Gifted kids aren't really any different from the "regular" kids, they just often have a smarter-sounding rationalization for why they don't enjoy math. However

Gifted kids aren't really any different from the "regular" kids, they just often have a smarter-sounding rationalization for why they don't enjoy math. However, it's really the age-old excuse "When am I even gonna use this?" I really came to enjoy math / calculus when I was taking a physics class and started to understand the world better through the lens of my new math knowledge. Einstein's theories made so much more sense when you could think about the physical limits imposed by the math. Otherwise I couldn't care less about the Disc method and rotely calculating the volume of objects around an axis... So to many children, learning math without practical application is like teaching someone a successively harder alphabet/vocab every year without ever writing an essay or delivering a speech... Or like learning how to read music and play harder scales without ever performing a piece. Effective learning needs a good balance between application (the fun) and mastery of technique (the sweat and tears).