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KND Freebies: WHY SMART KIDS WORRY–AND WHAT PARENTS CAN DO TO HELP is featured in today’s Free Kindle Nation Shorts excerpt

***Kindle Store Bestseller***
in Parenting/School-Age Children

This compassionate, accessible guide that helps parents understand WHY SMART KIDS WORRY and how to help them navigate their fears is getting rave reviews…

“Therapist Edwards brings profound insight into the minds of gifted, anxious children in this parent-friendly handbook…combines explanations for odd behaviors with practical tools for helping children…learn self-soothing techniques and…to function in a scary world…” -Publishers Weekly

4.5 stars – 10 Reviews
Text-to-Speech: Enabled
Here’s the set-up:

Why does my child seem to worry so much?

Being the parent of a smart child is great—until your son or daughter starts asking whether global warming is real, if you are going to die, and what will happen if they don’t get into college. Kids who are advanced intellectually often let their imaginations ruin wild and experience fears beyond their years. So what can you do to help?

In Why Smart Kids Worry, Allison Edwards guides you through the mental and emotional process of where your child’s fears come from and why they are so hard to move past. Edwards focuses on how to parent a child who is both smart and anxious and brings her years of experience as a therapist to give you the answers to questions such as:

•How do smart kids think differently?
•Should I let my child watch the nightly news on TV?
•How do I answer questions about terrorists, hurricanes, and other scary subjects?

Edwards’ 15 specially designed tools for helping smart kids manage their fears will help you and your child work together to help him or her become more relaxed and worry-free.

5-star praise for Why Smart Kids Worry:

I needed this book!!

“…in my parenting journey of a very bright, intense child as he makes his transition to a new school…I found the descriptions of how an anxious mind functions just so useful in understanding what is going on for him…”

A smart read!

“…This book is full of kid-friendly coping tools…Telling them “there’s nothing to worry about” is never a solution. I love this book…”

an excerpt from

Why Smart Kids Worry:
And What Parents Can Do To Help

by Allison Edwards, LPC

 

Copyright © 2014 by Allison Edwards and published here with her permission

Chapter 1

The New Definition of “Smart”

    When you say the word “smart,” do you think of a doctor, lawyer, or the valedictorian of your high school class? The words “summa cum laude” and “36 on the ACT” may come to mind, as well as prestigious universities such as Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. But what many people don’t realize is that a college dropout may be smarter than a Rhodes scholar. A high-school dropout may be smarter than a college graduate, and the plumber who fixes the CEO’s toilet may be smarter than the CEO. Traditionally, when we think of “intelligence,” we are actually thinking of achievement, swapping one for the other instead of seeing them as distinctly different.

    Twenty years ago, if you were smart, you went to college and became a businessman, attorney, or doctor and made more money than most people around you. Now that we’re in the information age, some of the smartest people are bypassing college altogether to start their own businesses or internet companies, or even travel the world. The new definition of intelligence is to think outside the box and create something no one has seen before. It can be as simple as a gadget, website, or a device to hold your laptop, but the world no longer measures the smartest people by degrees and grade-point averages.

    Many parents believe their child is smart but aren’t sure how he measures up to other kids. If he is certified gifted or does really well in school, they have concrete evidence of their child’s abilities. If not, they aren’t sure if their child is that much different from everyone else. When parents walk in my office and say, “My child is smart. He doesn’t do that well at school, but he seems more advanced than other kids,” I help parents redefine what being smart can look like.

Smart Kid = the ability to take ideas/skills to the next level

    By taking an idea to the next level, I mean the ability to take a thought, idea, skill, or concept to a level in which it was not presented. Here are some examples of how smart kids think versus the average kid:

Average Kid

Smart Kid

8 + 2 = 10

8 + 2 = 5 + 5

I see a snake.

I see a boa constrictor.

I’m 10 years old.

I’ve lived 1/8th of my life.

I’m different.

I’m an anomaly.

Some people die.

I may be one of them.

Pollution is bad.

It’s destroying the Earth.

My parents are fighting.

They’re getting a divorce.

I feel scared.

I may never feel safe again.

