When we talk about gifted children we usually understand that we refer only to intellectual and cognitive aspects. However, the emotions and sensitivity of the gifted child can also leave us amazed and, even more than intelligence, which can be a very clear factor of school failure, they need attention and understanding that allows them to learn to handle them without denying them.
Gifted children, which does not mean that other children are not sensitive, they have an emotional life of enormous intensity.
I recently read a very interesting work in this regard published by the SENG, an organization precisely aimed at supporting the families of children with high capacities, and I loved it, because it precisely gives a complete explanation to these characteristics of the gifted child that so I know well as the mother of one, and that I would summarize in a phrase published by the authors:
The most important thing we can do to help these children is to accept their emotions: they need to feel understood and supported. We must explain that their intense feelings are normal in children who are like them. Help them use their intellect to develop their self-knowledge and self-acceptance.
If they grow up in a suitable environment, respectful of their person and highly creative, their emotions will explode in the joy of living and learning. But if the environment is repressive, controlling or we force them into a form of repetitive learning, we will be causing them emotional damage.
But this goes beyond. Just as intellectual abilities are brilliant and, understanding that high capacities are not mathematical, his emotions are also very intense. You have to understand and respect them.
There is no mistake greater than waiting for the gifted child to develop the same emotional life as what we consider "normal." If we insist on pressing them to be aggressive or competitive, we force them, we make fun of their intense feelings, we are not making them stronger, but weakening them. And they are not weak, but they are exceptionally gifted also in their emotional life.
The gifted child usually also has, in an environment that respects him, an enormous sensitivity and natural empathy towards his surroundings. An empathy born of knowledge but also of the heart.
We may be amazed at the attachment they feel towards people, the way they bond, but also the resistance to forget an offense or contempt. Also notable is the way in which they can suffer when they see another person or an animal suffer, identifying with their suffering.
The gifted childIn addition, you can be shy, feel insecure and shy and develop strong self-criticism.
The most painful for them will undoubtedly be the misunderstanding of the environment: parental pressures to make them harder, mockery of companions who do not understand their sensitivity or their intellectual difference.
Therefore, it is important to know that the emotions and sensitivity of the gifted child They also have their own characteristics and, understanding and respecting them, growing by their side can become a wonderful experience. Personal experience and my specific training have made me, I believe, an expert in these children and, really, I would like them to receive the educational and emotional attention they deserve. They are exceptional beings, but they also need to be understood and supported.
