Friendship in Early Childhood

Print PDF

The Australian Association for the Education of the Gifted and Talented believes that gifted learners need to be included in school and classroom planning every day of the school year. Themed days or weeks in the annual school calendar provide an opportunity to nurture, support and promote the inclusion of gifted learners. Harmony Day, Science Week, National Tree Day, Clean Up Australia Day and National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence are some examples of opportunities to be intentional about involving gifted learners.

In 2021, the Australian Association for the Education of the Gifted and Talented asked three of our members who are Early Childhood Specialists to respond to the theme for Children’s Week:

“Children have the right to choose their own friends and safely connect with others”

These are their responses.

Article 1

Children have a right to choose their own friends and safely connect with others

By Elizabeth Barns

The need for friendship endures across our life span, and positive relationships can have a significant effect on our wellbeing and feelings of self-worth. The skills of making and maintaining friendships begin in early childhood. These relationships usually occur with those who share our interests, and they tend to be transient and play focused. As we grow, we look for enduring friendships with those who have similar core values, personality, and interests to ourselves.

Our education system, that groups children according to age, assumes that meaningful learning and friendships will most likely occur within this peer group, though as adults we understand that respectful and reciprocal relationships rarely only occur with those that are the same age as ourselves. Gifted children tend to have more mature play interests and higher expectations of friendships than their same aged peers. Hollingworth (1942) and Whitmore (1980) both identify that the gifted may have difficulty “finding peers who truly understand and appreciate their unusual and advanced perceptions” (Lovecky, 1992, p.18). They can often have more in common with older peers, both socially and cognitively, but due to limited opportunities with a diverse peer group, gifted children can be left feeling socially inadequate, frustrated and isolated.

As we celebrate Children’s Week 2021, we reflect on the theme ‘Children have a right to choose their own friends and safely connect with others.’ For gifted learners this requires us to think innovatively. In order to meet the cognitive and social needs of the gifted, we need to listen to their voice and offer them choices, that include challenging opportunities that meet the child at their point of need and transcend age and grade. Gifted children are competent and capable, and provide valuable insight into their own unique needs. We need to acknowledge that children have rights and we, as the adults, have responsibilities. Providing all children, including gifted children, with positive levels of engagement and meaningful social connection with like-minded peers, is a societal responsibility that requires a more innovative and dynamic educational structure.

References

Hollingworth, L. S. (1942). Children above 180 IQ Stanford-Binet: Origin and development. World Book Company.

Lovecky, D. V. (1992). Exploring social and emotional aspects of giftedness in children. Roeper Review, 15(1), 18-25.

Whitmore, J. (1980). Giftedness, conflict, and underachievement. Allyn & Bacon.

Elizabeth Barns
BEd (ECh), MEd (SpEd). Member of the AAEGT

Elizabeth Barns holds a Bachelor of Education (Early Childhood) and a Master of Education (Special Education including gifted). She has been an early childhood educator for more than 25 years, as a teacher and director in long day care and preschool. She has taught in vocational education and higher education for the last 15 years. She is currently an academic with a focus in early childhood, gifted and special education, and is on the committee for Gifted NSW.

Article 2

Children have a right to choose their own friends and safely connect with others.

By Dr Kerry Hodge

Three-year-old Billy keeps to himself at preschool, which causes his educators some concern. They try to involve Billy with other children, with limited success. However, his parents are not so worried. They report that Billy is very popular as a playmate with the friends of his 5-year-old brother at home, where he successfully joins in the give-and-take of ideas as their play evolves.

Billy’s situation highlights the barriers that age-based structures can create for gifted children in terms of opportunities to make and keep friends. It’s hard to have a friend if no one shares your interests, especially if the other children your age just want to run around together, while you have firm ideas about how to build a spaceship that’s going to fly to Mars. It’s no wonder that Billy chooses to sit and make intricate drawings about space exploration instead at preschool.

Ability grouping, with its opportunity for like minds to become friends, is rarely an option below school age. When it does occur, as a gifted playgroup or perhaps an enrichment class, it is usually in the community and only once a week. However, friendships can develop there, especially if families of compatible children choose to get together informally outside the scheduled times.

