What Is the Gifted Kid Burnout? Signs, Causes, and How to Cope

Every parent hopes their children will grow up with qualities like empathy, compassion, and strong intelligence. There’s a very real belief that gifted children will go farther in life and have greater opportunities for future success, and that often turns out to be the case.

But there is also a high cost to intelligence. Children with gifts often struggle in different ways—one of the most common being “gifted kid burnout”.

What is gifted kid burnout? That’s what we’re going to discuss in this post!

Below, we’ll look at the definition of gifted kid burnout syndrome, including what it is and how it may manifest in your child’s life. We’ll also dive into what could be the cause behind this issue and address the factors that contribute to higher rates of burnout among gifted children.

Keep reading to learn how you, as the parent or teacher of a gifted child, can help them to cope and manage the stress that comes with being hyper-intelligent. We’ll share some tried-and-tested prevention strategies, too, so you can stop the burnout in its tracks before it ever becomes a problem.

Defining Gifted Kid Burnout

While there is not formally a medical or psychological diagnosis of “burnout,” it is widely recognized in various healthcare settings and if left untreated can lead to serious physiological health issues.

Burnout is described as a type of chronic stress linked to work or school, especially amongst high performing environments.

In this case, we are talking about your child’s gifts. The stress can accumulate over time and lead to feelings of emotional and physical fatigue. It may also be accompanied by feelings of being worn out, empty, powerless, and useless.

Children who are described as “gifted” typically have:

• A strong curiosity and desire to learn or know more;
• An ability to comprehend material multiple grade levels above their age and their peers;
• Greater sensitivity, self-awareness, and emotional depth than expected for their age;
• Greater problem-solving and creative thinking skills than expected for their age;
• A more mature or quirkier sense of humor;
• Enthusiasm for or about unique topics and interests;
• An ability to absorb information more quickly, and often with fewer repetitions needed;

The National Association for Gifted Children estimates [1] that roughly 6% of children enrolled in school today participate in gifted and talented programs, suggesting some degree of giftedness that sets them apart.

Gifted students often feel driven—by their own internal expectations or external expectations of their teachers and parents—to excel. They may experience societal pressure to excel, which can lead to perfectionism.

The more perfectionist mindset a child has, the harder it becomes to succeed (especially in their mind). It has been described as “the goal keeps getting pushed farther away”, and their standards are always increasing.

The inability to ever reach their “end-goal” causes stress to accumulate, which can lead to feelings of burnout.

Signs of Gifted Kid Burnout

It’s important to note that the symptoms of gifted kid burnout will change from child to child. There is no “one size fits all” diagnosis across the board, but it’s different in every case.

However, there are a few signs you can watch out for that would indicate a higher risk of burnout in your gifted child.

Emotional Indicators

Children, especially young and pre-adolescent children, may not yet know how to process the intense feelings that accompany or lead to burnout. Without the emotional tools that come with maturity, they may express their distress through behavior that seems immature – because it’s the only way they know how to cope.

Gifted children approaching or suffering from burnout may show the following signs:

• Increased irritability at home or school;
• Intense emotional reactions, such as frequent crying or excessive worry over minor issues;
• Emotional exhaustion, leading to disinterest in activities they once enjoyed;
• Cynicism or frustration toward schoolwork;
• Verbal expressions of feeling overwhelmed or hopeless.

These signs indicate that the pressure tied to their abilities is becoming too much, leaving your child overwhelmed and at risk of burnout.

Physical Health Complaints

Physical health complaints are also common among children dealing with burnout.

Physical symptoms may include:

• Dizziness;
• Sporadic or frequent headaches;
• Nausea;
• Physical exhaustion;
• Abdominal pain and stomach aches;
• Digestive upset;
• Digestive changes;
• Weight gain or loss;
• Changing sleep patterns (insomnia or hypersomnia).

Stress can have a powerful effect on the body, and the stress causing your child’s burnout may manifest in these ways.

Behavioral Changes

You may notice behavioral changes in your gifted child, both at home and at school.

These changes may include:

• Irritability with schoolwork;
• A tendency to downplay their gifts, intelligence, or knowledge (often done to lower the expectations of those who are applying pressure);
• Obsessive thought patterns;
• Abnormal or heightened reactions to incorrect answers or poor academic performance;
• An inability or struggle to make simple life choices (such as what to eat or wear);
• Isolation and wanting to be alone, disconnection from their friends and family members;
• Lack of motivation or desire to maintain their high academic standards;
• An inability to complete tasks or assignments, even easy ones;
• Loss of interest in activities, hobbies, or recreation they previously enjoyed.

