This is such an interesting and important topic! In sum, yes, gifted kids are special - in the sense that they have needs that are different from the majority of the population with regard to cognitive abilities and social and emotional needs.

I write as "the poster child for underachievement" as declared repeatedly by my PG DH. From where he sits, he sees me as "one of the most uneducated people" he knows who graduated from an Ivy with an undergraduate and 2 graduate degrees. I do agree with him. What is really nuts - to me - is that I didn't really get what he meant until I started to go through the wringer with my PG child at school.

None of my story is intended to be a 'woe is me' thing. It's just been fascinating to me to see the kind of educational damage that can be done by completely, "benigning" ignoring the needs of a gifted child. And I'm not even PG! I grew up thinking that school was for instantly sizing up a teacher, figuring out what made her/him tick and then to spend all of my time playing the game. It became a game for me to see how little I could do to achieve the highest grades. When I tell you that I read NOT ONE novel that was assigned for school - even through graduate school - I am dead serious. Not one. But I graduated at the top of my class. I never learned to work at anything until my first job in my second professional career - and only because I used to take on the most complex cases.

As far as the emotional needs of gifted children, I see where you are coming from OP. Understanding about the needs of gifted children doesn't excuse their behavior. It just makes it easier to help them to develop an understanding of their behavior and it gives the adults in their lives a good roadmap, or just some guidance, on how to best assist them. I had the benefit of not even knowing that my DS7 was PG until he was 6 years old. I didn't understand that he was that different with regard to cognitive/emotional needs because he was my first child and he reminds me of me when I was a kid. (Although I may not be of the same intellectual ability as my son, he and I are completely alike in the overexcitabilities/emotional intensity department.) This "not knowing" perspective was beneficial because I didn't spend my time measuring up my child to other children. I was just motoring along trying to let him reveal himself to me and trying to meet his needs as I could. (I find a lot of parents in my neck of the woods spend so much time comparing their children to others and so much time trying to find "enhancing" or "enriching" activities for their babies and toddlers that they don't even see or respond to what is right in front of them.) I continue to use the same parenting approach with my DS and other children but now I have the very awesome benefit of being educated on the needs of highly gifted + kids.

As I continue to learn about the emotional needs of gifted kids, I repeatedly have "a-ha!" days. Oh - I wasn't a crazy freak at 8 years old when I could REALLY empathize with a teacher's illness or when I made the school janitor, at 6 years old, a lovely going away card because I was always so deeply touched by the way he smiled and genuinely cared for the children in our school. I remember spending a lot of time watching this particular janitor - he was meticulous and was one of the warmest humans I knew at the school. He barely spoke English and had a very large family that he was supporting. I remember kids teased me mercilessly because of this rather subdued paternal affection I had for this janitor. It would have been a truly remarkable thing for me if someone had just NORMALIZED my intensities for me. I spent my entire childhood, adolescence and a good part of my young adulthood trying to figure out what was wrong with me when it was just plain and simple gifted sensitivities. (Of course, it is more than that. But I believe I wouldn't have had such a hard time growing up if I had some understanding about intensities and if some adult in my life could have oriented me - even just a little bit.)

I don't understand families who desperately want to have their children labeled as gifted. I recall when my DS7 was a toddler and he was delayed in some aspects of his development. I never spent a moment thinking, "I wish" he could do this or that. I just always tried to and currently try to see him as he is and meet him where he is at. Maybe that's the benefit of all the years of therapy I've had. Maybe I'm just a good mommy :-). But as others have noted, the eager beaver parents are ruining things for the kids who truly have special needs.

Finally, I do meet some self-hating gifties. To some extent, I used to be one of them. There was a point in my life, where I scoffed and bristled at the usage of the term "gifted". It's not a great term, sure. But because of the lack of understanding of what gifted really is and the unresponsive and distorted programs that exist, I believe that there are some gifted adults who have internalized some of the tiger parents' quiet and angry resentment. It's vitally important to protect and try to grow true gifted programs and services for gifted children.

Last edited by somewhereonearth; 06/10/14 08:09 AM.