Gifted children exhibit talent early. They may speak in whole sentences when other similar-age children know only a few words. Some observe environmental details that aren't even noticed by others. Their questions may reveal a depth of understanding atypical of preschoolers. They may construct complex puzzles or toys or take toys apart in a manner that indicates extraordinary spatial understanding. They may learn letters, numbers, colors, and shapes with speed and interest, come to adult-like mathematical conclusions, read spontaneously, or show extraordinary musical talent far beyond typical children. All of these characteristics indicate giftedness.

Enjoy and encourage your children's love of learning, but foster their play, responsibility, imagination, affection, and fun so that they can grow as whole, as well as gifted children.

Parents can experience the joy of enhancing their children's learning in many shared ways beginning with encouraging a love of reading and including an appreciation of culture, the arts, the environment, exploration, science, government, and the world community. Your home provides the first learning laboratory, but be sure to explore your community resources. Art museums, parks, conservatories, museums of natural history, aquariums, observatories, nature centers, children's museums, theaters, and concert halls may be closer and less expensive than you realize.

Although schools invest the most time into teaching your children skills, parents truly are very important teachers. If you can avoid putting pressure on your children and recognize that overload can cause disinterest, your modeling of a love of life and learning will provide the very best of opportunities for your children.

Most teachers become teachers because they want to teach children. They usually care about their students. Parent-teacher conflicts usually emerge because some teachers have different philosophies than some parents about how children should be taught.

There are some special communication problems with regard to gifted children. Some teachers who love to teach children are not particularly sympathetic to the needs of gifted children. They may even regard the provision of more challenging assignments for gifted children as elitist and unfair to the other children in their classrooms. Furthermore, because most curricula are designed for average children, teachers may assume gifted students know much less than they actually do. Your efforts to describe your children's capabilities may only be met with the too-frequent assumption that you are putting pressure on your children. Also, teachers will undoubtedly remind you that there are 28 or 150 other students for which they are responsible. Such attitudes cause parents and teachers to feel very frustrated.

Parents search for communication methods to help them become advocates for their children. There is no foolproof way, but be prepared to be positive, patient, and persevering when communicating with schools. Although, encouraging your child's positive effort and behavior should be your first priority, if you continue to hear that a teacher is causing problems for your child, and if you have already tried to communicate positively with the teacher, report your concern to the school's principal. Absolutely do not tell your child of your report, or he may view it as a battle with his teacher and won't improve his efforts. Principals cannot do anything about problems unless parents share their observations with them, nor can you expect an immediate change. Do, however, take the responsibility of communicating respectfully.

Join your state association for parents of gifted children, and search the Web for the National Association for Gifted Children at nagc.org.

*This article has been adapted from Dr. Sylvia Rimm’s book, Keys to Parenting the Gifted Child (3rd Edition, Great Potential Press, 2007)