Helping Adolescents Adjust to Giftedness. ERIC Digest #E489

This digest offers guidelines to parents and educators helping gifted adolescents adjust to problems related to their giftedness. Challenges to adjustment are noted in the areas of: ownership (talented adolescents simultaneously "own" and yet question the validity of their abilities); dissonance (between their high standards and their capabilities); taking risks (gifted adolescents are characteristically unwilling to take risks); competing expectations (adolescents have a variety of pressures on them from others); impatience; and premature identity (they typically attempt to achieve an adultlike identity). Coping strategies used by gifted adolescents are listed, including: accepting and using abilities to help peers do better in classes, making friends with other students with exceptional talents, and selecting programs and classes designed for gifted/talented students. Contains 12 references. (DB)