Parenting can be a tough job. Kids don’t come with an instruction book, and parents often feel that they have one chance to do this right and one chance only. For 11 years, I worked as a gifted/talented resource teacher in a public school that had an excellent academic record. Though it wasn’t a specialized school, it had a high number of gifted students. Frequently I would have very concerned parents call me. They wanted to talk with me about their sons and daughters and questioned many aspects of their students’ education. I would listen for as long as they wanted to talk and then ask the question, “Do you feel that your child’s needs are being met?” Inevitably their answer would be, “Well, yes, but I just want to make certain that everything is being done that should be done.” It was easy for me to address these issues because I knew the quality of the school and the teachers. (Of course, all of the schools where I worked were not as strong as this one.)

 

In addition to having concerns about school, parents also feel that they have only one shot at parenting at home. How can they know the best way to parent? Should they follow the same model that their parents used? Should parenting be different with gifted children? Should they be strict or liberal? Of course, there is no one right answer, but some theories, research, and opinions can be shared. A recent article, Critical, Demanding Parents Can Damage Gifted Children, appeared in USA TODAY. The article covered a panel discussion at a meeting of the American Psychological Association. Gifted kids were reported to be as mentally healthy as their less able classmates, but all bets were off if the kids had critical parents who demand stellar performance every day. That approach can create nail-biting perfectionists who fear taking risks and fall short of their potential.

 

While gifted children are not typically a problem for the family, they do offer some unique challenges, as was reported in A Review of Research on Parents and Families of Gifted Children. Parents, it was found, may become excited because a bright child can be a step up in socioeconomic status. This becomes a problem only when parents have inordinate expectations about their child's achievement. In fact, pressure from parents to achieve has also been cited as a cause of underachievement.

 

Different kinds of family dynamics yield different outcomes in developing talent. The role of stress or challenge in a family can certainly have an influence as is discussed in Parenting Practices that Promote Talent Development, Creativity, and Optimal Adjustment. “Parenting styles that help a child find his own identity, rather than prescribe it…aid in the development of talent, creativity, and good mental health.” “Parents also help children to succeed by allowing them to experience and cope with challenges and difficulties in their lives.” We often want to make life go very smoothly for our kids because we love them, but we actually help them to grow and become self-confident if we don’t try to protect them from every difficult event that occurs in life. It’s much more helpful to talk with them when there are challenges and help them to figure out how to cope, make the best decisions, and learn from adversity.