I LOVE working with young gifted kids.

Their sensory processing issues are unique, just like their amazing minds.

Young gifted children are often easier to spot than you’d think.  You look for a combination of intensity of focus and thought at an advanced level for age, persistently seeking and responding positively to complexity, and a drive to explore that is unmistakable.  You don’t need to teach these kids as much as you need to get out of their way once you give them what they need.

Actually, you do need to teach them a lot.  Mostly about how to manage being gifted in a typical world.

As soon as you recognize the potential for giftedness, consider how sensory processing issues are impacting a child’s behavior.  Then get going on building sensory skills, developing strategies to adapt and adjust everyday activities for optimal processing.  Giftedness is so much more than being smart.  And the most gifted kids are often “twice exceptional”, where their gifts are combined with challenges such as learning issues, social-emotional issues, or physical issues.

Why?

Because improving sensory processing in a young gifted child reaps rewards quickly and permanently.  They develop more ease, but also more calmness and confidence.  Some of the angst at reactions that other people simply don’t have transforms into self-compassion and independent problem-solving.  Gifted kids can learn to “game” their wiring and ask for what they need in terms of adaptations or accommodations.  They can feel empowered, not deficient.

How?

First, identify the nature of their sensory challenges.  Not all gifted kids are too sensitive.  Some are sensory seekers: always wanting more touching, more moving, more noise and more visually complex environments.  A few are under-responsive, needing a lot more sensory input to get going.  This is far more rare than the sensory-sensitive gifted child, or the sensory-seeking gifted child.  But it happens.  Some are struggling with sensory modulation.  They can’t come back to their baseline attention and calmness easily after a stimulating experience.  Sometimes the day just builds and builds.  A tiny trigger later in the day often results in a big response that few saw coming.

Second, understand that many gifted individuals will continue to have sensory differences throughout life.  Their brain wiring isn’t going to change as much as a child that has neurological immaturity or brain damage.  Gifted people may always be sensory seeking, in the same way that they always will see deep into a problem, or always connect the dots in a situation faster than everyone else around them.  Fortunately, they can also come up with alternatives and remember what works best for them to achieve their goals.  Gifted adolescents and adults have invented things to help them, then they patent and market it, and reap the financial rewards!

Third, focus on their goals, not their need to hack situations.  As long as they are doing what they need and want to do, it might not matter if they wear tight or weighted clothing, or whether they want an overhead light shaded or the shades drawn on a bright window.  The end result is the ultimate goal, not doing things the same way that everyone else does them.

Want to know more about how to help young gifted kids?

I wrote an ebook for you!

The parents of young gifted children have a lot of questions and few places to get answers:

• Wondering what the PHYSICAL signs of giftedness are?   It’s in there.
• Wondering how to make preschool less challenging for your gifted child who asks all the questions…then questions the answers?  It’s in there.
• Wondering who can help you with your child’s sensitivity to light, sound, and even their pajamas?  It’s in there.
• Wondering if home schooling is necessary for your child or too risky to try?  It’s in there.

I didn’t write a book filled with details, stories, or theories.  You barely have time to take a shower!  This is a short book that gets right to the heart of what a parent thinks, late at night, before they fall asleep.

Where can you find it?  Where else?  On Amazon

 

Grab a copy today!!