Gifted children are as sensitive as they are smart. Their feelings are intense.
In her work with more than 6,500 gifted children, she has found that there is a correlation between giftedness and sensitivity, with highly gifted individuals often exhibiting the traits of a sensitive person.
Giftedness has an emotional as well as intellectual component. Intellectual complexity goes hand in hand with emotional depth. Just as gifted children's thinking is more complex and has more depth than other children's, so too are their emotions more complex and more intense.
Research has shown that some people are born with a neurological make-up that can cause them to be more emotionally or intellectually intense, sensitive, and open to external stimuli than the general population. Gifted people belong to this category, though their reality is often not recognized.
Sensory Issues and Affect Regulation
Because their limbic systems are so intense, gifted children may actually struggle more with stimulating environments (such as loud birthday parties) than other children of the same age.
Anxiety among gifted students is controversial. Some studies showed that gifted children had lower anxiety scores than their non-gifted peers (15,16). For example, Guignard et al., (9) reported that gifted children display higher anxiety only when they did not have more perfectionism than their peers.
Gifted children often set very high standards for themselves and get frustrated when they can't meet them. This can sometimes result in tantrums and other difficult behaviour.
Gifted trauma stems from childhood issues with feeling like you don't belong anywhere because of your gift. Bullying, starving for mental stimulation, school mismatch, and other issues specific to the life experience of the gifted child may also contribute both to the main mental health issue and gift-specific trauma.
Gifted children are challenging to parent in many ways. The more gifted the child, the more often it seems the more the parent is frustrated with the discrepancy of someone able to do school several levels above age level but unable to remember to take their finished work to school.
Gifted kids often have advanced intellectual skills that allow them to perform at high levels and solve complex problems. But this intelligence is not always accompanied by high social and emotional skills. Socially and emotionally, gifted kids often develop at the same rate or even slower than their peers.
Without understanding and support, gifted kids face an increased risk of anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem, along with social and academic problems.
Signs of Giftedness in Children Include:
an insatiable curiosity, as demonstrated by endless questions and inquiries. ability to comprehend material several grade levels above their age peers. surprising emotional depth and sensitivity at a young age. enthusiastic about unique interests and topics.
Gifted kid burnout or gifted kid burnout syndrome is experienced by adults labeled 'gifted' in their childhood. They do not necessarily have to have ADHD to experience it. Gifted kid burnout is most often caused by pressure from parents and educators, perfectionism, and heavy workloads.
If your mind is a high spec processor, you probably learned to do with fewer filters on your sensory data that your average person. You can handle more sense data, so you sense more than average: you're sensitive. You process more, and more quickly, so you're able to sense more.
Individuals with high perceptual sensitivity scores are easy to find and quickly understand external information. If their mental health level is high, they are more inclined to make positive explanations and responses, and show higher emotional intelligence.
Created with Sketch. High sensitivity is thought to have genetic roots, and some specific gene variants have been associated with the trait. But early childhood environments may play a role as well; evidence suggests that early experiences may have an epigenetic effect on the genes associated with sensitivity.
Raising a profoundly gifted child is no different. However, the types of challenges may be. Generally, these children require more intellectual stimulation, even as infants, than other children do, but most families are able to respond adequately to this need in babyhood and the toddler years.
It may depend where you live. While we like to think everyone is special, some people have extraordinary abilities — intellectual, artistic, social, or athletic. Many experts believe only 3 to 5 percent of the population is gifted, though some estimates reach 20 percent.
Many gifted children are strong-willed and, as gifted children perceive the world very differently than their parents, it often leads to confrontations.
However, empirical research has not demonstrated that anxiety is a greater problem for gifted children than it is for children who are not gifted. In fact, there is empirical evidence that intellectually or academically gifted children experience lower levels of anxiety than their nongifted peers.
Gifted children may be more likely to experience existential depression, as their minds tend to be more attuned to contemplating the big life and death issues facing the world.
The most common mis-diagnoses are: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Oppositional Defiant Disorder (OD), Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and Mood Disorders such as Cyclothymic Disorder, Dysthymic Disorder, Depression, and Bi-Polar Disorder.
Smart or gifted children (don't get hung up on the word "gifted") display a wide range of emotions, which includes curiosity, sensitivity, separation anxiety, defiance, compassion, entitlement, and perfectionism. All of these feelings together are very tricky to handle for even the most sophisticated parents.
ADHD AND GIFTEDNESS are sometimes described as having the same or similar characteristics. However, one diagnosis is considered a disability and one, a gift. Neither assumption is ideal in supporting the child identified with either ADHD, giftedness, or both, often referred to as twice exceptional or 2e.