Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Are gifted kids really that special?

Hi folks, I would love your thoughts on this. One of my sons is starting at a school for exceptionally gifted kids which we are thrilled about. He definitely needs the stimulating environment.

What I've been struggling with though is he language that is being used (eg parent orientation). They continuously talk about how these kids are so special / have great emotional needs etc.

I understand our children are special but as a parent of 3 aren't all kids special? Don't all kids have needs? I do think gifted kids need different educational opportunities but it's the labeling of the behavior that bothers me (eg iq of 120? You're a jerk. Iq of 130? They're overexcitabilities).

I think every child of every iq level comes with challenges, gifts (kindness is a great one!) and has a responsibility to behave. I don't like the idea of excuses being made because of a child's iq.

Anyway just thought I'd throw that out there - your thoughts? In my son's last classroom, lots of kids had intensities and they were definitely not gifted.

I've wondered about this. There's a continuum (or several continuums) of abilities, and any arbitrary cutoff is arbitrary.

Some things are true about different educational needs, such as, more intellectually able kids need more advanced material (maybe 1 or more grades ahead of their age), faster coverage, less repetition, less practice, deeper coverage, more challenging problems, and so on. Again it's a continuum. These educational needs don't just switch on above a certain arbitrary cutoff.

But as an immigrant to the USA who wonders about this, it seems there's a lot of history and politics to this whole gifted thing. Many countries have "tracking" (or "streaming" or "ability grouping"), where students of different ability levels are put into different classrooms or different schools, so within any classroom students are at similar levels, and the teacher can teach at the right level for all students (except maybe those at extreme highs or lows). For various reasons the concept of tracking has met with viscious opposition in the USA. In the absence of tracking, parents and students try to figure how they can carve out some niche where they can get a more suitable education, but they may have to be careful to disguise it as something other than tracking, to evade attack. This gives the imperative to the idea that "gifted" students are in a "special needs" niche.

Do I think gifted kids are special?
In general, yes.
(Yeah, I know that every child is special in his own way and all that, but I think that, quite frequently, a gifted kid is especially special -- how 'bout that?)

Do I think giftedness should be used to excuse poor behavior?
Nope.

Do I think that improper accommodation of a gifted kid in school can sometimes offer an explanation for poor behavior?
Yes.

The term "special" is just so trite at this point. {sigh}

It's what "gifted" was about 1990, I think.

It's gradually become code for a style of parenting which is mostly about entitlement and recognition from outsiders of a child's exceptionality, with little actual regard for reality, come to that-- but, um-- only the positive aspects. Of course.


The real issues of being high-cognitive ability are a decidedly mixed bag, and there's not much that you can do about those facts of a child's state of being any more than you'd determinedly attempt to alter a child's PHYSICAL development. It would be considered barbaric. So even if your child is the tallest one in his/her class of agemates, or has some other attribute that s/he loathes and feels makes him/her "different" or "weird" then...

yes, "special," I suppose. Though that isn't what the term is generally accepted to mean these days.

Are kids (or people, really) who are in the 1st or 99th percentile "special"?

Yes, I believe that they are. Most human systems are best-suited to the middle third of the natural distribution of ANY human trait. Ask someone in the 99th percentile in height how well they like an airline seat or a random rental car, for example.

Why is it wrong to note that cognitive function operates along a normal distribution, as well?

THAT, it seems to me, is the real heart of the matter. We accept that a 100% "growth mindset" is probably delusional when it comes to other developmental traits, but refuse to admit it when it comes to academic ability and achievement. Yes, WORK is necessary to meet potential-- but let's just be honest and admit that not all potentials are identical. Hard work can move individuals into various states of meeting their individual potential, all right-- but just as four hours a day in my backyard or at the gym is not going to turn me into Serena Williams, no amount of after-school-tutoring is going to turn a bright, but neurotypical student into a person like my child, my self, or my spouse. We are "different" in that way from most people. Just like elite athletes are inherently somewhat different from me, with my mediocre athletic ability.


Parents who are genuinely parenting gifted children, I've found, tend to talk mostly about the challenges of not fitting the system the way it exists, and how to get needs met in a world that isn't intended to serve them or their kids. NOT about little Johnny or Suzie's latest adorable and extraordinary photo-op or point of awesomeness. We don't need anyone to tell us that our kids are special, we don't care about wearing a badge that says we're entitled to live vicariously through them, and honestly, we don't ASSUME their accomplishments as our own.

