Examining the Relationship Between Parental Attitudes and the Study Habits of Gifted Children

Gifted children are the group which has a high level of mental potential, and managing the school with this potential generally without studying, therefore having no effective studying habits. Another important factor in developing study habits is parental attitudes. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between the parental attitudes and the study habits of gifted children. In this scope, parents’ attitudes were classified into democratic, authoritarian, permissive and overprotective which were put forward by Baumrind (1966; 1971) in his studies, and the study habits were handled as two dimensions as study quality and study responsibility. In the study, the relational screening model one of the quantitative research methods was used. The research was carried out 2016-2017 and its participants consist of 100 gifted children aged between 7-12 and their 100 parents. As the data collection tools, Parental Attitude Scale contains 62 items developed by Demir and Şendil (2008) and 23-items Study Habits Scale developed by Çalıkoğlu (2009) were used. The findings were obtained through independent t-test, mean, Pearson Product Moment Correlation coefficient and regression analysis. As a result of the study, no difference was found between the study quality which comprises technical issues such as taking notes, repeating, study responsibility and total study habits regarding age and gender. It was found that families generally held democratic and overprotective attitudes, there was a relationship between democratic attitude and study quality and democratic attitude increased the quality of child’s study. For this reason, it is essential to train families on study habits and the impact of the family on this issue.


INTRODUCTION
The psychological atmosphere within family plays a decisive role in the healthy development of the child both psychologically and physically. Parent's attitudes are one of the main elements affecting this atmosphere. Parent's attitudes affect children's values, beliefs, habits and behaviors. For instance authoritarian and overprotective attitudes have negative influences on study responsibility and effective study habits of children.These attitudes can both kill children's self-motivation and inhibit their success (Buri, Louiselle, Misukanis ve Mueller, 1988;Spera, 2005;Steinberg, Dornbusch, Brown, 1992). This situation is especially important for gifted children who demonstrateunderachievement with the rate is of 50%. Afat (2013) found that parents of gifted children held mostly democratic and overprotective parental attitudes in their study. Among these attitudes, she pointed out that overprotective parental attitude was the most predictor of intelligence. Similar findings were also obtained by Ogurlu, Yalin and Birben (2015) in a study of the relationship between perfectionism scores of gifted children and parental attitudes, the children's families of gifted children in Turkey received the highest scores from the democratic and overprotective parental attitude. Research showed that there was a higher level of harmony in the families of gifted children, they emphasized mutually supportive relationships, and they were in open communication (Abelman, 1991;Cornell and Grossberg, 1987;Karnes and Shwedel, 1987). In Turkey, families may exhibit different attitudes depending on the risk level. But the common point in both attitudes is that it is essential to present a route to child for doing something; to offer multiple options and to give the child the necessary feedback. Although there is an expectation that the study habits of a child raised in this way will be positive, a detailed examination of the topic is needed. For this purpose, the literature of the study will be given under the titles of the importance of parental attitudes in raising children, gifted children and their characteristics, the study habits of gifted children and the role of parents in the development of gifted children study skills.

The Importance of Parental Attitudes in Raising Children
Parents are the first educators who provide opportunities for the child to improve socially, emotionally and cognitively. The interaction between parents and child identifies the position of the child in the family and shapes his feelings, ideas, reactions and personality. In other words, the perceptions of a child about himself and the world and his reactions towards the environment are affected by the attitudinal patterns of his parents (Erdoğan and Uçukoğlu, 2011). The area of influence of the parents on the child is very wide. Parents are both the closest people in the 0-6 age range in fuilfilling all needs of children and the first teachers of their children. When it is considered that the developmental bases of human personality are introduced in the 0-6 age range, the importance of parental role in the identification of educational identity is understood better. The status of the child in the family, the value earned and the identity developed are the determinants of identity, status and value that he will gradually gain in society (Gordon et al., 1993). Parents can affect their children's feelings, thoughts and behaviors from birth via their attitudes. The child-raising attitude, which refers to these attitudes, is defined as the whole of the attitudes, behaviors and expectations that are directed towards the child (Darling and Steinberg, 1993).
