Asynchronous Development and False Assumptions

I recently read of the frustrations of a mother and her highly, perhaps even profoundly, gifted son. (The boy reads at a second grade level, does addition and subtraction, etc.) The boy will be 3-years old within a month and hates to leave the house (and "freaks out" if the mother must take him somewhere) because of his fear that others do not treat him as though he is intelligent and capable. The mother admits that he knows he is intelligent and is treated as such by his family, and he is allowed to be his own authority, to some extent, in the home as long as he is responsible. No other details are provided about the situation. Having studied asynchronous development within the gifted population at some length, I was left pondering several questions and considering the false assumptions I have seen many adults make about gifted children. I am not saying this mother is making false assumptions about her son or their situation. She knows both intimately and not enough details were given to come to any firm conclusions. However, what I read did lead me down a certain path of thought.

When our little ones show precocity at an early age, it is easy to forget how young they really are. While the intellectual age of a child may be that of an 8-year old, his/her body is still that of a 3-year old. There are things s/he is still not physically able to do; that includes things that his/her brain is probably not able to do yet. Around the age of three is when most children start learning to self-regulate, that is to control their emotions and reactions to their experiences. As most parents know, 3-year olds are quite prone to tantrums and meltdowns. Imagine how difficult it must be to know that you know something when an adult is telling you that you can't possibly know that, and then not be able to control your frustration and anger to that situation. We all know as adults that it's hard to take another adult seriously if they're having a complete meltdown about something. How much harder is it to believe a young child when s/he is acting like a typical 3-year old while trying to convince you s/he has the intellect of an 8-year old?

I cannot say what this mother's situation is, but I have to wonder if this young child is emotionally ready to handle being given the level of autonomy alluded to without adverse unintended consequences. To delve into child development for a moment, the pre-frontal cortex of the brain, which controls executive functioning doesn't fully develop until around age 25. At 3, it is only beginning to develop, although there will be extensive development between the ages of 3-6. Executive functioning concerns such things as attention, self-regulation, working memory, reasoning, and problem solving. One of the hallmark characteristics of gifted children is that they almost always develop asynchronously. For that matter, most children develop with at least a slight degree of asynchronicity. Children who are intellectually advanced are not necessarily as advanced, or even advanced at all, emotionally. I knew a boy who was highly gifted intellectually, but his emotional and social level was actually below his chronological age. By age 10, he was working on advanced algebra and could read just about anything. However, he was also prone to throwing tantrums like a preschooler when things didn't go his way -- right down to laying on the ground kicking and screaming. He had difficulty making friends because he tended to have rather rigid, black-and-white thinking which made it difficult for him to accept that another person's point of view was just as valid as his own. Aside from some very basic choices (e.g., what clothes to wear, etc.), most parents would not consider a 3-year old mature enough to have "authority" over themselves. (Although, I must admit that I'm not entirely sure what this mother meant by that.) Intelligence aside, most preschool children have not had enough life experiences to allow them to make well thought out decisions. If we add in the inability to consistently regulate and control one's emotions and responses to situations, then it seems even less wise to allow such a young child to be "his own authority" to much of any extent. Which is not to say that you shouldn't ask the child's opinion and preferences, but in the end, the parent should still be calling the shots.

The other thing that occurred to me as I pondered this situation was that it reminded me of my own son. My son is also quite bright, and by age three he had become a master manipulator, especially where I was concerned. At certain times and in certain places, I have a very low tolerance for whining and tantrums. I'm also rather conflict avoidant, and I prefer not to make a scene in public. (As an aside, now that I have three children, I've gotten a lot better about this sort of thing.) My son very quickly figured out that in certain scenarios he could just about anything he wanted by throwing a fit. If I was a three-year old and my mother wanted to take me somewhere I didn't want to go, I'd pitch a fit, too. If the fit had to be to the level of "freaking out" to get what I wanted, well then, that's what I'd do. In a large part due to the fact that at age three, even very intelligent children are not necessarily developmentally mature enough to be able to see things from another person's point of view or to even realize that s/he is not the center of the universe. It generally takes until about age 5 or 6 before children realize that just because they can see something or know something it doesn't necessarily mean that other people can see or know those things. The mother mentioned that her son doesn't even like to go to the library because the librarians are always telling him "no". On one level this sounds like he doesn't fully grasp that his intelligence isn't blindingly obvious to the librarians. On another level, I find myself wondering what the librarians are saying "no" to. Has this child never been told no before? Or has he always gotten what he wanted? It would seem to me that if this boy was able to respond to this situation with the level of maturity that his mother seems to believe that he has, the librarians would eventually begin to accept that he is "intelligent and capable."

In the end, I wish this mother the best of luck. Gifted children are wonderful and often full of quirks. It makes them interesting people. I also think it would be wise for her to reassess the power dynamic within her family. For a child who is not quite three, this little boy seems to hold an awful lot of power within the family. This is a potential land mine better defused now than exploded later. I've met a large number of gifted children and gifted adults, as well as having been a gifted child myself. What I know from my own experience and having talked with these people is that all children, even gifted ones, are still children and want to have the same fun and sense of belonging as other children. It is an incredible disservice to all involved, but especially the child, to forget that he is still a child and still has many of the same needs as any other child his age.