Intensity in the gifted
Giftedness expert Annemarie Roeper said "How to relate to the world around them is the gifted child's greatest problem because they experience it differently from others." She asked how such individuals can be supported.
Personally I'm not sure if gifted individuals can be helped in finding strategies to deal with their deep thoughts and emotions that others in their lives do not understand, or care about at the same level. I notice this constant ache in my 21-yr old daughter. It's hard for her to cope with life and I can understand what she's feeling because I sometimes experience the same oppressive ache. When I read about the horrors in the world, and sense the looming doom of global warming and its consequences, I almost cannot breathe anymore. It's like a band of steel is wrapped around my chest.
My daughter says that's exactly the feeling she's been living with for many years. She feels utterly helpless to create the huge changes necessary to turn things around, because others live in denial and remain blind to the signals she picks up. The only consolation she has is to be able to talk to her boyfriend and to me about these things, but that's merely a temporary solution. The underlying stress in her life will remain.
As an aside I wonder what the percentage of cognitively gifted individuals is who are this sensitive?? I talk to many identified GT high school kids and find that most of them are not as sensitive as my daughter is. My daughter's IQ ranges between 141 and 151. She scored 141, but at the time, at age 14, she was battling major depression so the result (according to GT expert Linda Silverman) may have been depressed by 10 points.
Personally I'm not sure if gifted individuals can be helped in finding strategies to deal with their deep thoughts and emotions that others in their lives do not understand, or care about at the same level. I notice this constant ache in my 21-yr old daughter. It's hard for her to cope with life and I can understand what she's feeling because I sometimes experience the same oppressive ache. When I read about the horrors in the world, and sense the looming doom of global warming and its consequences, I almost cannot breathe anymore. It's like a band of steel is wrapped around my chest.
My daughter says that's exactly the feeling she's been living with for many years. She feels utterly helpless to create the huge changes necessary to turn things around, because others live in denial and remain blind to the signals she picks up. The only consolation she has is to be able to talk to her boyfriend and to me about these things, but that's merely a temporary solution. The underlying stress in her life will remain.
As an aside I wonder what the percentage of cognitively gifted individuals is who are this sensitive?? I talk to many identified GT high school kids and find that most of them are not as sensitive as my daughter is. My daughter's IQ ranges between 141 and 151. She scored 141, but at the time, at age 14, she was battling major depression so the result (according to GT expert Linda Silverman) may have been depressed by 10 points.
posted by Conny Jensen @ 8:26 PM
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