If gifted children are constantly being recognized for their achievements, how do they react when they cannot solve a problem or they fail at something? Stephen Chou, a board director of SENG decided to look at this and wrote an article about “The Psychosocial Development of Gifted Children”. Chou explains that when gifted children experience failure, they can break down. They may feel that they need to always succeed in order to be accepted, and one failure may lead them to believe that they are not really gifted. He claims that the child will feel “shame, doubt, inferiority, and guilt”. Because of this desire to never fail, many times the emotions of the gifted are “heightened through their own overexcitabilities”, which includes psychomotor, sensual, intellectual, imaginational, and emotional.
Chou suggests that these intense emotions may be why gifted children may choose to “hide” themselves or desire to be a perfectionist. This is because in terms of psychosocial development, many gifted children are underdeveloped. They have not fully experienced the emotions of shame, doubt, inferiority, and guilt, so they do not know how to handle these emotions when they do experience them. Chou explains that it is important as a parent to make sure that a child experiences these emotions in some form, and to teach the child how to deal with them. The sooner children learn this, the more beneficial it is because their minds are still developing. This is important in ensuring the success and happiness of a gifted child.
