Hi Traceyqns,
My daughter is younger that your son, but I read up a bit on socialization of gifted children as she was isolating herself at preschool and I wanted to know what we should do for her. Basically (and unfortunately I haven't got access to the texts I read to reference, but they were by well regarded giftedness specialists), it is not unusual for gifted kids to be doing the kinds of things your son is doing, nor is it necessarily a negative. The reading I've done pointed to the following indicators of whether or not socialization was an issue:
- if they are getting opportunities to socialize with loving adults (parents, grandparents, family friends, etc) and seem socially competent with them that is a better indication of their social skills than how they get on with same age peers, who they don't really understand and who don't understand them.
- if they are generally getting along with the other kids at school - even if they don't choose to hang out with them in their spare time - then that's another indication things are fine. If they aren't, it is quite possible that rather than if being because of social immaturity, it is because they don't have a good fit with the other kids and acceleration might be needed to allow them to form relationships with peers closer to their mental age. Miraca Gross uses an example of a child with a normal IQ being left in a classroom with children 60 IQ points below them (using ratio IQ scores in this instance). We would not expect the child to be able to socialize normally with these children. We might expect them to be kind, etc. But we wouldn't expect them to find meaningful relationships. So it is for gifted children in a normal class room (or even in an accelerated class room depending on their level of giftedness). It is not really surprising that they are not seen to be socializing in the 'normal' way.
- if they are also getting meaningful, regular opportunities to socialize with other gifted or older kids outside of the school environment, even better.
I saw Miraca Gross speak on this topic and she suggested that gifted kids will be forced to make a choice at some point between being true to themselves at school and pretending they're someone they're not to fit in. The most important thing is that they have support at home to be themselves and ideally that they have even one friend, even if it is outside of school, who really gets them. But she also said many gifted kids wont find that one friend until they've left school. She also said there is a lot of focus by teachers on trying to ensure that gifted children are perfectly well rounded and that this just isn't possible (and it would seem to me that we don't expect it of other student groups).
Finally, have you looked in to introversion/extroversion and so on? Many assumptions about socialization seem to me based on what extroverts think people should be doing. Until I did some research on what each needs I spent a lot of time worrying about my daughter and thinking that I, myself, should WANT to have more friends than I had (despite actually being very happy with them). Turns out I am a classic introvert - too much interaction with others just wears me out. I remember school being a long day if I didn't take time out to read etc. You may have already looked in to this, but if you haven't and it turns out your son is introverted, it might provide some useful info for you to take to your son's teacher. There have been some excellent threads on introversion on this forum too.
Good luck!
