SUPPORTING EMOTIONAL NEEDS OF THE GIFTED

printed from the website “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 relationships with peers.” (Silverman, 1993, p. 72.) The need for friendship and, even more, for emotional intimacy, is a driving force in both children and adults. This report of recent Australian research explores the nature of friendship as it is conceived by elementary and middle school students and how perceptions and expectations of friendship differ among children at different age levels, at different levels of intellectual ability, and between boys and girls. A wealth of research studies over the last 70 years have shown us that when intellectually gifted children look for friends, they tend to gravitate towards other gifted children of approximately their own age, or older children who may not be as bright as they are, but who are still of above average ability (Hollingworth, 1926; O’Shea, 1960; Gross, 1993). This fits comfortably with what we know about friendship choices in children generally; children tend to choose friends on the basis of similarities in mental age, rather than chronological age. Previous international studies have found, not surprisingly, that children’s conceptions of friendship develop in stages and ar