When literature is examined, it is seen that parental attitudes are classified in different forms. For example, Yavuzer (2014) has shown that parental attitudes are grouped under six headings: oppressive and authoritarian attitude, loose attitude (child-centered family), imbalanced and unstable attitude, irrelevant and indifferent attitude, reassuring, supportive and tolerant attitude, while Bakhla et al. (2013) grouped them as democratic, authoritarian and permissive. Likewise, there are different classifications of different researchers regarding the attitudes of parents in the literature (Baumrind, Larzelere and Owens, 2010;Filiz &Yaprak, 2009, Hibbard andWalton, 2014;Kuzgun, 1972). This study is based on the four dimensions that Baumrind (1966Baumrind ( , 1971) revealed in his studies: democratic, authoritarian, permissive and overprotective parental characteristics. According to this, authoritarian parents try to control their children's attitudes and behaviors through senior authority. For these parents, obedience is at the top of everything. It is difficult to reach these parents in an emotional sense, and control, punishment, power display are in the forefront of their attitudes and behaviors. These parents may be more anxious and protective as well as refusing (Aytemiz, 2010). Democratic parents encourage their children verbally and canalize them into logical and purposeful behaviors. When children have objections, they explain their ideas based on reasonable grounds and do not try to control children with prohibitions. They have a warm and sensitive relationship with their children, but they also maintain control. Permissive parents exhibit acceptance and tolerance for their children's acts and avoid punishing their children. They are often seen as a resource for children to reach their wishes because they allow children to organize their own activities and to apply their own decisions. Control is practically avoided; they do not encourage their children to adhere to the rules. These parents try persuading method to reach their goals and there is little expectation from the children about homerelated responsibilities. Over protective parents intervene in every behavior of the child with the thought that the child can not be self-sufficient and with the sense of protection (Karasan, 2015). They avoid giving responsibility to the child. By arranging the activities of the child instead of the child, they try to solve the problems experienced by the child. As a result of excessive control and care, a personality with over-dependent, insecure, emotional injury is developed.

Gifted Children and Their Characteristics
Gifted children are the individuals who shows extraordinary performance in learning, abstract thinking and in some other areas. (in the top 10 % of the population) (NAGC, 1995). These areas include special academic ability, general ability, creativity, leadership and visual / performance arts. Renzulli (1978) uses the term gifted behavior instead of giftedness and defines giftedness as the intersection of general ability or special academic ability, creativity and task commitment. Clark (2008) defines gifted children as being curious, asking too many questions, being independent in their thoughts and behaviors, able to identify the contradictions between ideas and behaviors, having an unusual memory, able to think flexible and logically also showing originality, creativity in their areas of interest. She also emphasizes social and emotional characteristics of gifted such as hypersensitivity to the expectations, feelings of others, intensity, idealism, sense of humor, sense of developed justice. Silverman (1998) mentioned other characteristics of gifted children like long attention span, extraordinary energy, enjoyment of early reading, questioning authority, high-level imagination and skillfulness in puzzles. Children who exhibit the majority of these behaviors are considered gifted. On the other hand, there is no such thing as "a typical gifted child.'' Giftedness is a phenomenon that involves individual differences. Definitions related to giftedness are discussed from two different perspectives: mystery and mastery. From the perspective of the mystery model, gifted children are born with high potential and often get high scores from intelligence tests. Their abilities are fixed. Teachers and parents think that they know and do everything they can, and it is unclear what to do about their education after the diagnosis of giftedness in this model. On the other hand, in the mastery model, giftedness is described as the incompatibility of the child development with the education program offered to him. For this reason, it is necessary to make the education program suitable for gifted children (Matthews and Foster, 2005). There are common myths in the society, especially for gifted children. The most important of these is the myth that they are successful in the academic sense and the mystery model supports this myth. On the other hand, it is usually not possible to mention about academic achievement if they aren't guided and their effective working skills improved.

