It"s Your Child"s Fault He Has No Friends
What?! How could I possible believe that? The truth is, I don't. However, there are some people who do think that way and it never fails to upset me. Marguerite Kelly of the Washington Post, for example, apparently feels that way. A reader wrote in asking what she could do about her brilliant eleven-year-old son who has no friends and never did. Friendship, the child had told his mother, seems to come naturally to the other kids, but not to him.
What does Kelly say to this mom? She says, "A super-bright child may be friendless because he makes his classmates feel dumb when he's around. If your son is like most gifted children, however, he's probably smart enough -- and kind enough -- to hide his smarts when they're nearby." So it's this boy's fault he has no friends because HE makes them feel dumb? And if he doesn't dumb down to make the other kids feel smarter, HE isn't kind?
Now in fairness to Kelly, she did provide other reasons like "...he is one of those children who will take years to feel comfortable in their own skin." Are all gifted children who have trouble befriending their age-mates uncomfortable in their own skin? It's the gifted child's fault?
And what advice does Kelly give this worried mom? She tells her to remind her son that "he'll be a grown-up in just 10 years, and then he'll find that plenty of adults will want to be his friend because he has plenty of adult friends already." That sounds good, but it's not always true.
And what does this child do for the next ten potentially friendless years? Kelly does offer some additional advice. She says that the boy can call make regular phone calls to a chronically ill classmate to chat and cheer her up. This, Kelly says, will make the boy "more interesting and more at ease with his classmates because he would have reached out to someone who needed him more than he needed her."
Reaching out to others is not a bad idea and it does help us put our problems in perspective. But I don't think reaching out to others to make ourselves more interesting is a particularly admirable motivation for doing good deeds. But then that wasn't exactly what Kelly meant with her suggestion to reach out. She clarifies her point in her final sentence: "Sometimes a child must be a good friend before he can make a good friend."
You can read the full description of the boy's frienship problems and Kelly's complete response in Kelly's article, An 11-Year-Old Boy Who Can't Make Friends Needs New Ways to Reach Out.
What does Kelly say to this mom? She says, "A super-bright child may be friendless because he makes his classmates feel dumb when he's around. If your son is like most gifted children, however, he's probably smart enough -- and kind enough -- to hide his smarts when they're nearby." So it's this boy's fault he has no friends because HE makes them feel dumb? And if he doesn't dumb down to make the other kids feel smarter, HE isn't kind?
Now in fairness to Kelly, she did provide other reasons like "...he is one of those children who will take years to feel comfortable in their own skin." Are all gifted children who have trouble befriending their age-mates uncomfortable in their own skin? It's the gifted child's fault?
And what advice does Kelly give this worried mom? She tells her to remind her son that "he'll be a grown-up in just 10 years, and then he'll find that plenty of adults will want to be his friend because he has plenty of adult friends already." That sounds good, but it's not always true.
And what does this child do for the next ten potentially friendless years? Kelly does offer some additional advice. She says that the boy can call make regular phone calls to a chronically ill classmate to chat and cheer her up. This, Kelly says, will make the boy "more interesting and more at ease with his classmates because he would have reached out to someone who needed him more than he needed her."
Reaching out to others is not a bad idea and it does help us put our problems in perspective. But I don't think reaching out to others to make ourselves more interesting is a particularly admirable motivation for doing good deeds. But then that wasn't exactly what Kelly meant with her suggestion to reach out. She clarifies her point in her final sentence: "Sometimes a child must be a good friend before he can make a good friend."
You can read the full description of the boy's frienship problems and Kelly's complete response in Kelly's article, An 11-Year-Old Boy Who Can't Make Friends Needs New Ways to Reach Out.