The Gift of Adversity

It’s hard to see your child struggle.  As a parent, one of the biggest challenges we face is how to handle those moments when our children are unhappy, uncomfortable, frustrated, angry, hurt or overwhelmed.  From the time they are born, we worry about them, try to make the right decisions about what they will eat and where they will go to school, and do all we can to help ensure that they can grow up to have the life we dream of for them.

 

Now that he is in college, I have found myself reflecting on my son’s growing up – especially on those experiences that seem to have had the biggest impact on his development.  I’m grateful he was able to spend his elementary and middle school years at Seabury School, the school I head, a school designed for bright, sensitive, inquisitive gifted kids like him. Seabury was a place where he developed strong relationships with amazing children who are already proving to be lifelong friends.  Kids who were, and continue to be, kind and supportive and a joy to be around.

But if I am really honest about it, the experiences that have had the biggest impact on making him the responsible, well-rounded, incredible young man he has become were those that were the hardest.  When he was young it was dealing with the kid who was constantly provoking fights on the playground, the group projects with kids who didn’t pull their weight and left it all to him, having to room with the most annoying kid on a school trip.  As he got older, it was the difficult roommates and the challenging bosses and the frustrating teachers.  These challenging experiences, these times of struggle, are the moments that taught him the most about getting along with others and about how to be a friend.  They taught him to be resilient, to speak his truth, to choose friends wisely, and especially that he had the resources to solve problems.

As a parent, those times were, and are, hard.  It was, and is),heartbreaking to see him struggle.  My impulse is to rescue him.  To make it easier.  To fix what’s wrong. To take the hurt away and make it all better. 

I’m glad that I resisted (most of the time).  It isn’t easy.  Even now that he is an adult, I struggle to listen and support without swooping in to fix it for him. But I know that is what I must do.  I realize that many of the traits that serve him best now – independence, leadership, responsibility, confidence, compassion – were developed as he found his way through those difficult times.  Of course it was important that he had good times and experienced tremendous support from his friends But if I’m really honest about it, his incredible social skills were honed by navigating situations with the challenging kids.   

Rescuing him would have not only deprived him of opportunities for growth, but would have sent the message that I wasn’t confident he could handle whatever challenges faced him.  Of course, there were situations that required me to step in because they were too dangerous or too far beyond what he was ready for, but those were few and far between compared to those that required me to step back or come alongside while he worked through the challenge and made mistakes along the way.  

As parents, we need to hold each other up, because parenting is hard.  We need to help each other find the courage as we watch our kids struggle. 

We need to walk through difficult situations with our kids rather than rescuing them from every bump in the road.  To let our kids know we have confidence that they can solve problems for themselves rather than sheltering them from adversity.  To give them the gift of experiencing the natural consequences of their choices – even when those consequences are hard to take.  Because it’s in the times of struggle that they grow most profoundly. 

Gifted Girls

“My son needs your program. He gets in trouble because he can’t sit still and his teacher says he asks too many questions.  He is like the absent minded professor – knows everything about the solar system but can’t remember to brush his teeth or where his coat is.” 

As I sit in my office talking with this parent about the possibility of her son coming to Seabury, I notice his little sister sitting quietly next to mom, doing page after page of multiplication facts sheets for fun. She has asked for mom’s phone because it is better when she can time herself. She has just turned 5 and is in pre-k at another school.

I ask the mom whether she would also like to consider Seabury for her daughter. The mom looks shocked. My daughter? No. She is bright, but not gifted like her brother. She does well in school and has friends. She likes her teachers and never talks about being bored like he does. 

I have had versions of this conversation more times than I can count when talking to parents of gifted girls. When I can convince them to have their daughter assessed – just in case – they are often shocked, as this parent was, to find out that their daughter’s IQ is as high or possibly even higher than her brother’s. 

Research from the Gifted Development Center in Denver, Colorado, has shown that siblings IQ scores tend to be within 5-10 points of each other. So a parent with a gifted boy likely also has a gifted girl. Why is she missed so often?

Research has taught us a lot about gifted girls. And as a gifted girl myself who had no idea of what I was capable of and who still battles with whether I can really take credit for my achievements, it has taught me a lot about me.

Obviously, these are generalizations. Every child is different. But we see this pattern play out often at Seabury and in gifted programs across the country.  And it has led me to be passionate about making sure we are not missing our gifted girls.

Gifted girls tend to be seen as bright, but not gifted, especially if they are socially successful and willing to do the work given to them, even when it is not sufficiently challenging. Gifted girls are more likely to go along with giving the teacher what s/he wants and hiding the more innovative, creative ideas they have. This leads both parents and teachers to believe they are not as capable of creative, analytical thinking as they really are.

Gifted girls are at high risk of developing “Imposter Phenomenon.” Girls are more likely to discount their successes as flukes or luck, or to think that the person evaluating them is wrong. 