    While taking concepts to the next level can be a great asset for kids, it can also be a problem. The ability to take ideas to the next level opens a world for smart kids that they are ill-equipped to handle. What’s more, the problem is actually getting worse. As a culture, we are becoming smarter every year, and as intelligence rises, so does the amount of higher-level thinking smart kids are capable of.

The Flynn Effect

    Are today’s kids smarter than we were?

    According to James R. Flynn, founder of the “Flynn Effect,” average intelligence jumps 3 points per decade among children in the United States. Regardless of schooling, exposure to academic activities, tutoring, or Baby Einstein, Flynn found that IQ rises. The number of people who score high enough to be classified as “genius” has increased more than twenty times over the last generation. Flynn’s describes this as “a cultural renaissance too great to be overlooked.” Whether people are displaying increased overall intelligence or simply advanced problem-solving abilities, the number of scientific and technological discoveries made by great minds suggests we are in a time like no other.

    So what does this mean? It means today’s kids are outsmarting their parents. They win almost every argument, find information on the Internet you didn’t even know existed, and remember everything you said that you wished you hadn’t. I continually hear, “I just can’t keep up with him. He seems so advanced. I don’t remember trying to pull those things when I was his age. Something must be wrong.” The truth is, kids are pulling things today we didn’t pull as kids because today’s kids are smarter.

The Seven Types of Intelligence

    When you look at intelligence, it’s important to see the big picture. Psychologists and researchers have been debating the definition of intelligence for over fifty years, and in 1983, a man by the name of Howard Gardner put his ideas into a theory he called multiple intelligences. Gardner believed there are different types of intelligence, and that simply measuring kids by how they perform in school is not an accurate measure of how smart they really are. For example, a child who learns how to multiply easily is not necessarily smarter than a child who doesn’t. The child who is slower to learn may be smarter than the child who is quicker. What looks like slowness may be hiding a mathematical intelligence potentially higher than that of a child who just memorizes the multiplication tables. Gardner broke his theory down into seven categories, which he called The Seven Types of Intelligence.

Linguistic—the capacity to use language effectively as a means of expression and communication through the written or spoken word (example: Shakespeare)

Logical-Mathematical—the ability to recognize relationships and patterns between concepts and things, to think logically, to calculate numbers, and to solve problems scientifically and systematically (example: Einstein)
Visual-Spatial—the ability to think in images and orient oneself spatially (example: Picasso)
Musical—the capacity to use music as a vehicle of expression. Musically intelligent people are perceptive to elements of rhythm, melody, and pitch (example: Mozart)
Bodily-Kinesthetic—the capacity of using one’s own body skillfully as a means of expression or to work with one’s body to create or manipulate objects (example: Michael Jordan)
Interpersonal—the capacity to appropriately and effectively communicate with and respond to other people (example: Oprah)
Intrapersonal—the capacity to accurately know one’s self, including knowledge of one’s own strengths, motivations, goals, and feelings (example: Freud)

Example #1: A second-grade art teacher asks the class to draw a tree.
A child with average Visual-Spatial Intelligence will draw a tree like this:

A child with advanced Visual-Spatial Intelligence will draw a tree like this:

Example #2: Parents get in an argument over money in front of their two children.

A child with average Interpersonal Intelligence will think:

My parents are fighting about money again.

A child with advanced Interpersonal Intelligence will notice that their parents’ body language has changed since the last argument and think:

My parents are going to get a divorce over money. I really shouldn’t ask for anything for my birthday this year. Maybe they’ll stay together if I don’t, because then they’ll have more money.

In both examples, two children were exposed to the same stimuli, but each reacted to it very differently.

Example #3: A parent picks up her son early from school because he’s sick.

A child with average Interpersonal Intelligence will think:

Mom picked Henry up from school because he’s sick.

A child with advanced Interpersonal Intelligence will think:

Mom picked Henry up from school because she loves him more. She picked him up last week too. I really don’t think Henry’s sick. I think Mom just wants to spend more time with him. I wish Mom would love me as much as she loves Henry.

