Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Dd's passion and friends

Since dd(8) was 6 years old she has been writing plays. In the past year she has gone on to not only writing them but planning them. She will pick a performance date, make advertisements, make lists, assign parts, type up the scripts and make copies for all the participants (even highlighting their lines), pick out costumes, etc.... This isn't just a one day effort on her part, she will usually spend 2-3 weeks on it. She will live, eat, and breathe whatever current play she is working on.... The writing isn't spectacular, nothing 'gifted' in my mind. However, the planning and the amount of effort she puts into it is what I find impressive.

The sad part is that none of her friends (neighbor kids her own age) have the stamina or interest to do something that is so involved and her plays usually end up fizzling out and she gets disappointed. Soon after though she'll get a new play idea and the process starts all over.

I've thought about finding a children's theater and signing her up for a musical, but her interest isn't really to be in the play. She loves planning and writing them. Any other ideas on how to nurture this gift of hers? And help her through the disappointment of her friends not sharing her interests?

ETA: I'm also curious, are neurotypical kids like this? Or is it a gifted thing to be so intense and passionate about something?

I would look for a small, highly-informal children's theater group in the area, approach the director, and say, "Would you be interested in putting on a child-written play?" Then I'd propose signing up my DD to join the class and study, not as an actor, but as an assistant director/producer.

Animation. Either computer or physical with stop action and video editing. iMovie is common for assembling and editing, Toontastic can be a nice start with pre-made characters but isn't easy for tuning/rewrites. There are lots of options.

She can then limit the sharing with friends to the final production, or find fellow animators.

Try this (link below), if they have programs in your area try it, she may like it. http://www.writopialab.org/worldwide-plays-festival.html It is for ages 6 to 18.

Puppet pals is an app (free version) DD has used to act out scripts. She was exposed to it at school first.

Over the summer we had a drama club with friends and there were definitely gifted kids who did a fantastic job writing and planning, making a curtain for our end of summer show, etc. And I used to work in a theater company where older kids helped run things. You might be able to find a program that would be willing to have her apprentice! We always loved when someone was willing to learn a stage craft so when kids grew up the company still had experts trained.