Do the parents here with allergic children think that having a gifted child makes things easier or harder? It seems to be both.
A. Early literacy and the ability to grasp consequences is a key component of safety for kids like mine, no two ways about it.
In addition, like most HG+ children, mine was capable of stunningly adult behavior by the time she was 2 or 3 yo. That translated into the ability to take her ANYWHERE. Which meant that we didn't have to entrust her to a sitter, which meant greatly enhanced safety for her. While weird in the context of normative, yes, my 5yo was in fact far safer coming to work with me in a lab setting that staying at home with a sitter.
This also meant that we looked far outside the box when it came to family activities-- and child-friendly ones, for that matter. This is how my 6yo enjoyed San Francisco for a week
far more than Disneyland. Food allergies + HG+ status = strange and non-normative childhood.
B. In some ways, worse-- because that high cognitive ability also meant that she understood VERY clearly that, for example, some family members simply cared less about her (or her feelings, even as a young child) than they cared about... their routine. Or their immediate desire for gratification. I have the impression that most children aren't actually faced with just how self-centered, petty, and lazy most human beings are. Not really. Food allergic children have all the pieces presented to them on a silver platter every day-- they just need to assemble them. Obviously those of high intellectual capacity
DO assemble them quite young. That leads to understanding that they are not emotionally ready for.
Why does grandpa care more about ice cream than me? Doesn't he love me? 
As Ivy notes, it's also the case that food allergic gifties tend to experience SIGNIFICANT anxiety when they put together two bits of info: 1. I could die from my food allergy, and 2. I
will die if I don't eat.
For most food allergic children, this stage seems to happen about ages 9-11yo. With gifted food allergic children, it can happen far far younger-- as young as 3 or 4. Their emotional coping skills and capacity to work with a therapist are significantly limited at those ages, and the LAST thing that you want is a therapist telling your child that his/her fears about food are
irrational. Because-- they aren't.
As a side note, while I realize that a Dabrowskian view of development is controversial/theoretical, this DOES seem to nicely explain my daughter's apparent emotional development. The problem is that most adults don't make level 4, and because of item B above, DD was forced into that at about age 11. My first post on the forum was, in fact, probably at least partly triggered by a perfect storm of factors leading to a disintegration in this particular view of development.
The other bit of things is that HG+ kids with a life-threatening, intermittent condition like this tend to have a MUCH better sense of "perspective" than their peers. They are
seriously world-weary by the time they are adolescents, and may have limited patience for normative "concerns" that their peers (even bright ones) express.
