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Highly Gifted Child
By Inderbir Kaur Sandhu, Ph.D
Q: We would like to get your views on a boy who's been drawing since the age of 2. He has accumulated a thousand over drawings. He has received no training whatsoever. And yet, his drawings have attained a level rarely seen in his age group, in fact, one well known expert in the field feels he even draws better than some adults.
His drawings bring about a sense of movement, three dimensionality, perspective and imagination that's intriguing. He is fairly shy so capturing him in action when drawing has been a little difficult. But we managed to get the following:
Drawing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJj8smhLVik
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4heEuBDhl1k
His short stop-motion animation photography:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEyex4PD6sk
Having fun:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGDLd5uxDIY
I thought it time he had his own YouTube account so we could upload more materials whenever he allowed us to record him.
Here's a public link where you can find a fraction of his works we have uploaded, since he has over a thousand.
His latest drawings, which have been described as "spectacular", are clearly at a whole different level.
He also does animation sequences, has his own opening movie directing ideas, hums original music pieces and more. And by the way, did we mention that he just turned 6 years young? He's our son. Hope you can advice us. Thank you for your time.
A: Thank you so much for introducing such a special boy and showing samples of his work. As you already know, your son is very, very special and artistically gifted. Only a handful of people in this world have the ability to project such expressions in the form of drawings, which he did in such great detail.
I believe you are already on the right track - how you were encouraging him while he was drawing (on Youtube) and the efforts you have made to showcase his gifts on Facebook. He is truly special and fortunate to have dedicated parents who are aware of his gifts. You may want to help him further by getting a tutor to perhaps polish his skills to a greater height, pretty much the theoretical part of it. Visit art galleries to help him get more exposure. He will draw whatever he is exposed to so the more the exposure, the better the results. This is his passion, so he does not need to be pushed, rather for you find out how much more can be done to help him pursue his passion. He is a little young right now to be sent away to an art school but you may want to look out for such schools for enrichment programs available. He needs opportunities, so do look out for them. Once his work is seen, I am sure no one would deny his gifts.
At the same time, try to introduce him to other learning; too much passion in one area is likely to cause loss of interest in most other areas - which is essential at his age. He appears somewhat reserved from the clippings (I may be wrong here since they only showed him focusing on his passion!). As gifted as he may be, he needs to be exposed to other activities - socializing is crucial at this age, so you may want to make sure he is able to mingle well. The downside of extreme giftedness in one area may be socio-emotional issues as they grow up. What about other subjects? Moderate interest is enough to learn other subject areas. You may also want to introduce him to the world of books, as this can be very helpful to pursue his passion and introduce him to other interests as well. At then same time, vary his daily activities by offering lots of new experiences. If he is interested in music, you can introduce music lessons (which develop specific areas of the brain region) dance art, museum, nature outings, etc. With his level of creativity and vivid imagination, I am sure he would do great in the above mentioned activities. What is important here is to find a good balance between his abilities and intensities.
For now, keep doing what you have been doing and get him more exposure. I can see him flourishing in years to come. Feel free to write in if you need more help with him. My very, very best wishes to you in this beautiful journey.
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