Raising a gifted child comes with unique joys and challenges. As parents, we want to ensure they are given the right opportunities to flourish. But supporting a gifted child can feel overwhelming amidst the busyness of life—work commitments, household responsibilities and your child’s growing list of extracurricular activities. On top of that, misconceptions about gifted children, like the idea that they don’t need as much support, often cloud parents’ understanding and judgement. In truth, gifted children need guidance just as much as any other child.
So, how can you, as a parent, support your child and help them unlock their full potential? Here are four key approaches to ensure your gifted child gets the nurturing they need.
1. Foster Self-Awareness
Helping a gifted child develop self-awareness is crucial. They need to understand their strengths and challenges in a way that empowers them. Gifted children often have unique ways of processing information and it’s helpful to start a conversation around this by introducing the concept of neurodiversity. This concept emphasises that differences in how peoples’ brains work are natural and don’t require correction. Teaching your child to embrace their neurodivergent selves can encourage them to take pride in their unique ways of thinking and understanding the world around them.
By helping a gifted child grow in self awareness, you’ll help them steer clear of many of the unhelpful and harmful beliefs that many of these children develop. For instance, a large number of gifted children who don’t have a great deal of self awareness, will often develop a belief that success relies solely on their cognitive abilities and that their value is determined by how “smart” they are. Dr Liz Anghoff, an educational psychologist, warns that without proper guidance, gifted children can wrongly believe their intelligence is fixed, leading to struggles with self-worth or fear of failure.
One of the most helpful things a parent can do to avoid unhelpful patterns of thinking like this is discussing the difference between giftedness and talent. Gagné’s Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent, which informs many educational policies in Australia, defines giftedness as untrained or natural ability. If this ability is nurtured, it can transform into talent— skills that have been honed through effort and practice. This means that your child, despite being naturally gifted, will need to work hard to reach their full potential.
Teaching your child that their abilities require perseverance can also help them avoid over reliance on their intelligence. Research published in the 2021 Handbook of Giftedness and Talent Development in the Asia-Pacific highlights that even the most naturally talented individuals need to invest time and effort to achieve the highest levels of success.
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2. Choose the Right Academic Structure for Your Child
Every child thrives in an environment suited to their needs and gifted children are no exception. One of the most impactful decisions you can make as a parent is finding an academic structure that aligns with your child’s strengths. Gifted children often benefit from more advanced learning pathways, such as acceleration or specialised programs.
There are several options available, depending on your child’s unique academic profile and their school:
- Grade skipping: For children who have mastered their current curriculum, skipping a grade can provide the academic challenge they need.
- Telescoping: In this model, students move through multiple academic year’s worth of material in a shorter time.
- Subject-based acceleration: Your child might stay in their current grade but take advanced classes in specific subjects.
- Dual enrolment: Some gifted children benefit from enrolling in university-level courses while completing their primary or secondary education.
While some schools may be hesitant to accelerate gifted children, research supports these methods as highly effective. Dr. Susen Smith from UNSW’s Gifted Education Research Centre emphasises that acceleration benefits gifted students academically and improves their social and emotional well-being. Gifted children who learn alongside similarly capable peers often feel more understood and supported.
It’s important to understand the risks of not providing appropriate academic challenges for gifted children. Without the right level of stimulation, many gifted children experience boredom, frustration and even emotional distress. This can lead to underachievement, where gifted students perform below their potential simply because they’re not being sufficiently challenged. Educational researchers estimate that up to 40% of gifted students fall into this category—a worrying statistic correlating with Australia’s declining results in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). As Professor John Hattie from the University of Melbourne, said in 2017, “The biggest problem in Australia by a million miles is those top 40 percent of our kids going backwards.”
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3. Help Them Set Growth Goals
Goal-setting is an essential life skill and it can be especially impactful for gifted children. However, traditional goals — like the SMART goals — are not necessarily the best type of goals for this group. Instead, growth goals, which focus on personal improvement and self-progress, have been shown to be much more effective. These goals emphasise effort over outcomes and encourage children to compete with themselves rather than others.
Growth goals are great for gifted children because they can help offset perfectionism, or the obsession with excellence in everything, which is relatively common amongst this group. Perfectionism harms academic performance and overall well-being by creating unrelenting personal expectations and fear around making mistakes. Children who are able to effectively set growth goals shift their mindset from perfection to progress, fostering a healthier relationship with learning.
Andrew Martin, a professor of educational psychology, suggests that growth-oriented goals foster a “growth mindset,” where children understand that intelligence and skills can be developed through effort. With these types of goals children are more likely to enjoy the learning process and persist through challenges by focusing on improvement rather than fixed outcomes.
To help your child set growth goals, try the following:
- Co-create goals that are the right difficulty level—not too easy or hard.
- Use tools like planners, checklists, or journals to help your child track their progress.
- Schedule regular check-ins to celebrate successes and discuss areas for improvement.
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4. Be Aware of Their Social and Emotional Needs
Despite popular television portrayals, like Young Sheldon, gifted children aren’t all socially awkward. Instead, they often have specific social and emotional challenges unique to them. For example, gifted kids often develop asynchronously, meaning their social, emotional, and cognitive abilities don’t always progress simultaneously. This means that a gifted child might understand complex concepts like mortality but lack the emotional maturity to cope with it.
Emotional intensity and sensitivity are other common traits amongst gifted children. They might be more affected by certain situations or stimuli, leading to heightened emotional responses. This “overexcitability” can make it difficult for gifted kids to manage their emotions in everyday situations.
Socially, gifted children may feel isolated if they don’t have access to like-minded peers. Sometimes, they may hide their abilities to fit in with classmates. This can make it harder for them to form strong friendships and gain a sense of belonging.
Parents can help by being mindful of these challenges and seeking supportive environments. Parenting programs like John Gottman’s Emotional Coaching and the Australian-developed Positive Parenting Program (Triple P) offer valuable strategies for helping gifted children manage their emotions and navigate social situations.