gifted/talented news & resources

emotional sensitivity
While few can agree on a black-and-white definition for giftedness, one characteristic of the population that has some global acceptance is emotional sensitivity. It is a feature of personality that often plays havoc with the ability to live easily in the world.
from article : Emotional Sensitivity - by Vicky Moyle
- related page : intensity / sensitivity
- image from book: The Sensitive Self

~ ~

"Few realize that the real Pocahontas was only eleven years old. Hollywood turned the incident into a love story, but the real story is one of profound moral courage of a gifted child."

Linda Silverman, PhD, in Advanced Development Journal, 1995

“Historical accounts of Pocahontas's brief life, asserts Dr. Allen, typically depict her as a lovelorn and tragic character (she died in 1617 at the age of 20 or 21).

"Allen's Pocahontas is a real visionary, a prodigiously gifted young woman fervently devoted to the spiritual traditions of her people."

from Publishers Weekly review of book Pocahontas : Medicine Woman, Spy, Entrepreneur, Diplomat - by Paula Gunn Allen

photo: Q'Orianka Kilcher portrays Pocahontas in "The New World"

~ ~

Growing up in Brooklyn, I was routinely asked by teachers if someone had done my homework for me or if I had copied the poems I wrote from a book. As a poor, bright and ambitious girl in an underserved school, I constantly butted up against the boundaries of race and class.

Veronica Chambers [Parade, Sep 4 2005] -
author of novel Miss Black America

> related topics :..identity.... early life

~ ~..~ ~

Carrie Fisher : "I think I'm very sane about how crazy I am."
~ ~

Many of our brightest, most creative, most independent thinking children and adults are being incorrectly diagnosed as having behavioral, emotional, or mental disorders.

They are then given medication and/or counseling to change their way of being so that they will be more acceptable within the school, the family, or the neighborhood, or so that they will be more content with themselves and their situation.

> excerpt from book Misdiagnosis And Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children and Adults

> more on page :.
dysfunction / disorder

.~ ~

When misdiagnosed gifted clients are prescribed medication to suppress the "symptoms of giftedness" there is the danger that the wonderful inner fury of the gifted process will be neutralized, thus minimalizing the potential for a life of accomplishment and fulfillment.

> from article Misdiagnosis of the Gifted

.~ ~

"Many parents accept their child's giftedness and associated traits, but seem to be in 'denial' about their own giftedness, or at varying stages of dealing with it."

> from article : Fostering adult giftedness
by Sharon Lind

> more on : parenting

* ~ ~

~ ~ ~

~ ~