Mentoring a Gifted Child

We tend to donate our time and money to “the least among us.”  But if the goal is to make the biggest difference, we might want to focus on people with unusually good potential to profit. My favorite example: Mentor or fund the mentoring of a kid(s) from families with modest income who are high performers. Why can that be so potent?

• Of course, some not-high-performers become late bloomers. But current high-performers are more likely to grow up to cure our diseases, create better products, be wise leaders, etc.
• The rich are more likely to help their high-performing kids to live up to their potential. That’s less likely with kids from lower-income backgrounds.
• One-on-one efforts are likely to yield significant benefit because the engagements are individualized and they bring the emotional connection that can foster motivation.

My PsychologyToday.com article today shows how to recruit and make the most of such a mentoring relationship, for the child and for you.
Of course, in today's era of suspicion especially about sexual predators, you may be limited to being a participant in an existing at-school program, but maybe not. In either case, the following should be helpful.

Making Mentoring Matter

Too many bright, motivated people don’t live up to their potential. Sometimes, a mental health professional may be required, but other times, just a caring mentor may do, for example, if the person could use better social skills, advising on school, coaching on time management, or simply feels lonely, different from most people.

We typically think of mentoring as older guiding younger but even seniors can benefit from mentoring. But the example I’ll use in my PsychologyToday.com article today on mentoring is a widely under-served group: children with excellent reasoning ability who attend a school with primarily lower-middle-class children. In such schools, programs for high-potential children often have been eviscerated yet the parents are often insufficiently wealthy or knowledgeable to help their kids live up to their potential. Thus, mentoring such students may yield particular benefit.

HERE is the link to the article.

Bright and Gifted Children: America's most underserved group

Perhaps redistributive "justice's" most pernicious side effect has been the reallocation of funds and other resources from high-achieving to low-achieving children. That's the contention of my PsychologyToday.com article today. The article goes on to propose what society should do and what individual parents and grandparents of bright kids should do in the meantime. HERE is the link.