Counseling for Gifted Children
Your child surprised you early by such characteristics as talking early with a vocabulary beyond their age, reading before kindergarten, solving math problems by the middle of kindergarten, intense curiosity, reduced need for sleep and increased energy level. You thought “Wow, this is great, my child is brilliant!”
Difficulty With Peers
Giftedness can also create problems and conflicts. Difficulty socializing with peers, unusual thinking styles, even children who see themselves as little adults, challenging authority. That’s unexpected.
Uneven Development
Then there can be issues of asynchronous development. Way ahead in some areas, way behind in others, and the adult sees how “smart” they are, and assumes they must know better and are making bad choices or not trying. You don’t want your kid to be shut out because they are gifted. This can be difficult, often even the entry criteria for gifted programs may exclude a truly gifted child on account of behavioral and “leadership” criteria not met, which are in and of themselves frequently characteristics of children who are gifted
There is Help
So you’re between a rock and a hard place, and your kid in the meantime is really challenging as well. You can not choose to let things go as they may. You can get educated and learn what you should advocate for and how. You can also take the full Struggle of the Gifted Child video course here.
You can also get help and guidance for your child who is in an unusual situation to learn to understand themselves as well as how to behave with the people in the environment they dwell in and manage their areas of “overexciteability.” These would include psychomotor; rapid speech and massive physical energy, sensual; captured by sensory experiences, sees details missed by others, intellectual; loves ideas and learning, perfectionist, what if and why, imaginational; rich fantasy life, creative, emotional; intense feelings and heightened sense of others’ feelings.