In keeping with the Children's Bureau's interest in all children, this publication centers on a long neglected group--boys and girls who have unusual abilities.

To help parents, the Bureau gathered information from a great many people who work with and know these children well. Early drafts of the manuscript were reviewed by over 100 educators, physicians, teachers, guidance people, parents of gifted children and gifted children themselves.

Although addressed mainly to parents, the Children's Bureau believes this Pamphlet also will be of value to members of the professions serving children.

Katherine B. Oettinger
Chief, Children's Bureau
Welfare Administration

Children's Bureau Publication no. 371-1958 reprinted 1964

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE
Welfare Administration
Children's Bureau

Your Gifted Child

Is the unusually gifted child a fortunate boy or girl? How does it affect a child who is especially bright to live in a world set up mainly for minds that operate more slowly than his does? What is the best way to bring up someone who potentially may be smarter than you are, or who has another special gift? How can a parent help his gifted child have a chance to develop to his fullest and have a happy and productive life?

At some time, possibly every parent of a gifted child has asked himself such questions. Teachers have long been aware of the problem. But in far too many places overcrowded classrooms, lack of time, poor facilities have prevented them from doing as much as they would like to do about these children who have within them the raw materials for outstanding accomplishments.

A great many other people, though, would do nothing even if they could. They have expressed their feelings in no uncertain terms: "They can take care of themselves."

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"They're already better equipped than most children to make their way in the world."It's undemocratic to single them out for special help when nothing's 'wrong' with them." "Frills and Fads." And so on and on.

Such sentiments have had a great deal to do with the fact that gifted children have received too little attention, even less than the limited consideration given to other exceptional children--the physically, mentally, and emotionally crippled.

Fortunately, things are taking a turn for the better. Throughout the nation, more and more thoughtful people are recognizing what we are losing by neglecting these children and they are trying to do something about the problem. Not only gifted children will benefit by this spreading, concern. But the outcome should also help all other children to more fully realize their capabilities.

What does gifted mean?

There are a great many definitions for the term. Some are broad and some precise.

One educator described a gifted child as "... any child whose performance in a potentially valuable line of human endeavor is consistently superior."

Another said: "... every child who in his age group is superior in some ability which may make him an outstanding contributor to the welfare of society."

Another said: "The top 1 percent of the juvenile population in general intelligence."

Drawing from several definitions, this pamphlet calls a child gifted when he performs much better than his age group in a way or ways that give promise of future high level achievement or contribution.

In other words, they are in the comparatively small group from which are likely to come our most creative and outstanding artists, teachers, scientists, engineers, philosophers,

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explorers, historians, economists, psychologists, jurists, poets, educators, writers, inventors, ministers, statesmen, business leaders.

What do some people call them?

In the past a great many terms have been used to describe the gifted child. These children have been called precocious, supernormal, brilliant, talented, brainy--quick or fast or rapid learners--quiz kids, egg heads, geniuses. Not all of the words have been used in praise. Even the more complimentary terms have sometimes been said in scorn.

And through the years, various word pictures have attached themselves to the terms. When some people hear a child referred to as gifted, bright, a prodigy, they think of a cartoon of a cute little fellow with oversized glasses, reading through a stack of big, heavy books. Others, however, think of nothing so amusing. They are likely to use such words as peculiar, odd, freakish, cracked, screwball, eccentric, neurotic, unstable, queer, abnormal.

What are they really like?

Study after study says: "Gifted children are not that way." A gifted child is neither the weird nor the comicstrip character so often thought of. And, from the other side of the coin, neither does he have all of the desirable traits and characteristics attributed to the gifted.

Comparative studies made of large numbers of gifted and average children show that gifted children are more likely to be the largest, strongest, and healthiest.

Far from being misfits, most gifted children have good mental health, get along well with people, are alert and happy.

As a group, they have more interests than a group of average children. They tend to learn more and are quicker.