What options do early childhood educators have? Preschools and childcare centres must comply with mandated adult-to-child ratios based on age. This influences structures that make children’s movements between age groups tricky. Some early childhood settings meet regulations through ‘family groupings’ where ages are mixed and younger and older children spend most of their time together. In this structure, younger gifted children can easily choose to associate with children who offer a better social match, and age barely matters for the children involved. Of course, the oldest children cannot gravitate ‘upwards’, but they may emerge as leaders for younger children willing to be led in play scenarios at times.

Most settings separate age groups. Different rooms for the ‘fours’, ‘threes’, ‘twos’ and babies works well for many children, perhaps with some mixing outdoors. For a gifted child like Billy, some flexibility is required. If there is a ‘like mind’ in the older group whom Billy could spend time with, he could gain some companionship while playing at a satisfying level of complexity. A bonus is motivation to practise his social skills in order to retain this friendship. If this arrangement works well and numbers permit, Billy could move permanently to the older group. The drawback from this ‘grade-skip’ is that eventually a decision must be made about the following year. Could Billy be allowed early entry to school, or must he ‘repeat’ a year in the four-year-olds’ room? This could be a return to the earlier mismatch unless some of his age peers have matured significantly!

As happens with older ages, acceleration is not viewed favourably by most early childhood educators. Social and emotional reasons are commonly cited against early entry, even when the child clearly is intellectually ready for the school curriculum. There is a tendency for educators to assume that a child, like Billy, who plays alone is lacking social skills and to recommend another year of preschool or childcare while their social skills develop. It is important that educators find out from parents about the child’s friendship choices outside the early childhood setting. A child who seeks and is accepted by older children in the extended family or neighbourhood is certainly ready to meet the wider world of school and have access to a wider pool of potential friends.

Gifted young children are in good hands when their early childhood educators understand their social needs, communicate well with families and find ways to promote opportunities for access to children who could become their friends.

Kerry Hodge
PhD. Member of the AAEGT

Dr Kerry Hodge has worked in early childhood education as a teacher, consultant, lecturer and researcher, with a particular focus since the 1990s on the education of young gifted children. In 2009 she was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to investigate overseas programs for gifted preschoolers and teacher training in early gifted education. Kerry is currently an Adjunct Fellow in the School of Education at Macquarie University in Sydney.

Article 3

Children have a right to choose their own friends and safely connect with others

By Dr Rosalind Walsh

Childhood is the only period of our lives when it is assumed that our friends will be people whose birthdays fall within 18 months of our own. Well-meaning early childhood educators have often promoted “we’re all friends at preschool”, failing to realise that this takes away choice from young children, and forces them to like everyone who happens to share a classroom with them.

The situation can be even more fraught for young intellectually gifted children whose conceptions of friendship can be more advanced than their same age peers. In the early childhood years most children find friends based on similar play preferences. “You like cars. I like cars. Let’s play cars together.” For most children, the fact that they are at similar developmental stages would tend to suggest that they will have similar interests. However, this is not true for all children and particularly not true for children with advanced development. Finding a like-minded peer to play chess with in preschool is going to be a stretch. And may well lead to frustration when age peers find it difficult to understand complex rules. This may lead to emotional outbursts from a gifted child who can’t comprehend how their age peer can’t grasp that the knight moves in a particular way. In turn this can lead to a perception that young gifted children are emotionally immature, when in fact, what we are seeing is a child coping with a mismatch between their intellectual and social-emotion skills. Imagine explaining to a colleague, over and over again how a process works, only for that colleague to stare at you blankly. It would be hard enough for an adult to understand and handle sensitively. Now imagine a four year old in this situation.

Grouping children by age has always been a matter of convenience (babies need to sleep at a certain time, play materials may not be safe for younger children etc.). Some enlightened early childhood services have moved away from age-based grouping to allow siblings to interact and children to find like-minds and friends across a whole setting. For some gifted children, their closest intellectual peer may be the teacher. Other gifted children sense their own difference from a young age and are attracted to other children who don’t appear to fit in, making friends with other children who may have been sidelined from the dominant peer-group.

