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 children may be under-stimulated or bored in typical social or education settings, [which] may result in behavior challenges like school refusal, tantrums, distractibility, or general acting out.
Gifted children face challenges that their peers at school do not, and these challenges can lead to them exhibiting undesirable behaviors in the classroom. Common gifted children behavior problems include aggression, refusal to take school work seriously, social withdrawal, anxiety, truancy and more.
Gifted kids are not naturally more defiant than typical learners. However, when they are, it's a sight to see (preferably from the duck-and-cover position). Many of the readers of this site are gifted adults, and friends, we're not always awesome at handling defiant kids.
Gifted children can be argumentative and/or manipulative. Even though a child might be able to present a logical or convincing argument, they still need boundaries and discipline around their behaviour else they learn that these undesirable behaviours get them what they want.
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.
Without understanding and support, gifted kids face an increased risk of anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem, along with social and academic problems. Currently, experts estimate that up to 1 in 50 gifted kids drop out of school, while many more fail to live up to their full academic potential.
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.
Common social and emotional experiences for gifted children can reflect: differences in their abilities compared to same-age peers. tendencies toward introversion and perceived issues with social acceptance. conflicts or anxieties associated with their inner experiences of giftedness.
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.
Because of their intellectual complexity, a gifted child can imagine a vast range of life scenarios that are unthinkable to the average child. They can and do feel with great intensity the emotions that are attached to each scenario and this can lead to them being overwhelmed by anxiety and fear.
Negative Characteristics of a Gifted Child
Pretentious, shows off, or evokes their classmates: They may humiliate the people around them and show off because they can grasp things very quickly.
Gifted children who face little understanding and are underchallenged may find themselves disgruntled and adopt aggressive behaviour patterns.
One fairly common fault of gifted children is bossiness. 1 This fault can be rather puzzling to parents when it exists in a child who is otherwise sensitive to the needs of others.
Common Characteristics of Gifted Children:
Enthusiastic about unique interests and topics. Quirky or mature sense of humor. Creative problem solving and imaginative expression. Absorbs information quickly with few repetitions needed.
The earlier giftedness is identified, the sooner exceptional talents can be nurtured. Nonetheless, it is often recommended that parents wait until kids are 5 or 6 before they undergo formal assessment and enter into a gifted education program.
Gifted and talented children might behave in challenging ways because they question rules, feel frustrated or lack learning opportunities. You can tailor strategies to support children's behaviour, social and emotional needs.
One of the most common sources of frustration for a gifted child, in my experience, has to do with their perception that others' rules don't make sense, aren't logical, and things that others say or do aren't rational (and therefore need not be obeyed).
While some gifted children may have a flair for the dramatic, that does not diminish the intensity of their emotions. These children may be experiencing what psychologist Kazimierz Dabrowski called an emotional overexcitability. 2 That means that they actually do experience emotions more intensely than others.
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.
... Some researchers have suggested that gifted/talented individuals may be happier than their peers with average development due to their capacity to achieve their goals better/more easily (Diener & Fujita, 1995).
As a gifted adult, you are not the only one who struggles with romantic relationships in our fast-moving world. Being intense and sensitive, however, means you are more likely to face the following challenges. “Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet.
Some things a lot of people don't know about giftedness: Approximately 5% of gifted children also have a learning disability. Not all gifted children do well in school. Gifted children are often highly sensitive and have intense emotions.