Gifted students are often seen as unstoppable achievers excelling in academics, skills, or creation. But behind the impressive grades and projects, many face burnout far earlier than expected. The reason? A mix of high expectations, perfectionism, and a constant push to stay “ahead.”
From a young age, gifted learners may be praised for their abilities rather than their effort. This can create pressure to always perform flawlessly, leaving little room for mistakes or self-discovery, and developing anxiety and fear from not reaching to others expectations. Add in heavy workloads, lack of social understanding from peers, and the fear of “not living up to potential,” and exhaustion sets in mentally, emotionally, and sometimes physically.
Helping them starts with balance. Schools and parents should focus on process over results, valuing curiosity and growth rather than constant output. Encouraging hobbies, downtime, and friendships outside of academic circles helps restore a sense of normalcy. Mentorship programs can also provide guidance from those who’ve navigated similar challenges.
Gifted students don’t just need harder problems to solve they need spaces to breathe, fail, and recharge. Supporting their well-being ensures their talents can grow sustainably, without burning out before their real journey begins.
My name is Jana Hossam, a passionate and driven student from Minya, Egypt, currently entering my final year of high school.
I’m the creator of GreenVolt — a plant-based electricity generator with IoT integration that provides clean, real-time monitored energy. I also developed the HEH System, a Smart Pavement project that converts heat, light, and motion into power.
As a facilitator, I teach more than 30 students and have interviewed over 100 participants from international programs. I’m also a freelancer in translation, writing, and minimalist logo design on Fiverr.
I actively participate in mentoring sessions, youth programs, and global initiatives like IRENA. With deep interests in tech, leadership, and education, I continue building a future that empowers young people — especially women — through innovation and impact.
The sun was shining brightly, it was the middle of summer…
I woke up early and was sweeping the yard. My grandmother was sitting and watching me.
“My girl, you studied all night, you didn’t sleep at all. You should rest a little!” she said with concern.
“It’s okay, Grandma, if I go one night without sleep, nothing will happen. God willing, I’ll pass the entrance exams, and then I’ll have plenty of time to rest.”
“If your parents were alive, they would have helped you,” she said sadly.
Just then, my stepmother woke up and came out.
“Ugh… what an unpleasant morning. Hey, Malika, did you iron your brothers’ shirts?”
“Not yet… I haven’t finished.”
“What a useless girl your mother gave birth to! When will you ever do things properly? You can’t do anything right—only know how to eat and sleep,” she shouted.
“Why do you keep scolding her, daughter-in-law? Leave her be. She’s already struggling so much,” Grandma defended me.
“Don’t interfere! It’s all your fault—spoiling her like this!” my stepmother retorted.
—
That’s how my days passed—my stepmother never stopped scolding me. My grandmother, however, helped me in every way she could and wished for me to be an educated, learned girl. I never gave up; I did my best.
I believed that one day I would become a great person and free both myself and my grandmother from this darkness. I lived with that determination.
If I managed to finish the housework one day, I wouldn’t finish my lessons; if I finished my lessons, the housework would remain. My stepmother’s temper worsened day by day. Not only me—she would even scold and quarrel with my grandmother. Every day, she found an excuse to say:
“When will I get rid of this witch of an old woman? She hasn’t died yet, and I haven’t been freed from her!”
Since my stepmother was the only one working in the house, our household wasn’t in good shape. She spent most of her earnings on herself and her two sons. To buy books and notebooks for my studies and medicine for my grandmother, I sometimes went to the evening market to sell small goods. Somehow, I managed.
One morning, while making breakfast, I was putting the kettle on when my stepmother said:
“Hey, Malika. Why are you so slow? Here—this is my most expensive dress. Iron it carefully, understand?”
Then she looked at me mockingly:
“Why are you staring like that? Right, you’ve probably never even seen clothes like these.”
I stayed silent and started ironing. While I was ironing, my grandmother said:
“Malika, dear, your tea must be boiling—go check on it.”
In my hurry, I left the iron on the dress without realizing it, and the dress got burnt.
What followed was chaos and shouting that’s hard to describe. My stepmother was so furious that she practically lifted the whole house with her screaming. I was standing in the kitchen trembling so hard that I didn’t even notice I had spilled boiling water on my own hand.
Still yelling, she came at me with fury in her eyes. She had always looked for a reason to hurt me, and now she had found one. She dragged me into the room where I had been ironing. Without thinking twice, with her eyes red with rage, she pressed the hot iron onto my right hand.
“That’s for defying me and burning my dress on purpose!” she shouted.
The pain was unbearable—I screamed and cried, writhing in agony.
—
Well, those days passed, but…
The questions Why? For what? What was my fault? still haunted me.
