All gifted children and teenagers are special, and naturally they will have specific needs. Fortunately, gifted children and teenagers are the subject of many parenting books. There is a great deal of information on how to raise gifted children, which requires special knowledge and understanding that may not be found in generally focused parenting books.

I have often thought that gifted children could and should be categorized as having special needs because of their passion for enrichment, social-emotional support, and sensitivity to life in general. Make sure that you understand what makes your child different from other children whom they connect with, and then attend to their curiosity. Your frustration will diminish when you have a good-enough and ever-changing recipe for raising your gifted child.

Gifted children are as sensitive as they are smart. Their feelings are intense and mirror their intellectual development. A child with an IQ in the 98th percentile of IQ measures such as the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-V) and the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale will be very sensitive to other children and adults. Deep-seated curiosity, separation anxiety from their family, defiant behavior, compassion for victims or underprivileged people, a sense of entitlement, and perfectionism are characteristics of the gifted personality.

Intensity creates dominating feelings. And when these feelings of curiosity, anxiety, defiance, compassion, and perfectionism occur simultaneously........

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