“Gifted and talented” commonly refers to children who demonstrate high performance capability in one or more areas of their lives. Being “gifted” gives children advantages to outperform their peers in some areas, and they thus obtain high achievements. Nevertheless, having high achievements cannot guarantee the gifted a happy and meaningful life. In fact, researches have demonstrated that many high achievers and gifted children would experience distress and emotional turmoil throughout their lives due to various reasons. Here are some good examples of the fact that gifted children need help: Thomas Edison was told by his teachers that he was too stupid to learn anything; Isaac Newton did poorly in grade school; Walt Disney was even fired by a newspaper editor because he “lacked imagination and had no good ideas”.

In positive psychology, several individual characteristics being associated with a meaningful and flourishing life are identified. This presentation will discuss some of them based on the researches and practical experience of the speaker. The following questions will be addressed:

1. What are the important virtues, i.e. the attitude and behaviour that our society values, which can help gifted children adjust themselves and contribute well to the community?
2. How can we enhance the positive experience of our children through positive conversation?
3. Why is it so important to help our children set goals and what are the important elements of helping our children achieve these goals?

The speaker will share some practical strategies that can be adopted by parents to help their gifted children in:

• discovering the virtues and contributing to the society with these qualities;
• increasing their awareness of positive information and events in life;
• establishing an active and constructive communication style; and
• beliving in the power of hope.

Prof Samuel HO is a seasoned registered clinical psychologist and the Professor and the Associate Head of the Department of Applied Social Sciences, City University of Hong Kong. He is also an honorary professor at the Faculty of Dentistry, the University of Hong Kong. His primary research interest is clinical health psychology, in which he focuses on traumatology and resilience. He has developed an in-depth knowledge about the factors that facilitate resilience to traumatic events. As a registered clinical psychologist and a researcher, he focused on the studies of happiness in his early research. More recently, Prof HO has been engaged in introducing the studies of positive psychology to clinical health psychology. He is working on how to apply the principles of positive psychology and clinical psychotherapy to people with depression in counselling. Prof HO is one of the authorities on positive psychology in Asia. His research findings are widely cited by publications on medicine, healthcare and clinical psychology, while his views are used as sources in the teaching of positive psychology.