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They are more discriminating, better able to keep their minds on a subject, more successful in thinking for themselves, solving problems, inventing, creating, and improving. They stick to a task they are interested in longer than the average child. They mature earlier.

Follow-up studies show that in proportion more of them turn out well than do other children. As they grow older, they maintain their mental powers as well as their good health.

Are they all alike?

Gifted children are as different from each other as they are different from other children. One may have a great many of the traits and characteristics described above. Another may have only a few. One may be highly talented along several lines. Another may be talented in one way only. A gifted child may even be handicapped in one or more ways.

These children come from every level of society and every section of the country. They are from all races and from both sides of the railroad track.

The following stories of May, David, Kathy, Charles, Lise, and Frank will help to further fill in the picture of gifted boys and girls.

MAY

May Wong spent every spare moment in the school chemistry lab. When she blew up a double boiler making an experiment in the kitchen at home, Mr. Wong built her a work space in the basement. May agreed that in the future before she'd try anything on her own, she'd talk it over with her teacher. By her senior year, May had finished with honors all the chemistry the school offered, as well as

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a couple of correspondence courses recommended by her teacher. The summer before she entered college, she worked with distinction in the laboratory of the city hospital.

DAVID

David Bonn was 12 years old when he began getting his poems into the slick magazines. In talking with a newspaper reporter about it, Mrs. Bonn said she and her husband had always read aloud to the children--a great deal of it poetry. David had listened but didn't have too much to say when the others talked about what had been read. Then one night he read them a poem he had written. That was 4 years ago. Dave had been writing verse ever since. His English teacher had sent the poems to the magazines.

KATHY

In kindergarten, people thought of Kathy Peters as a born leader. In the fourth grade, her schoolmates voted her the most popular. In the sixth grade, they voted her the best citizen. One of her first acts after being elected president of the eighth grade was to successfully direct two campaigns. One--to landscape the school's entrance--was under the supervision of the agriculture teacher. In the other, the class went into the community and raised funds from the town's businessmen for bleachers for the girl's gym.

CHARLES

The junior high chorus teacher was pleased and the art teacher surprised when Charles Reed appeared one Monday

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morning with color sketches for the sets and costumes for the May operetta. "I'll make that statue myself," Charles pointed to one of the drawings. "My dad said he'd help me." Charles' father was a pullman car porter. "He doesn't know much about drawings or making a statue," Charles said, "but he knows how to help me get what I need to do them." Having worked successfully on the operetta, Charles soon was designing sets for high school plays and was called in to help at the local playhouse.

FRANK

Frank Rogers was superior in almost everything he undertook. He ranked highest in the school in math and French, but what he wanted to be was a baseball player. He had wanted this even when he was so small he could hardly lift a bat or hold a catcher's mitt. Frank's father, a catcher in the minor league for a couple of years, had made it a point to coach and play with his son every time he had a chance. In grade school, Frank became a little-league star. He made the varsity his first year in high school. That year a scout from the big league saw him pitch two games and put his name down as somebody to watch.

LISE

When she was 6 years old, Lise Lane was already making up tunes on the piano to express how she felt about a thing and how things impressed her. Later on when she began playing several other instruments, she composed a number of pieces for the trumpet. She was s0 good at that instrument that her teacher arranged for her to play with the consolidated high school band. In her last year in junior high, the band added her school march to its repertoire.

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When a sophomore in college, one of her compositions won second prize in a national contest.

How do we know when a child is gifted?

This age of invention and mechanical progress hasn't as yet produced a Geiger counter that will tell us if a child is gifted. We have to date made no foolproof yardstick that will measure accurately the amount of talent he may have. We are still unable to identify with certainty those children who will make outstanding contributions when they grow up.

A child's individual ability is gauged by a combination of means: developmental records, observations of behavior, achievement, performance, records by parents, and various types of intelligence and achievement tests.

What do tests mean?

