The Problems of Gifted Children & Adults

Name: Envision Wellness
Address: 1900 SW 57th Avenue, Suite 2, Miami, FL, 33155, United States
Telephone: (305) 501-0133

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Who wouldn’t want to have a high IQ, right? Many people envy having a superior intelligence but it’s also widely misunderstood. Yes, being gifted can be a blessing, but there are aspects of giftedness that can become barriers, too. The higher someone’s intellectual capacity is, the greater the likelihood of asynchronous development – meaning their development in other aspects of life tends to be out of sync with their intellect. This can lead to some unique challenges, so here’s the scoop on the problems of gifted children and adults.

What is Gifted?

Academically talented students with an IQ of 130 or higher are considered “gifted”. This makes them eligible for gifted education, a classroom with an enriched curriculum that further stimulates their intellectual development. Some characteristics of gifted children include:

Learning quickly
Strong reasoning abilities
Speaking early
Having an advanced vocabulary for their age
Intellectually curious and asking lots of questions
Strong memory
Concentrating for long periods of time

Learn everything you ever wanted to know about Gifted testing and eligibility here. (Link to Ultimate Gifted testing blog)

Are the Gifted neurodivergent?

An IQ on the high end of the spectrum is an outlier just like an IQ that is on the low end of the spectrum. Development this far outside of the norm (regardless of the direction) actually increases the likelihood of having neurodivergent traits.

Starting in childhood, gifted children often feel like they don’t quite fit in but can’t explain why.

Gifted individuals are often totally unaware they experience the world in a different way. Therefore, it can be hard to understand why other people aren’t feeling and behaving in the same way as they are. If their abilities are misunderstood or criticized, it can create challenges in social development, emotional development, and even sensory processing difficulties.

Gifted students experience greater sensory connectivity.

The gifted children’s brains have enhanced neural function, greater connectivity between brain regions, and faster processing of information and stimuli. Meaning that they may experience some sensory processing issues.

They can be easily overstimulated.

Hear sounds faster, louder, and for longer (e.g. strong aversion to sirens or yelling)
Easily overwhelmed by smells (e.g. avoiding school cafeterias)
Visual stimuli can be felt more intensely (e.g. too much small text in one place or lights that are too bright)
Sensitivity to tactile sensations that others may not notice or be bothered by (e.g. sock seams or itchy fabric)

They are also prone to feeling understimulated.

Easily bored by situations others find interesting
Not feeling challenged by age-appropriate tasks
Requires more to be entertained or to get out energy
Impatience

As a result, their behavior can also look different. Tantrums, shyness, hyperactivity, or disobedience are not unusual responses when reacting to a “super-stimulation.”

Parents, teachers, or peers often disapprove of these reactions because it comes off as oppositional, dramatic, impulsive, irritable, or showing signs of other behavioral challenges (e.g. ADHD or ODD). When in reality, they are reasonable reactions to a very real experience. Unfortunately, they’re typically punished or reprimanded instead of accommodated.

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.

This heightened sensitivity to the world around them can lead them to:

Experience of Anxiety
Burn out
Overstimulation
Feel responsible for regulating others’ emotions.

These emotional challenges are rooted in their ability to think deeply, abstractly, and with complexity. However, this can cause them to fixate on a particular idea. If an idea doesn’t come to life how they imagined they may feel a sense of loss or deep frustration. This fixation is usually mistaken for perfectionism, but it is usually a reluctance to let go that can hinder their ability to manage change and transitions.

Gifted students experience greater sensory connectivity.

They can be easily overstimulated.

Hear sounds faster, louder, and for longer (e.g. strong aversion to sirens or yelling)
Easily overwhelmed by smells (e.g. avoiding school cafeterias)
Visual stimuli can be felt more intensely (e.g. too much small text in one place or lights that are too bright)
Sensitivity to tactile sensations that others may not notice or be bothered by (e.g. sock seams or itchy fabric)

They are also prone to feeling understimulated.

Easily bored by situations others find interesting
Not feeling challenged by age-appropriate tasks
Requires more to be entertained or to get out energy
Impatience

As a result, their behavior can also look different. Tantrums, shyness, hyperactivity, or disobedience are not unusual responses when reacting to a “super-stimulation.”

They have emotional challenges.

This heightened sensitivity to the world around them can lead them to:

Experience anxiety
Burn out
Overstimulation
Feel responsible for regulating others’ emotions.

Girl studying. Gifted evaluations South florida

Bright children are often praised for their achievements but feel emotionally neglected and lonely.

Children typically feel emotionally misunderstood when they’re intellectually far beyond their parents. They might even be shamed for it. Even at a very young age, they may feel like it’s their duty to problem-solve for their parent or satisfy their needs; unaware that this isn’t their burden to bear.

