With gifted children, why do we see these so often: perfectionism, anxiety, sensitivity, sensory issues, difficulty with anger management?

Do these just go hand in hand with giftedness? Is it related to asynchronoous development? Is it neurological? Does it have something to do with heightened development of certain ares of the brain? Is it chemical? What's the link?

Sorry for my ignorance, but I'd really like to understand the physiology behind this connection. Thanks!

IMO... Nothing scientific about it. GT kids are not only smarter, they seem to be "MORE" of everything! More sensitive, More anxious, More, More, More!!!

LOL Shari , I completely agree.
When I had my DD6 tested (for IQ) the way it was described it to me is that they are so much more aware of their surroundings, but don't know what to do with the information yet because of their age. Some of it gets better as they get older

http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/dabrowski.htm

You can also google Dabrowski and/or overexcitabilities. There's lots of info out there.

HTH!

You also have to consider some selection bias.... If a kid has no perfectionism, anxiety, sensitivity, sensory issues or emotional difficulties... how likely is it that his parents will bother finding out that he's (happily) gifted?

In our case, DS is happy, calm and even-keeled. No sensory issues, not much anxiety (no more than anyone else in the family, but it is something I keep an eye on), no anger management issues or other emotional or behavioral difficulties, no potty training issues, tests well, reads social cues and subtleties like a psychic, takes on challenges without blinking, turns on a dime as needed... He was clingy as a baby, but at the time I thought that was normal.

I don't know why he doesn't have issues, except that we only tested (IQ) because of some early verbal quirks, and (achievement) because of the homeschool laws here. I could see never having realized he was anything more than just a good student, if a few little things had been different.

Erica,
That makes a lot of sense! We found out ds was gifted because we were trying to rule out ADHD. It just didn't seem to fit exactly. I still don't think ADHD is a longshot, but we have much more info now. I doubt we would have ever considered reseraching it without the issues. We knew he was bright, but we probably would have left it at that without the problems. Thanks!

As I recall, this book tries to explain the connections:

A Parent's Guide to Gifted Children
By James T. Webb, Janet L. Gore, Edward R. Amend

I would think selection bias plays a major role as well. We've never had any major behavior issues. I often said about one DS as a baby that I wouldn't have any idea what parenting was really like if he was my only kid. He cried when hungry or tired. He slept a ton and if he was awake, he was smiling. I thought PG and early reading made for easy parenting because even at 3 or 4, my sons would disappear and read for a long time. There aren't that many 3 or 4 year olds that will do something safe and quiet for hours at a time, so I found it to be a huge bonus.

One son has always been a bit more challenging and more sensitive, but only in comparison to his very laid-back siblings. We used to think he'd have been happier as an only child, with no one messing with his stuff, less noise, etc. That wasn't his choice, so he's adapted. He did test every limit to find all the boundaries, try to outsmart us, and try to be a bully with his siblings, but he's over it. He still can't watch any movie with scary music though, including things that seem utterly innocuous to me.

My "PG" son was also quite easy. He came third in my closely spaced 3-pack, and I often joked that he came out of the womb at age 2. He was just "one of the kids" before he could really even walk. He hung with them, got around well (and if he didn't, his older sister drug him around), and I forgot at times I had a "baby". I do remember looking at a friend's 2 year old...sitting quietly in the umbrella stroller while the "older" kids (and DS) played, and wondered how she pulled off that feat.

We did always find DD2 somewhat "emotional", and yes, she was intense (especially compared to the other 2), but I didn't even think in terms of GT until we started school. On an interesting sidenote too, DD2 is only intense with us. She is very reserved at school, and her teachers probably don't believe some of the tales I tell. She does warm up and give out some of her creativity in time, but only the "good" stuff. The emotions stay home, . Even so, she's only really had sensitities, anxieties, sensory issues, a newfound perfectionism. There has never been a hint of anger management problems with any of my kids.

Perhaps with gifted children they just have a hard time mixing with their same-age peers.

My little'un is said to be intolerant of his class mates and doesn't mix well. Well, intellectually I guess he's at least 2-3 years ahead - who wants to be wasting time doing "the earth year is 365 1/4 days" when your head is with Einstein and relativity? (Dottie - you know our history)

Imagine spending all day with kids, and only kids (not teaching 'em of course). You would very soon get quite hacked off, bored, morose......

Personally I think when your peers are worried what they are doing Saturday night and you're worried about the world economy collapsing, and global warming, and quarks and quasars... it's natural you'd be a little more anxious .

I hate to say this (sorry guys) I think it also has allot to do with how more gifted children are raised, in cases where the parents don't properly acknowledged their children's gifts/special needs (again, personal experience on this one).

I always thought it had something to do with them being at different stages of development i.e chronological age, emotional age and intellectual age being all over shop.I know when my son was in infants and early primary school he couldn't abide any form of cheating or what he perceived as being unfair. There were no shades of grey everything was black and white. He would never say anything at school but when he got home he was SO angry over things like the other kids not playing soccer at lunchtime by FIFA rules

Thinking back I validated his feelings at the time while also attempting to explain to him why other kids do the things they do.

He grew out of it by about 11. He's 16 now and we haven't had any of those dreaded teenage years. Hmmmm, maybe those early years were it.LOL.

matmum

My son drives everyone crazy with bizarre voices and jokes. He does not do this at home much and it is really hurting his social life at school. This is really the one thing I would just like an OFF button for.

DS5 has always had those overexcitabilities, some more than others. He doesn't really have anxiety much at all, but has sound sensitivity and perfectionism....and overal goofiness if that counts. Some things have gotten significantly better. Like he used to have major sounds sensitivities, even as an infant. He used to cry when our friends would come over when some of them had loud laughs, it was quite amusing. He has always had excellent hearing too...but thankfully that and some of the other things have gotten better. He still has significant perfectionistic tendencies, and I attribute that generally to his own self drive and to the fact that he has not been wrong much in his life (academically speaking, he is clearly wrong about other things and in behavior at times). He is in first grade and skipped K, they are giving him some work that is several grade levels ahead (and some that unfortunately is way below what they should be giving him..but they are trying) and he always gets all his work right, every single problem. He has never not gotten 100% on his spelling tests, etc. So when he is doing algebra or something on the computer and he gets one problem wrong he starts to get emotional at times and says "I am not good at this." It is quite frustrating, because he is doing so well. His school arranged for a math professor from a local university to meet with him recently to discuss his program and how to meet his needs. He said that he was playing a game with the math professor and that he didn't like it because he never did win and the professor always did. He couldn't figure out why he couldn't win, and then assumes that he is not good at things. he still loves to challenge himself in spite of this, but I worry that he will lose that if he is not challenged more.