I agree that one wants to be quite careful (especially with intense HG children) about misdiagnosis at young ages.
I'm pretty confident that my DD would have been labeled ADD-inattentive and certainly would have been labeled with a conduct disorder at four. Maybe even at fourteen.
But her conduct is entirely voluntary and always has been. She's just not extrinsically motivated, and until her maturity caught up to her mental horsepower a bit better, she couldn't really regulate her attention to things that were outside her proximal zone. Emotional regulation was pretty good, but executive function was AWFUL.
She does have some anxiety issues-- but again, the pattern is all wrong for a "disorder" there, since the subtle reality is that her anxiety issues are internally regulated and imposed-- external stressors and pressure don't impact her behavior negatively or her performance either.
A high-intensity, highly gifted child might seem like a positive thing, and wow, wouldn't EVERY parent want such a profile in a child-- but the reality is not so rosy. Not by a long shot. It's extremely disruptive.
What works with my DD is to appeal to her cognition-- play to her strengths when imposing parental rules and restrictions. If you issue orders without "why" (or forbid questions about it) then she WILL own you one way or another-- no cost is too high at that point for her to run away with her autonomy. On the other hand, if you explain yourself (and have a reasonable explanation) she is surprisingly cooperative much of the time. Until she was about four, this was a nightmare, though, I won't kid you.
