How do we work with children of high abilities?
Children with high skills are very talented and have great potential, this must be assumed with a positive vision and ratify the fact of opportunities and challenges, since it is not said that the child has a disorder, on the contrary has a talent which makes it a winner.
Image source
By looking at children in this way, what we are doing is part of the solution and not part of the problem. What is believed to be high skills is what is transmitted, which allows us to educate children in their difference by celebrating this quality.
What does it mean to give a positive look to children with high abilities?
Image source
It is being aware of educating a child with high skills, living it as a challenge and not as some people say it is a nightmare. Feel proud that the child can and has the ability to do many things and not be thinking, why is not normal ?.
How are children affected by the attitude of people to their high capacities?
Image source
They are affected in everything, and instead of the child considering that his condition allows him to get what he wants in his life, he will be constantly questioning himself, trying to adapt to a society that has an error. This makes the child pay a price, this can be: depression, aggressiveness, mark the distance, be alone; Taking them to a life that is not what they want, that is why the person who educates or the representative must learn how to live the difference of the child.
Existence of the pigmalion effect in a negative way in children with high capacities.
This effect has the consequence of dragging children to do something that is not their essence, limiting their development and decreasing their self-esteem.
The pigmalion effect involves so much that the person becomes what others expect of him, and not what they really are.
Image source
When the high capacities of children are evident, people tend to work on the negative pigmalion effect, which produces a counterproductive mold to change the destiny of their lives.
The destructive pigmalions, what they do is direct the life of the person, in this case the child, and the result is to believe and depend on the comments.
Example: The boy does not like football, but he plays football.
This is only because the rest of the people do it and as a result the children do not express their interests because they look at them differently, so they prefer not to do so, modifying what is, only to be accepted.
How is help provided to children with high skills?
One of the fundamental things is to know that ignorance is not an option, educators and representatives must seek information on the subject, to separate what is only a myth or a social stereotype, to understand what is psychoneurobiology. This is nothing more than the relationship between the body, the mind and the organs of the body. It is essential to understand the child in his reality, for that he must have information about it.
Image source
For example: being able to understand that a child who does not respond and is distracted is not capricious, but simply has a brain configuration that is a condition that leads to that, and it is necessary to address this series of eventualities. The child will realize that others understand and can flourish in this way.
The child wants to be understood in their difference, depending on where he is within that paradigm.
The teacher or representative must meet the emotional needs of children with high skills.
Children with high abilities are extremely sensitive and, at the same time, deeply emotionally intense. You must have the conviction that children require emotional understanding and, above all, know what they feel, because in this case it is essential because they are pure emotion.
Image source
With children with high abilities, it simply takes argumentation, understanding, knowing what is behind anger, behavior and, therefore, determining what their emotional need is.
To cater for children with high skills, it can be done as follows:
❖ Understanding it from all points of view.
❖ Adapt the pace of learning, the methodology and this is essential to avoid attacking the gifted, since they are born researchers, and the main thing is to motivate them.
Children with high abilities and the dyssynchronies that exist in them, what is it?
Image source
These desynchronizations can be social or evolutionary, where the best known are the evolutionary ones that appear in the infant stage. In the first school years, the child has a mental age, but then has a chronological age and, in many cases, an emotional age, usually found below the chronological age. What we want to show is that in the same child there are three different ages that the child must manage, and this must be in a group.
What it brings as a result:
❖ The speed of learning is slow.
❖ Everything repeats thousands of times.
❖ They are bored.
Children with high abilities do not have problems of social skills, what happens is that with their group of companions they do not find affinity. Therefore, it is not that the child with high skills is isolated. But the other children are different with their group of "equals", and this is framed in that the child has no other option, for example: by not being understood, he has no alternative but to play alone.
What can be done in many cases with children of high abilities?
Image source
In many occasions it can be enabled, although it is not often done is the acceleration, that is to say the academic acceleration that in many cases resolves dyssynchronies, this is especially for children with evolutionary or social dyssynchronies.
Tips that will help the teacher to coexist with children of high abilities.
❖ The teacher must be educated in the subject to allow the mechanisms of intuition to channel the child.
❖ The approach is important, since a teacher to know what happens with the child must evaluate it, that's why knowledge is essential.
Useful tips that should be given to representatives with children with high skills.
These children are valuable, so:
❖ Do not hide them.
❖ Do not see these skills with shame.
❖ Do not feel guilty.
❖ Do not justify certain behaviors that are not normal.
Strategy to approach and meet children with high skills
The activity is based on knowing the child and that he expresses himself within his capacities and terms, which has a favorable outcome.
The educator will register the children with high skills and ask how they feel, by their condition of being so outstanding. They can explain what they think others believe about them.
Image source
When the child manifests, he releases everything that is inside him and this will help his emotions and confusion take the correct course.
From there we will know how to evaluate them, how to be facilitators, educate them without tacking them, just maintain inclusion.
http://carmenl.vornix.blog/2018/10/11/how-to-treat-and-teach-the-child-with-learning-problems/
Hello! I find your post valuable for the wafrica community! Thanks for the great post! We encourage and support quality contents and projects from the West African region.
Do you have a suggestion, concern or want to appear as a guest author on WAfrica, join our discord server and discuss with a member of our curation team.
Don't forget to join us every Sunday by 20:30GMT for our Sunday WAFRO party on our discord channel. Thank you.