Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy how do you find peers for your children?

We recently had a revelation --DS9 does not have true peers at school. He has lots of friends, who are good kids, they do well in academics (the whole school is doing well in academics), talk about video games all the time, and in general act like 9 year olds. But DS obviously is much more mature behaviorally and intellectually. (He is reading Jonathan Kozol's books on social inequality and just fell in love with Schubert and Handel). We kind of knew this. During school year (both last year and this year) DS seems to be always in low gear, sloppy at work and acting "young" sometimes. But during summer he is a different person. He suddenly has heightened curiosity in everything, puts himself into an intense learning mode, and his social behavior also becomes very mature for his age.

I have nothing against his friends, they are good kids and are simply acting their age. But what I want is that, IN ADDITION to school friends, DS can have a few true peers so that he can grow at his pace. I don't know where to look if I want to help him find such true peers. We do sign him up for extracurricular activities but these are not helping much so far. I'm sure some of you have gone through the same worrying phase so I'd like to know what you did for your kids.

We have had our best luck with finding friends outside of school. My son participates in a Pokemon club and all of the kids are significantly older than he is. We also belong to a homeschool group even though he's not currently homeschooling. The kids there range from 3-12. They have events on the weekends and in the evenings on occasion.

DS6 isn't really inclined towards one "best friend" at this point though. He has differing friends for differing activities and seems to be fine with that for now.

Mixed age groups work well for us too. But really it may take until high school or even college to find a true peer group that sticks. And maybe that is true for more than just GT kids? I kind of feel if my kids enjoy being social and continue building their social skills, I'm not going to stress about it too much. We are lucky that we have many MG+ kids in our area and a GT homeschooling co-op, that we don't get to see enough, but has been a good fit as well.

Thanks for the reply, Shari and kimck. I just want my DS to have a variety of friends and some who he can have meaningful intellectual exchanges. For example he is an enthusiastic little musician but so far has no friend who shares the interest. Sigh... Patience, I guess.

Have you checked out the SENG groups? They don't have a group in our area, but they might have one in yours..

I saw this suggested previously for both adults and kids.

www.sengifted.org

My suggestion would be to start with specific interests (either that he already has or seem like something he'd enjoy) and then look for a way to find people who share those interests. Don't pay attention to age.

Some places where we've had success:
Community chess clubs.

Attending community talks and concerts and striking up conversations there.

Hiring a tutor or find a mentor for a single project. It could be as simple as asking everyone you know if they know an adult who would like to talk about Kozol's book and see if any ongoing discussion evolves. Retired people (especially retired professors) can be a good group to mentor.

Also, is there any possibility he could attend a gifted camp?

Good suggestions passthepotatoes.

My oldest didn't have a real friend until he went to 6th grade. Ironically the boy lives 3 houses away and they never knew each other, but have turned out to be good friends. I say "good" because DS is really a loner and enjoys his time alone as well.

The friends of my kids seem to be 2 yrs older, moderately gifted, with similar interests. I agree that taking them to more esoteric clubs or activities (we have a Model Club-for plastic model making of ships or tanks; Astronomy Club; Chess; Literacy Council Knowledge Bowl; etc.) or activities--Community theater, talks, library programs.

One key skill/ability to help our children with is to teach them how to be happy alone, entertain themselves, because close friends in life are not a guarantee, and probably less so for PG kids/adults. Even if they found "peers" (a few PG kids) they may not hit it off.

DD's best intellectual friends were found in library programs that have a flexible age range or our natural history museum has a naturalist program that attracts GT kids of all ages. DD is in a gifted classroom and she has a couple of good friends in her class as well.

She also made a great friend at our school's afterschool program (arts I think). She is 2 years older and they seem to be at an even intellectual level.

Jen