It is not a question of this freedom which consists of immediately following one’s whims and desires of the moment, but of being able to truly be oneself, without being obliged to undergo constraint.
Very quickly, gifted children, when they are concerned about harmony, learn that they must curb some of their spontaneous reactions, even if they seem legitimate to them. This situation, which they often have difficulty accepting, is repeated a little too often in class when they do not have to give the answer that came naturally to their mind while the rest of the class quietly waits for the teacher gives this answer. In such cases, the gifted child has learned to restrain himself. While he longs to raise his finger and jump with enthusiasm at the idea of being able to respond, he must be careful not to say “me! me!”, he must not even say anything at all and burn away his impatience deep inside.
He prefers to avoid being reproached for his haste and the desire, which is completely foreign to him, to try to prove that he is better than others. In reality, he wants to show the teacher that he is really interested in the class, he participates, but to excess, and that is what he is criticized for. He leaves no chance to others, resigned to accepting their ignorance or their greater slowness of mind: they would have ended up finding this answer, but not as quickly.
The teacher expresses her grievances to the parents, it is up to them to explain that one must be careful not to show too passionate an interest in teaching, passion is not appropriate in class, it denotes. The gifted child, who has bordered on the suspicion of hyperactivity, always has the possibility of taking refuge in his dreams, so he does not get bored. This is an almost caricatured example, even if it is frequent, but this obligation to impose a brake on oneself is found on multiple occasions: with one’s friends, one must be attentive and avoid rarer but frequent words. in the books, so that the exchange avoids any misunderstanding. The gifted child desperately searches for the place where he could express himself naturally, without filter or censorship, assured of being understood and receiving a response in line with the ideas expressed.
He doesn’t want to always have the feeling that his words are falling into an interstellar void – since he already knows the word – as if they had no importance or even any meaning. Like Alceste, Molière’s misanthrope, he dreams of finding a space “where being a gifted child means freedom.” He does not have the impression of an extravagance, he is a little surprised to be the only one to express such a wish: just a small space where he would experience the liberating feeling of finally being himself, without looking to behave according to his anticipation of the reactions of those around him. If he is lucky enough to be able to draw, without being ashamed of his productions, or to know how to write with the elegance that he admires in his favorite books, he knows the pleasure of tasting freedom by following his inspiration, but , as nothing can be perfect, it is in solitude that he can taste this happiness.
Certainly, his parents admire his drawings or his writings, but perhaps they only want to avoid disappointing him, they admire the scribblings of the younger child, who is still not critical of his productions. They even sometimes display them in the kitchen even though they are objectively awful. He would need a very small window, but he knows that it would open onto infinite spaces and a profusion of possible paths; it will be advisable to be careful, not to launch into it thoughtlessly, but the idea of total freedom to think what one wants, without incurring blame, to evolve as one wishes by leading one’s reflection in areas even austere or abstract, to choose the activity that attracts him, without arousing criticism or mockery, seems fascinating to him.
Wise and reasonable, he knows that there are constraints that must be respected: he is not antisocial, in all circumstances, he favors a necessary harmony. It is, moreover, for this reason that he so quickly understood that we are much more prisoner of our own reactions and poorly controlled feelings than of imposed obligations.
For a long time, he has noticed around him that feelings such as jealousy or anger lead to reactions that we risk regretting once we come to our senses. These harmful feelings have blocked judgment and empathy, they have inspired behaviors that we could be ashamed of if we did not try to justify ourselves with arguments so obviously fallacious that we would have to be truly stupid to take them seriously. The gifted child refuses to sink into these lame justifications which, precisely, emphasize the irrational side of attitudes beyond the control of well-constructed reasoning. Freeing ourselves from these primitive feelings allows us to find real freedom: we are master of all our reactions, those which seem so primitive will not block free will, very early favored by the gifted child.
Then, he will be able to follow his intuition, his attractions for sometimes little-known areas, he will build his personality on the solid foundations that his wisdom has given him by carefully choosing all the elements. He will have victoriously fought the dark feelings which could have invaded him without him being careful, provoked by archaic reactions of which he would not have believed himself capable. True freedom is at this price. People who are too impulsive or subject to any addiction are described as “slaves”.
This is how he will know that we cannot influence him, his judgment, well supported by logic and reason, resists the arguments, which are a little distorted if we listen to them attentively, he will then follow his path, without another obstacle than those which he naturally accepted because they guarantee peace and serenity, they allow us to move forward without fear of deviating because of the blindness caused by poorly reasoned reactions. This freedom is a precious good, which had to be conquered and which then brings the greatest joys.
Advice : freedom is not built through whims that prevent access to full self-control. We then strive to favor it by placing it well within the limits that allow it. It is not a question of letting people take senseless risks because they followed their impulses without thinking or trying to understand their origins. Freedom well understood promotes a solid construction of the personality.