Gifted students across the globe are pushed to their cognitive limits and provided opportunities to develop their academics.  In the state of Florida, gifted education focuses on the seven frameworks for gifted learners. The standards include examining the complexity of knowledge; creating, adapting, and assessing multifaceted questions; thoughtfully researching; assuming leadership and participatory roles; achieving personal, academic, and career goals; and finally, developing a variety of authentic products (Florida Department of Education, 2019).

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Since gifted individuals are often cognitively superior to peers, teachers often assume they are well balanced in all areas (socially, academically, etc.).  However, gifted students often struggle with their emotional intelligence and their abilities to self-regulate their emotions. With the broad range of gifted focuses, often these students do not receive the necessary guidance to enhance their self-regulation strategies and they find themselves struggling to control their emotions. Many teachers believe gifted students should have extraordinary cognitive abilities or incredible talents.  As cited in Zeidner and Matthews (2017), Renzulli defined giftedness as having a “high intellectual or technical aptitude in one area or another” (pg. 164). However, giftedness goes beyond one’s intellectual abilities and includes the “experience, expression, and regulation of emotions” (Zeidner & Matthews, 2017, pg. 164). 

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