Almost all of us have heard of the IQ or Intelligence Quotient. We've not only heard of it, but make use of the expression. In talking about an IQ, some people seem to think that it's the most valuable way of telling how smart anyone really is. Actually, the original purpose of IQ tests, as developed half a century ago, was to find out how well a child could be expected to do in school--and that is still the main purpose and the chief value of the IQ The tests weren't expected to show what special talents that child might have nor how he might do in life.

Usually schools are, understandably, reluctant to tell parents their child's IQ They feel that the IQ by itself has little meaning and that it would be misinterpreted as often as not. The Intelligence Quotient does not tell the most important thing about a child. It's just one of many yardsticks that a school may use in measuring him. An IQ is sometimes confused with the results of many

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other tests which have been developed since the IQ was first used. For example, a teacher may give what is called an achievement test to an entire classroom. The results of such tests are usually reported in terms of grade levels. For example, although Dan is in the sixth grade, he may score fifth grade ability in arithmetic. Yet he may score seventh grade in the words he knows and uses correctly, and he might even score eighth grade in reading and understanding. There are also group tests which measure grade levels in use of language, spelling, and other subjects.

In other words, these tests give the teacher some idea of how well Dan's progress compares with the other children in a variety of subjects. That is very helpful information, especially in that it shows where Dan may be falling down. The cause of the trouble is a matter which the teacher has to judge in each individual case. But IQ tests and achievement tests can help the teacher see what may be wrong and what to "try next" in dealing with individual children. In

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some cases, she may feel that further tests should be given before a decision is made.

The teacher may give tests that help her judge Dan's personality, including factors unrelated to ability. The results of these tests may show how well he is getting along with other children, and may even give some idea as to how he is likely to get along in life. Such tests may, for ex- ample, measure attitudes or emotional maturity.

For all their value, tests have limitations. They don't measure a child's future accomplishments, his possible creativity, original thinking, inventiveness, vitality, drive. They don't pick out the pioneer who'll discover new realms in art, in music, in science, as different from the person who performs exceptionally well in any of these fields. Such rare and distinctive "pioneering" abilities are hard to recognize. Only time and what these persons achieve or produce will point them out.

Can a parent tell?

Parents are not necessarily the best judges whether their children have unusual talents. Giftedness is not easy to recognize even by people who know children best.

Although some parents have been the first to recognize that their child was gifted, some others were surprised when they were told that about their child. I thought he was just ordinary, they often say, "no better nor worse than any other child, just average."

Some parents may feel sure that their child has unusual talents because of something he's able to do that is not unusual at all. It may be just a flair for art or music, or the like. Being able to draw well or to sing well doesn't necessarily mean a child is going to be a painter or a musician. Often parents don't know children in great enough numbers to be able to compare them with any degree of accuracy. Experts tell parents to adopt a wait-and-see attitude, and

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not to rely on their own judgment alone. Before any child reaches school age, and certainly before age 3 to 4, it's unwise to decide that he's gifted, retarded, withdrawn, or anything else. The results of tests given to infants can't be depended upon at all, and, with pre-schoolers, only a few special tests, such as tests for hearing ability, give dependnble scores. This applies to all children, girls and boys, gifted or otherwise.

Tests given to children under two years of age lean heavily on physical maturity for scores. How fast a child gets up on his feet and starts using his hands and fingers is interesting, and is sometimes important in connection with his muscular development. But it has practically no connection with general intelligence. As a child grows older, it begins to be possible to test his ability to know and use many words, to reason, to think abstractly, to imitate models, to remember. These are the things that matter so far as intelligence is concerned.

A child's physical growth may leap ahead of his mental maturity. The opposite can be the case, too. Whatever happens at one phase of a child's growth is not a good indi- cation of what may happen at a later stage.

For these reasons, scores on tests given in early years will tell little about how bright a child will be in later life.

