I feel blessed to be God’s chosen steward of a special gift in my life named Jaken.  I also thank God that I am a Family First Entrepreneur and can be available to him with both my time and my energy.

Here are a few great resources for parents with highly gifted children. They were referred to me by my twitter pal Lisa Lauffer.

Raising a Gifted Child: A Parenting Success Handbook by Carol Fertig
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/
http://www.nagc.org/
http://www.sengifted.org/