This is a great question. We never told our kids their IQ. The actual number can be misleading unless you really can put it in a context.

I tried to explain the concept of "gifted" to them, since the term would be used at school anyway, and tried to give it meaning, both in terms of what it means and does NOT mean. I wanted to make sure they knew that this did NOT mean they were more special than other kids, just that they had learning differences that required different learning instruction.

I went into this more in detail in a blog post, since it is such a complicated question for so many parents: http://giftedchallenges.blogspot.com/2013/06/what-to-say-to-your-gifted-childabout.html

Gail Post/ www.giftedchallenges.com