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Articles & Resources
You may print articles for personal use from the SENG website free of
charge, provided you cite the author and www.sengifted.org. All
information on the SENG website is subject to copyright. Please obtain
permission from the original author or publisher before using materials in
other publications.
Director's Corner
"Well, Mom, that’s real nice that your child is gifted and all, but..." Those words are seared in my mind forever. They were thrown at me after what had been my most recent timid attempt to convey to a local mental health care provider that maybe he really, REALLY needed to take my child’s giftedness into account, to look at the whole child, when trying to puzzle through the causes for my son's distress and his failure to thrive emotionally and academically. How difficult it is to muster the courage to actually make suggestions to the experts! How frightening it is to finally come to the realization that as a parent, you are further along in diagnosis and treatment knowledge of your child than any of the many experts you’ve consulted thus far! I thank the heavens for SENG. It is an organization that gave me the support I needed to realize that I could very possibly be correct in my feelings that I was on the right track with my child, and that the experts I had employed were making wrong assumptions. I am forever thankful that the information SENG provided helped to save my family from years of misdiagnosis and unnecessary heartache. The articles from The SENG Newsletter gave me the courage to seek further information and to decide that it was time to find a more learned professional for my family’s needs. Diagnosing a child who is gifted can be tricky. It is very important that as a parent you do not ignore a hurting child or pass off his or her behavior as typical for giftedness. But it is equally important that you are an informed consumer and pay close attention to the mental health care professional you choose to hire. Parents must take an active role in scrutinizing potential therapists. It takes an investment of time and a dose of courage. Be aware that many professionals will tell you that they work with gifted children all the time and/or that they were gifted children themselves. Often that is just not enough background to ensure success with your child. You must become a savvy consumer. Check the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) out of the library and learn the categories that are used to separate people into various areas of mental illness, emotional disorders, or disability. Then, if you find the therapist you're consulting is irritated with your questioning, rather than impressed with your curiosity, it may be a sign that it is time to move on to another professional. It is important to choose someone who is willing to really listen and learn about the nuances of the gifted population. It is not easy to decide who to trust with your child’s mental and emotional health, but you must not stop thinking it through and weighing the information you gather. Employing a narrow-minded professional can backfire, because a child may pick up on the therapist's lack of depth and become frightened by the rigid parameters in which his hurt is being judged. The child may even feel the need to feed the therapist what he feels the therapist wants to hear. Some of our gifted children exhibit behaviors that paint a picture of pathology. I have learned that sometimes these behaviors are actually ‘normal’ and ‘OK’ as a part of the somewhat different make-up of a gifted child’s being. It is important to realize, of course, that our gifted children could very well be suffering from mental health concerns and/or afflicted with other issues such as learning disabilities. However, there are times when, because of the hypersensitivity and hyperawareness that tend to go hand in hand with giftedness, professionals may look at a child and label her incorrectly as being afflicted with maladies she doesn't possess. The most important thing to remember is that whether your child is exhibiting behaviors that are only a normal part of her giftedness, or whether she is a gifted child properly diagnosed with a mental illness, emotional disorder or learning disability, the therapy delivered should ALWAYS take into consideration the giftedness of the child. Look for SENG’s free, downloadable brochure Selecting a psychiatrist or psychologist for your gifted child. We also have several great resources under the heading Counseling, Multiple Exceptionality, and Psychological Issues in SENG's online Articles Library. In August of 2004, Therese Clifford was the parent of a profoundly gifted son, an advocate for awareness of social-emotional issues for the highly gifted and multi-exceptional, and serving her first 3-year term on the SENG Board. |
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