These behavioral changes may signal that your child’s exceptional abilities are leading to chronic exhaustion. Left unaddressed, this can impact both their well-being and development.

Why Does The Gifted Kid Burnout Occur: The Causes

Gifted kids often face challenges that go beyond their natural abilities. When the learning process doesn’t match their needs or pace, it can create pressure that leads to burnout.

Below are the main reasons why this type of burnout occurs.

High Expectations and Pressure

The most common cause behind burnout among gifted children is excess pressure.

Typically, the majority of the pressure will initially come from external sources—i.e., the child’s teachers, parents, and well-meaning adults who want to encourage the child to succeed and develop their gifts.

As the child grows, they will often begin to internalize that pressure. It will become a driving motivator behind their actions, constantly propelling them to do more and achieve more—not only for their own happiness and satisfaction, but to please the adult role models in their lives.

Over time, the combination of internal and external pressures due to high or unrealistic expectations can lead to burnout.

Perfectionism and Fear of Failure

Perfectionism and fear of failure often result from the pressures and expectations a gifted child faces.

They want to be perfect because they don’t want to disappoint anyone. They may believe it means they aren’t as smart as they thought, that their parents will be disappointed, or that they’ll be loved less because of it.

Lack of Balance Between Work and Play

The old saying about “all work and no play” is never truer than with gifted children.

Many gifted children take on massive amounts of academic and vocational work because they love being challenged, but they also do it to satisfy their adult role models. Over time, the accumulation of work just increases, and less time is dedicated to play, relaxation, hobbies, and enjoyment.

This can lead to feelings of constant stress with no healthy, convenient outlet to keep the pressure from growing too much to bear. In this scenario, recreation is absolutely necessary to keep things on track.

Social and Emotional Challenges

Growing children develop an ever-wider range of emotions, which can be increasingly challenging and confusing to comprehend. Add those challenges on top of the unique challenges that come with being gifted, and all the confusing emotions stemming from external and internal pressures, and it’s easy to see why gifted children can feel overwhelmed.

There’s also the social challenges that come with being gifted. Gifted children are often excluded by their peers, or at least feel they are. They often struggle to connect with other gifted children and may choose isolation instead. Some throw themselves into academics or career goals to avoid the frustration and sense of failure that come with trying to form those connections.

This can lead to isolation, which drastically accelerates burnout and may contribute to higher risk of teenage depression and anxiety.

Undereffective Education System

High-intelligence children need to feel challenged and engaged. In an educational system that they find unrewarding—due to it being repetitive, boring, or unfair—they may fail to engage.

What may seem like poor performance can actually be a gifted child disengaging from a system they feel undervalues their intelligence. To them, answering trivial questions, checking boxes, or repeating tasks that feel meaningless isn’t worth the effort.

This is why gifted and talented programs exist. They give children more autonomy, foster academic engagement, and create an educational program that caters to a gifted child’s advanced mind.

If your gifted child is not in one of these programs, their “ordinary” school experience could be a major factor in why they’re experiencing burnout.

The Long-Term Impact of Gifted Child Burnout

It’s very realistic that a gifted child suffering from burnout may drop out of school (especially during high school and college) or continually perform poorly academically.

One expert [2] described it as “low-effort syndrome”, saying it proved easier to perform poorly rather than fail, and poor performance was a sort of rebellion against expectations.

Intellectually gifted children who suffer from burnout at a young age will often be more prone to depression and anxiety as they age. Social anxiety, OCD, panic attacks, eating disorders, and other kids’ mental health problems may also become more common as a result of gifted kid burnout.

Gifted learners may retreat socially and isolate themselves to focus on their studies. This can lead to social difficulties as they age, turning them into a sort of “brilliant, isolated loner”.

Isolation can significantly impact mental health and contribute to higher risk of frequent anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues as the child ages into adolescence and adulthood.

How to Cope with Gifted Kid Burnout

If your child is showing signs of gifted kid burnout, it’s important that you seek help for them right away. Their struggle is a singular one, something that very few people will ever truly understand. Even you, their parent or teacher, may not comprehend the scope of what they’re dealing with.

Seeking professional help from a counselor trained specifically to handle gifted and highly intelligent children is the best thing you can do.

Therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, or even a coach that has a specialty in gifted children will have the education and experience to recognize what your burnt out gifted kid is dealing with and what is causing their feelings of overwhelm. They’ll be able to help your child make sense of the complicated emotions that are warring within them, and break it down for their young minds to understand.

