Michael Jackson as a lesson about gifted children

It's been nearly a week since Michael Jackson died, but stories are still being written about him.  I think my favorite one is the one by Heather Siladi. In her article Michael Jackson as a lesson about gifted children, Siladi says, "Although Michael's giftedness was more profound than most, his story is an excellent example of the hardships all of these children face."

The hardships she is referring to are those that parents of gifted children are familiar with: intense emotional and physical sensitivity, and asynchronous development. Siladi refers to things that Jackson said in the documentary Living with Michael Jackson that make it clear he was a highly gifted young boy.  For example, he said that when he was little, someone had called him a "forty-two-year-old midget."

We know how hard it is for our sensitive children when their classmates tease them and say horrible things about them.  Imagine that those slights and insults appeared in newspapers and on TV all over the world. And imagine them to be insults and slurs of a greater magnitude.  It is small wonder that Jackson tried to wall himself off from the rest of the world and create a childlike fantasy world into which he could retreat.