What are the counseling needs of gifted children and /or their families?
...rying to decide on a theme for a kite. This assignment was not rocket science but he was so indecisive that I suggested he look around the class for ideas. When I checked on him later he had copied an idea from an older boy. His design and slogan were identical. I was very disappointed with this student but reading Ms. Kerr’s thoughts has changed my views on how I should have helped him. His choosing a kite theme wasn’t crucial to his future career but certainly the process of making that decision would have hopefully given him the tools to make the next decision, and the next, and the next. Anne Schroer and Fred Dorn addressed similar concerns regarding gifted students in their article Enhancing the Career and Personal Development of Gifted College Students. The multi giftedness of students left them capable of doing many things and having many interests but incapable of choosing a career path. They put together a class where students were put in groups with their peers and many tools were used for these students to decipher their career interests. As parents watch their gifted child excel in his early years of school and then seem to fragment in the high school years due to over involvement and too many fields of interest, they need some help in guiding their gifted child. Not only do they need counseling to help their child, but they can be a vital part of their child’s career decision. In Nicholas Colangelo’s book, The Handbook of Gifted Education, he suggests that underachievement is receiving the most intense counseling focus. He defines underachievement as the discrepancy between assessed potential and actual performance. Whitmore (1980) proposed three types of underachievers: aggressive, withdrawn and non-producer. In my experience as a Gifted Specialist, I have seen all three of these traits individually or in combination in many of my students. Whitmore suggests that the underachiever is after attention and that his so...