Best Books on Parenting Gifted Creative Children

The Creative Family: How to Encourage Imagination

From Amazon: “Perfect for all families, the wide range of projects presented here offers ideas for imaginative play, art and crafts, nature explorations, and family celebrations…With just the simple tools around you—your imagination, basic art supplies, household objects, and natural materials—you can transform your family life, and have so much more fun! “

Boys of Few Words: Raising Our Sons to Communicate and Connect

 From Amazon:  “When your son responds to personal questions with a blank stare, or quickly changes the topic, you might chalk it up to “boys will be boys”–but still worry that something is missing in your relationship or troubling your child. You could be right on both counts. Whether your son needs to talk more, or just more effectively, this practical book will help you raise him to communicate and connect.”

Raising a Gifted Child: A Parenting Success Handbook

From Amazon:  “This book offers a large menu of strategies, resources, organizations, tips, and suggestions for parents to find optimal learning opportunities for their kids, covering the gamut of talent areas, including academics, the arts, technology, creativity, music, and thinking skills. The focus of this definitive resource is on empowering parents by giving them the tools needed to ensure that their gifted kids are happy and successful both in and out of school.“

The Survival Guide for Gifted Kids: For Ages 10 and Under 

From Amazon:  “Help gifted children realize they’re not alone, they’re not “weird,” and being smart is a bonus, not a burden. Based on a survey of 1,000 gifted kids, this retitled edition of the classic Gifted Kids’ Survival Guide is fully updated with the latest research. Readers learn how to cope with high expectations, perfectionism, labels, bullying, friendships, and more. Upbeat, informative, friendly, and compact, The Survival Guide for Gifted Kids is a must for young gifted children.”

The Gifted Teen Survival Guide: Smart, Sharp, and Ready 

From Amazon:  “Based on new surveys of nearly 1,500 gifted teens, this book is the ultimate guide to thriving in a world that doesn’t always support or understand high ability. This guide gives readers the tools they need to appreciate their giftedness as an asset and use it to make the most of who they are. Includes information on twice-exceptionality, emotional and social intelligence, creativity, teen brain development, managing life online, testing and standards, homeschooling, International Baccalaureate programs, college alternatives, STEM careers, cyberbullying, and other hot topics.”

Living With Intensity: Understanding the Sensitivity, Excitability, and the Emotional Development of Gifted Children, Adolescents, and Adults

From Amazon:  “Gifted children and adults are often misunderstood. Their excitement is viewed as excessive, their high energy as hyperactivity, their persistence as nagging, their imagination as not paying attention, their passion as being disruptive, their strong emotions and sensitivity as immaturity, their creativity and self-directedness as oppositional. This resource describes these overexcitabilities and strategies for dealing with children and adults who are experiencing them.”

The Mozart Effect for Children: Awakening Your Child’s Mind, Health, and Creativity with Music

From Amazon:  “In his groundbreaking book, The Mozart Effect^®, Don Campbell revealed the enormous healing powers of classical music. Now he shows you how to help the children in your life experience the same benefits. You don’t have to be an expert on classical music to use this wise and compassionate book…The Mozart Effect^® for Children is an invaluable resource for all parents and educators who want to help their children imagine, achieve, and grow in every aspect of their lives.”

When Gifted Kids Don’t Have All the Answers: How to Meet Their Social and Emotional Needs

From Amazon:  “The authors present ways to advocate for gifted education; help gifted underachievers, perfectionists, and twice-exceptional students; and provide all gifted kids with a safe, supportive learning environment. Complete with engaging stories, strategies, activities, and resources, this book is for anyone committed to helping gifted students thrive. Includes online digital content.”

The Survival Guide for Parents of Gifted Kids: How to Understand, Live With, and Stick Up for Your Gifted Child

From Amazon:  “Now revised and updated with information about current research and legislation, new examples, new resources (including Web sites), and more, it’s the first place to turn for facts, insights, strategies, and sound advice. You’ll find out… how to prevent perfectionism, and when to get help. And you’ll learn how to advocate for your child’s education at school and in your state.”