Study Habits of Gifted Children
Parents' attitudes are influential on many subjects ranging from children's personalities to their academic achievements. Study habits as one of these consist of studying condition, motivation, focusing on goal, self-management, use of time, attitudes towards teachers, and attitudes towards education in general and preparation level (Burson, 1985, 23;as cited in Çetin, 2009). The behaviors that should be targeted to develop study habit in the student are learning how to study, deciding on the use of various study skills and raising the person's self-responsibility (Garcia, 2006). It is important that students should be taught advanced learning strategies so that they can handle new information and acquire new skills and meet more challenging learning needs. At the same time, these students need to earn advanced study habits (Evans, 2004). As a matter of fact, it is a necessity for the students to have efficient study habits when considering that success can be achieved by studying effectively rather than studying hard (Küçükahmet, 1987). Since the students who can not have efficient study skills can not get anything in return for the time and effort they spend on learning, the success level of these students in the school and in the professional life will be low (Teker, 2002;Yılmaz, 1997). In the case of gifted students, parents and teachers often assume that they know how to study because of their superior abilities. However, the results of this assumption can be dangerous. Although gifted students may have special abilities, they may have shortcomings in other areas. Gifted students often need advice on organizing themselves. Most teachers assume that gifted students grasp effective studying skills, but gifted children are constantly being bombarded by their thoughts, so they do not know what to do first (Stamm, 1987). Most gifted students need to develop their academic habits and study skills. Gifted students usually make little effort to study during primary school. As a result, they can neither develop their working skills nor self-discipline that accompanies it (Coil, 2012). High school students, especially during high school are not enrolled in special schools for gifted. Although they are subject to advanced placement and honor classes, they are never truly academically challenged. Because of this, educating is the task of memorizing the information to be used for some time according to them. When students are confronted with a more rigorous and challenging curriculum, it becomes clear that they have inadequate working skills and habits. For this reason, it is necessary to help them to gain skills such as time management, organization of information, studying in chunks, note-taking, and maintaining their motivation from young ages (Erlandson, 2015). Gifted students are learning fast, having a distinctive learning style and teaching them the skills to study gives them the opportunity to organize their thoughts and times (Treffinger, 1975). Gifted students are perfectionist so being organized takes pressure from them and enable them to control their learning. They are curious and observant so studying skills enable them to reach resources independently. They are rational, analytical and organize information in new forms. Timing and planning helps them to see the big picture. They are sensitive, identifying goals for them and expectations help them to feel stronger and protect themselves from peer criticism (Rimm, 1985). The resulting success is motivating for new learning. For this reason, improving the planning and organization skills of gifted (daily and weekly planning, listing the things to be done before going to school and ordering do list 1-10 points before going to school, during and after school) and teaching them study skills such as being ready for the courses, recording assignments on a special notebook, tidiness necessary from the primary school years. Teaching memorization and interpreting techniques, teaching points to be considered in the exams, teaching writing and taking notes are other important subjects (Stamm, 1987). The researches reported that 50% of gifted students are underachievers (Hoffmann, Wasson & Christionsan, 1985;Rimm, 1987Akt: Hoover-Schultz, 2005 and some precautions should be taken to prevent the loss of this potential. Gaining effective study skills of this group can solve their problems about fearing of failure, setting unrealistic goals (Rimm, 1985) and realizing relationship between academic achievment and effort (Crittendon, Kaplan, and Heim, 1984). Some students see their failures as their own, not their teachers. For this reason, some gifted students who are underachievers can seek help in taking responsibility for school work and breaking the cycle of failure. Educators and families should not underestimate the importance of study skills for gifted children and should not think as that "he/she should know how to study because he/she is gifted.'' Teaching study skills will enable gifted students to build their own logic of work, but more importantly, to help the gifted child to accept responsibility for the relationship between effort and success. There are four reasons for gifted children to succeed under their potential; the first is that the child has a problem such as physical, cognitive or emotional learning difficulties. The second is the nonconformity between the child and the school, the third is the negative attitude of the child to the school, and the fourth is the student's lack of self-regulation and study skills (Siegle and Mccoach, 2005). Most gifted students lack of selfmanagement strategies, such as time management and study skills. Because gifted students do not challenge in the early years of school so they cannot develop their self-management skills. Good memory and fast processing skills in early grades compensate for the lack of note-taking and other study skills. Often educators try to teach them these skills before students need it. This process frightens both the teacher and the student. Students usually learn their self-regulation skills when they need these skills. Exposing gifted children to a challenging curricula from early grades and throughout their school life, their skills in self-management improve (Siegle and Mccoach, 2005). To support this process, the role of the parents is very important especially teaching them study methods and techniques and gaining them the responsibility of study.

