Parenting Children Who are Gifted

Parenting Children Who are Gifted
By P. Heath
Pearson Allyn Bacon Prentice Hall

Unlike other exceptionalities that reflect some aspect of disability, giftedness is not generally considered to be a disability but rather a welcome exceptionality. Children are identified as gifted when they have demonstrated exceptional abiliities and/or have shown themselves to be capable of high academic performance. In comparison to the past, when high scores on intelligence tests were the measure of giftedness, today giftedness is viewed as representing a number of abilities. Thus, children identified as gifted these days demonstrate higher than average performance in such areas as general intellectual ability, specific academic aptitude, creative thinking, leadership ability, and talent in visual and performing arts (Chan, 2002). Not only is giftedness generally welcomed, there is evidence that parents might play an important role in the promotion of giftedness in their children. In numerous studies, the families of children who have been identified as gifted have been found to have certain characteristics in common. By and large, the profile of "gifted families" epitomizes the self-actualizing family system. In families wherein at least one child participates in a gifted education program, the following family interactions have been documented: (a) mutually supportive relationships, (b) appropriate degrees of closeness, (c) flexibility, and (d) open expression of thoughts and feelings. Parental perceptions of their child as gifted (whether or not the child has been formally identified) also has been found to be associated with positive labeling of the child, taking pride in the child's accomplishments, better parent-child communication patterns, and more intimacy in the parent-child relationship (Moon & Hall, 1998).

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