Parents, educators, and professionals always get worried when any one wants to label their children with a label that has a negative stigma. They often say something to the extent of "I don't want my kids labeled for the rest of their life because of how they are now." But, they never seem to worry too much about giving their children a label that has a positive stigma. It seems obvious that people would rather give kids positive stigmas than negative ones, but what if those positive labels has a negative impact on your child? I want to focus on one commonly given label: "gifted". Our society is so quick to label very young children as "gifted" before they even begin to scratch the surface of their potential. When a school, teacher, or parent labels a child as "gifted" it typically means the child is academically gifted. Most other "gifted" children get a "gifted at...." and the blank is filled in with art music, sports, ect. So this article will focus on students who are labeled "gifted" academically. There are a number of assumptions made when a child is labeled "gifted."
Assumption 1: They do not have to work to get good grades.
It is often assumed that "gifted" kids do not have to work hard to get good grades. Because of the nature of the word "gifted"(having great natural ability or revealing a special gift) it is believed that "gifted" kids are naturally good at academics and do not work hard for the things they earn. This also sells kids short of all of the work they put into something to get very good at it.
Assumption 2: These kids will continue to excel and exceed expectations for the rest of their lives.
A school district may reason that because a 5-year-old has the current abilities of a second grader that she will continuously be able to compete with kids significantly older than her throughout all of her academic career. Of course, as we get older it is much easier to compete with someone two years older than you. So the expectations rise. At 5 you can compete with 7-year-olds so at 12 you're competing with 18-year-olds and at 18 you're competing with people in their mid-to-late 20s. Expecting someone to compete with another person who has had 50 percent more life experience is very difficult for anyone. These kind of expectations are very hard on kids, so when your 12-year-old is struggling with 9th grade algebra you don't understand because of the expectations set early on.
Assumption 3: "Gifted" kids are not just gifted in academics.
There is a widely held belief in American culture that if someone is academically gifted they are also gifted in another area. It varies slightly between young boys and young girls. For academically "gifted" boys it is often expected that they are "gifted" at sports and/or less commonly music. For academically "gifted" girls it is often expected that they are "gifted" in music and/or art. This adds even more pressure to your gifted child. Not only is your child expected to effortlessly exceed in school, but they are expected to continue to be that advanced their whole life, and they are expected to be effortlessly great in another area.
There are many more issues with labeling kids gifted that there is not enough time to get into in this article. There are also many positives to this kind of labeling. So if someone wants to label your kid "gifted" please consider all of the positives and negatives that come with labeling. Similar consequences that come with positive labeling also come with negative labeling. If you wouldn't want your child labeled with a negative stereotype, maybe they shouldn't be labeled with a positive one either.