Some early signs

Nevertheless, at a very early age, some children may show signs of having unusual ability. Few children have all of the talents we shall talk about. Most of them have only one kind.

Children who may be talented along academic lines usually begin talking at a very early age. They may know and correctly use many more words than other children of their age do. They may speak in sentences before other children do.

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They remember details exceptionaly well. Some of them are interested in calendars, clocks, and numbers. They can keep their minds on a subject longer than other children. They are especially good at remembering and reporting on facts about things they have seen or heard. They have insatiable curiosity. They're the penetrating questioners and really are interested in the answers and probe deeper and deeper into a problem. They also like to work on their own problems. Often they read before starting to school, without any formal teaching, but by asking what this and that words means, in books, signs, newspapers, following the words with their eyes as their parents read, gradually building up the skill almost by themselves.

The very young child may show his irrterests and promises in art by beginning to draw, finger paint, model in clay, or carve in soap. He may show quite a knack for color and design. Often these traits go along with an unusual interest in art exhibits and museums, in other persons' drawing, painting, and sculpture.

Some children have an early interest in music. Not only do they love to sing but they are able to carry tunes quite well. They enjoy rhythm and melody. They may be skilled at playing some musical instrument at an extremely early age.

Talent for working well with other people is another gift. Some very young children may show this talent for leadership. It may come to light in many ways, in their ability to get along with others, their understanding and management of situations, their tactfulness, and regard for other people's feelings.

Inspect your attitudes

Parents react differently when it's definitely decided that their child has rare and unusual gifts. Some are boastful. Some deny it, do everything to discourage the belief, even

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try to conceal the fact. Others take a middle of the road and more healthful attitude. They are proud, yet modest and keep their child's welfare uppermost in mind.

What parents think and feel about their child has much to do with what he does with his gifts. In bringing up any child, parents need to take stock of their own feelings and attitudes about him. To be able to help John and Jane most, parents need to know their pluses and minuses. This knowledge is much more helpful than knowing if John and Jane are better in this or that than are Tom and Mary who live next door.

If Mr. and Mrs. Brown consider John's brightness as just another thing to take into consideration in his upbringing, then he's a fortunate child. But if the Brown's see John as a means of building up their own self-esteem, then he already has two strikes against him. Possibly one or both parents want to use him to compensate for their own failures and disappointments. They may be dissatisfied with their own shortcomings. They gain status by showing him off. They push him to make outstanding marks so they may bask in his glory.

Many adults who were gifted children report their unhappiness at such treatment. "I felt that they loved me for what I could do not who I was," many of them have said.

Some parents push their children far beyond their capacities. A child so treated can become tense and anxious or refuse to study or answer questions correctly. By this means only does he think he can escape the pressure.

His needs are his rights

Like all children, a gifted child's needs are his rights. First of all he must have food, clothes, shelter, physical care, and good health. Important as these are, they're in no way more important than his need to have love, to feel safe, to be wanted, to be understood, to be appreciated, to

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feel success, and to be given every means of growing and developing to the fullest of his ability.

Although the gifted child may be different from most other children in some respects, certainly he's like them in all of these needs. They are the foundation on which life is built. Nothing can take their place. Deny them to any child and life becomes unfairly difficult.

The parent who is a good parent in these respects has met the first tests, the most important tests, with flying colors. What more he may do is often called enrichment. We shall talk of that later.

Your child's early years

Every child's first 4 or 5 years form one of the most important spans of his life. During that time the foundations for mental and physical health are laid.

Infancy and the years before he starts school are busy times indeed. Every waking minute is taken up with learning some new and complex task. He's becoming acquainted with his parents and family, learning to walk and talk, making his first contacts with a great number of ideas and things and with the outside world.

