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Selected Books for Parenting Book Clubs
This list of books is presented just to get people started with gifted parenting book clubs. If your favorite book is not on this list, please let us know! Comments are just to guide you initially.
Introductory:
| Title | Author | Comments to aid in selection |
| A Parent’s Guide to Gifted Children | Webb | Comprehensive: covers many aspects of gifted kids, though long and a bit much to absorb in a month. SENG recommends it be read over the course of 8 - 10 get togethers in a SENG model Parent Group… |
Understanding Your Gifted Child Child from the Inside Out | Delisle | Focuses on the social and emotional aspects of giftedness, highlighting new information on the issues of perfectionism, self-advocacy, underachievement, mindfulness, and the impact of technology on gifted kids' relationships. |
| Gifted Kids Survival Guide | Galbraith | This is targeted at kids - but might be another good book for getting discussions rolling. |
| Giftedness 101 | Silverman | Highly recommended as a starting point for someone with gifted children. |
| Guiding the Gifted Child | Webb | Precursor to A Parent's Guide to Gifted Children. It is shorter and still contains the important stuff. |
| Helping Gifted Children Soar | Hirsch & Whitney | |
| Parenting Gifted Children | Treffinger | Published by the National Association for Gifted Children. |
| Parenting Gifted Children 101: An Introduction to Gifted Kids and Their Needs | Inman | From the publisher: This practical, easy-to-read book explores the basics of parenting gifted children, truly giving parents the "introductory course" they need to better understand and help their gifted child. Topics include myths about gifted children, characteristics of the gifted, the hows and whys of advocacy, social and emotional issues and needs, strategies for partnering with your child's |
| Parenting Gifted Kids: Tips for Raising Happy and Successful Gifted Children | Delisle | Delisle is more flowery in his understanding of gifted kids. He is a teacher and a parent of gifted, so often brings both perspectives to his work. Here he provides very specific guidance on structuring you parenting. |
| Raising a Gifted Child: A Parenting Success Handbook | Fertig | |
| The Survival Guide for Parents of Gifted Kids | Walker | Short. A good intro book. Will fuel discussion. Older. |
| They Say My Kid's Gifted, Now What | Olenchak | Brought to you by NAGC. |
| When Gifted Kids Don't Have All the Answers: How to Meet Their Social and Emotional Needs | Delisle | A hands on guide to working with gifted kids. Contains worksheets and useful lists. Very readable and actionable. |
General:
| Keys to Parenting the Gifted Child | Rimm | Parenting gifted through the ages - preschool through college. |
| Losing Our Minds: Gifted Children Left Behind | Ruf | Ruf introduces her Levels of Giftedness (distinct from IQ) and discusses giftedness and parenting. |
| Off the Charts: Asynchrony and the Gifted Child | Piechowski | Compilation of articles regarding giftedness. |
Parenting:
| A Parent's Guide to Gifted Teens: Living with Intense and Creative Adolescents | Rivero | From the publisher: Learn how to understand your adolescent's intensity and excitability, how to nurture creativity and self-directed learning, how to offer support without taking control, and how to care for yourself as the parent of an intense and creative teen. |
| Coloring Outside the Lines | Schank | One man's approach to parenting bright kids. |
Cradles of Eminence: Childhoods of More Than 700 Famous Men and Women | Goertzel | Old book that looked at what creates eminence. (Spoiler alert: a pushy mom!) Worth picking up, but not until you have an established group, I would say. |
| Gifted Lives: What Happens when Gifted Children Grow Up | Freeman | Follows 20 gifted people for 35 years. |
| How to Talk to Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk | Faber | Not specifically gifted, but discussed in a room of gifted parents, takes on a whole different tone. There is a teen version as well. |
| Mindset: The New Psychology of Success | Dweck | This is the book that launched the fixed versus growth mindset debate. |
| Outliers: the story of success | Gladwell | Explores the nature of achievement and claims that extraordinary achievement is usually more about opportunity than ability |
| Raising a Thinking Child | Shure | Old, but still relevant. Not specifically gifted oriented. There is also a workbook and a version for pre-teens. |
| The Hurried Child: Growing Up Too Fast Too Soon Great Minds And How To Grow Them: High Performance Learning | Elkind Berliner & Eyre | Kids are not merely miniature adults. This book discusses the dangers of missing that point. Not a gifted specific book, but great for the gifted parent. |
| Ten Things Not to Say to Your Gifted Child: One Family's Perspective | Nancy Hielbronner | This book offers a different perspective on parenting gifted children: what not to do! |
| The Orchid and the Dandelion: Why Some Children Struggle and How All Can Thrive | Boyce | While he meanders around a lot and isn't addressing gifted children specifically, there were many good observations that carried over to our population. |
