The parents reported that gifted children have higher energy levels than their peers (29). The unique characteristics of giftedness may prone them to anxiety.
However, the consensus seems to be that, while gifted children are no more or less likely to experience anxiety than their peers, the way they experience anxiety is different due to their unique characteristics, which we review in more detail below.
While gifted children may not be any more susceptible to mental health issues as other adolescents, there are certain aspects of giftedness that may influence or amplify a gifted child's experience of mental health issues.
Not all gifted children will develop anxiety, of course, but parents must remain aware that the possibility exists—especially when their gifted child is also highly empathetic. By understanding why and how gifted children become anxious, parents can help their children limit and manage emotional tension.
Gifted adolescents have the cognitive capacity to understand the concepts of life, death and other issues, but that does not guarantee competent emotional and social awareness of the matters. They often feel different from their peers as their emotional maturity lags behind their cognitive abilities.
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.
Those who are considered “gifted” are especially likely to experience depression, particularly existential depression, a type of depression that centers around thoughts about life, death, and meaninglessness as the name might suggest.
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (adhd)
Traits such as intensity, impatience, sensitivity, and high energy are common in children with ADHD, as well as in gifted children.
They tend to be especially perceptive in picking up on environmental cues, so they may be more sensitive to issues in the world and judgments from others. They also often feel overloaded and overwhelmed by information. Gifted students can be very hard on themselves as they strive for high standards.
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.
Even though the gifted are no more susceptible to mental illness than anyone else, some gifted children and teens struggle with overthinking, worry, or cautious alertness. Their nervous system seems wired for heightened reactivity. For some, obsessive thinking transitions into anxiety.
Gifted, talented and creative adults face unique challenges, problems and difficulties while living their lives because of their high intelligence, overexcitabilities and multiple abilities. Gifted, Talented & Creative Adults need: multiple sources of stimulation for their curiosity, talents and abilities.
While other forms of burnout might be tied to the workplace, or the emotional labor involved in care-taker roles, gifted child burnout is often tied to an educational system that the child finds repetitive, unrewarding, without autonomy, unfair, or not aligned with their values.
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.
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.
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. These students may be college age intellectually but still 12 in terms of their social skills.
Common Characteristics of Gifted Children:
Ability to comprehend material several grade levels above their age peers. Surprising emotional depth and sensitivity at a young age. Strong sense of curiosity. Enthusiastic about unique interests and topics.
Gifted child problems with socializing often stem from their asynchrony and educational setting. Asynchrony, or uneven development, is often considered a core trait of giftedness. These students may be college age intellectually but still 12 in terms of their social skills.
Exceptionally gifted people have an IQ of 160-179 and they are approximately 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 1 million people in the world. Profoundly gifted people are considered those individuals with an IQ of 180 or greater and these people are approximately 1 in 1 million.
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.
Giftedness falls into one or more of the following areas: intellectual, academic, creative, artistic and leadership. A student may be intellectually (cognitively) gifted if he or she uses advanced vocabulary, readily comprehends new ideas, thinks about information in complex ways, or likes to solve puzzles or problems.
They have emotional challenges.
Gifted children and adults have an intense inner world. They are hypervigilant to their environment and have a keen awareness of what others are doing, thinking, and feeling. As a result, they can pick up on things that others might miss and make connections more easily.
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.