Parenting Your Gifted Child

Parenting……one of life’s greatest challenges. This challenge becomes many times more complex when the child you are parenting is a gifted one. Finding out that your child is gifted tends to intimidate and humble most parents, and they usually ask themselves, “Will I be able to be a good enough parent to this child who is so special?”

Indeed, this fear and worry is justified enough! For raising a gifted or talented child can be a full time task, and more! Your little bundle of joy will want to know answers to all the mysteries of life, will require less sleep than most peers, will be an outrageous perfectionist, will find school boring and uninteresting, will rarely have close friends who really understand him or her, and will always want to do something. Just thinking about it can leave many parents exhausted. It would seem as though to meet the demands of this child, you need to have the brains of Einstein, the resources of Bill Gates, and the understanding and sensitivity of Gandhiji! Tough ask, that.

 But wait! The situation isn’t that hopeless, and all is not lost. You will be relieved to know that gifted students who succeed the most in life or who are the best adjusted are the one who come from healthy, “normal” families. From families where their special talent is nurtured and cherished, from families where there is a lot of communication and sharing of thoughts and ideas, even healthy, dinner table arguments, from families where the child is loved, above all, from families that have faith in them.  After all, that’s not too difficult, is it? The important thing is to enjoy your child and his childhood, for after all; these children grow up real fast. And while you are doing that, feed the child’s interests, respond to his changing needs, recognize that this child’s needs will be several steps ahead of other kids his age, and communicate with him. Your child will later thank you for recognizing their uniqueness; treasuring and nurturing it and helping them grow.