ABSTRACT
This chapter reminds us that, when it comes to the similarities we share with our children intellectually, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Parents of gifted kids and their children have very similar IQs much of the time. Accompanying these high IQs in adulthood are some characteristics and emotions that differ in degree from the general population—just as they do in our gifted children. The knowledge of characteristics of gifted adults can bring the same sense of comfort Michael Piechowski’s work on overexcitabilities does to people who possess them. Existential depression does not occur just because a gifted person thinks about the bigness of life, the inequities obvious in a complex world of billions of people, or a pessimistic view of one’s personal future or the status of our planet’s health.
