What’s it like when your child really is significantly smarter than average?

“When my son Solly was 18 months old, I let him play in the crib with some alphabet flashcards that I found in the Airbnb we were staying in for a wedding,” shares Rachel. “He learned the alphabet in the span of the weekend. My husband and I thought it was a little early, but he was our oldest, so we didn’t have anything to compare it to.”

Solly went on to memorize the periodic table of elements at age four, and his current fascination at age six is geography. He enjoys looking through reference books to find mistakes.

When Solly was three, the teachers at his preschool in Seattle, Washington would make comments like, “Oh, he’s so unique, he’s so special, he’s so quirky.” Then the school called Rachel and her husband in for a meeting. They told them that they’d never had a kid like their son before. He was often in his own world in class, he had some quirky mannerisms, and he wasn’t interacting as much with the other children. The school recommended getting him assessed for autism.

After dragging their feet for a few months, they finally set up an appointment with a child psychologist to do an evaluation. It turned out Solly wasn’t autistic — he was highly gifted.

Defining Giftedness

These days, people throw around the term “gifted” casually, but the truth is, the majority of bright children aren’t gifted. Being gifted isn’t defined by intelligence alone — it’s more about the brain working in a different way, like showing advanced thinking and comprehension beyond age level, exhibiting emotional intensity at a young age, having a heightened sense of self-awareness, being highly curious, and having an excellent memory.

Only about two to five percent of children meet the criteria for being gifted. While the requirements can vary according to state or organizational guidelines, one way of measuring giftedness is through IQ testing, with 100 being an average score, and 120 and above considered gifted. Families typically seek out a trained professional to assess their child individually and to provide recommendations for how to meet the child’s specific needs. In some locales, the school system itself screens students for giftedness.

Gifted kids can stand out because of their different intellectual capabilities, but they can also be different for other reasons, like having a quirky sense of humor, firing off questions intensely, and being singularly focused on a topic. A gifted kid may not be able to sit still through a class because of intense energy levels, or because of boredom — a class on basic science can be agonizing for a kid who’d rather discuss the composition of the universe.

If it sounds intense, that’s because it is. Gifted children are often found to have an increased response to stimuli. Their extra sensitivity, awareness, and intensity, referred to as overexcitabilities (or OEs, see sidebar for more), have a real impact on the way they experience the world — and the way parents experience raising them.