What we know from decades of research in gifted education is that finding a ‘true’ friend is often a gifted child’s highest priority. We all want someone to understand and value us. We also know that gifted children tend to make friends with older children, which is why it is so important that children have access to a range of age mates. We also know that healthy social-emotional development depends on having at least one good friend. Often schools will split up children who are very close, hoping that this will encourage them to make more friends, when in fact that one good friend is all that the child needs.

I get on with the people I work with. I appreciate their variety of talents and their dedication. This doesn’t mean I want to invite them over for dinner and hang out on a Friday night. Nor do I restrict my friendship group to all those who happen to be turning the same age as me this year! We need to learn to be kind to everyone, but we certainly don’t need to be friends with everyone, and children have the right to choose their own friends.

What can educators and parents do?

Don’t assume that children will only make friends with others of the same age. Allow and encourage cross-age friendships.
Provide opportunities for children of different ages to mix. Community playgroups allow for children 0-5 to mix together. In later years, community groups such as Girl Guides and Scouts have groups that operate over a range of ages.
Allow flexibility with age-based rooms in early childhood setting.
Provide communal space in early childhood settings where child of all ages can mix.
Provide invitational curriculum opportunities where children, regardless of age, can take part based on their intellectual development.

Share this resource

Resources

A search for happiness

May 30, 2025

The constant search for wellbeing and happiness is one that might be familiar to many gifted families. Here is the story of one gifted child, and all that it took to find happiness. "We knew really early that they were gifted,” said their mother Deb. They actually taught themself to read at two and a half. But back then, I still didn’t actually know anything about giftedness.” "We had them tested before starting school and it came back that they were profoundly gifted," said Deb. "And that’s when the struggle started." Adding, “I think I called every school in our area. A few even admitted that they would not be able to cater for them”. The family decided on a school that said they could support gifted children. "We chose one that said, 'Yes, we can do this, we can do that.’ “We did have a lot of separation issues at preschool, and that was just an indication of what was to come. We didn’t realise at the time it was because they were so bored," said Deb. "They just didn’t want to go." To help with the separation anxiety, in term 4 of the year before they were due to start school, Deb's child went to school just a few mornings a week to help with the transition. After two weeks however, the inclusion teacher told Deb that they would need to go to grade 1 instead of prep as they were just so far ahead. So they commenced getting them enrolled in Prep full time for the remainder of term 4. Deb said, “The big problems began once they’d started grade 1. The teacher didn’t understand about their level of giftedness at all.” “We had kicking and screaming trying to get them to school because they were so disappointed that it wasn’t what they thought it was going to be,” she said “Even when they were doing the transition days in Prep, I remember they came home one day saying “I’m so stupid. I’m so dumb. I’m trying to talk to the kids about the periodic table, and they don’t want to have anything to do with it anymore because they’re past that now.” I had to explain that the other kids probably didn’t know what the periodic table even was’, Deb recalled. Throughout grade 1 Deb tried advocating for another grade skip. Further testing revealed they were working at a grade 3 level, so it was no wonder they didn’t want to go to grade 1, but the school didn’t want to do another skip, said Deb. “I was trying to work with them, offering to help any way I could, but it was like every meeting I went into they were straight on the defensive,” she said. “By the end of grade 1 we knew we