Recognizing the problems of gifted children

Paper

In more than 30 years of work in education I have met many children, different from each other as well as by their academic achievement as by their social status. Many years ago there was no mentioning of gifted students at all, attention was only paid to them later. After a long and complicated procedure, it is first and foremost necessary to identify talent and systematically tackle individuals.

It is important that children, parents and teachers are satisfied. Complications arise when problems start to pile up at school and in the family, often the source of the problems being an underestimation of child's talent and intelligence. The envy of classmates often pushes a gifted child into an isolation. At that point even conflicts with teachers might be unavoidable. Continuing like this loneliness and feelings of inferiority are inevitable.

Some parents take advantage of a gifted child for their own reputation, seeing him as an adult already. This deprives the child of social and emotional development. It is even more difficult in families with more siblings. It is uninspiring for a child to have a special role inside the family or if the parents deliberately overlook his mistakes due to his talent. Parents’ lack of interest in talent, or even when they intentionally hope their own child to fail, will most likely lead to the child experiencing the failure.