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.
While gifted children are capable of reading, speaking, and even reasoning above grade level, those abilities can be challenging in a number of ways. 2 For instance, gifted children can be argumentative. Adults might even remark that these children are little lawyers.
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. It's great for your child to work towards high standards. But your child needs to understand that they can't have high standards for everything.
Giftedness, we learned, often comes with intense emotions, quirks, anxiety that manifests as anger, intelligence that can read as argumentative power struggles, and sensitivity to stimuli that can mimic processing disorders.
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.
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.
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.
Signs of Giftedness in Children Include:
an ability to learn and process complex information rapidly. a need to explore subjects in surprising depth. an insatiable curiosity, as demonstrated by endless questions and inquiries. ability to comprehend material several grade levels above their age peers.
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.
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.
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.
The eagerness in repeating the same task multiple times is not the characteristic of the gifted child.
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).
Some gifted children need to organize everything, including people and activities. Because they are more cognitively advanced than their non-gifted peers, they may also have a more advanced understanding of group organization. They know who should do which job or play which role and how each should be performed.
Strong Determination
Gifted children tend to be very strong-willed and determined. They may become very frustrated when they are prevented from doing something that they want to do.
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.
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.
Genetics do play a large part in being gifted, definitely. It has been thought that the brain of a gifted person can actually process information faster. However, one's surroundings are equally important. Nature and nurture are at work as some traits are genetic and others are learned.
Common Characteristics of Gifted Children:
Strong sense of curiosity. Enthusiastic about unique interests and topics. Quirky or mature sense of humor. Creative problem solving and imaginative expression.
Giftedness falls into one or more of the following areas: intellectual, academic, creative, artistic and leadership.
Research reflects that giftedness does “run in families”: for a gifted child, their genetically-related relatives — siblings and/or parents — are likely to also be gifted, though there are plenty of exceptions.
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.
Their strong sense of self leads them to appear stubborn, rebellious, unmotivated, inattentive or tactless, and this may cause difficulties for parents who don't recognize behaviors that are “normal” for gifted children.
Because of the similarities outlined above, 2e children who are both gifted and have ADHD can be especially difficult to detect. While many experts agree that these children do exist, there is currently no formal criteria to identify giftedness in children who are ADHD or to identify ADHD in children who are gifted.