Kids can be smart in many ways. Stereotypically a “smart kid” by classical definition would be one who has an I.Q. of 130 or greater. Often times however, when you are dealing with the smart kid who has stress, they may have a much higher I.Q., even to 160.
Smart kids usually put stress on themselves.
My wife and I had three gifted boys and this is what we found out:
Gifted children are so used to being told that things are supposed to come easy to them that if they don’t understand right off the bat they feel like they are doing something wrong.
Gifted children “see” a world many of us don’t. They see relationships of things and they see the way things work on a different level, critical thinking if you will. They feel stressed and isolated because others don’t see that. They feel they are the ones that are odd.
Giftedness often causes jealousy in others which translates to abuse and ostracism. These peer behaviors make the gifted child feel like a failure and causes anxiety.
Gifted children think they should be perfect, always getting “A’s.”
Often ADD accompanies giftedness and this condition keeps a child in a tense state. They cannot concentrate and that creates anxiety.
If you notice at this point that, in fact, the stress is put on the student by themselves or by reaction to their environment.
Gifted children get frustrated and stressed by teachers who are not clever in their approach to teaching. Teachers have trouble dealing with gifted students and often this creates stress.
Gifted kids get stressed when they have to wait on other people to understand; they learn quickly. They often are not good communicators because they have no patience.
If something doesn’t come easy to a gifted student they may get frustrated which can lead to extreme anger and high-level stress.
Gifted kids, because they often times are ostracized by other kids seek solitude and when interrupted get stressed.
Gifted kids can become stressed when they have trouble getting answers from parents, teachers or friends. They do not like “not knowing.”
Gifted kids tend to live “in the moment” so they may not be organized with respect to follow-up. This may cause them to miss assignments or appointments and they will get stressed and usually blame other people. In this same vein they tend to become procrastinators because they are perfectionists since they don’t want to make a mistake. This causes tension and stress because responsibilities are not being completed.
Gifted children can be a real challenge. They learn quickly; they are quick to blame themselves; they are quick to feel like failures and they fret.
It is important that those around gifted children support them without patronizing them.