Talking Daily:
Parent Led Discussions Can Go a Long Way to Preventing and Dealing with the Stresses in the LIves of Gifted Children
Daily conversations become commonplace when parents learn to ask the types of questions to get their children talking.
Gifted children benefit from talking about the events of their days, venting about what it is that is causing them stress, and looking at the "big picture" of their academic and personal lives. With the school year underway, soon the honeymoon of new teachers, classes, subjects, and new and old friends will have worn off. And parents of gifted students may find that their children have fallen back into some of the stressed-out routines that caused emotional turmoil last year. Now is the time to start new routines that will not only help reduce stress that may be already building, but help gifted students specifically, and all students in general, learn to anticipate the types of events and situations that cause anxiety and take positive steps towards intervening and preventing them from growing into problems that are overwhelming and interfere with personal and academic progress.
Stress often gets the best of the most organized adults, so it should come as no surprise that children, who do not have the benefit of much life-experience-hindsight, can move from "managing" to "overload" within the few hours of a single school day. The best way to prevent a melt-down? Talk. And talk daily. Catch as many of your child's concerns as you can before any one of them becomes a "problem." Instead of asking, "What did you learn in school today?" Or, "How was your day?" Ask questions that cannot be answered: nothing, not much, okay, or fine,:
- What was the best thing that happened at school today?
- What was the worst thing that happened at school today?
- Who did you eat lunch with today?
- When is your next test? On what subject? How can I help you prepare?
- What was the most surprising thing that happened at school today?
- What are you most looking forward to right now?
These questions may sound contrived, but speaking from personal experience, they get the conversation rolling along allowing parents to discuss, not lecture on, topics of concern to their children. Talking about these topics on a daily basis gives parents insight into the interests, questions, and concerns of their children and specific talking points can be continued over days or weeks, if necessary, to guide students towards understanding and realizing their options and making the best choices possible. And routine plays an important role. Once a week or two have gone by, the child will come to expect the daily discussions and will realize that these conversations are not some new fad, but reflect a real interest in his or her day to day life.
