by Avery Cloward

Created on: April 23, 2008   Last Updated: August 13, 2008

When you hear "gifted child", there is a great possibility that one word will enter your mind: intelligent. But, honestly, since when did that start happening?

Being intelligent may be termed as gifted, but other times maybe not. Being intelligent isn't the only way to be gifted. When I hear of a gifted child, I don't think of someone who knows forty-five languages or knows how to solve a complicated algebraic equation in only ten seconds, but I think of a child who is filled, not with intelligence, but with love. What greater gift is there than love? He could have down syndrome for all I know, but as long as he has love, he is gifted. Many people in the world today have no doubt forgotten how to love, or what love felt like, so what greater privilege could there be than to know how it feels and how to give it?

Many would give their all just to know love exists, but they wouldn't give two cents to know that you finished your science project three hours sooner than everyone else. Intelligent children may be called gifted and maybe they are, but what does being intelligent give you? Fame, maybe, admiration, probably, but how can one receive love just because one is intelligent? One who loves another for the sole reason that he or she is intelligent doesn't know love at all.

Some people say I'm gifted, but that doesn't give me any joy. What gives me joy is to know that my family and friends love me, and they know I love them. I am a gifted child, but not because I have "skills" that others don't, but because I have the love of a tight family and friends who care. There are many I hear of that have skills that none could have ever dreamed of, but some of them have ended committing suicide, and others have become outcasts, because their friends could not put up with having "a friend like them". True, there are those who have risen above all that, and have come out like gold, but it's sad to see the numbers that have come out miserable and stained with the reminders of being different than everyone else.

Would you give up what you are and what you have to be that eight-year-old walking down the street with slumped shoulders and a ever-present frown? That eight-year-old who is now in a university, studying with men and women in their mid-twenties, yet still beating them all in every test?

In my opinion, a gifted child doesn't have to be different. They just have to have a full heart.

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