Self-esteem is important for all children, not just the gifted. Research has shown that approximately half of the high school boys and a fourth of high school girls report feeling only “pretty good” about the way they are. Gifted students face even greater challenges by being very different from their peers in how they see the world and react to it and how they see themselves. Their drive for perfection, fear of failure, discomfort in social situations, emotional vulnerability, and unique learning styles all contribute to the potential loss of self-esteem that can totally shut down their desire to pursue their own development.
When gifted kids feel good about themselves (and actually, when all kids feel good about themselves), they are more willing to take risks academically and socially. Gifted kids will have a better chance of breaking away from the boredom of a limited curriculum and seek a higher level of knowledge and performance. They will seek more quality relationships and friendships. They will see more opportunities to learn and grow rather than see only limitations and failure.
How can you as a parent nurture this important aspect of their growth? Where do you move in and offer support, encouragement, and direction? And where do you step back and allow your gifted children to act on their own? It is important to know the difference.
Here are some suggestions from leading researchers and educators in the field.
Give Praise Where It’s Due
Praise your children for their performance, for what they do, rather than for the qualities they possess. It’s better to say they did something well rather than say they are smart. It is better to praise effort and persistence, no matter what the results are. This will encourage more attempts in the future.
Hollow praise can be more damaging than no praise at all. You can’t “praise your kids into competence” and praising them all the time can actually diminish self-esteem over time. Kids then strive to be perfect all the time and put added pressure on themselves or they start thinking they are perfect and stop trying to improve.
Confidence really comes from trying, failing, trying again, and achieving. It comes from practice. If you tell your child that he or she is a good speller or is good at math when they aren’t, they learn to not trust their own instincts and see praise as an artificial, insincere attempt to motivate them. They see it as a lie.
When your child finds out that you were wrong (or lying) about his talent, his self-esteem plummets. The embarrassment and disappointment way heavily and they become confused about how good their own instincts are.
It is much better to offer praise for real effort. Some teachers use the technique of having their students keep a “brag file” of praise they have earned as in a program or newspaper article. They are asked to put it aside and when they had a bad day, they would take out those items and read the words of praise again, making them feel better about themselves.
Parents canoffer personal notes of encouragement and appreciation in informal ways like putting sticky notes on mirrors or write notes for lunchboxes. Showing love and support will make them more confident and secure. Making the child feel loved is a form of praise that will increase the feeling of self-worth and instill confidence that he or she always has the support of family.
Help Set Reachable Goals, Ways to Achieve Them
You don’t want your gifted children to think everything is easy. Event professionals and experts in their fields practice all the time. Encourage the idea of practice and hard work. Help your children set reachable goals and help them figure out how to reach them. The emphasis should be on effort and performance. If they think something is easy, they are probably short-changing themselves. They could be reaching higher or doing more.
But make sure the goals are reachable. If your child is not good enough to be on an “A” team, encourage him to join a “B” team where he can stand out. If the books he is reading are too difficult, get him some easier ones to build confidence.
Step Back, Let Your Kids Take Healthy Risks
To be successful, kids have to take chances, make choices, and take responsibility for them. It is not a good idea to make choices for them. You shouldn’t try to “rescue” them from failure all the time. Failure is a good teacher. Many famous people have failed before succeeding greatly, like Abraham Lincoln who failed at many jobs until he found one that fit him.
One parent watched her two-year-old son lift a huge jug of orange soda at a party and start to pour it into a glass. She knew there would be a problem but she did not interfere. The child spilled the soda allover the floor as expected. But then the unexpected happened. The child asked a waitress for a paper towel and cleaned up the mess. He solved his own problem (just like an adult).
Sometimes, it’s a good idea to just step back.
Let Your Kids Make Their Own Decisions
As gifted children face more difficult academic challenges, their intuition becomes more important. The choices get more difficult. They are asked to choose among many different answers to test questions with the “best” one. They use their intuition. Parents can support this talent by asking their children, “What do you think?” or “What does your gut tell you?”
Children as young as twocan begin considering the consequences of their own decisions. Let your kids decide what to wear when the weather gets cold. Once they know the difference between warm and cold and how they feel in winter, let them decide on whether to wear a coat, hat, and mittens. Let them start to take on responsibility for their choices.
Teach Your Kids to Serve Others
Gifted children will someday lead others. They will become community leaders, academic professionals, stalwarts in society, high performers in the arts, sciences, and field of athletics. They will be tomorrow’s inventors and founders.
You can help get them prepared by teaching them to serve others at an early age. Helping others will bring self-satisfaction and a sense of well-being. Feeling useful is a great way to build self-esteem. Developing the habit of service will form a solid foundation for future leadership.
A good example is teaching kids to take care of pets. Allow your kids to find an appropriate pet and give them the responsibility to take care of it. They will come to realize how important they are to the health and survival of another living thing. Your recognition and praise for the child’s attentive care will boost his or her self-esteem to higher levels.
There are other ways to improve self-image and confidence in your children. The idea is to remain positive and know when to be an outspoken advocate and when to be a quiet supporter and facilitator. Knowing how to do both will help your children grow in confidence and the knowledge that they can be whatever they choose to be.
