Parenting
Parenting Considerations for Raising Gifted Children
Strategies that will work for your gifted child and family
Posted August 19, 2026 Reviewed by Davia Sills
Key points
- Gifted children often face unique challenges, like intensity and perfectionism, not just advantages.
- There’s no one-size-fits-all curriculum, as giftedness varies widely among individuals.
- Pressuring gifted kids can worsen perfectionism and dampen their motivation to learn.
Understanding and Accepting That Giftedness Presents Unique Problems
Some parents, grandparents, and other individuals who participate in raising gifted children as they mature into young adulthood may at first believe that exceptionally talented children and teens will be easy to raise because they are so smart, capable, and effective at certain activities. These teachers and caregivers may not be fully informed or experienced in working with certain types of giftedness and the unique challenges that are part of advanced learners’ approach to schooling.
From my own graduate education, teaching, and social experiences with gifted children and older individuals, including my own children, I know that intensity, perfectionism, and idiosyncrasies in social skills create challenges for parents, other caregivers, and teachers. These brave and often frustrated educators need help keeping up with gifted learners. Research on educating prodigies suggests that a progressive school that is accelerated and creative is the most likely to help gifted individuals learn to the best of their abilities. A flexible and complex curriculum and teaching approach will hold the interest of their intellectual and creative minds. A reduction of misbehavior is likely when advanced students are highly engaged in what they are doing.
The Hard Part of Raising Gifted Students
With an enormous amount of intensity and energy, and a need to understand some of the difficult ideas their teachers and parents are presenting, gifted and talented individuals can be very challenging in many ways. Their curiosity, emotional concerns, physical energy, and specific interests often tire out their teachers, parents, and grandparents. In other words, it is not easy to raise gifted children and work with them as they grow.
Patience and fortitude to get them to understand the importance of what you are teaching take a lot of time. Often, they do not want to follow the rules, go to school, do their homework, or put away their phones. Questions galore about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are never over. There is always a new concern that someone needs to help them process—someone who has perspective and endless curiosity themselves.
The parent, teacher, or authority in charge of the class needs to establish what question or problem goes first, no matter how insistent the high-achieving students are about “managing” (taking control of) what is being taught. For example, space travel is of great interest to all children and teenagers but especially gifted learners. When the precocious student is in charge of what they want to learn, chaos can become overwhelming, and learning can become highly dysfunctional. Trying to make current ideas understandable is important but hard to do in a reasonable manner.
What Are the Difficulties Educating Gifted Children and Adolescents?
There is no agreed-upon definition of giftedness. The different areas of giftedness make a precise conceptualization impossible in a realistic sense. In other words, being superior in math will look different than being excellent in music or literature. Athletics and music are not really comparable (because of issues of creativity and the uniqueness of sport) to more academic issues that can be more easily cataloged as “giftedness.”
Everyone—parents, teachers, principals, and professors of education—sees giftedness in different ways. This failure to agree on a definition creates the question, “What is the right curriculum and instruction for gifted learners?” My answer is that there is no one curriculum that works for all gifted children.
It is harmful to push or pressure gifted children and teenagers, as it intensifies their perfectionism. Pressure can cause a child to shut down, stop learning, or burn out their passion.
Further Questions About Educating Gifted Children
1. What is the value of intense acceleration with precocious children?
2. Should gifted children be put together in one class to achieve a higher level of knowledge, or does this limit social-emotional development?
Common Problems for Educators of Gifted Learners to Focus Upon
Intensely bright, creative, and curious learners want answers to their questions right away and in elaborate detail. Pointing out to your passionate child or student that some questions are just too complicated to answer completely and immediately is always helpful and necessary. In fact, it is a very educational (or practical) strategy to teach patience and how learning new things takes time.
I remember that I always asked very complicated questions, and the professors would suggest that my question was for more advanced students. I understand this answer now after many years of frustration. I was a complicated, gifted student who, perhaps the professor wished, would ask fewer questions or be accelerated out of their classroom for another teacher to manage.
Conclusions
Try to learn as much as you can about your gifted son, daughter, or students, always remembering what makes them exceptional and proficient. Don’t let people tell you that so-and-so is not gifted because they don’t like to read or do math, etc. Finding special interests such as classical music, art, science, or sports and developing those interests is an important step toward figuring out how to challenge your child or teenager.
Look to experts for help. Other parents and family members are invaluable. Remember, gifted children are not advanced in every area of their lives. Often, they struggle with schoolwork or find socialization hard. Try to be patient and helpful.
What to Do About Unique Learning Difficulties
1. Treat each student as a unique individual as much as possible. Remember that gifted students are not always high achievers; in fact, they may not like school at all. A talented child might need extra help. A child can be very advanced in one subject, or even just one area of a subject, and not advanced in other subjects. This may even bother them because they don’t understand why everything isn’t at the same level of difficulty.
2. Talk to highly talented learners about the ways they are different from average individuals.
3. Challenge your learner when the challenge will be helpful. A student should be ready to learn the material and have an open mind to achieve the best results. Teaching is an art.
