Developing Empathy and Resilience:

Supporting the Social-Emotional Needs of Gifted and Talented Students

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Paula Bernal, MA, GATE, EdS - Seth Jaeger, MPA, GATE, EdD (in progress)

Colegio Nueva Granada

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Objectives

• Work with the RQI’s Question Formulation Technique
• Define giftedness, empathy, and resilience
• Describe traits of gifted students
• Identify concepts related to empathy and resilience for practical application in the classroom

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“He was one of those people things came easily to, but he did little to demonstrate that he deserved to be gifted”.

John Irving, In One Person

Question Formulation Technique

Rules for Producing Questions

• Ask as many questions as you can. (Gives license to ask)
• Do not stop to discuss, judge, or answer the questions. (Creates intellectually safe environment)
• Write down every question exactly as it is stated. (Levels the playing field so all questions and voices are respected)
• Change any statement into a question. (Insists on the discipline of phrasing, asking, and thinking in questions).

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“He was one of those people things came easily to, but he did little to demonstrate that he deserved to be gifted”.

John Irving, In One Person

Question Formulation Technique

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Improve Your Questions

• Categorize the questions as closed or open-ended.
• Name the advantages and disadvantages of each type.
• Change questions from one type to another

Prioritize the Questions

• Choose your 3 most important questions.
• Why did you choose these three as the most important?
• Next Steps

How are you going to use your questions? © 2019 Right Question Institute

Defining Giftedness

According to the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC), children are gifted when their ability is significantly above the norm for their age. Giftedness may manifest in one or more domains such as;

• intellectual
• creative
• artistic
• leadership
• in a specific academic field such as language arts, mathematics or science.

Traits of Gifted Children

• Cognitive
• Behavioral
• Affective
• Creative

(Webb, 2012)

Cognitive Traits of Gifted Children

• Keen power of abstraction
• Interest in problem-solving and applying concepts
• Voracious and early reader
• Large vocabulary
• Intellectual curiosity

• Power of critical thinking, skepticism, self-criticism
• Persistent, goal-directed behavior
• Independence in work and study
• Diversity of interests and abilities

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Clark, B. (2008). Growing up gifted (7^th ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Creative Traits of Gifted Children

• Creativeness and inventiveness
• Keen sense of humor
• Ability for fantasy
• Openness to stimuli, wide interests
• Intuitiveness

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• Flexibility
• Independence in attitude and social behavior
• Self-acceptance and unconcern for social norms
• Radicalism
• Aesthetic and moral commitment to self-selected work

Clark, B. (2008). Growing up gifted (7^th ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Affective Traits of Gifted Children

• Unusual emotional depth and intensity
• Sensitivity or empathy to the feelings of others
• High expectations of self and others, often leading to feelings of frustration
• Heightened self-awareness, accompanied by feelings of being different

• Easily wounded, need for emotional support
• Need for consistency between abstract values and personal actions
• Advanced levels of moral judgment
• Idealism and sense of justice

Clark, B. (2008). Growing up gifted (7^th ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Behavioral Traits of Gifted Children

• Spontaneity
• Boundless enthusiasm
• Intensely focused on passions—resists changing activities when engrossed in own interests
• Highly energetic—needs little sleep or down time
• Constantly questions
• Insatiable curiosity
• Impulsive, eager and spirited

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• Perseverance—strong determination in areas of importance
• High levels of frustration—particularly when having difficulty meeting standards of performance (either imposed by self or others)
• Volatile temper, especially related to perceptions of failure

Clark, B. (2008). Growing up gifted (7^th ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Emotional Intensity and Overexcitabilities

Intellectual: Intense curiosity, love of learning, highly analytical, critical thinker, asks many questions, loves theories, can maintain intense concentration.

Emotional: Experiences extremes of emotions (fear, anxiety, joy, sadness), sensitive, concerned for others, heightened sense of justice, right vs. wrong.

Imaginational: Highly creative, loves daydreaming, has vivid dreams, detailed visualization, loves fantasy.

Psychomotor: Sleeplessness, rapid speech, lots of movement, excessive gestures, nervous habits.

Sensual: Intense appreciation for beauty (in music and art), intense senses (taste, smell, touch, sound). (Daniels & Piechowski, 2009)

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Common Issues for Gifted Children

• Perfectionism
• Procrastination
• Underachievement
• Impostor Syndrome
• Masking Giftedness

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(Mofield & Peters, 2018)

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Empathy and Compassion: determinants for prosocial behavior

Empathy: Vicarious experience of another's emotion and it is involved in the elicitation and experience of compassion.

