Misdiagnosis One of the basic characteristics of the gifted is their intensity and an expanded field of their subjective experience.
Sharon Lind
"The intensity, in particular, must be understood as a qualitatively distinct characteristic. It is not a matter of degree, but of a different quality of experiencing: vivid, absorbing, penetrating, encompassing, complex, commanding--a way of being quiveringly alive."
Michael Piechowski
"When the exceptionally gifted confront disappointment, they most often respond with profoundly internalized grief. When they confront injustice, they are incensed. When they are depressed, it seems, and often is, life threatening. When they are happy, it is with a deeper experience of joy. This depth of response to all emotional experience is exaggerated because of their intense awareness brought to nearly any situation."
B. Kline & E. Meckstroth
Annemarie Roeper
"Isolation is the refuge of genius, not its goal"
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Special Challenges for Gifted & Creative Adults
Articles
Should we tell them they're gifted? Should we tell them how gifted?
Draper Kauffman
Gifted kids almost always know they are different, but they don't necessarily know they are "gifted" or smarter. Many gifted kids who aren't told why they are different are convinced that they are weird or even stupid because they can't make themselves understood. Since many gifted kids are also (mis)identified as Behaviorally Disabled, Learning Disabled, ADD, etc., they have a focus for that feeling of differentness, and never realize the main reason.
What are you going to tell your daughter when she comes to you in tears, saying that the other kids are all mean to her because they won't talk to her? It's not that unusual for a gifted 3 to 6 year old to have a good working vocabulary that is 5, 10, or 20 times larger than the vocabulary of a "normal" child the same age. They won't talk to her because they can't, they literally don't know 80-95% of the words. Without discussing her exceptional abilities, how are you going to explain that to her? It isn't a question of feeling different - gifted kids know that they're different - it's a question of how they feel about being different.....More
Entitled to Be Exceptional
Douglas Eby
Being exceptional — unusually skillful, smart, creative or otherwise more capable than the norm — may include a judgment both by others and ourselves as being an “outsider.” Gifted and talented people can experience a self-defeating aversion to expressing talents that might separate them from other people. Girls and women may be especially sensitive about fitting in, and deny their capabilities, find it hard to recognize and embrace their abilities, and.....More
Some Can Sail Over High School
Laura Vanderkam
Teenage college grads remain rare — Mary Baldwin graduates a dozen or so wunderkinder a year — but interest in early college or college experiences is growing. The Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics and Humanities, a public residential school that emphasizes college-level work, reported its highest number of applicants ever this year. And the California legislature will vote this month on a bill that would allow any gifted student, at any age, to take the state's high school proficiency exam and be considered a graduate.
Kids who bypass all or part of high school ruffle feathers. "Because high school is such a big part of American culture, people are offended when I.....More
