Empathy for others is a common hallmark of many gifted children. They may have an unusual sensitivity for the emotional distress of their friends and an unusual ability to help them resolve their emotional conflicts.
Gifted children, characterized often by heightened emotional sensitivity, are often highly empathetic, as well. In fact, their empathy may seem overly present in their experience of the world, as any parent whose child has burst into tears about a dead bug on the sidewalk can tell you.
nobody else seems to feel like this.” Emotionally intense gifted people often experience intense inner conflict, self-criticism, anxiety and feelings of inferiority. The medical community tends to see these conflicts as symptoms and labels gifted people neurotic.
The development of empathy tends to naturally happen as children get older due to a combination of biology and learned experiences. Many experts report that you cannot expect young children under 5 to show empathy due to their stage of development and lack of lived experience.
Children with ADHD possess many notable characteristics. They tend to act impulsively, get bored easily, and become quickly distracted. One of the side effects of the combination of many of these symptoms can result in a lack of empathy.
Not listening to other people's perspectives or opinions. An inability to cope with emotional situations. Lack of patience for other people's emotional reactions. Reacting with impatience or anger when frustrated with other people.
It is typical for gifted friends to have differences and misunderstandings among them that lead to inappropriate responses and behaviors, and overreactions. Gifted children can be bullied by others who don't understand how and why gifted children are different. Non-gifted children are resentful and jealous.
Social Skills
The problems gifted children sometimes face with socializing often stem from their asynchrony and educational setting. Asynchronous development, or uneven development, is often considered a core trait of giftedness.
Giftedness can create problems and conflicts; being a gifted child can also mean difficulty socializing with age peers, thinking styles that don't always mesh well with the demands from the environment, even children who see themselves as little adults, challenging teachers and parents.
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.
Signs of giftedness can appear as early as infancy and continue during the toddler and preschool years. Testing for giftedness and high IQ, however, usually takes place around age 5.
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.
The gifted child may be either introverted or extroverted. That said, research suggests that introversion occurs at a significantly higher rate among gifted individuals. In my own practice, I see this to be true.
Low social self-esteem is not just a problem for gifted children, but it can manifest differently and more intensely in them.
Gifted children are as sensitive as they are smart. Their feelings are intense. Social-emotional development will mirror intellectual development. So a gifted child with an IQ in the 98-plus percentile will be very sensitive to other people.
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.
Gifted children can often lack age appropriate social skills; sometimes their interests are different from those of their peers; they may either feel themselves to be different or be made to feel different.
Sometimes, personality traits erect barriers to making friends. “These are just generalities, but often gifted kids are more sensitive and intense in presentation,” says Peters. “They can be more committed to a sense of fairness and justice, and in the context of relationships, this can cause problems.
Gifted children are more prone to depression, self-harm, overexcitability, and learning deficits. A gifted student might be so paralyzed by her own perfectionism, say, that she refuses to hand in any assignments.
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.
Most gifted kids can learn and process information faster than kids their age and comprehend material several grade levels above their peers. But they are not always well-behaved, high-achieving students. In fact, neuroscience experts say that giftedness looks different in each child.
Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is associated with an assortment of characteristics that undermine interpersonal functioning. A lack of empathy is often cited as the primary distinguishing feature of NPD.
Low emotional intelligence, burnout, and stress
Emotional intelligence may be linked to empathy. If you haven't developed this type of intelligence, you may also have low empathy. Being under prolonged stress may also lead someone to be less tolerant of other people's behavior and have lower cognitive empathy.