Years went by—it’s been two or three years since that incident. I entered university. God willing, I wanted to become a lawyer. Now I’m in my third year, living in the dormitory in Tashkent, far from my grandmother’s love. I miss her terribly. I call her occasionally from my friend’s phone, but I still miss her deeply—I haven’t seen her for almost eight months.
When we talk, she always says:
“I’m fine, my dear. I take my medicine on time. Don’t worry about me. Focus on your studies. You must become the lawyer I always dreamed of. Don’t think about me.”
But I knew my stepmother was still making her life miserable. I constantly worried—was she healthy? Was she eating properly? Was the house peaceful? These thoughts disturbed me even in class.
What could I do? If I went home, I’d fall behind in my studies. Oh God, please give me patience…
—
Finally, I finished my third year. Now I was in a taxi on my way home—so happy, so excited to see my grandmother again and feel her love. Not even the difficulties of the long journey could spoil my mood.
After two days of travel, I finally arrived at my street. I ran from the corner in excitement—but for some reason, the front of our house was full of people. The men wore traditional coats and skullcaps.
I was puzzled—what was happening here?
Then I heard someone say, “She has passed away, my girl.”
Those words were enough to make me lose myself. Everything blurred before my eyes, and the only thing I could hear was that sentence repeating in my head. I couldn’t say a word—I just sank to my knees at the gate.
When people tried to bring me back to my senses, I suddenly ran inside…
This cruel world had not only taken my parents from me—it had taken my grandmother too. I could only imagine how much pain she endured without me…
—
Years passed. I fulfilled my grandmother’s wishes and my own dreams. Perhaps they were her last will—of that, I have no doubt.
Now, I work as a judge in the Tashkent city court. I believe there are two main reasons why a girl would choose such a profession:
«First, repeated encounters with injustice in her life.
Second, a strong sense of pride in her homeland»
I had both reasons. And besides, this was my greatest goal—my duty to my grandmother and my country.
Today, as I sit by my grandmother’s grave, I recall the events of the past, one by one.
“Grandma… I’m here! Your beloved granddaughter has come to you as a judge. Forgive me for leaving you alone. I couldn’t save you from that place. But now, I will not allow such things to happen again. No child’s life will be like mine. I promise—and I will do everything to keep that promise.”
Ana Petrović was born in Jagodina, Serbia, in 1985. She completed both grammar school and medical school, weaving together the clarity of science with the sensitivity of art. Her poems have been published in several international literary journals, as well as in a world anthology of contemporary poets.
Her poetic voice, at once intimate and defiant, carries echoes of her favorite poets—Mayakovsky’s burning intensity and Yesenin’s tender lyricism—yet remains distinctly her own.
The diviner had said the moon was entering some special phase full of promise and prowess. The cat was sleeping at home. I went to the coffee shop. The man sitting in front of me was staring at the counter workers and I could sense he was not a good man. I was happy when he left. The other man must have been a gemini as he talked all day and night to many souls. If nobody was there he waited, patiently, like a cat can wait, or as still as the moon, even his eyes hardly moving, like some kind of advanced meditator. Outside I heard the air brakes of a bus or truck. Going out there, it began to rain.
What a strange and peculiar day,- the autumnal air arriving, capricious weather,- it getting sunny then cloudy then warm then cold all at fast turns. I went back home for past the electric bikes and scooters, and a picnic bench missing one side bench yet somehow still looking anyhow, structurally sound. I drew a picture of the mountains that had clouds, birds, and a house and horse and cart plus some trees in the foreground. A large red sun was setting behind it all. Not long after I fell to sleep and dreamt I had a class to attend but didn’t make it for being distracted by two women fighting, a group of leaves lit by nocturnal electric lights, a talk with a kind woman, and not being able to find a parking spot. I awoke and felt cool air from the twirling fan and the window open. I went downstairs to drink a glass of water and look out the window for the moon but can’t remember if I ever did find it.
a committee was celebrating independence on the field,
The turn of the flag at the end of the Jana-Gana-Mana.
A wise man comes and pulls the rope,
Goes up to top spot, leafy,
This time the flag will fly, and the flowers will storm.
But it is not happening anymore,
As much as the flag is over to the rope,
Yet the flag does not open,
A bird came to see this,
Try to open by his lip,
The flag opened.
Opened and the flag flying this time,
The flowers touched the ground,
kept a beautiful stream.
Short biography: Amb. Dr. Priyanka Neogi from Coochbehar. She is an administrative Controller of United Nations PAF, librarian, CEO of Lio Messi International Property & land Consultancy, international literacy worker, sports & peace promoter, dancer, singer, reciter, live telecaster, writer, editor, researcher, Literary journalist, host, beauty queen, international Co-ordinator of Vijay Mission of Community Welfare Foundation of India.
