Is Your Child Gifted? These 10 Signs Point to Yes. Probably.

Many parents will lovingly observe their child and wonder, is my kid gifted? After all, not every kid can learn all the words to that Frozen song by two and a half. And indeed, not every kid can memorize the names of more than a hundred dinosaurs by age four. By the time my middle child was three, he left adults in stitches with his wild puns and jokes that seemed a bit advanced for his age. By the time he was five, he had solved a Rubik’s cube on his own. And I’m not alone; lots of parents I know have similar stories of their children doing seemingly amazing things that are not covered in the chapter on milestones in the what to expect style handbooks.

So, parents will naturally wonder if their child is gifted. But what does gifted even mean, and how can you tell if your child fits the bill? Here are ten tell-tale signs that your kid may be gifted.

What does gifted mean?

The word gifted generally refers to kids who learn faster and retain information longer than what is accepted as average. At least, this is how I understand the flexible term gifted to mean.

The term gifted was first used in 1869 by Francis Galton, who thought that giftedness was an inherited trait seen in adults. From there, the term evolved through several movements of thought. In the 1900s, psychologists gave the denotation of giftedness a benchmark and noted that anyone labeled gifted must have an IQ of 140 or greater. By the 1920s, psychologists realized that giftedness was a combination of environment and genetics.

Currently, there are multiple definitions of gifted that consider different aspects of what giftedness means. For example, since most kids matriculate through a school system, the likelihood that a teacher will identify their giftedness is the highest. That said, it is essential to note that schools define giftedness as comparing one child against the average performance of all other children in their grade level.

Where the school definition of giftedness gets messy is that it often doesn’t take into account the emotional turbulence of gifted kids. Because, as we’ll see below, gifted kids tend to be emotionally sensitive and behaviorally difficult. That troubled kid in class who is failing all of his courses? He might actually be a genius and isn’t getting the support he needs to meet his potential.