weren’t getting anywhere, so we moved schools to an independent school with a philosophy that children’s class levels shouldn’t be dictated by their age,” said Deb. Deb explained that year two started out great at the new school. The teacher understood and she was a high school trained teacher so was able to extend them. At lunch times they were hanging out with year 10, 11 and 12 students (supervised in the library) so they were able to have conversations with older kids about their favourite subject - chemistry. However, half-way through year three the problems started again. “They got a new classroom teacher, who just did not get them, so it was back to refusing to go to school.” “I was standing outside the classroom for two hours trying to get them to go into the classroom,” Deb said. “At this point we had a discussion with Michele Juratowich, a gifted education consultant, who basically told me that I’m not going to find a perfect school for them because they don’t exist.” “The biggest thing Michele told me that I really took on board was that we needed a school with flexibility,” said Deb. “Michelle said that when you get to the kids that have IQs over the 140s they really need a school that’s flexible and willing to work with the family.” “So the school search started again!” “That’s when I had discussions with Capalaba State College. They allowed us to have a flexible arrangement where our child would attend school four days per week and then attend an external one-day program for gifted children.” Deb told us. It was then that Deb introduced their school principal to the lead educator of the one-day program. “The program eventually relocated to our school, and seeing the need and increasing numbers it eventually morphed into the current High Capacity program”. Once our child was in this gifted program they really started to take off. They were radically accelerated several years ahead in maths and science and were even able to do subjects with the high school classes. The timetabling was complicated, but the school always did what they could to make it work, and didn’t shy away from allowing them to accelerate through the subjects they needed much more challenge in. Then at the end of year 8, at 13 years old, they decided they wanted to sit the American College Board SATs for fun, where they essentially scored the equivalent to about an ATAR 89. This allowed them to actually enter some university courses. So at this point they applied to study a Bachelor of Science in Physics at the University of Southern Queensland and was accepted. They did a couple of subjects and did well, but unfortunately they didn’t like the online study, so at the age of 14 they transferred across to Griffith University, where they could study on campus. This they love! They still go to high school for the social development and having the opportunity to do elective subjects, and they go to university for their love of learning in their passion area, and they are enjoying the social interactions as well. For anyone reading this, thinking this all sounds so complicated! We asked Deb, why? What are the benefits? Her answer? – mental health. “The benefit is mental health – and that’s all we’ve always strived for,” said Deb. “They aren't bored by what they're doing now, whereas if they were still back in their year level we’d have that boredom, the behaviour and the school refusal. They would be miserable,” she said. “Our biggest goal is always happiness – are they happy?,” Deb said. Adding, “schools do have their own duty of care as well, to create well rounded students, and for gifted kids this isn’t going to be possible if their intellectual health isn’t being developed alongside their emotional health.” “These kids have this advanced cognitive ability, and most of the time their social / emotional ability is either age appropriate or years above as well,” said Deb. “We might not think it sometimes because they can come across as younger, but I realised they understand and take on so much more than we might realise and generally appear younger or more immature when they are trying to self-normalise or fit in with their age peers’, Deb explained. “That’s why allowing them to connect with both intellectual peers and social / emotional peers is so important,” Deb concluded.

