Gifted Children's Friendships

Linda Silverman wrote, in her wonderful book Counselling the Gifted and Talented, that “When gifted children are asked what they most desire, the answer is often ‘a friend’. The children’s experience of school is completely colored by the presence or absence of friends” (Silverman, 1993).

Exceptionally and profoundly gifted children differ from their age-peers not only in their intellectual development but also in many aspects of their social and emotional development. Emotional maturity is much more closely linked to mental age than to chronological age and this is particularly noticeable with children of very high IQ.

In general, children choose friends on the basis of similarities – like drawing to like. Gifted children generally gravitate towards “maturity peers” – children who are at similar stages of intellectual and emotional development. In general, they prefer to work and socialise with age peers who are also maturity peers. However, when ability peers of their own age are not readily available, as is usually the case with EG and PG children, they may seek the company of children several years older who are of above average ability – children who resemble them somewhat in mental age and emotional maturity. Unfortunately, teachers often misunderstand this and assume that the child who does not easily form friendships with age-peers is “emotionally immature”. Ironically, the difficulties stem from emotional maturity rather than immaturity.

• Gifted children may become aware at an early age that they are “different” from their age-peers and they often worry about this. Parents may consider discussing the chronological age/mental age/ emotional age discrepancy with their children and reassuring them that individual differences are a part of life.
• Talk to the child’s teacher about the gravitation towards mental age peers. She has probably seen this in children who are developmentally delayed; explain to her that it is also a characteristic of children who are developmentally advanced.

A study which I conducted with 700 children aged 5-12 found that children's conceptions of friendship form a developmental hierarchy of age-related stages, with expectations of friendship, and beliefs about friendship, becoming more sophisticated and complex with age (Gross, 2002). The five stages appear in order as follows, from the lowest to the highest level in terms of age and conceptual complexity:

Stage 1: "Play Partner": In the earliest stage of friendship, the relationship is based on "play-partnership". A friend is seen as someone who engages the child in play and permits the child to use or borrow her playthings.

Stage 2: "People to chat to": The sharing of interests becomes an important element in friendship choice. Conversations between "friends" are no longer related simply to the game or activity in which the children are directly engaged.

Stage 3: "Help and encouragement": At this stage the friend is seen as someone who will offer help, support or encouragement. However, the advantages of friendship flow in one direction; the child does not yet see himself as having the obligation to provide help or support in return.

Stage 4: "Intimacy/empathy": The child now realises that in friendship the need and obligation to give comfort and support flows both ways and, indeed, the giving of affection, as well as receiving it, becomes an important element in the relationship. This stage sees a deepening of intimacy; an emotional sharing and bonding.

Stage 5: "The sure shelter": The title comes from a passage in one of the apocryphal books of the Old Testament. "A faithful friend is a sure shelter: whoever finds one has found a rare treasure" (Ecclesiasticus, 6:14). At this stage friendship is perceived as a deep and lasting relationship of trust, fidelity and unconditional acceptance. A 12-year-old boy in my longitudinal study of children of IQ 160+ (Gross, 2003) told me: “A friend is a place you go to when you need to take off the masks. You can take off your camouflage with a friend and still feel safe.”

In my friendship study I was able to compare the friendship conceptions of children of average intellectual ability, moderately gifted children and children of IQ 160+. The study demonstrated strongly that what children look for in friends is dictated not so much by chronological age as by mental age. A strong relationship was found between children's levels of intellectual ability and their conceptions of friendship. In general, intellectually gifted children were found to be substantially further along the hierarchy of stages of friendship than were their age-peers of average ability. Gifted children were beginning to look for friends with whom they could develop close and trusting relationships, at ages when their age-peers of average ability were looking for play partners.