    These are all examples of smart kids who may or may not be successful at school. The child in Example #1 is a superior artist but may have a processing disorder. She may spend her time drawing instead of doing her work and may get into trouble for being distracted by her art, because that’s all she really wants to do. Chances are the classroom teacher won’t see the child in Example #1 as smart. Chances are the art teacher will, though. He might even see her as gifted. So who’s right: the classroom teacher or the art teacher? It all depends on what they specialize in. The classroom teacher specializes in Logical-Mathematical Intelligence, and the art teacher specializes in Visual-Spatial Intelligence.

    The children in Example #2 and Example #3 are what many therapists are seeing in their offices. Kids with high Interpersonal Intelligence are the kids who are highly sensitive, highly perceptive, and who take relational experiences to the next level. They pick up on the slightest changes within the family system and react to them with high amounts of emotion. They are always tuned into how much attention little brother is getting and to how their friends perceive them. This high attunement means they may have a hard time shutting off what’s going on around them.

    You may look at the Seven Types of Intelligence and know exactly where your child fits, or you may be unsure. Your child might be great athlete and therefore have a high level of Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence. He may also be a great listener and friend, and therefore have a high level of Interpersonal Intelligence. He may also struggle in art class, and therefore have a lower Visual-Spatial Intelligence. This does not mean your child is going to grow up to be a likable, professional athlete. It just means that right now, these are the areas he finds success in. In other words, these are the areas where he has natural abilities.

Natural Abilities vs. Hard Work

    Just because your child is smart doesn’t mean he’s going to succeed at everything. Even if he puts in the extra effort, he still may not be as successful as some of his peers. When I was ten years old, I decided I wanted to be a college basketball player. That summer I asked my dad for a basketball hoop, a weight set, and a jump rope. By the next year, I was the best basketball player in my grade. At eleven, I thought if I worked hard enough, I could play at the University of Connecticut, a premier powerhouse, and maybe even become a professional basketball player. But what I learned throughout middle and high school is that you can’t practice quickness. You can’t practice jumping abilities, and you can’t make yourself taller. By my senior year I was a five-foot, seven-inch shooting guard who managed to get a basketball scholarship…but not to UConn.

    That spring, I read an article about a girl who’d just started playing basketball her junior year. She was six-foot-three, could touch the rim, and was going to a top-ranked Division I school. I remember feeling defeated and overwhelmed by the sheer amount of hours I had spent training that she hadn’t.

But what I realize now is that the hard work did pay off—just not in basketball. The discipline it took to stick to my training routine has shaped the rest of my life. During my senior year in high school, however, I couldn’t see that.

    That natural abilities sometimes override hard work is a difficult dynamic for kids to understand. Some kids spend hours doing homework, while other kids finish in fifteen minutes. Some kids kick a goal in their first soccer game, while other kids don’t make one all season. When kids put effort into succeeding and they don’t measure up to their peers, their reality shifts. Common sense says, If I work hard, I’ll succeed, but that’s not always the case.

The Expectation of Success

    How does this make kids anxious? Many smart kids expect to be good at one thing just because they’re good at another. They don’t need to practice in the activity that fits their natural ability, so why should they practice at another sport, skill, or class? Kids who excel in Logical-Mathematical Intelligence may expect to be the best player on the soccer team, and Bodily-Kinesthetic kids who earn the highest belt in karate class expect to receive the greatest applause at the piano recital. If these expectations aren’t met, they’ll often become frustrated and either make excuses or want to quit.

    If this sounds like your child, it’s important to remind him that effort is just as important as success. Reward your child for spending two hours practicing kicking goals rather than scoring two goals in a game. After your child practices for an hour, take him out for ice cream. After he practices for a month, buy him a new soccer ball or a new soccer shirt.

    It’s also important to show empathy for your child’s frustration (more about empathy later). Many smart kids have never experienced failure, and by acknowledging this, you let them know you understand what they’re going through. You can recognize your child’s sadness or frustration by saying, “I know you don’t want to go to karate, but we’ve already signed up,” and “I’m sorry soccer has been so hard for you. I know you’ll be glad when the season is over.” This lets your child know that while you won’t let him quit, at least you understand how he feels.