We, um, also don't tend to ATTRIBUTE our accomplishments to our children, which is something else that I have seen an awful lot of among the parents that seem to need the label for reasons that have little to do with their child's needs at all, and mostly to do with wanting a badge that says "Special Parent" with a few gold stars next to it.



As for the question in the thread title, it depends largely on how one defines "gifted." Numerically, some definitions imply that the top 3% of cognitive ability constitutes the "gifted" population. Well, is three persons per hundred "special?"

Okay, maybe it isn't. But at some point out there, moving to rarer and rarer innate cognitive ability, it does cross the line, right? I'm thinking that just where that line is probably is a subjective thing. I don't consider that MG persons are all that "special." That's merely my perspective, however-- they seem "bright" but not extraordinary. There's not a clear bright line that divides gifted from not-gifted, after all.

Now, relative to "bright" people, say, at the 90th percentile of ability, a profoundly gifted person IS extraordinary. They will perceive the world in terms that others don't grasp, don't understand, or see only far more slowly. That's all, though-- I dislike the mythology that there is some corresponding deficit to those who have extraordinary cognitive ability like that. PG people have higher cognitive ability. "Lower _______" isn't part of some universal package deal. That's as ridiculous as claiming that athletic ability comes solely with being an arrogant jerk, or being deficient in cognitive ability, which is also untrue.

What HowlerKarma said. :-)

Yes, yes they are.

Emotional needs of the gifted. Yes they are very different. And I fervently believe that they should be addressed.

A couple of years ago I went to my GP with symptoms of depression. A lot had happened in the 3 months leading to this appointment and I was overwhelmed. I completed a simple checklist, was prescribed a drug and given a referral to a counselor.

I took one dose of the drug. The side effects (of which I had been properly warned) were unbearable. I didn't take any more of the drug, but followed through with the counselor.

The counselor was not 100% on board with my not taking the drug, but agreed to see me, while I tried a regimen of cutting sugar and exercising regularly (I knew I'd been eating too much sugar and it has always negatively affected my mood).

So, months of coping strategies later (which helped greatly btw), I happened to mention that my oldest DS had been accepted into a GT program. My counselor went into a long diatribe about how I'll have to be very patient with DS because "he sees the world differently than you do." He gave me examples of how the gifted see the world with much more nuance and that how it's easy for them to become overwhelmed with anxiety or perfectionism because they are frustrated with the fact that the rest of the people in the world cannot see the detail they do, or appreciate the depth with which they interpret events in their lives.

I responded with my SAT and IQ test scores. To which he responded had he known this we could have saved a lot of time. And that sometimes the gifted appear to have anxiety or depression when in reality they are just coping with the disconnect they feel with their age peers. Bingo. End of therapy.

This is anecdotal, I know, but I can personally appreciate how the gifted, just by being ourselves, can appear to be suffering from any number of disorders, simply because we are intrinsically DIFFERENT from 99% of the population.

My mother is not gifted. She does not understand what I just wrote about, and she fears I'm a little crazy. She always will, I can't change her mind, because you see, she thinks she's really smart and can't fathom that I'm really that different from her. That is the danger of combining bright kids with gifted kids. The bright kids can't accept the fact that the gifted kids will always get there first. I'm continuously accused of cheating, sandbagging, holding back information because I'll spout something out that no one ever thought of before, and they can't fathom that yes, sometimes the gifted have flashes of brilliance. And sometimes we lose it emotionally because we are overwhelmed with the input wee are getting. And that's what it's all about.

So, if your child has the opportunity to learn in an atmosphere where educators actually appreciate and understand him/her and are willing to accommodate him/her, then that is one lucky child.

Then there are the statistics that say they're special in needs, such as suicide and depression statistics associated with GT children.

I have this very same issue!

Education isn't a basic human right, it IS, however, a basic human responsibility of a parent to educate their child and THAT is why you're advocating for your child. Unfortunately in the U.S. we all too often point fingers at other places than ourselves as parents when it comes to responsibility for our children.