Book Review of Breasts, etc. by Nthikeng Mohlele (TK).
Publisher: Blank Page Books
Reviewer: Bhekisisa Mncube
I have just finished reading a book with the curious title Breasts, etc. by TK, that enigma of our literary scene—perhaps not as reclusive as his (my) idol, J.M. Coetzee, but still a figure shrouded in intrigue. At first, the book read like an essay about breasts—women’s breasts, to be precise—though it was marketed as a novel. Midway through, the tempo quickened, and more characters emerged, fleeting yet integral participants in the narrative.
TK is incapable of writing ordinary British English or crafting a book with a straightforward plot and a neat, satisfying ending. He isn’t a master of prose in the conventional sense; instead, he is a poet, a lyricist whose carefully chosen words create music for the soul. His obsession with the apocalypse—a recurring theme in his dreams—imagines a world where femininity itself, breasts included, is obliterated. He imagines men hugging women’s scriptures, bored, lost without women, and also being the last living creatures on earth who will fall short of food and feed on rodents. Yet, paradoxically, this obsession with breasts and the apocalypse forms the foundation for a beautiful love story centred on a triangular dynamic, including his “first love”, Winnie. She is the first woman who introduced him (James) to bare breasts (no sex), which in turn gave him a fulfilling career in nude photography.
Though not declared overtly, this love of Winnie evokes André Brink’s sentiment in Before I Forget, where he muses that sometimes, “love is greater for being unfulfilled,” a mantra I live by. Our narrator, James, is a man fascinated by the female form, specifically the breasts, which he captures as a nude photographer. His art seeks to immortalise “a fleeting moment before the ravages of decay and old age” (emphasis mine). Against his ethical instincts, James falls in love with one of his subjects, Esmeralda Abedienne, a woman whose essence transcends mere physicality. It is a love story that transcends breast worshipping, old age, death and decay, not to mention the apocalypse that never occurred.
This is not simply a tale of breast worshipping; it is a meditation on love, mortality, and art. It is a story that defies the apocalypse, weaving themes of beauty, meaning of life, ageing and decay into a narrative of transcendence. Despite the author telling us, “Life is a voyage to the grave.” In Breasts, etc., TK has produced a feminist manifesto—replete with poetry, music, and restrained eroticism as the only appreciation of breasts, that frees the book from being fascinated with the sexual connotation of breasts. Thus, the book sidetracks criticism by the woke crowd, sex purists and literacy classification. Perhaps it is dystopian due to the recurrent dreams of the apocalypse. However, I can’t escape the cruel killing of Winnie’s husband (cause of death alcohol poisoning), whom the narrator never loved, referring to him as an “intellectual toad” and failed athlete. Notwithstanding the narrator displaying his “jealous lover” streak by taking literary liberty to kill a character who had, in his mind, outlived the usefulness of his existence, the novel is, indeed, a magnum opus.
-Mncube is an author of three acclaimed books (The Love Diary of a Zulu Boy, The Ramaphosa Chronicles and Kumnandi Emakhaya (children’s book), has contributed to five more and has submitted two children’s books for review this year alone. If he does not win awards for his columns (regular columnist at Daily Maverick, The Witness, and guest at News24 and City Press), he only talks to his two cats and drinks cold beers on weekends only.
Author Biography
Novelist, short story writer, playwright, Nthikeng Mohlele authored critically acclaimed novels and two short story collections. His work includes: The Scent of Bliss (2008), Small Things (2013), Rusty Bell (2014), Pleasure (2016), Michael K (2018), Illumination (2019), Breasts, etc. (2023), Revolutionaries House (2024). The two short-story collections, The Discovery of Love (2021) and A Little Light (2023).
Mohlele is the winner of the University of Johannesburg Main Prize for South African Writing In English for Pleasure, the K Sello Duiker Memorial Prize and was also long listed for the Dublin International Prize. The Discovery of Love won the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences Award 2022 for Best Fiction: Short Stories. Breasts, etc was recently shortlisted for both the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences and University of Johannesburg Main Prize Awards (2024). He dabbles in journalistic writing and literary reviews.
Mohlele’s theatre writing credits include and The Affairs of State and I Am A Woman, which debuted at the Market Theatre, one of South Africa’s mainstream theatre circuits during 2022. His work is taught at leading South African universities, including at his alma mater, the University of the Witwatersrand, the University of South Africa and University of Johannesburg and of Pretoria. Mohlele’s other interests include music, photography, technology, film and design. He lives and works in Johannesburg.