     After all, kids go into activities with excitement and enthusiasm, which lasts until the first bump in the road. Then, kids have to make a decision: Is the time and effort required to become good really worth it? To some kids it is. To others, it’s not. Regardless, when you’re used to things coming easily, it’s hard to manage the frustration when things are difficult.

Motivated Smart Kids

    Some smart kids will want to take academics to the highest level. They’ll start talking about college in elementary school, and even about going to Harvard one day. As a parent, this is exciting. Seeing your child interested in something on a grand scale lets you know your child is not only smart, but also motivated. However, when your child talks about college and future employment, it’s important to listen while not appearing to be the driving force. Because smart kids are easily bored and will change their minds; if you attach too much importance to his conversation about Harvard, it may end up pushing your child away.

    It’s also important not to be the one to start conversations about grand accomplishments. If he wants to tell you about his desire to go to an Ivy League school, say, “That’s great. I hope you can go there someday.” That’s a much different response than, “You’re going to have to get straight A’s from here on out. Do you know how many applicants that school gets?” The first one is supportive. The second one is loaded with expectations. When you support your child, you allow him to figure out where he fits without deciding for him. When you expect your child to do something, you narrow the playing field and put pressure on him to either fail or succeed in a specific area.

    When he asks your opinion about going to Harvard, say, “I’ll be happy wherever you go.” Many smart kids will get rejected from Harvard, and while you appreciate your child’s drive and motivation, you also want to set the tone of I’ll love you regardless. Smart kids sometimes don’t handle rejection well, and it’s comforting for them to know they’ll have support no matter what.

The Unmotivated Smart Child

    Many parents are in the opposite position. They realize how smart their child is but can’t seem to get him to take advantage of his opportunities. They see he has a 146 IQ but is doing only grade-level math. According to the Weschler Intelligence Scale, children who score above a 130 are considered to have “very superior” intelligence. Children who score between 120–129 are considered “superior,” and those scoring between 110–119 are considered “high average.” Average intelligence is considered to be between 90–109, so when a child scores a 146, the expectations are much higher.

    If you have a child with a high IQ who is doing only average in school, just be patient. A lot of pressure goes along with being smart. In the early grades (K–2), smart kids have to do next to nothing to stay afloat. Once third grade hits, school gets harder, and smart kids have to try, often creating issues. Trying is not something smart kids are used to. For them, it’s like putting on a three-piece suit when you’re used to running around in your underwear. It feels heavy, confining, and stuffy, and all you want to do is peel it off, but you can’t. Instead, you’re stuck trying to find the freedom you used to have.

    This is a tough place to be for a smart child: realizing that learning isn’t always easy and that life takes effort. He can no longer just slide by; now there are expectations and work to be done to meet these expectations. “Your child can do this,” is often what teachers say to the parents of smart kids. “He just doesn’t apply himself.”

How to Motivate Smart Kids

    If your child is unmotivated, do not blame him. Think of the things you’re unmotivated to do: housework, errands, exercise, balancing your checkbook, filing your taxes, and then think of how you get yourself to do them. You tell yourself: I’ll feel better when this is over.

    That’s exactly how you teach smart kids to try. You say, “I know you don’t like doing your homework, but when you’re finished, we’re going to go to the park.” That’s so much more effective than saying, “You HAVE to do homework. That’s just part of life. Do you want to fail third grade?”

    That approach is overwhelming to kids. After all, they didn’t choose to be smart. Now they’re being held to a higher bar than other kids their age, and they see it as unfair. Regardless of kids’ immediate desires, it’s important for parents to help their kids reach their potential. Letting them waste their intelligence is not a good outcome for anyone. So learning how to motivate them is key.

You can motivate smart kids by:

Empathizing

Rewarding

    Empathizing is just saying, “I get it. I get that you don’t like school. I get that you despise homework. I get that you’re bored. I get that all you want to do is play with Lego Star Wars. I get that you hate every minute school is in session and that all you think about is what you’re going to do after. I get it. But you have to go because that’s the law. I’m sorry.”

    Rewarding is saying, “You did something you didn’t want to do; now you can do something you do want to do.” This is a great life lesson. There are so many things in life we don’t want to do, but we do them anyway. We work hard on weekdays so we can go to the lake on weekends. We get up early to go to the gym so we can have dessert after dinner. We make sacrifices every day, and teaching kids that the product of sacrifice is reward is essential to their growth and development.