Gifted Children: Myths And Realities

From Amazon:  “In this fascinating book, Ellen Winner uncovers and explores nine myths about giftedness, and shows us what gifted children are really like.Using vivid case studies, Winner paints a complex picture of the gifted child. Here we meet David, a three-year-old who learned to read in two weeks; KyLee, a five-year-old who mastered on his own all of the math concepts expected by the end of elementary school; and Nadia, an autistic and retarded “savant” who nevertheless could draw like a Renaissance master.”

Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children and Adults: ADHD, Bipolar, Ocd, Asperger’s, Depression, and Other Disorders

From Amazon:  “Our brightest, most creative children and adults are often being misdiagnosed with behavioral and emotional disorders such as ADHD, Oppositional-Defiant Disorder, Bipolar, OCD, or Asperger’s. Many receive unneeded medication and inappropriate counseling as a result. Physicians, psychologist, and counselors are unaware of characteristics of gifted children and adults that mimic pathological diagnoses. Six nationally prominent health care professionals describe ways parents and professionals can distinguish between gifted behaviors and pathological behaviors.”

The Social and Emotional Development of Gifted Children

From Amazon:   “Instigated by a task force convened by the National Association for Gifted Children and written by leading scholars in the field of gifted education, the book includes chapters on peer pressure and social acceptance, resilience, delinquency, and underachievement. The book also summarizes several decades worth of research on special populations, including minority, learning-disabled, and gay and lesbian gifted students.”

Guiding the Gifted Child: A Practical Source for Parents and Teachers

From Amazon:  “This award-winning book contains chapters on motivation, discipline, peer relationships, sibling relationships, stress management, depression, and many other issues that parents and teachers encounter daily with these children. It has been called “The Dr. Spock book for parents of gifted children.”

Crystalline Children, Indigo Children, Star Kids, Angels on Earth, and the Phenomenon of Transitional Children

From Amazon:  “A groundbreaking work that shows that a large number of kids come into the world bearing inherent gifts that are beyond strange–they are telepathic, understand subtle energies, and/or have amazing psychic abilities. Many of them remember where they were before they came to Earth and often can describe past lives. Many doctors mislabel them as autistic, ADD, ADHD, or suggest other behavioral difficulties. More than half the time, these doctors are wrong. The Children of Now are not defective–they are differently functional. We are doing ourselves and the world a great disservice by not acknowledging these amazing children and their special gifts.”

The Creativity Question

From Amazon:  “This group of selections from the works of writers in psychiatry, philosophy, psychology, psychoanalysis, and education brings together, for the first time, major theoretical works, outstanding empirical findings, and discussions of the definition and nature of creativity. This book illustrates the various approaches and basic assumptions underlying studies of creativity throughout the course of history up to the present time.”

Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques 

From Amazon: “In hindsight, every great idea seems obvious. But how can you be the person who comes up with those ideas?  Through fun and thought-provoking exercises, you’ll learn how to create original ideas that will improve your personal life and your business life. With hundreds of hints, tricks, tips, tales, and puzzles, Thinkertoys will open your mind to a world of innovative solutions to everyday and not-so-everyday problems.”

Conceptual Blockbusting: A Guide to Better Ideas

From Amazon:  “Integrating insights from the worlds of psychology, engineering, management, art, and philosophy, Adams identifies the key blocks (perceptual, emotional, cultural, environmental, intellectual, and expressive) that prevent us from realizing the full potential of our fertile minds. Employing unconventional exercises and other interactive elements, Adams shows individuals, teams, and organizations how to overcome these blocks, embrace alternative ways of thinking about complex problems, and celebrate the joy of creativity.”

Handbook of Gifted Education (3rd Edition)

From Amazon:  “Written by well-known scholars in the field, Handbook of Gifted Education is the most complete book in the field of gifted education and contains an excellent balance of research and practical applications.This book includes topics such as high-risk gifted learners, the development of social skills in gifted learners, the science and politics of intelligence, creativity; thinking skills, exceptional special abilities, theory and conceptions of creativity, transforming gifts into talents, gifted education in rural schools, and technology in gifted education.”

 Teaching Creativity: Inspiring Young Children’s Creative Thinking

From Amazon:  “Teaching Creativity provides fun new ideas that encourage the development of children’s creative-thinking skills. These easy, practical, classroom-tested (Pre-K – grade 2) strategies increase children’s confidence as creative thinkers, building the foundation for a lifelong habit of creative thinking.”