Generally, gifted children are delighted with the test they took: they were able to give their all, were complimented for their hard-won victories, and were addressed as people to be taken into consideration. . Except that this is not the case for everyone…
Some gifted children cannot help but feel a vague dissatisfaction: they are willing to admit that they did not feel very well, that the vague notion of a difference sometimes tormented them, but they absolutely refuse to be placed in a category that would relegate them to a group apart that they don’t want to be a part of. Let us know it well: they have nothing to do with these big, grandiloquent heads that we make fun of, they are like all the other children, they don’t want to hear anything about it, read anything, know anything, they are not not concerned.
Of course, they enjoyed taking tests, but to some extent they will say that they were fooled by finding interest in an activity which, precisely, appeals to gifted children. It would be a simple coincidence, they accept that they are given facilities, like many of their classmates, but nothing exceptional. Their vehement refusal leaves no room for discussion.
Fear of being under pressure
The first reason motivating this absolute refusal is undoubtedly the fear of now being held to an obligation of results : at the first lower mark, they will be told “the tests showed that you are intelligent, so there is no reason why you should not succeed”. They will no longer have the right to make mistakes. They also avoid the anxiety of imagining their gifts disappearing in the event of failure. However, by force of circumstances, they are obliged to constrain themselves in certain areas to avoid differentiating themselves from their comrades. They must always maintain a state of vigilance which is undoubtedly so natural to them that they do not even notice it.
Maybe Do they fear, by recognizing themselves as gifted, of falling into a universe about which they know nothing? : they will be isolated, far from their friends, they imagine themselves walking on this deserted road without a guide and without a compass. At least the other children provide them with these guides, they give them instructions when they feel like they haven’t fully understood the rules that the others have understood without hesitation. Alone and without these instructions, they will feel completely lost: their parents who love them do not want to plunge them into this hell of solitude.
The fear of being isolated
If we tell them that they are not the only ones and that many children look like them, they are wary, they have heard too much about so-called “precocious” children who are quickly overwhelmed with all possible misfortunes, they do not want to be unhappy , they are children like all the others.
Of course, if we insist, they end up admitting that they have friends, but no real friend and they talk about the lost and never replaced friend they knew in Kindergarten, sometimes even at the nursery or with the nanny, without us being able to know if this dear friend is evoked to demonstrate that they are capable of having friends. Then, a move took them away, at an age when we are still too young to use current means of communication and their parents lost track of them…
Waiting for parents to click
Faced with this stubborn refusal, parents have no choice but to wait for the event that will trigger this recognition of their gifts, while fervently hoping that this event will not be too dramatic or traumatic. They are ready to intervene in the way they hope will be most effective: since the revelation of their child’s gift, they have accumulated knowledge through their reading, their wandering on the internet and their exchanges with other parents. When the day comes, they won’t be caught off guard.
They cannot help but suffer for their stubborn child who imposes this constraint of “norm” on himself because it seems more bearable to them than the change of category, but he certainly pays the price for this stifling of his personality, even if he proclaims that he feels perfectly happy. His parents are loath to trap him by enrolling him in an association or a colony where he will find himself in the company of other gifted children who have accepted, most often with relief, the recognition of their intellectual gifts.
A reality denied, but known by the child
A denial of a reality, however violent it may be, does not prevent this reality from being known, even deeply buried deep within oneself, by those who want to deny it: it remains stored in a meander of thought, as a last resort in the event that relationship difficulties appear, for example. It cannot be completely hidden, the trace remains, impossible to erase. It would be a final remedy in a situation of unexpected distress, but if the parents are not able to bring up this memory, it risks being practically erased: a discomfort sets in, painful and nagging and the key can be ‘explain is lost.
A gift that is confirmed without diagnosis
Eventually, only gifted children, born leaders, who know how to impose the laws they themselves have decreed, do not need to bother with this diagnosis. If they don’t have a real friend, they have allies, collaborators, discreetly admiring this child who knows how to distinguish himself from others so well without appearing to force his nature. Command comes naturally to him and others are happy to follow him in his bold initiatives which they would not have dreamed of.
Let’s reassurethose who say to themselves “I have never been like that”, it is a tiny minority and, generally, their adult life confirms their gifts and the happy use they know how to make of them. With them, the gift is not hidden, it is fully exploited, they did not need to constrain themselves to be like others, they made sure that others wanted to be like them. For the majority, the intellectual gift, admitted or not, gives the person who bears it a singular brilliance like no other.
Advice : it is useless to insist that the child admit his gift, he would become even more angry, but we can make very discreet allusions to it by talking about other people who are gifted differently and the inner wealth that this gift gives them.