Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Talking to Your Child

DD was recently identified as GT, ADHD, anxiety & depression. We spoke to her before and after the evaluation but we haven't dived into any of the details. We do try to approach all of her challenges and successes from a growth mindset.
Does anyone have advice for talking to your child about their exceptionalities?

My DS6 is a bit younger than Portia's son (and your DD), so I may not have as refined a view within this conversation that you both have.

Preamble aside, my view is that the core of addressing the idea of exceptionality is to:

1. Minimize the extent to which exceptionality is communicated as a valenced value judgment of the child and others, and

2. Normalize (meaningful, safe) failure and (healthy) striving in the zone of proximal development as a healthy part of life.

For the first item, each person is a constellation of skills, interests, temperament, and environmental influences. Similar to how Portia has framed the issue, I've told DS that there is value in people having with different strengths and weaknesses, and much of who we become is a product of how we see ourselves and choose to act.

Other significant adults and I provide honest feedback to him on his performance (absolute and relative, as appropriate), and he is encouraged to engage in honest self-reflection as he sets various goals for himself. In many areas, he performs several years ahead of age-peers, and he is aware of his relative placement in the group but, perhaps, not the absolute magnitude of the gap.

The discussion has been framed around needs to de-personalize the differences ("you need to do mixed fractions, your friend needs to work more on addition".) That way, when he encounters an area of weakness, he doesn't feel shame (or feels less) for lagging in skill; it's just another skill to work on at the appropriate level for him.

That point dovetails into item 2. I've made a concerted effort to keep DS engaged in his ZPD for the academic subjects he most enjoys, and it's paid dividends. He's learning to push through tough problems and be okay stepping back from a challenge to plan his approach. This has been helpful in minimizing the instinct we all have to seek instant gratification. But, I think more importantly, it's teaching him to rise to the occasion and see himself as a person who faces challenges head-on. Self-efficacy is a beautiful gift, at any point in the developmental spectrum.

Sometimes I remark on the level of what he has accomplished when he has persevered through a particularly difficult task, and I find this has fueled intrinsic motivation when he hits a lull. He likes being competitive and, while he seems naturally outwardly competitive, he's developing (what I think is) a balanced sense of competition with himself. As long as the attitude isn't cut-throat or supercilious, I see this as an affirmation of him as a person and an acknowledgement of the positive ways in which he uses his talents.

Another way I've approached this is to have him participate in activities particularly where he is not the best in the group. He needs to learn that he will fail or be out-classed at various points, and he needs to learn how to manage that behaviourally and emotionally.

The messaging I'm trying to give him is that it's okay to be beaten by someone who has genuinely out-performed you, and it's a cause for celebration when people use their talents to the best of their abilities. Everyone will win and lose, and we need to learn to do both graciously. When you're not top dog, you can either re-skill and re-evaluate your approach to perform better next time, or congratulate the winner and move on productively. But, a best effort is always meritorious.

I also regularly model failure and talk through my thought process, feelings, and decisions. I want to normalize healthy failure as a great step in learning and self-improvement. (It's also a great equalizer--children love to see their parents be honest about their own clay feet!)

Small brag: One of my favourite things I hear from DS is his out-loud self-talk when he does challenging math. Last week, I caught him muttering to himself under his breath as he worked, "Man, this is HARD. I've solved hard problems before, but this is really hard. Well, let's see if this works..."

I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on how you approach these topics with your DD and DS. As you can see from this novel I've written (and my signature!), self-efficacy is a personal favourite subject, and it fascinates me to learn how others are approaching this important subject with their children.

I think it depends on where it's coming from. Separating out ADHD, is it actual ADHD or is it overlap in symptoms from being gifted? Similar with anxiety and depression. Is it genetic and/or environmental, or is it from having a brain that can comprehend information that she is not emotionally developed enough to handle? I think self-reflection and understanding how her mind and body are designed or responding can be helpful.

Thank you for your thoughts!
We've been waiting for this assessment & results for 6 months and muddling along with therapy and various behavioral interventions. I'm glad to have some context but feeling in over my head.

twallace, YES! to all of your thoughts...the evaluator said the same thing and gave us a timeline of sorts for teasing this out. We are starting with focusing on GT & anxiety, at her reccomendation.

Portia, "life work" - a great way to frame all those other aspects of life. I like your approach in general. DD has been so down on herself and needs some perspective on the strengths & challenges faced by others.

aquinas, thank you for such a thorough reply. Your small brag is very sweet. Just what one would hope to hear!

Right now DD has low preceived self efficacy across many areas. She really struggles when peers or her brother are (or are perceived as being) more successful. This year, despite being in accelerated math and language arts groups, her low self efficacy has extended to academics. Unfortunately her teacher shared MAPS and lexile scores with her students. DD scores in the 95th - 99th percentile on these quarterly tests, but doesn't consistently make gains each semester. DD has internalized the flat scores as a sign of failure.
She generally enjoys academic challenges, but has defintely learned to coast these past few years.
Her effort is low unless something sparks her interest or competetive streak. Lately, she also gets frustrated and easily gives up when anything is too challenging.
Your sugestion to work in her ZPD makes sense. Do you have any advice for determining ZPD for academics.
What about self-efficacy? Any resources that have been helpful with your son?
I was thinking of trying Brainology as a simple starting point for developing a growth midset while we sort all this out.

