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
A 2019 study found that unhealthy perfectionism is increasing in college students, something that is bound to exacerbate burnout among young adults. We need to endure, though—not as perfect students, but as people who know our mistakes do not retract from our brilliance or self-worth.
Because giftedness is a form of asynchronous development, gifted children often struggle to reconcile their advanced intellectual abilities with their age-appropriate motor and social skills, resulting in frustration and self-doubt.
Signs of Gifted Kid Burnout:
You live in constant fear or disappointment of not living up to your potential. You have a really hard time asking for help because you feel like you should be able to just figure it out. You cycle through hobbies because once you've mastered something you're ready to move on.
The “gifted” system can encourage harmful, perfectionist beliefs among adolescents. Gifted children also may feel isolated from their peers as a result of this label, and they have many traits that can serve as a double-edged sword and make them more likely to struggle with depression.
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.
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.
Gifted individuals tend to be emotionally sensitive and empathic, making the normal rough and tumble of the playground stressful for them. Because they often feel they are held to higher standards than their peers, they can find it difficult to accept criticism (anything short of perfection is felt as failure).
Kids designated as gifted have long been thought to be more at risk of emotional issues, and to carry some of them into adult life, because of various factors: the National Association for Gifted Children, for instance, identifies "heightened awareness, anxiety, perfectionism, stress, issues with peer relationships, ...
Making friends is often fraught for gifted children. They may find it difficult to find friends in a typical school environment or extracurricular activity. The more gifted they are, the more difficult it may be for them to find social connection with other children their age, and understandably so.
Most people use terms like “bright,” “gifted,” “exceptional,” “remarkable,” and “talented” interchangeably, but when a psychologist uses the term “gifted,” we're usually talking about something that is statistically quite rare. About 3 to 5 out of every 100 children could be considered gifted.
Heightened Sensory Processing
Their “hyper-awareness” of the world around them may increase their physical discomfort to loud noises, scratchy fabrics, or pungent smells, creating anxiety around certain physical stimuli.
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.
Gifted students may be at a higher risk for anxiety than their non-gifted peers in general (7). It is reported that they are among the risk group and likely to be vulnerable to anxiety (8). Their cognitive maturity and increased awareness were said to promote existential questions and associated anticipatory anxiety.
Your children may feel empathetic with others but others may reject them. The first trait can cause frustration and self-doubt; the second can cause sadness or confusion. Other aspects of giftedness can cause big emotional reactions that are hard to handle.
At its core, giftedness is a brain-based difference that contributes to our vibrant and neurodiverse world. This neurological difference means that profoundly gifted students experience a different intellectual, academic, and social-emotional development trajectory than neurotypical individuals.
There are five forms of overexcitability. These five forms are psychomotor, sensual, emotional, imaginational and intellectual.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Although there are no standard IQ levels of intellectual giftedness, some experts suggest the following IQ ranges: Mildly gifted: 115 to 129. Moderately gifted: 130 to 144. ighly gifted: 145 to 159.