Being it through an unhealthy Harry Potter addiction or making countless TikToks about academic traumas, the so-called "gifted kids" have taken over social media as they procrastinate on their online schoolwork. These teens — myself included — are the same ones you saw submerging into a 500-page book or speaking passionately to your 5th-grade teacher about the times table thirty minutes before class started. Be it before or during the COVID-19 pandemic, all of these kids have one thing in common: we are exhausted. Many of us do not know that yet, though. This stage we find ourselves in is called a burnout; in this context, a period in which someone who worked very hard academically in the past is stagnant, stuck in the quicksand that is relying on academic validation. Burnouts, however, do not only happen to students that have worked hard for years; it is also in the third grader obsessed with Percy Jackson that internalized the idea that being smart was something they already were and, therefore, they do not need to work for academic and professional success. In both of these examples, burnt-out gifted kids experience a wide variety of side effects, ranging from losing interest in their old hobbies to severe depression and anxiety. The "gifted kid burnout" is not addressed enough by the internet community, let alone by schools themselves; this leads "gifted kids" to think they are alone in their burnout phase, or that they are not capable of being as academically strong as before. To adequately address the "gifted kid burnout", it is pivotal to analyze how they are caused, its consequences, and how to support a "gifted kid" with burnouts.

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Although all gifted kids are in different circumstances and have distinct trajectories, their road to burnouts are strangely similar. There are many roads to take to be officially labeled a "gifted kid." For many proud parents, for their child to be reading and writing at three years old is a sign of lifelong success. However, the student that started standing out at their freshman year and getting nothing but compliments from everyone for a significant period can also fit into this label. In any way, after young students are constantly told they are smart and that their potential is infinite, their reputation is constructed. An immeasurable amount of pressure comes with this; people around these gifted students assume that they will not make academic mistakes, so they treat them differently if they do something wrong. Most importantly, this phenomenon makes the gifted kids set impossible expectations for themselves. Consequently, even if their family and friends constantly tell them that they are supporting them, the gifted youth will never support themselves. Being smart becomes gifted kids' only personality trait, and they feel useless unless they are acting smart. With infinite extracurricular and enrichment opportunities open to them, gifted kids will often overload with work, eventually leading them to burnout. Even with the most supportive peers, sometimes what these gifted kids need is not reassurance and more motivation, but much needed rest.

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What schools often describe as "healthy competition" is a black hole of constant self-comparison and alienation, alongside being one of the most significant contributors to burnouts. Competition in school can be objective — from class rankings to awards — or subjective — chatter in the corridors and up-and-down looks from teachers. In any way, competitiveness in school severely affects students' mental health; especially the ones at the top of the pyramid. For gifted kids, the pressure of always getting an award at the end-of-year ceremonies or not making a silly mistake when a teacher calls them out is insurmountable. Each gifted kid has a different way of coping with the pressure, but none of us is open to sharing them because we are not allowed to be vulnerable. In reality, some of us — myself included — do not cope with the pressure. Instead, we invest our entire lives in the school system and forget there is life beyond school. This leads exactly to what was said beforehand: gifted kids make too many academic commitments, eventually leading to an overwhelming amount of stress and fatigue: burnouts.

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Ranging from physical and psychological consequences, the effects of burnout can damage someone permanently. Besides an absurd amount of fatigue and lack of motivation, a prominent consequence of gifted kid burnouts is impostor syndrome. Very little known in schools, impostor syndrome is thinking you are not as smart or competent as others tell you. Besides being a consequence of burnout, it is also a consequence of the competitiveness in school. As the school system encourages and is based on students being compared to each other, gifted kids mirror this attitude and become impostors of their own selves. During their burnout, gifted kids have no motivation to do work; instead of taking a break or talking to someone, their impostor syndrome intensifies. Since their reputation often only revolves around being academically engaged, they think they are invalid: their only "useful" trait is gone.

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Although the term "burnouts" has been popularized recently, Generation Z is certainly not the first generation to have experienced it. What leads burnouts to keep happening is how people treat it. When gifted kids look for support, they often receive encouraging remarks of "you are smart!" or "you can do it!" This only feeds into their impostor syndrome, because people are saying exactly what they do not believe. To adequately support a burnt-out gifted kid, it is important to tell them that being smart is not their only trait. It is important to tell them that, besides being smart, they are amazing people that deserve rest. Instead of giving them constant motivation and encouraging them to engage in their projects, ask them to rest. Tell them that their mental health is their priority. Gifted kids are often very reluctant to be vulnerable, so one can never know what they are going through. Therefore, if your school environment is intensely competitive —  a large part of school environments are — stop encouraging competition at all costs. Anything can be a trigger for gifted kids with impostor syndrome: from comparing grades to asking people why they didn't get awards, anything related to academic competitiveness can affect us. The first step to stopping burnouts is to spread awareness, and everything starts with us.