THE FAMILY JOURNAL: COUNSELING AND THERAPY FOR COUPLES AND FAMILIES / October 2001 Fornia, Frame / COU SELING E DS OF GIFTED CHILDREN The Social and Emotional Needs of Gifted Children: Implications for Family Counseling

Parents of gifted children often consider themselves both blessed and cursed. Although giftedness entails many strengths, there are a variety of external and internal factors that contribute to struggles in the emotional and social experiences of gifted children and their families (Moon & Hall, 1998). The purpose of this article is to provide the information needed to help family counselors become familiar with the unique issues of gifted families and to offer them techniques for counseling these clients. There are many ways of formally identifying or defining giftedness among children that vary from state to state and even within school districts. However, the bodies of literature do seem to agree on several common characteristics among those who are identified as gifted. Therefore, in this article we are emphasizing these characteristics and describe them in detail below.