    For smart kids, it’s important to do the hard things first. Homework should be done before play. Studying should be finished before their favorite show comes on, and work should be completed before downtime. Some parents choose to let their kids relax for a while after school, and if that works for you, that’s fine. Just don’t let the fun be so much fun that they can’t pull themselves away. If so, they will become even more resentful of school. If they’re really into playing outside or building a Lego tower, chances are, getting homework done is going to be even more of a challenge.

How Intelligence Is Valued in the Home

    How you view the Seven Types of Intelligence will affect what your child does/does not value. If you are an academic person, you likely value Logical-Mathematical Intelligence. If you are an artist, you likely value Visual-Spatial Intelligence, and if you are an athlete, you likely value Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence. This is true even if you never say this to your child. You may never say: “I want you to be a doctor,” but if you are a doctor, then your child is going to see becoming a doctor as success. If you are an artist and your child comes home with a winning art project, he’s going to see that as more important than an A on a math assignment, because he knows that’s what you value.

    A friend of mine became an orthopedic surgeon because, growing up, his father used to talk about how amazing the town orthopedic surgeon was. He recalls sitting around the dinner table, hearing his father talk about how smart the orthopedic surgeon was and how much money he made, and although the father never pushed his son to become one, the tone in the house suggested that orthopedic surgeons were the thing to be. My friend was a natural athlete and loved football; however, he chose the academic route because that was what was valued in his home. Forty years later, he’s spent his life becoming not what he wanted to be, but what his father wanted him to be.

    This lack of awareness of our own values versus what our parents’ value is common for the majority of adults. As kids, we did what we thought would be accepted by our parents. I was a basketball player because that’s what was valued in my home. Was it my most natural ability? No, but the rewards for doing well in sports were greater than doing well in academics. It wasn’t until I acquired a stomach virus during my junior year in college that I finally chose another area to focus on. Sitting on the bench for the first time in my life, I realized that basketball was no longer serving me. I dove into my studies and realized my talents were much greater in academics than they were in sports.

    There may be instances when your child will become interested in something of which you hold no value. This doesn’t mean your child doesn’t value your opinion; it’s just that he’s found value in his own thing. If you value academics and your child would rather throw a football than do homework, your values are going to collide. You may reward him for getting good grades, but eventually, being a high school quarterback is going to mean more to him than getting a 30 on the ACT. While neither being the quarterback nor scoring a 30 on the ACT guarantees success in life, it’s hard to change what a child values, especially if he’s getting affirmation for it from his peers. Peer affirmation will nearly always trump parental affirmation, especially as kids get older.

    While you shouldn’t hide your values from your kids, it’s important to consider what comes naturally to your child. If your child has high Logical-Mathematical skills, then valuing academics is going to be in alignment with him. If he has high Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence, then valuing sports is going to be a good fit as well.

    And if your child has high motivation as well as a natural ability, the sky is the limit on how successful he can be. If he is both smart and motivated in school, he can go to a top university. If he has amazing speed and trains every day, he can become a track star. It’s just that motivation and natural abilities don’t always align.

    Sometimes your child will have the drive but not the natural ability. Other times, he’ll have the natural ability but not the drive. When I refer to “drive” I am referring to the passion, discipline, and desire to be great at something. Many anxious kids have a lot of drive and are looking for a way to channel it. Therefore, when they find an outlet, such as sports, music, or theater, they throw all of their energy into becoming great. It’s no wonder many famous people have admitted to struggling with anxiety. They had both the drive and a natural ability in a specific area.

How Intelligence Is Valued at School

No matter what you value at home, Logical-Spatial, Linguistic, and Interpersonal Intelligence are what’s valued at school. That your child is a great artist, a great athlete, or a great violinist is generally not as important as how well your child reads, does math problems, writes essays, and behaves inside the classroom. Logical-Spatial and Linguistic Intelligences are valued at school because that’s what is being tested. That’s what teachers are held accountable for, what standardized tests are based on, what’s covered on the SAT, and what determines where your child goes to college. If your child does well in these areas, the work itself will not be an issue. Other aspects of life at school might be an issue, but your child will have no problem learning the material he is supposed to master.

