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Ebenezer
Aug. 12, 2008
When gifted children grow up
I Stumbled across this video the other day which talks about child prodigies and brain differences. It's worth a watch, especially to see young Marc Yu play the piano.
What has stuck with me, though, is the observation someone made about what happens to gifted children when they become adults -- more accurately, how people respond to them. What the child was able to learn when he was very young, to the amazement of others, is no longer so different from what his age peers can now do, so people now shrug and say "so what?" For the child that has grown up in the spotlight, addicted to attention, this is a huge psychological hurdle that can in fact paralyze her if she does not have inner confidence and self-worth.
But, as the video explains, this does not mean that the other adults have "caught up" in innate ability; the person is still able to learn faster. It does mean, though, that the gifted individual needs to be thinking about creative and distinctive output, not just learning quickly.
I don't write this to imply that gifted people should focus on staying in the spotlight to keep their egos stoked. Rather, I'm thinking about avoiding the shutdown in meaningful work, the self-critical "I guess I'm not so special." We need gifted adults to continue creating beauty, meaning and understanding, and we somehow need to provide outlets for significant creativity (see Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning) for our gifted children instead of just filling the cup. |
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Aug. 12, 2008 - Hi