From Policy to Practice: The Teacher Who Changed Everything

By Dr Kate Aster (Burton) • May 29, 2025

By Dr Kate Aster (Burton) Gifted Awareness Week always makes me reflect on the long road we’ve travelled. It’s been a 22-year journey for me, both personally and professionally, shaped entirely by my child’s experience of being twice-exceptional in a world that didn’t know what to make of them. Like so many 2e kids, mine didn’t present the way schools expected. Yes, they were gifted. That part was obvious. But they were also anxious, highly sensitive, perfectionistic, and completely disconnected from their peers. In a classroom surrounded by same-age students and held to grade-level expectations, they were bored, overwhelmed, and starting to shut down. At home, we watched their spark dim. And yet, when I tried to advocate, not only as a parent but also as a PhD candidate specialising in giftedness at the time, no-one would listen. Not really. Every conversation felt like a dead end. Every meeting felt like it was designed to 'contain' rather than support. I was advocating relentlessly, but it was exhausting and isolating. The system just wasn’t built to respond. Then one teacher changed everything. We were lucky. Really lucky. We had all but given up. We were home schooling, when a chance phone call I made while looking for a mentor, resulted in finding someone who saw our child clearly and who was brave enough to do something about it. This teacher didn’t wait for permission. They advocated internally, organised the right assessments, and helped facilitate radical acceleration into a gifted and talented program. That decision shifted everything. Finally, our child was with peers who thought more similarly to them. They were more intellectually engaged. They received more challenging work. They entered competitions. And that challenge helped reduce their perfectionism, while the social connection improved their mental health - immeasurably. They began to feel seen and safe, and their confidence grew. They went on to graduate high school three years early - with distinction. They completed university three years early, and then received First Class Honours. Not because we pushed them, but because they were finally allowed to work in a way that suited their developmental readiness. They joined clubs, sat on committees, found their voice. All of these things that once felt completely out of reach when they were stuck at grade level and drowning emotionally. In primary school, the focus was on surviving the day. On keeping our child in one piece. This experience didn’t just change their life. It changed mine too. At the time, I wasn’t yet working in mental health. I was just desperately trying to get the system to see my child. The trauma of that experience became the catalyst for everything that followed. I completed a PhD, began publishing in the areas of giftedness and neurodiversity, and eventually became the Clinical Director of a specialist clinic supporting these children and their families. I also founded Gifted WA, nearly ten years ago now, because I didn’t want other families to go through what we did. I wanted to build a community. I wanted parents to be equipped to advocate effectively. And I wanted educators and professionals to truly understand the complexity and potential of these children. But here’s the thing: we should never have had to fight that hard. In Western Australia, we do technically have a Gifted and Talented in Public Schools Policy, but it is primarily made up of guidelines. Implementation varies widely across schools. The outcome often comes down to whether a particular teacher is willing to listen, to learn, and to act. This is why this year’s Gifted Awareness Week theme, “From Policy to Practice”, matters so much. Because even when a policy exists, if it is optional or inconsistently applied, it fails to protect the very students it’s meant to support, and families will continue to burn out trying to secure the most basic accommodations. What happened for my child should not be the exception. It should be the standard. When we get it right, when teachers and parents and professionals come together with shared understanding and a willingness to act, these students don’t just survive. They thrive. And it’s time we made that the norm. About the Author: Dr Kate Aster is the Clinical Director of Alchemy Therapy and founder of Gifted WA and My Neurodivergent Child. With almost 20 years of research experience and a decade working as a mental health professional, Kate combines clinical expertise with lived experience. She is dedicated to advocating for systemic change in gifted education and helping families and professionals meet the complex needs of twice-exceptional children.

An Interview with Lachlan Thatcher, Principal of Capalaba State College, Queensland

May 28, 2025

“Gifted education doesn’t have to begin with a big budget or a new department—it starts with curiosity, conversation, and courage.”

Think of a students mind as a garden...

By Rhiannon Lowrey • May 27, 2025

Rhiannon Lowrey Ever tried explaining “twice exceptional” (2e)? Think of a student’s mind as a garden. For a neurotypical brain, it’s like a beautifully organised, formal garden—paths are clear, easy to navigate, garden beds are separate yet harmonious, everything flows. In contrast, a 2e mind - one that is both gifted and disabled, it is like a wild garden: overgrown in places and seemingly unkempt, not always a clear path, but full of surprising treasures once you venture inside. Though it may not look perfectly pruned, it’s just as rich in growth and wonder—just a bit more challenging to navigate. Both gardens are equally beautiful in their own unique way!

What is twice exceptionality?

May 27, 2025

Making Twice-Exceptional Students Visible in Policy and Practice

By Kim Denholm • May 27, 2025

“Can you see Brian, the invisible boy? Even Mrs. Carlotti has trouble noticing him in her classroom.” - The Invisible Boy by Trudy Ludwig

How the system became muddled

By Devon Harris • May 27, 2025

A parent / gifted parenting coach's perspective

Sorry Miss, I know I'm Different, but...

By Allegra • May 26, 2025

Will you understand?

What is asynchrony?

May 26, 2025

If you're involved in supporting gifted children, it's important to understand asynchrony - also known as asynchronous development. The video below is just an example of what asynchrony can look like. Some research indicates that asynchrony can be more common, or more pronounced, in highly to profoundly gifted children. However it can occur to differing degrees, and each child is different. Take a look at this video, and resources from the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) and the Davidson Institute .

From Policy to Practice

By Rhiannon Lowrey • May 25, 2025

Developing the I AM Program at Cornish College By Rhiannon Lowrey