    Interpersonal Intelligence determines how well your child behaves inside the classroom: how well he gets along with peers, how he responds to teachers, and how he carries himself throughout the school day are extremely important, especially when there are deficiencies in this area. If your child is disruptive, you will get a phone call faster than if your child is struggling academically. If your child is an angel, his learning issues might be overlooked because of his sweet demeanor.

When I was a classroom teacher and saw a student quietly working, I assumed he knew how to do the assignment. If another student was tapping his pencil loudly on his desk, I assumed he didn’t know how to do the assignment or couldn’t concentrate enough to complete it. The two kids may have had the same issue, but the child tapping the pencil got my attention faster because he was disrupting the other students.

    Kids who have a high Interpersonal Intelligence are either loved by teachers who find them enjoyable to be around or disliked because of their tendency to focus on the social aspects of school instead of the schoolwork itself. Kids who have high levels of Interpersonal Intelligence are often big talkers and find socializing to be of utmost importance. I was the child who got the “talks too much” note on every report card, and little did I know that learning how to talk to whomever I was sitting by would help me in my career as a therapist. The tendency to talk to anyone was seen as a bad thing at school but has served as a great asset in my professional life.

While you need to value what your child’s school values, focusing too much on it is overwhelming to children. Because Logical-Spatial, Linguistic, and Interpersonal Intelligences already focus on so much at school, if you continue that level of focus at home, kids will become frustrated and resistant. Especially if school is not going well, talking about it at home only promotes anxiety.

    If kids have to rehash something that happened at school, they will resent school, as well as resent their time at home. In this case, their behavior at school may bleed over into everything else. School, instead of lasting just seven hours, will end up lasting for twelve or fourteen hours, because kids will spend the whole evening in trouble. However, the main problem with rehashing events that happened at school is that kids often don’t remember exactly what happened. They may not remember why they talked out at 9:30, or how they managed to get put out in the hallway. Asking them why they did something they barely remember is not only unfair to them, it’s unfair to you. If you can’t get the answer you need from your child, it may be better to set up a conference with his teacher than to try and pull information out of your child.

Providing After-School Outlets

    A better approach is to focus on the other areas of intelligence during after-school hours. Some kids wait all day for school to be over. They don’t enjoy it and live for those few hours in between school and bedtime, where they feel successful. Allowing them this time is a wonderful gift to give to a child. Kids need to experiment with the other levels of intelligence by taking art classes, doing gymnastics, taking piano lessons, or joining a soccer team.

    Finding meaningful activities also helps smart kids control their anxiety. A symptom of anxiety is being “keyed up,” and giving kids a chance to release some of that keyed-up energy helps them become less anxious overall. Providing physical outlets, such as Run Fast! Jump High! (Tool #13), is a way to do this. Even if they don’t provide a physical release, it is important for anxious kids to be actively engaged in activities they feel positive about. For example, if a child is worried about a math test on Friday, he can go to his favorite art class after school on Thursday. Instead of worrying about the math test, for that hour of creating art, he can feel happy and positive, which will help release some of the anxious energy.

    If you have tried several activities and nothing has seemed to stick, it’s important not to give up. Activities such as rock climbing, lacrosse, and horseback riding are options that many kids really enjoy. It’s also great to have your child do something in the community, such as volunteering at the food bank or helping out with younger children. Community activities help kids feel good about themselves and give them a sense of purpose. One child I worked with was not athletic but really loved animals. Instead of going through another dreadful soccer season, his mom signed him up to be a volunteer at an animal shelter. The child loved it! He formed positive relationships with the animals and couldn’t wait to go back every week.