Gifted girls are also more likely to experience what researchers refer to as “The Horner Effect,” in which girls hold back what they are capable of because they are more driven to please others than to compete with them. This can include girls hiding that they can already read or do advanced math for their age when entering preschool or kindergarten and/or monitoring how often they raise their hand in class to ask or answer questions so they don’t stand out.

Seabury exists because we believe all students deserve to learn something new at school every day, and that all students have a right to discover their unique gifts and develop their talents.  Regardless of gender identity or cultural background, Seabury is designed to allow gifted children - boys and girls - to experience challenge, to see what they are capable of, and to experience the joy of learning every day. 

The danger of not identifying and serving our gifted girls is that they will go underground, leaving their talents and gifts unrecognized by teachers, family and even from themselves. 

Gifted girls need a place where it is safe to be smart.  To be themselves.  To share their unique perspectives and engage in stimulating discussion with intellectual peers.  As a Seabury alum once said, “Seabury is a place where I found my voice, and found that my voice can make a difference.  It is a place where I can truly be myself.”

Do you have a gifted girl?  Is she getting what she needs in her current program?  She may have friends, like her teachers and be getting good grades.  But is that enough?  Is she experiencing all of what she is capable of and being challenged to grow every day? 

– Sandi Wollum

Sources:

What We Have Learned About Gifted Children.  Gifted Development Center, 2009. 

Smutney, J.F.  Gifted Girl. Originally published in “Understanding Our Gifted.”  Vol. 11, No. 2, pp 9-13.  Winter, 1999.  

“... Parents are more likely to bring their sons for assessment and overlook their daughters, and this inequity appears to be getting worse. From 1979 to 1989, 57% of the children brought for testing were male, and 43% were female, whereas 51% above 160 IQ were male and 49% female... In 2008, 68% of the children brought for testing were male and only 32% females.”

                        Gifted Development Center, 2009.

“Gifted girls from all ethnic, geographic and socioeconomic backgrounds are living an invisible life in classrooms across the nation ... By age 11, many gifted girls do not know they have talents. Others, who know, guard it as a well-kept secret. This means that the abilities they could use to develop their potential are instead wasted on adjusting others' expectations (Eby & Smutny, 1990).” 

                                                            Smutney, 1999

Why Seabury?

Our favorite definition of giftedness comes from Annemarie Roeper, founder of the Roeper School.

It’s “a greater awareness, a greater sensitivity, and a greater ability to understand and transform perceptions into intellectual and emotional experiences." 

If you have a child described in the above quote, you probably realized early on that you’ve had to be on your toes, ready to provide deeper experiences and more complex answers to questions than you ever thought you would.

It follows that when it comes to schooling, gifted students think and learn differently than typically developing peers. We often get the question, “Why Seabury?” It’s phrased in different ways, but people wonder why choose this small, independent school over the other options for youngsters in the South Puget Sound area – public schools, parochial schools, private schools – even the new charter schools?

Seabury School, which serves students in prekindergarten through eighth grade, is unique among schools in the south Puget Sound because its program is specifically designed for gifted learners. Seabury's program is designed around research based on best practices in gifted education.

Here are a few things that research has taught us about how gifted children learn and grow, paired with how we address these needs at Seabury.

Gifted children are often intense and are best served when parents and teachers understand this. Their intensity – or sensitivity – can cause them to be misunderstood or even misdiagnosed. Teachers in public and private schools typically have not had training in recognizing or providing support for the unique learning needs of gifted children. At Seabury, gifted youngsters are supported by teachers who understand them.

Gifted students are typically not equally gifted in all areas. Seabury tailors instruction and expectations to the needs of each individual student. The goal is to provide appropriate challenge in areas of giftedness and support in areas of growth. By individualizing instruction and expectations, teachers can appropriately challenge each child every single day.

Gifted children learn quickly and retain information easily, especially in their areas of giftedness. Too much rote repetition of material they have mastered will decrease achievement levels. Seabury teachers work closely with individual students and adjust the amount of practice with new information according to the needs of the individual student, with the goal of providing enough practice to master the skill but not repetition that is meaningless or unnecessary. 

Gifted students understand abstractions at an earlier age than typically developing students, and seek complexity in work and play. They tend to be "whole to part" learners, preferring to start with the big picture or a big idea, and then deconstructing it into its component parts. Seabury's curriculum is developed around integrated, project-based units of study. Because students learn factual information easily, the bulk of our time is spent on higher level thinking and problem-solving.

Gifted students show greater academic and social-emotional growth when grouped with other gifted students. Gifted children, like all children, need peers they can connect with to learn how to make friends, collaborate, and develop self-confidence. Grouping students with intellectual peers provides a rich learning environment, but also an environment where gifted students feel like they fit, can learn the give and take of working with others, and feel safe trying new things.

Research into the success of gifted adults, shows that intellectual intelligence is most likely to lead to success in life and career if it is coupled with emotional intelligence the ability to communicate clearly and navigate socially. Understanding and supporting the social-emotional development of gifted children is as vital at Seabury as academic challenge.

Learn more about giftedness on our website – www.seabury.org.

– Sandi Wollum
Head of School