What a great lesson! I'll try it...DS could benefit as well.

For ZPD for academics, maybe start with one subject at a time and keep exploring further until your DD reaches a saturation point and stops being excited about accessing more content at that time. Although achievement tests should give you a good idea of current academic capabilities, broadly, I think it's a lot more fun to just delve into a few topics she's passionate about to see how she performs when unconstrained by the teaching model/material. They're obviously not mutually-exclusive approaches.

Example from my DS: He liked learning more about disease a while ago, so we borrowed some books on various afflictions and plagues from the library. Immune responses really seemed to fascinate him, so I pulled out an old grade 12 biology text of mine and started to show him basic cell structures, organelle functions, etc. He wanted more content, so we went onto a more detailed discussion of the immune system, various types of blood cells, histamine responses and allergy, etc. The interest still persisted, so we delved into some discussion of cytotoxic cells, perforin, and some of the chemical underpinnings of its mechanism of action. Basically, I followed him down the rabbit hole as far as he'd go, and interest stopped at energy systems at the cellular level. I don't know what level that was grade-wise, but it was a good indicator that he required content well beyond what was traditionally offered. It was also a ton of fun!

Make sense?

Unrelated sidebar / Portia, love the basketball story! Wonderful!!

Wow - some great ideas above. My thoughts are pretty basic in comparison, just focusing on the practical aspects of how do you start these kinds of conversations. With both my 2E kids, I framed the testing as 'understanding what is easier, and harder, for you to learn, so we can better match you with the kinds of teaching you need'. With results in hand, my lead-in was along the lines of 'we have some information back that really helps understand why you are struggling so much in school right now. School is set up to teach you *this* way, but you need to learn *that* way'.

Note that this equally covers the gifted and LD issues. And a lot of the anxiety arises from that mismatch in the classroom - being asked everyday to do things that seem inexplicably hard, even though (especially because) everyone else seems to do them fine.

For both my 2E kids, a critical part of reducing anxiety was helping them discover and believe that they could do well when taught the way they needed. Admittedly, this was easiest when remediating DD's dyslexia (a long but straightforward process), and a lot harder for less easily-remediable issues, whether other language/ processing deficits, ADHD, anxiety, or lack of gifted peers/ teaching. Sometimes, the only place where they got what they needed was outside the classroom.

With DS especially, we talk a lot about the saying "If you judge a fish by it's ability to climb trees, it will spend its life thinking it is stupid." For my fishy DS whose strengths and weaknesses are the opposite of those demanded by elementary school, sometimes I need to remind him that he is doing great to be working hard on on those branches at all. I need to make sure he spends enough time in the water to truly understand that no, I am not stupid, but yes, I do need to be self-aware enough to understand the difference between the kinds of environments in which I thrive and the kind in which I don't. And recognize that I am not to blame for either, this is just how I am.

Love what others have said above, especially Portia's hands-on basketball exercise.

I have had this conversation numerous times (probably about 2-3 times a week on average, for more years than I care to count), but usually with other people's children. No matter what the profile is (extremely low, extremely high, both), I typically present the same themes, in language appropriate to the individual:

Everyone has a profile, and this is yours. I could take any adult in your life (teachers, parents, coaches, etc.) and do a similar assessment, and I would find a profile of strengths and weaknesses. Some profiles have names, and yours happens to have this name. (It may or may not have the word "disability" or "disorder" in it--I am honest about including these words, because they will hear them at some point, and I believe in being truthful with children, as a foundation of trust.) This doesn't mean you are broken (or entitled). It's not a good or bad thing--it just is. What it becomes depends on what you do with it. The great thing about knowing your profile is that it helps you (and your parents) make good decisions about developing your strengths so you can fly with them, and supporting your weaknesses so they don't get in the way of you working toward your dreams and goals.

For some children, especially older learners with a greater awareness of their deficit areas--and more experiences of frustration in school--we have a frank discussion about the reality that institutional schools are really not designed for every learner, so it's not surprising that they may have to work harder and be less comfortable, just to achieve the same (or even lesser) results as a learner with a profile more suited to school: But someday, after compulsory education, you will find a setting that works for you, and allows your strengths to flourish more than they have in traditional K-12 education. Knowing your profile will help you to create this environment that supports your weaker areas, and plays to your strengths. In the meantime, know that you have to deal with some mis-fits that others don't, be proud of what you accomplish based on your character and efforts, don't be ashamed to take help when you need it, and make sure that what you choose to do in school keeps your options open for what you want to do in the future.

I only get those few minutes to convey all of this, but parents can have this conversation--possibly in little bits and pieces--over a longer period of time.

Aeh, I am saving this into Evernote so as to always have it to refer to, even if the Davidson site should go down (however unlikely)! Your kindness and wisdom really shine through here. This seems like the ideal blueprint on which to base a conversation with my possibly 2e daughter, should the need be confirmed. Thanks.

You are very welcome.