Life is interesting ... there are always two sides to every story and various feelings invoked when people talk about topics of controversy.

The term "gifted" is one such topic.

I recently clicked over to an article on Parenting.com: Is your child gifted? The article pokes fun at the many parents who think their children are gifted and mocks the concept a tad bit.

When scrolling through the comments you can sense the anger from a few folks who dislike the word. You can also sense the frustration from some parents who feel their children ARE gifted and they want their voices to be heard.

Some of you know my story regarding my first son. As mentioned in that post I kept my mouth shut for a long time, regarding my son's development. I knew that most parents would consider me a snob. "Oh! Sure! Your son is soooo smart. Sure he is. Hey - my kid picked her nose at just 2 weeks old! I think she's a freak'n genius too. Do you know why? Because she didn't eat it. Hahaha!"

I have come to realize that some people just hate the term "gifted." They hate it. It makes them angry. I'm not sure why, and they likely don't know why, either. For whatever reason, though, it conjures up bitterness in their hearts and they say nasty things about people who believe their children are above average.

When I was in college, one of my professors was also the head of the Gifted Program in her local school district (for children in grade 5 and up). She explained to us that she would often get parents in her office demanding that the gifted test be run on their kids. They just KNEW their kids were smarter than everyone else. So...she would run the test, they would test out at an average level, and the parent would demand a re-test. "Do it again! The test was WRONG!"

This is just awful, right? Can you imagine the poor kid, being put through that, only to be made to do it again (some states allow the test to be run multiple times upon the parent's request)? This is certainly a good way to crush a child's self esteem, no doubt about it. Not just because of the test but clearly because the parent is HOPING for more. Their kiddo is not delivering and sadly, the parent is making it clear that not being gifted is simply not okay.

When the school offered to test my son, I was reluctant. What if he failed? What if he didn't pass? Then what? He would feel badly and I'd have to explain to him that all of his previous teachers saw something 'more' in him but...it wasn't what they thought. That's okay! Don't worry about it, honey! You are just wonderful, as are, even if you did not pass the test. Who cares? The most important characteristics to focus on include social emotional development, kindness, emotional IQ and so on. So let's not dwell on the test!

After much consideration we decided to go through with the test. We wanted to put our minds at ease and understand our son's behavior and brain chemistry (much like the parent of a child with special needs may want - they wish to know the facts so they can be prepared for what's ahead!). He passed. In fact, they gave him a test that was one year ahead of his grade because he had already done grade 3 work while in grade 2 and he had done grade 4 work while in grade 3. So they felt that giving him the exam, at his grade level, was unfair. He would have passed that, no trouble. He had already done the work! They upped the ante by giving him a test, one grade level past his age. He passed.

Now what? Do I pretend that it didn't happen? Do I make the other parents feel better by ignoring what the test told us? "Yeah...he's just like everyone else. Let's not even think about what this means regarding his personality or brain chemistry. Let's just pretend it didn't happen so that other parents can feel better about us and not think we're SNOBS."

How would that help my son?

Here's a little insight for you, too. Having a child whose brain works at lightning speed isn't fun. In fact, it's downright exhausting. My son believes that he is an equal to his parents and he attempts to treat us as such. He analyzes everything we say, tells us when we have made mistakes and attempts to inform us of "how it should be." He believes he is more capable of running our finances than we are.

Further more, his emotions are over the moon. This is one of the primary factors that many parenting sites leave out. Being "gifted" isn't only about intelligence. It's also about emotions. Children who fall into the category of "gifted" have BIG emotions. They feel things more strongly than other people and they have a hard time balancing out their feelings. One moment my son could be laughing and cracking hilarious intellectual jokes and the next...he's in tears because he doesn't feel understood. It's like riding an emotional roller coaster every frig'n day.

In fact, just last night, my son made a few statements that brought me to tears. He can be mean. When you combine his intelligence with his over-haul of emotions, it's not always pretty. He can talk circles around us and he demands answers; sometimes I don't have answers for him. Sometimes I'm just tired and I want to say, "Shut up! Leave me alone! Stop analyzing everything I do and just go PLAY!"

He is no picnic to be around. He's my toughest kid and there are days that I wish I could change it.

The parents who want their kids to be gifted are different than the ones who know their kids are different. My son is different but you won't hear me bragging about it. In fact, I spend more time focusing on helping him empathize with others because one of his traits is...lack of empathy. Oftentimes, he cannot bring himself to a place of relating effectively to the feelings of others.

My opinion

Rather than get angry about the term "gifted" let's spend more time focusing on the area that many gifted children need assistance with: Emotional IQ. I don't care if people think I made up my son's giftedness. I don't care if people think the test he took rendered false information. I don't care that some folks can't stand the word gifted and that it conjures up feelings of bitterness inside them.

What I do care about is that many of these kids lack empathy - or they find it difficult to relate to the feelings of those around them. They don't easily empathize with the hurts and pains of others and that's frightening. What we probably ought to be doing is making sure we do draw these kids out, know who they are, and spend more time teaching them to care about others.

That's what I'll keep doing here, anyway. I'll continue to talk to my son about helping those in need, empathizing with the struggles of the downtrodden, volunteering in our community, helping with fund-raisers, assisting single moms and pushing him to realize that Emotional Intelligence (EI) matters more than IQ.

If we could get all schools to pick up on the importance of teaching EI...we'd all be better off. Gifted or not.

More reading:

Baby Center is one of my favorite parenting sites. Their information is generally very helpful, positive and useful. If you want to read more about giftedness or possible giftedness, click here: Gifted Children

ABOUT the Author:

Shara Lawrence-Weiss is the owner of Mommy Perks, Personal Child Stories, Early Childhood News and Resources and Kids Perks. She and her husband co-own Pine Media. Shara has a background in education, early childhood, nanny work, published freelance, marketing and special needs.