At Ease in Group Situations

For gifted / highly-able students, they need wisdom to understand how they should look upon their own talents rather than indulge themselves in self-amusement if they want to feel comfortable and be themselves in front of their peers. On emotion, they should pay effort to live out themselves with sincerity and passion instead of sensitively criticising themselves or others which leads them to bury their talents and cut off room for collaboration. Therefore, we have to first reflect on how our behaviours, emotions and interpersonal relationships are influenced by our thoughts before we can feel at ease among our peers.

Facing the following situations, how will you handle them?

·        I will stay on the sidelines, even though it is my areas of strengths, because I want to avoid jealousy from my classmates;

·        In order to win praise, I have to do my best all the time and cannot lose face in front of my classmates or friends. Even if I feel tired or I am extremely busy, I still have to keep on;

·        If the performance of my teammates does not meet my expectation, I will actively help them complete their tasks and supervise them if necessary so that the best outcome in my mind can be achieved;

·        I do not know whom I can share my interests with so I have no intent to share ideas of my hobbies and talents.

If you can quickly point out the problems of the above thoughts and easily come up with workable solutions, you are really good at communication and interaction with others. Even though you are worried or cannot think of a solution in response to the above situations, there is no need to feel discouraged or even blame yourself, as it is totally understandable. Your emotions reflect that you have thought about seeking improvement and breakthrough in how to relate to your peers. However, only those who are brave to break through can unleash their true feelings. The tip is to calm yourself down, abandon your old mindset, learn to know about your true feelings and thoughts, and then adopt a new mindset to find and make a better choice for yourself.

2   Bear Full Responsibility

Being highly sensitive to and awareof the surroundings and people around us are some of the many advantages of being gifted. However, being overly sensitive, feeling rather unsettled merely due to words or gaze from others might worth getting us thinking. As long as we have tried our best, take full responsibility for ourselves and actually appreciate all of our efforts and the opportunity to demonstrate our talents and seek improvement, how can your endeavour be erased and talents be belittled just by words of others? Furthermore, we can help others in understanding themselves. Together, we share, we improve, and we grow. Turst and guidance, rather than fear and control, is the foundation for changes to happen.

Communication is the foundation of a healthy peer relationship. An honest communication allows us to listen to others’ needs and our thoughts to be heard. When we can put ourselves in other people’s shoes, sympathy and hope of a win-win situation will naturally arise. Once you treat others with respect and give up imposing your own thoughts and standards on other people, you will find it much easier to eliminate confrontation. Besides, when you have courage to communicate with yourself, you can accept yourself with greater kindness and consideration, and thus stress and self-confrontation in your mind will mitigate. To communicate with courage, you will find it no longer difficult to say no to unreasonable tasks, express yourself honestly or define expectation. With mature thoughts and emotions, you can become yourself and utilise your gifts to the fullest.

You will find yourself full of energy when you gain recognition and support from your classmates and friends, and that makes you eager to share and let more people know what is important to you. Let me share a story with you: once there was a gifted Secondary 1 student who was keen on marine biology. She loved to go to the Biology Club and exchange ideas with her seniors during lunch time and after school. In addition, she initiated an on-line platform to share her research and findings. In order to allow her schoolmates to learn the subject gradually and discover the enjoyment it could give, the content of her on-line platform was written in a concise and lively style together with useful links to references provided. She had the patience to respond to questions from her schoolmates too. It was because all she did originated from a "good to share” attitude, she gradually became famous both inside and outside her school, which even invited her to host sharing sessions and be involved in organising relevant activities. From this story, we can see that sincerity and passion is able to stir up others’ feelings and to drive one’s gifts to be developed and utilised.

The world is ever changing. We can no longer deal with daily challenges all alone. To be aware of how the relationships with ourselves, others and even the world are affected by our values and emotions is the master key of changing, reconciling and improving relationships. When we are able to treat ourselves well, bear full responsibility, communicate with courage and be passionate, we can confidently establish and maintain a healthy relationship with our peers.