More importantly, they can help impart coping skills to gifted individuals who are struggling.

As a parent or teacher to high achieving students, it’s important that you have a talk with your child. Make sure they understand that you are not the one driving them to do more or grow faster. You want them to succeed, but their happiness is what matters most, far more than any academic achievement.

Frequently communicating this message will help your children understand it, and may alleviate a measure of the constant pressure they are feeling.

Encourage your child to actively pursue activities and academics they are not innately good at. Helping them to fail—and, most importantly, realize that failure isn’t the end of the world or won’t make them less intelligent or less loved—is one of the greatest things you can do to arm them with an understanding of real life experiences.

Above all, be patient. Your gifted child is experiencing a great deal more emotional, social, and mental turmoil than the average person, and it’s a lot to process and try to understand.

To help your gifted child overcome burnout, be there for them. Be their sounding board and support, and make sure they understand that they can go through it on their own timetable.

Prevention Strategies

To prevent gifted kid burnout, you can try the following strategies:

• Encourage your child to take up hobbies and recreational activities. Physical exercise (in the form of sports, weightlifting, running, dancing, or martial arts) can be an amazing outlet to relieve stress and reduce anxiety. It will trigger the body’s physiological relaxation mechanisms and give them something to focus on for a few hours a week that aren’t about academic excellence. If they are not into sports, perhaps chess or something that they enjoy for fun!
• Helpthem accept failure. Instead of seeing failure as a bad thing, help them develop a “growth mindset”. Approach every failure with a positive attitude, trusting it to teach them something new that can benefit them down the line. Don’t make it about further improving academic performance, but about living a better, richer life full of experiences, not just knowledge.
• Teach them to take breaks. Be it study breaks, breaks from gifted education programs, or even breaks from their recreational activities. Frequent day trips, weekend getaways, even holidays where they disconnect entirely from their daily life and get into other activities and pursuits can be excellent for their mental health.
• Never compare. Children tend to take comparisons as a challenge, a way for them to continue demonstrating that they are the “best”—or, sadly, most worthy of your love. Avoid comparing your child to other kids, but praise them and make sure they feel loved for who they are.
• Give them an out. Your child may be accepted into a gifted or talented class or some excellent program, but they may not actually want to participate. They may prefer remaining where they are in their current educational environment, with their social group and peers and activities they enjoy. Let them make that decision. Give them the option to say “No” or quit the gifted program at any time.
• Change your mindset, and change the way you talk. Your child’s intelligence is a major tool in their journey toward success, but it’s not their only tool, and maybe not even their most powerful tool. Change the way you think about your child’s gifts. See them as just one more facet of what makes them amazing, not their best quality. And make sure that change in mindset is reflected in the way you talk so your child hears you. It means praising them for everything that makes them special, not just emphasizing their education or intelligence.

Long story short: preventing burnout in gifted children is not only about academics; it also means fostering balance in their lives.

Supporting self-care, encouraging other forms of growth, and developing traits like resilience and emotional awareness are just as important as nurturing their intellect. This helps them avoid the relentless pursuit of achievement and grow into well-rounded, healthy individuals.

In Conclusion

Gifted children are blessed with above-average intelligence, but that can be a burden as much as a blessing. Excess pressure, both internal and external, can lead to higher risk of burnout, which can impact their lives negatively for years to come.

As their parent or teacher, your primary job is to make them feel loved, appreciated, and valued for everything that makes them special, not just one small piece of their puzzle.

Please use the above information and place it into practice. It will do wonders to help your child avoid burnout.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How rare is a gifted child?

While there is no official definition for giftedness, it’s accepted that an IQ of above 130 qualifies a child as gifted or talented. That’s roughly 2.5% of the world’s population [3]. The National Association for Gifted Children estimates that roughly 6% of children enrolled in school today participate in gifted and talented programs.

Is giftedness hereditary?

Genetic factors do play a role in giftedness. High-IQ parents, as former gifted kids, can pass on intelligence to their child with heritability estimates ranging from 50% to 80%. Nonetheless, developmental and environmental factors may carry equal responsibility for a child’s becoming gifted as they grow.

What age is most common for burnout?

While some gifted or twice exceptional children do experience burnout during their younger or elementary school or middle school years, it’s more likely gifted kid burnout occurs when the child reaches high school or college age.

Resources

Gifted Kid Burnout Is Real—How to Spot the Signs and Overcome It

Job burnout: How to spot it and take action

Gifted Kid Burnout: What It Is & How to Overcome It

Burnout in Gifted Children