• Prosocial personality disposition
• 1st year of life
• Multifaceted-construct
• Stable
• Two components that coexist together

(Decety & Jackson, 2004; Preston & de Wall, 2002; de Vignemont & Singer, 2006)

Empathy Components

1. Affective: emotional response other´s expressed emotion.

2. Cognitive: understand distressing situation, recognize the other person's emotion.

• Understanding the suffering of others.
• Increases with development

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Empathy Development

• Empathic response: stable personality or temperament traits
• Empathy: negative experience component.
• Prosocial behavior (promoting welfare of others)
• Expression of empathy varies with development and with the context
• Development in 2^nd year of life
• Environmental factors that foster pro-social behavior and empathy

Knafo, Zahn-Waxler, Van Hulle, Robinson, & Rhee, 2008); (Barnett & Thompson, 1985; Roberts & Strayer, 1996)

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Compassion

• Concerns for the well-being of others in distress.
• Interpersonal responsibility and ethical behavior.
• Expressed
• Different from empathy.
• Motivates help

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(Knafo, Zahn-Waxler, Van Hulle, Robinson, & Rhee, 2008);

Compassion

• Distress versus Compassion
• Emotion taxonomies
• Different emotional and thinking processes
• Transcends Empathy

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(Goetz, Keltner, & Simon-Thomas, 2010); (Goetz, Keltner, & Simon-Thomas, 2010)

Empathy and Compassion: Gifted Population

Study Spanish-speaking children and teens do not support the hypothesis that gifted kids present a degree of social adjustment that differs from their peers.

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· Giftedness: not a risk factor.

· Moderate position.

· Can benefit: protective factors

and socio-emotional learning.

(López, V., and Sotillo, M., 2009).

• Higher need
• More sensitive to the pain of others.
• React more emotionally to injustice.
• Only elementary and junior high.
• Developing leadership skills.

(Shechtman & Silektor, 2012); (Fornia and Frame, 2001)

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Increasing Cognitive Empathy in Students

Evidenced-based interventions to foster cognitive empathy is still in the beginning stages, but there is research on techniques to increase perspective taking skills (Fullchange, 2016):

1. Engaging in Role-playing Activities: evidenced as having a positive effect on empathy with different age groups (Goldstein & Winner, 2012).
2. Talk about Feelings: longitudinal studies evidence that having conversations about feelings with young children can predict later perspective taking skills (Dunn, Brown, & Beardsall, 1991).

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Increasing Cognitive Empathy in Students

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3. Induction and Distancing: support parents with these techniques as they impact the development of cognitive empathy (Hoffman, 2000; Krevans & Gibbs, 1996).

• Perspective-taking skills through induction
• Distancing fosters perspective-taking skills
• Imagine how others feel Vs. imagine how they themselves would feel
• Managing conflicts and misbehaviors: incorporate induction and distancing
• Discuss potential behaviors

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Increasing Cognitive Empathy in Students

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4. Gratitude: Benefit more individuals with lower empathy by boosting it (McIntosh, 2007), than people with high empathy.

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5. Mindfulness: involves intentional present-moment awareness without judgement. Evidence that mindfulness has a positive impact on empathy overall as well as reducing stress (Himelstein, Hastings, Shapiro, & Heery, 2012).

Reflection

1. To what degree could this information help a particular student you are thinking of?

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• In what ways can we relate this back to the original quote?

Resilience

“Resilience is the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress — such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems or workplace and financial stressors. It means "bouncing back" from difficult experiences.

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Resilience is not a trait that people either have or do not have. It involves behaviors, thoughts and actions that can be learned and developed in anyone”.

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American Psychological Association, 2019

Gifted and Resilience

• Resilience is common among Gifted Children
• Positive Emotions are a Strong Protective Factor
• Planning and Problem-solving Build Resilience
• Helping Gifted Children Live with Ambiguity and Unpredictability
• Inoculation with Small Amounts of Stress Builds Resilience

(Kerr, 2016)

Strategies for Developing Resilience

Affective programming to address the social and emotional skills of gifted students

• Improve frustration tolerance (Lengthen the fuse)
• Teach them to use their great “thinking brain.”
• Help form a realistic view of self and abilities.
• Scaffold and support weaknesses.
• Set up opportunities for success.

(Peters, 2012)

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Towards Mindful Excellence

“When gifted students understand who they are, what they need, and why they need it, they can self-advocate in a respectful manner that communicates their needs. Overall, we can cultivate mindful excellence by helping students understand how their emotions, thoughts, and beliefs about their abilities affect how they pursue challenges”.

Emily Mofield & Megan Parker, Teaching Tenacity, Resilience, and a Drive for Excellence