When he's around 3 years of age, he may want to branch out. UP to this time, he's been pretty well satisfied to stay at home, playing by himself or with his brothers and sisters. Now he'll want to begin going out into the world. Maybe there's a good nursery school in your town, or a play group that meets for an hour or two each day, since a longer daily program is too tiring for some young children. If your town has either, consider enrolling your child. Being in a group of children of his age helps him become a more social human being. If no nursery school is available, or if costs are too high, try to arrange for him to be with neighborhood children. Some groups of parents organize their own nursery school.

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When a child enters school it is helpful for his teacher to have some idea of his past life. Such information helps round out the picture, gives more understanding of him, and is valuable in planning his work. When did he first walk? Talk? What things interest him? Is he especially good at this or that? Because memories are so tricky, some parents keep a written record of the main events of the first few years of their child's life.

Learn all you can about how children grow and develop and vary one from the other, what they need, and what they don't need. The more you learn the more you will be able

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to do towards starting your gifted child on the right road to a good life.

How should he be treated?

Your gifted child will be much happier if he's treated with the same consideration due all boys and girls. He takes pride in accomplishment, likes to feel that he's making a contribution to the family. He flourishes when given responsibility. When he's old enough, give him regular duties that are in keeping with his age. At first these tasks may be very simple, but as he grows older they should be harder. He likes to be on his own and works better when free of too close supervision. But he wants to know that his parents will be there to pick him up and reassure him when he makes a mistake or a wrong decision.

There are a lot of "Whys?" in his life. He works along better when he knows why you want him to do a thing or why you don't. He has a mind and will of his own. But he is more reasonable than most other children. Guide him and use gentle persuasion rather than commands. Talk a problem over with him. Give him a chance to tell how he feels about it. When he speaks, listen. In that way, he often sees your way of thinking and may willingly accept your decision.

Some parents are used to their gifted child reasoning like a grownup and expects all of his other behavior to be at the same level. It's hard for them to realize that he's still a child in most other ways. As a result these parents may be over critical. This often makes the child feel inferior and persecuted.

When firmness is needed, he wants that. He has a pretty good idea of when his parents should take a strong stand. Then he wants them to take it, to know how to say "no" and mean it. In the life of every child there's a time for rewards and a

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time for punishment. Punishment for any child should be suitable to the occasion and of a kind and amount necessary to secure right action.

They have their problems

Like all children, gifted children have their problems. Most of the time, most of them have smooth sailing. But sometimes the weather gets stormy, for some more than others.

Being aware of the nature of these problems will enable parents and others who work with these children to be on the lookout for ways to help them.

Because they are advanced, gifted children may operate differently from others. The boys and girls they would like to be friends with become aware of this soon. A gifted child's ideas are likely to be more grownup. He often uses big words that other children don't understand and talks about things that they might not know about. Their interests don't match.

Being more alert, quicker, brighter and surer than other children can have it's drawbacks. Such traits usually please parents and teachers. Some few children understand, re- spect, and admire them. But the chances are that a great many will not.

Since a gifted child knows the right answer or sees how to get it before other children do, he tends to tell the other students what should be done and how it should be done. That doesn't always endear him to his playmates or classmates. They may award him the title of "bossy" or "the brain." Also, he may correct the mistakes. He may even correct the mistakes of his teachers and parents.

Sometimes a teacher at school, just as the parent at home, finds himself putting the gifted child too much in the spotlight as a good example. This doesn't help his standing with fellow students or with his brothers and sisters either.

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As a result some gifted children may try to hide the fact that they're smarter than their age mates. This is often true of teen-agers. Gifted children are smart enough to catch on soon that being smart is being different and being different doesn't always make friends, They may deliberately make mistakes, give wrong answers, or fail to prepare assignments. Now and then one may find that leading or taking part in some form of mischief gains approval from his classmates or at least gains their attention.

Then on the other side of the coin, some adults seem to have a cruel mission to "cut down to size" very smart children. Instead of putting them in the limelight, they try to put them in their places. They may treat brightness of these children as showing off; make fun of them and em- barrass them in other ways. "Be your age, Bill. You sound like you swallowed the dictionary." "Put your hand down, Mary. It's always up."