Parenting Young Gifted Children - What to Expect When You Have the Unexpected | Gruener | Practical information about young gifted children (behaviors, traits, and characteristics), along with research backed parenting theories, approaches, and tools. |
Social Emotional Needs:
Education Related:
| A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America's Brightest Students | Belin-Black | This was a research study that came out 10-12 years ago on how gifted kids are educated and systematically effected. I don't think you can get the book anymore, but the report is online. There is now a followup on the same web site. |
| Being Smart About Gifted Education | Matthews | |
| Dumbing Down America: the War On Our Nation's Brightest Young Minds (And What We Can Do to Fight Back) | Delisle | How is our education system systematically disadvantaging gifted kids? Why that's a problem and needs to stop. |
| Homeschooling Gifted And Advanced Learners | West | |
| The Good School: How Smart Parents Get Their Kids the Education They Deserve | Tyre | Very readable, and actionable. |
| The Power to Transform : Leadership That Brings Learning and Schooling to Life | Marshall | Written by the first president of IMSA, it is her vision on what education should/could be. |
Light-hearted:
| A Case of Brilliance | Hein | The homeschooling journey of one family with profoundly gifted children. Light read with introspective discussions. |
| Raisin' Brains: Surviving My Smart Family | Isaacson | Chatty - might be good for people to read in order to normalize their own experiences. |
| Infinity and Zebra Stripes: Life with Gifted Children | Wendy Skinner | Chatty and light. |
Assessment:
| Assessment of Giftedness: A Concise and Practical Guide | Milligan | Good concise explanation of assessing giftedness. |
Executive Function:
| Smart But Scattered: The Revolutionary "Executive Skills" Approach to Helping Kids Reach Their Potential | Dawson | There are also teens and young adults editions. |
Perfectionism:
Callard-Szulgit Greenspon |
| Moving Past Perfect: How Perfectionism May Be Holding Back Your Kids (and You!) and What You Can Do About It | Greenspon | |
| Perfectionism: What's Bad About Being Too Good? | Adderholt | Written so it can be read by children, but still laden with good information. |
| Perfectionism: A Practical Guide to Managing "Never Good Enough" | van Gemert | Newly published summer 2017 |
Twice Exceptional:
| If This is a Gift, Can I Send it Back?: Surviving in the Land of the Gifted and Twice Exceptional | Merrill | Funny book - Jen Merrill is a local. She has a blog: Laughing at Chaos |
| Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children and Adults | Webb | Excellent resource for parents with 2E kids or kids they suspect might be. Gifted people are wired differently and the helping professions often want to label them when that isn't strictly speaking appropriate. |
| Parenting Is Hard; Suffering Is Optional | King | Funny book - Kim King is a local. Focus on taking care of yourself as a parent. |
| Uniquely Gifted: Identifying and Meeting the Needs of the Twice-Exceptional Student | Kay | |
| Awkward: The Science of Why We're Socially Awkward and Why That's Awesome | Tashiro | |
| The Power of Different: the Link Between Disorder and Genius | Saltz |
Underachievement:
| The Underachieving Gifted Child: Recognizing, Understanding, and Reversing Underachievement | Siegle | |
| Why Bright Kids Get Poor Grades | Rimm |
Underrepresented Groups:
| Bright, Talented and Black | Lawson |
Gifted Girls:
| Smart Girls: A New Psychology of Girls, Women and Giftedness | Kerr | This book made me so angry. She is very judgy in her definition of "success." But there are some good nuggets in here. |
| Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls | Pipher | Why are adolescent girls prone to anorexia and depression - this book explores what about our culture leads to this and how to effectively parent to avoid it. |
| Reclaiming the Lives of Gifted Girls and Women | Smutny | Short book by local legend, Joan Smutny, the founder of World of Wisdom and the Terence Center for Creativity, currently housed a Northern Illinois University. Joan meanders her way through this short book, but touches so many interesting points. |
Fiction:
| LifeLines: An inspirational journey from profound darkness to radiant light | Bernstein | Poetry amid the exploration of personal existential depression by the highly successful creative mind behind Melissa and Doug. |
Fiction:
| The Gifted School | Holsinger | A novel written about the opening of a new gifted school and ridiculous lengths to which parents will go to get their children into it. |
| Head of School | Kahn | Through the eyes of a young woman torn between her responsibility to the school she leads and her growing appreciation of the inequities it perpetuates, Head of School grapples with issues of race, class, culture, and competition, while exploring the nature of intelligence, the power of privilege, and our drive to separate ourselves from others. |