As Alice Miller puts it in her book, The Drama of the Gifted Child, “Often a child’s very gifts (his great intensity of feeling, depth of experience, curiosity, intelligence, quickness-and his ability to be critical) will confront his parents with conflicts that they have long sought to keep at bay…”

As adults, they are likely to continue to carry guilt for not living up to the imposed standards to be, feel, think, or perform a certain way.

They can have trouble adapting socially.

Being gifted means having different psychosocial needs. Social development and social skills can occur differently in gifted students. Their social interaction with same-age peers may not align well during childhood and adolescence.

Introverted behavior is very common, but it might just be the result of feeling disconnected or misunderstood by others. Isolation or avoidance can also be mistaken for shyness.

We see a trend of gravitating toward peer groups who are younger or older than they are because they are better able to relate (e.g. young children finding it easier to talk to adults than to their peers, hanging out with younger kids because they match their current maturity level). The downside of this, however, is that it can cause them to miss out on the standard experiences of their same-age peers. Down the line, this can affect children’s self-concept and lead to self-esteem issues.

Understanding the Strengths

So far we’ve talked a lot about the common challenges of a high IQ, but what about the gifts of intelligent children? These include:

Natural empathy and emotional sensitivity
Highly intuitive
A deep desire to learn and question
An ability to think abstractly
Uses information in new ways
Has multiple perspectives and can think outside the box
Prefers originality over copying

These strengths typically only become barriers when they are misunderstood. Plus, it can be challenging to accommodate unique needs in a world of such rigid grouping.

A child who is highly inquisitive and asks a lot of questions, for example, might be silenced or made to feel like an annoyance. Or, a person who needs breaks during physical activities (because they are overstimulated) might be labeled as lazy.

If they’re made to feel like they’re the problem they might:

Isolate themselves
Mask their true feelings
Downplay their needs or abilities
Avoid specific people/places/situations
Feel like an outsider

Gifted students can still experience learning difficulties.

Intelligent children are not immune to academic challenges. They are just as likely to struggle with learning disorders as are other children which can negatively impact their performance in school. This includes reading disorders (e.g. dyslexia), math disorders (e.g. dyscalculia), writing disorders (e.g. dysgraphia), visual processing disorders, auditory processing disorders, and ADHD. Kids that have a learning difficulty and are gifted are known as twice-exceptional children or ‘2e’ for short.

Your child may be gifted if some of the topics above sound familiar. If you’ve been thinking of gifted testing, check out our affordable gifted evaluations with same-day results. You can call (305) 501-0133 or schedule a free 15-minute Clarity Consult to learn more.

Envision Wellness, Therapy, Psychological Assessments, Coral Gables and Miami Envision Wellness is a private practice that offers psychotherapy, psychological testing, and life coaching in Miami, FL. Our team has a passion for helping others achieve happy, fulfilling, and change-making lives that make the world a better place. Each therapist has their areas of expertise. Not sure who you’d like to work with? Click here to schedule a free 20-minute phone consult to help you decide.

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Envision Wellness is a team of specialist psychologists that provide in-person mental health therapy and psychological evaluations to clients in Miami, FL and online therapy throughout Florida.
Psychologist, therapist, and counselor providing therapy, counseling, and coaching for depression, anxiety, stress, OCD, social anxiety, self esteem, codependency, dating, heartbreak/breakups, perfectionism, people pleasing, and trauma.
Psychological testing and evaluations for gifted/IQ test, psychoeducational testing for learning disabilities, career test, ADHD testing, ADD test, psychological evaluation for bariatric surgery, pre-adoption psychological evaluation, neuropsychological testing, and personality disorder testing

The Problems of Gifted Children & Adults

What is Gifted?

Are the Gifted neurodivergent?

Gifted students experience greater sensory connectivity.

They have emotional challenges.

Gifted students experience greater sensory connectivity.

They have emotional challenges.

Bright children are often praised for their achievements but feel emotionally neglected and lonely.

They can have trouble adapting socially.

Understanding the Strengths

Gifted students can still experience learning difficulties.

LIKED THIS POST?

Who We Are

Let’s Talk

On the Blog

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The Problems of Gifted Children & Adults

What is Gifted?

Are the Gifted neurodivergent?

Gifted students experience greater sensory connectivity.

They have emotional challenges.

Gifted students experience greater sensory connectivity.

They have emotional challenges.

Bright children are often praised for their achievements but feel emotionally neglected and lonely.

They can have trouble adapting socially.

Understanding the Strengths

Gifted students can still experience learning difficulties.

LIKED THIS POST?

Thank you!

Who We Are

Let’s Talk

On the Blog

Helpful Links

Search