Failing to find congenial companions, some gifted children may bury themselves in reading and studying. They may gain recognition and approval in such escapes only from adults. However, they may realize that adult appreciation doesn't take the place of friendship and companionship of children their own age. as a result they may be lonely.

They can be very lonely

Some parents, understandably, worry when their son or daughter fails to have friends, or spends most of the time with grownups. Such parents wonder what they can do about it.

For a while, Jean was such a child. After skipping two grades, she was equal to her new classmates in studies, but not in some other ways. "She's still just a baby most of the time," one girl said. So Jean soon found herself left out. Her teacher talked with Jean's parents who decided to

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give more attention to that part of Jean's life that had nothing to do with studies. For the time being it was much more important to try to help Jean make up the slack in her social life than to further improve her already highly developed intellectual ability.

They decided that Jean needed help in ways in which her mental powers didn't make so much difference. They arranged for her to join a dancing class which two of her classmates attended. She became a member of a girl scout troop to which several in her class belonged. When summer came she went to camp for a few weeks. She soon had a number of close friends that she was happy with and who were happy with her.

Usually this is not the situation when a child is advanced in school. Gifted children are almost always more socially

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mature than the average. They are also more able to aid in the analysis of their own problems. Jean, small for her age and shy, was one of the exceptions.

Making friends can be hard

It's seldom easy for parents to help a child make friends when his group at school is his equal in mental powers only. However, a few things can be done that may help. Talk with your son's or daughter's teacher, minister, and doctor. They often are aware of a child's problem even before parents. You may get several leads from them.

Some parents have tried to find other parents who are faced with the same problem. They then pool their ideas. They look around to see what the community offers for children such as theirs.

Hobbies can open doors to new ideas and new friends for a child. Most gifted children are interested in hobbies and projects. Joining the Scouts, a 4-H club, Camp Fire Girls, the Y will give them a chance to combine social development with worthwhile activities. At the same time, they will make friends with other children who have similar interests and abilities.

Many children admire the boy or girl who is good at games and things they want to do themselves. If your child likes games but needs help in those he has tried, make an effort to see that he gets it. Give him a chance to try out different kinds. He may be poor at football and baseball but better at tennis or track. If he's interested, try to help him learn how to swim, dance, skate, wrestle, box.

Jim was gifted in science, and when he wasn't working on his idea of a rocket (he had won first prize in the area competition) he was on the sports field. He had always liked games. In school he tried out for every sport, but never even made the second string. His father, aware of Jim's problem, offered a solution. "Make yourself an ex-

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pert on rules of every sport possible." Jim did. Not only did his schoolmates ask his advice but the athletic coach also called on him at times.

If a child doesn't like sports, don't insist that he take part in them. Many a child never gets over his dislike of a sport because he was forced into trying to learn it.

A child may want to make his own way in getting friends without help from members of his family. This is especially true about junior and high school age. The efforts of some parents in seeing to it that their boy or girl makes friends are so obvious that the child is embarrassed and miserable. This may be another time when parent and child may need to have a man-to-man conference and set up some ground rules.

Just because a child is by himself doesn't always mean he's lonely. This is especially true at times with gifted children. Before leaping in to tear their child "away from himself," wise parents will find out certain information. Is he bored when he's alone? Lonesome? Miserable? If any of these unhealthy conditions exist, try to do something about it. But if not, leave him alone. He may be planning, or making some experiment--it may even be learning how a top spins, or what makes a motor run or not run, or maybe he's reading something that interests him a great deal, or is mulling over some idea. Whatever he's doing may be the germ of later accomplishment.

They need reassurance

Unusually gifted children may need some help in understanding why they may be set apart. They need to know something about how the outside world may see and react to their being unlike most others.

That gifted children may need reassurance of their standing and worth may be surprising. Yet, most of them do. Far from being stuck up or conceited, usually they

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