Gifted Children with *

Gifted children are children who are very talented in one or more areas. With the recognition of talent, expectations also arise. The child expects himself to achieve high results, and the environment and parents also have tall expectations from him. One of the consequences of these expectations is that a large number of gifted children tend to be perfectionists.

Like any other child, a gifted child may also have an asterisk.

The asterisk may be a physical disability, the asterisk may be an attention deficit disorder or a learning disability, and the asterisk may be an emotional problem. The asterisk is there, it's a fact, and it weighs on the gifted child with the asterisk, a bit like trying to run a race with a dumbbell attached to your leg.

Obviously, the same asterisk will also weigh heavily on a non-gifted child. But the way it weighs heavily on a gifted child is slightly different.

A child with a learning disability will receive help at school, will receive individual lessons, the system will know how to deal with them and how to assist them. A gifted child will receive challenges at school, enlist in a special programs for gifted children, will receive recognition for the quality of the products they produces, whether it is drawing or writing or oral expression, and the system will also know how to deal with them.

A gifted child who also has a learning disability is much harder to digest. The giftedness hides the disability, so the child will usually not be eligible for the assistance that the learning disabled child receives. And the disability hides the giftedness, so the system will often not recognize that it is facing a gifted child.

The parents, the family, the environment, and even the school, are required to treat the child in a complex manner. To be able to recognize and see at the same time both thier high abilities, and the places where the child needs assistance that will allow them to flourish and maximize these abilities.

I could give countless examples of gifted children with an asterisk. The dyslexic girl, whose teacher tells her she's not trying hard enough. The dysgraphic child whose teacher asked him to write ten pages by hand. The girl with attention deficit disorder who gets 90 on a math test in the morning, and 30 when the test is in the afternoon. The child on the ASD spectrum, who simply can't concentrate when there are noises and smells of thirty-five other children in the same class with him. And that's just in the formal education system. Obviously, the difficulty doesn't end when the bell rings at the end of the day.

There are the kids who forget to come to the meeting they made with all their friends. Or those whose social battery is exhausted and are no longer able to be nice to their friends in the evening. Or those who no friend had phoned all summer long.

The child himself also has difficulty dealing with the gap between what he believes he is capable of producing, and what actually happens. This gap often leads to despair, giving up in advance. Perfectionism is paralyzing: In my head I know exactly what it should look like, but I will never be able to come even close to the model that is running through my head, so I might as well not try.

In the pool, we will work with the gifted child on the things they excels at, and we will challenge them, verbally and physically.

Spending time in the pool and the psychotherapy will work first and foremost through fun and play.

We will also talk and work on the things that are more difficult, together we will offer solutions on how to get help from the environment or from yourself, on strategies for dealing with difficulties. We will also talk about self-advocacy – how do I present myself to the world, so that the world around me understand that there are things I need help with, and if they help me with them, I can show that I am indeed gifted.

We shall also talk about other gifted people who had an asterix. Stephen Hawking, a top physicist, who could not move or speak without technological assistance, due to ALS. Albert Einstein, the father of the theory of relativity, who had learning disabilities. Frida Kahlo, a talented Mexican painter, who suffered from depression and probably also from fibromyalgia. Temple Grandin, who developed breeding environments and slaughter facilities that reduce suffering for animals, and is autistic who did not speak until the age of four. Ilan Gilon, who was a member of Knesset and worked hard to promote the rights and equality of people with disabilities, who was disabled by polio and also had attention deficit disorder.

And we will also support and aid parents, who often need a listening ear and guidance when they receive a child with an asterisk as a gift, and need to build within themselves the ability to see them a whole, glorious in all their aspects.