What Giftedness Means to Kids

    Giftedness is the term schools use to identify kids who have heightened levels of Logical-Mathematical and Linguistic Intelligence. If you have a child who is certified gifted, then your child has scored 126 or more on the Stanford-Binet Intelligence test, along with scoring in the 90th percentile on a statewide achievement test. Your child may not have been tested yet, as the testing process for giftedness varies widely from state to state. Some children get identified as early as pre-school, while other children don’t begin the process until third or fourth grade. If your child has received certification for giftedness, then he is among the three million other kids who are currently labeled as gifted in the United States. Each year, programs such as Child Find conduct annual screenings in public schools to determine unidentified gifted students. When I was a school counselor, we identified a boy with a 149 IQ through Child Find who wasn’t considered smart by his teachers. He did average work yet he scored in the superior range.

    The public school system often pulls kids out of the classroom for enrichment classes if they meet the criteria for giftedness. While this can seem like a privilege, leaving the classroom can be tough on kids. Childhood is a time where kids are striving to fit in, and anything that makes a child feel “different” can have negative effects. When gifted kids are pulled out they not only miss what goes on in the classroom but have to explain where they have been. Saying they’re in a program for smart kids can have social consequences, so they will often just call it a “group” or a “program,” to avoid drawing more attention to themselves.

    If your child goes to a private school, you may not know if your child meets the criteria for giftedness. Private schools are not required by law to provide services for gifted children (or any child with a special need), and many do not actively seek out smart kids for gifted screenings. Parents can have their own testing conducted, or they can ask the school to provide testing—although they may not agree. For bright kids at private schools, parents are often expected to seek out their own resources to help challenge their child.

    I’ve worked with many kids who have scored in the 140’s or 150’s on intelligence tests and have no idea how smart they are. Their parents have wisely chosen not to tell them about their scores and instead have encouraged them just to do their best. If your child has produced a high IQ score, I would recommend this same approach. After all, giftedness is an adult word; kids have no use for it. The only thing giftedness means to kids is they get to go to a different class (sometimes) and do extra work (occasionally). What being “gifted” really means to kids is school is easy and, too often, they’re bored.

    Gifted kids often finish their work early and spend most of their time reading. If they have a good teacher, they’ll do extra work, finish that too, and then spend more time reading. Their boredom often leads to trouble once they run out of reading material. They’ll start talking or drawing or disturbing the class. They’ll correct their teacher when she slips up. And it’s no surprise that school, instead of being their comfort zone, can become a dreaded place. For children who excel in levels of intelligence besides those identified by gifted programs, school can be especially tough, because they experience such a discrepancy between success and failure.

    What do I mean by that? If your child is a brilliant artist, when he goes to art class, he will feel great measures of success. An hour later, when he’s called on to read a short story, he stutters, feels embarrassed, and suddenly his success in art class, only an hour before, has completely vanished. The same goes for kids who excel in sports. In P.E., they score the winning shot in a basketball game and are celebrated. They are on cloud nine when they reenter the classroom, only to find out they failed yesterday’s math test and have to take it again. This discrepancy is confusing for kids. They were smart enough to elude two defenders and score the winning basket but not smart enough to add 6 + 8.

    If your child is not getting enough stimulation at school, you may need to find other ways to provide the level of stimulation he needs. If he’s not being stimulated academically, you can enroll him in programs such as Kumon (www.kumon.com), which provides an individualized math and reading curriculum for each child based on his abilities, not his age or grade level. For example, if your child is in third grade but is capable of doing sixth-grade math, Kumon will provide a curriculum of sixth-grade math, so your child will not only be challenged, but also will be able to make even more gains in math.

    If your child is an amazing artist but isn’t being challenged by the school’s art program, you can enroll him in art classes based on his level of talent. You can request private lessons from an artist or make a special request for your child to be in a community-based class with older students, based on his ability. The same goes for kids who have musical talents. Finding a voice coach or a violin teacher who will allow your child to maximize his gifts will often give smart kids the stimulation they need. Finding the right teacher is imperative, and once you find someone who can connect with your child and invest in his talent, smart kids will often grow exponentially.

What You Must Remember…

    The ability to take concepts and ideas to the next level is not a choice; it is something smart kids do without trying. While this skill can be a great asset in school, sports, art, or everyday life, it can also cause great pain. Because smart kids are always thinking, their minds never rest. They are constantly spinning thoughts over and over which can help them be brilliant and creative but can also lead to a continual struggle with anxiety.

… Continued…

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by Allison Edwards, LPC
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