Product Description

What does it mean to be "gifted"? What's good—and not so good—about being identified as gifted? How can parents make sure that their gifted children get the learning opportunities they need? And how can parents cope with the unique challenges gifted kids present?

Every parent of a gifted child has question like these. Since 1991, when we published the original edition of this guide, parents have looked here for answers. Now revised and updated with information about current research and legislation, new examples, new resources (including Web sites), and more, it's the first place to turn for facts, insights, strategies, and sound advice.

You'll learn what giftedness is (and isn't), what makes gifted kids so special, how kids are identified as gifted, and why some kids fall through the cracks during the identification process. You'll discover encouraging practical tips for living with your gifted child—and handling the endless questions, high energy, and too-smart mouth that often go along with giftedness. You'll find out how to keep from raising a "nerd," how to prevent perfectionism, and when to get help. And you'll learn how to advocate for your child's education at school and in your state.

Friendly, inviting, and fun to read, THE SURVIVAL GUIDE FOR PARENTS OF GIFTED KIDS is for any parent who has ever wondered.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20686 in Books
• Published on: 2002-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 152 pages

Review
"Enlightening as well as hopeful." -- Youthworker

About the Author
Sally Yahnke Walker, Ph.D., is a consultant, educator, and advocate for gifted children and the Executive Director for the Illinois Association for Gifted Children. She has piloted programs to create a broad-based level of support for talented students in public school districts, provided in-service training for teachers, and facilitated workshops for parents of gifted children. She is a coauthor of TEACHING YOUNG GIFTED CHILDREN IN THE REGULAR CLASSROOM.

Customer Reviews

HELP YOUR KID BE HAPPY: READ "THE DRAMA OF THE GIFTED CHILD"
As a gifted child, I wish my parents had not understood me as gifted, but understood why I loved being the best at everything, i.e. why it was so important for me, and why I was losing my childhood to it. Not that it is bad to be the best, but it doesn't make our children happy. I wish my parents had helped me break the deep feeling (and illusion) that I was loved when others acknowledged my being gifted...which inevitably came with the deep feeling of doubt about whether I was loved when I was not great. I wish they had helped me relax, made me feel loved unconditionally, helped me find out what "I" liked and focus on that, and most importantly, stop the emotionally empty pursuit of continuing to be "the gifted child", stop looking for the excitement of compliments as an illusion of love. Feeling unconditionally loved by your parents is feeling that you can be ordinary at something, or that if you don't like that game you don't have to play it and if you play it, you can be ordinary at it (invest less time and focus on having fun rather than being "great"), and still know for sure, deeply, without having to test it, that your parents will always love you anyway. If your child is almost always great, by definition he/she does not feel/know for sure that you love him/her unconditionally.

As parents, it is our responsibility to help our child be happy, rather than extraordinary. When your child is gifted and extraordinary, the best you can offer is not encourage him/her to be great (he/she's already doing that) but rather 1) for you to gain the insight of why he/she feels it is so important to be the best at everything, why he or she invests so much emotional energy in getting your and other people's compliments, and 2) help him/her feel loved unconditionally, that it is perfectly fine to be ordinary at some things, by expressing your love "especially" when he or she is ordinary--that is when you should express the most love to your child--to tame his/her deep-rooted emotional illusion that compliments = love, because of what it also means in his/her heart: that no compliments = no love. Read the Drama of the Gifted Child first, so you truly help your child, so he/she doesn't have to read the book in 10 to 20 years and has to mourn the loss of his/her childhood to being "gifted".

Not Gifted
While I appreciate the effort, the book can be condensed to a pamphlet of 5 or so pages. The rest is repetitive, puffery, and wasteful. We purchased this book because of a pressing need and, given a sparse number of competitors, it stood out. This work about gift children is not, at all, gifted.

Great Book!!!
I am not completely done reading this, but I think this is a must have for any parent of a gifted kid. I would highly recommend this!