Parenting a Gifted Child: How to Raise a Gifted Child?

You may have noticed something special in your child, or perhaps people are telling you that your child is exceptional. You may be parenting a musically-gifted child or parenting a profoundly gifted child. In any case, you need to make the right determination to reveal their hidden talents.

However, whatever the indicators, it is not easy to distinguish whether your child is gifted or not, and you can ask how do I know if my child is gifted.

Gifted children often have significant variations within themselves and develop unevenly across skill levels. Let’s say, a gifted child may be excellent in chemistry, but poor in reading--or vice versa. Generally, intellectual skills are quite advanced, but fine motor or social skills are lagging.

Before we dive any deeper, let's take a look: what is giftedness?

Definition of Giftedness

Although there are different definitions, the following definition of the Columbus Group, on which many sources agree, seems quite satisfactory:

“Giftedness is asynchronous development in which advanced cognitive abilities and heightened intensity combine to create inner experiences and awareness that are qualitatively different from the norm. This asynchrony increases with higher intellectual capacity. The uniqueness of the gifted renders them particularly vulnerable and requires modifications in parenting, teaching and counseling in order for them to develop optimally”

There are so many challenges of parenting a gifted child, but if you use the right tools, you can channel your child in a way that strengthens their abilities.

MentalUP is an application that includes intellectual games both for gifted children and for children of all intellectual levels. In order to contribute to your child's cognitive development, you can leverage MentalUP to make it fun for your gifted child.

With 150+ brain exercises for focusing, attention, visual intelligence, and many other areas, where gifted children have problems or have high development potential, MentalUP can help you reveal your child's gifts. You can easily benefit from its suitable gifted child test.

Common Characteristics of Gifted Individuals

Here are some most of the common characteristics of gifted children:

• Ability to comprehend material several grade levels above their age peers
• Keen power of abstraction
• Strong sense of curiosity
• Enthusiastic about unique interests and topics
• Heightened self-awareness, accompanied by feelings of being different
• Creative problem solving and imaginative expression
• Absorbs information quickly with few repetitions needed
• Self-aware, socially aware, and aware of global issues
• More sensitive to familiar voices than their peers
• May overreact to pain
• Boundless enthusiasm
• Need for consistency between abstract values and personal actions

How Is Parenting a Gifted Child Different From Parenting Other Children?

Parenting a gifted child has different characteristics than parenting other children. Undoubtedly, the upbringing of each child requires a special approach.

However, in raising gifted children we encounter different specific difficulties, mostly arising from the motivation of parenting a gifted child with perfectionism. At this point, you should emphasize effort and progress rather than perfection.

Most talented children are often accused of being naughty, careless, and unconcerned.

Yet, misidentifying gifted children as naughty is an indication of the incapability of those who educate them.

The correct approach to this kind of child should be understanding the fact that they learn faster than their peers, comprehend facts more quickly, and then get bored with the subject.

Therefore, you should help them develop skills and interests, for example, in music, plant science, animal care, electronics, carpentry, mechanics, law, design, and crafts. Thus you can satisfy their hunger for self-development.

Special, talented children always have difficulties expressing themselves when they cannot receive appropriate training with a special education curriculum and appropriate trainers.

By instilling ways to help your child understand and regulate emotional reactions, you can develop your child's emotional intelligence and make them more compatible with their environment.

Another significant point is finding or creating opportunities where your child can explore interests and nurture talent:

• Universities and community organizations offer after-school, weekend, summer, and online enrichment programs.
• Mentors and talent experts can be guides and sources of knowledge and inspiration.
• Activities and outside courses can nurture talent and help establish friendships with those who share the same interests.
• Group and individual projects or competitions can help build lifelong skills.

Even though parenting a gifted child is more difficult than parenting other children, it is also very enjoyable! Because of that, most importantly is that at the end of each day, you have to remind yourself: “Wow, I'm so lucky!”

Do’s and Don’ts for Raising Your Gifted Kids

• DO evaluate your parenting style, temper overbearing personality traits, focus on positive aspects of behavior, allow for unstructured time, and balance permissiveness with authority.
• DON’T forget that they’re children. If you assume that your gifted child can make their own decisions about the best schooling or activities for them, just because they’re gifted, you’re giving too much responsibility to the child. This undermines the child’s confidence in adults.
• DO provide an enriched environment with lots of materials and opportunities for exploration.
• DON’T stress them out! Always remember the ABCs of stress management for kids: attitude, behavior, and environment. In order to avoid stress, children need to be physically fit, learn to relax, learn to break tasks into manageable bites, and have positive role models.
• DON’T focus the challenge on either your child’s strengths or weaknesses. Allow the child to really pursue their highest interests and abilities. Help the child recognize which skills and knowledge will be important for any normally functioning adult.
• DO ask their teacher if your child has opportunities to work and play with intellectual peers. If not, seek alternatives outside of school.

Challenges of Parenting a Gifted Child

The more intellectually gifted a child is, the greater the risk of social difficulties and unhappiness. Therefore it's important to keep an eye on your child's self-esteem and work with their teacher and school counselor if they’re really struggling.

1. Guilt

Some gifted children feel pressure to "give back" because they feel so fortunate to have their own intellectual gifts.

2. Perfectionism

Gifted children are often driven to be high achievers in all areas of their life. Your child may procrastinate on starting homework or school projects or spend a lot of extra time on them because of their desire to get everything right.

3. Unrealistic Expectations

Gifted kids tend to be their own toughest critics. Many struggle with testing because of the sky-high expectations they feel when they sit down for an exam.

After earning mostly A's in school, getting a B or C grade can be crushing to your child — and shocking to Mom and Dad. Help your child keep a healthy perspective on grades.

4. Friendship Issues

One of the potentially most difficult aspects of giftedness is having trouble making or keeping friends. Gifted children may appear to be socially mature and well adjusted, but might feel lonely or sad about problems with peers.

Recommendations for Raising a Gifted Child

When raising a gifted child, applications that are versatile or that focus on specific topics that may interest your child can be very useful.

In MentalUP Fitness, there are a total of 240+ exercise types including strength, stretching, cardio, balance, and fun exercises.

Thanks to this feature, which has voice-over language options accompanied by 3D characters, children's movement, and physical development, children are supported during periods of inactivity.

Thanks to these components of the app, children can choose their friends to work out with as well as the place they prefer. The app is also certified as a pedagogical product and has 10+ million users as a reliable source with no ads.

Frequently Asked Questions