Many parents are so delighted with their child's accomplishments, they take every word he utters or every squiggle he draws as evidence of giftedness. Though most children aren't identified as gifted until they begin school, some show signs of being gifted at a very early age.

I should have seen it coming. For months, my 3-year-old son had been asking my husband to do crafts with him, give him baths, read him stories, and play his favorite board game. He waited eagerly each night for my husband to get home from work and asked, "Where's Daddy?" whenever my husband left the house. As parents go, I was definitely second choice.

It's Monday at 3 p.m. You have to pick your middle child up from school, then race home to get your oldest off the bus. Karate starts at 4 p.m. You promised the kids you'd take them to the school book fair around 6 p.m. And all along, your youngest is being dragged along for the ride. Dinner? Let's hope you eat before everyone falls asleep in their hastily prepared grilled cheeses!

Hitting is a normal developmental stage of childhood. Most children will need to be taught not to hit. Parents trying to teach their children how to stop hitting should consider the source of the hitting, why their children may be hitting, and try to teach alternatives to hitting. Knowing that hitting can be difficult to control in the moment, most of the teaching should happen at times when the child is calm.

I was trying to do two things at once—cook (in the kitchen) while deciphering some paperwork (in the next room). I'd been interrupted a thousand times with requests for snacks, shrieks over spilled paint water, questions about what squirrels like to eat, and arguments over whether clouds could be blue and flowers could be green. And did I mention that a ruptured disk in my back was throbbing even worse than my head?