Role of Parents in the Development of Gifted Children Study Skills
Gifted children also need parents' guidance on many subjects like their peers. Being gifted does not mean that they are good at all. One of the issues they need guidance is their study habits and skills. Effective study is a habit that needs to be earned from early ages. Parents should encourage their children to do something spontaneously from an early age and try to give them a habit of continuing their work to the end to make them earn responsibility to study. Thus, it can be very beneficial to provide guidance services to the students, even families, from the beginning of the education (Tümkaya and Bal, 2006).
The gifted children can easily learn because of their capacity, so they cannot develop their study skills and study habits. The ability of a gifted child to achieve success or not to be challenged at school can prevent the development of effective study habits of gifted children (Özbay, 2013). Parents should first of all be aware of this situation, provide their children with academic and social areas that will compel them, and especially teach their children a number of strategies and techniques to improve their study skills and study habits. These techniques are mainly related to study skills. These techniques can be developed by working with the student one-to-one and with instant feedback, and can be developed with the help of a working with a coach. The school does not force the gifted students most of the time, so the gifted students have the potential to underachieve in the following years. In this case, it is important for parents to establish an effective communication with the school and to enable strategies such as acceleration, grouping, enrichment and differentiation, which are the lifesaving strategies in the learning of gifted students. In the acceleration, the students are provided with information from the upper subjects or classes; in grouping, the student will come together with the gifted children like himself or to take lessons with the same level groups. In enrichment, the student is given the opportunity to learn about different areas of the subject by presenting a wider and richer content. While differentiation all the content, techniques and methods are adjusted according to student readiness, interest and learning profile (Kaplan-Sayı and Emir, 2017). Also the assignments are presented in accordance with the student. In this case, the student is expected to receive the ideal training so as to develop effective study skills and habits by challenged mentally. Besides, the main point is that the parents have an effective communication with their children. With an effective communication and effective observation, it will be much easier to identify areas where the child is troubled about his or her study skills. Also the solution of the problem would be possible with the effective communication and cooperation of the child and the parents.
As can be seen, the influence of parents' attitudes and behaviors on the study habits can not be denied. One of the most important factors that constitute the study habits is the use of effective working methods called as 'studying methods' in the literature but called as 'study quality' in our study. These methods include the methods and acts that can be learned through education such as coloring text, underlining text, taking notes, summarizing, etc (Garcia, 2006). Another important factor that constitutes the study habits is the ''study responsibility'' in the literature, which is usually accompanied by feeling independence in self-stimulating learning (Calikoglu, 2009). The relevant literature emphasizes that the responsibility of studying is related to motivation and that children should first be enthusiastic. At this point, parental attitudes have an important place. Because the parents who have authoritarian attitudes put pressure on the children and make negative comparisons can not generate the children's enthusiasm to study rather they dampen it. In such a case, children usually spend time in their studyroom or table pretending that they are studying and thus they fool their parents who wishes their children to study and themselves. However, if this claim is from children themselves, the only authority to believe is the student himself, no such deception will be required (Yenilmez and Özbey, 2007). On the other hand, in overprotective families, the child does not have autonomous behaviors so it is not possible for the children to have study responsibility and study habits. Among the parental attitudes the healthiest and most appropriate one for the gifted is democratic attitude. Democratic parents have close relations with their children and controls their children rarely so social competence and self-confidence develop in the highest level in these parents' children. Children developing self-confidence are more ready to take risks in new environments. The fact that gifted children cannot succeed in their potentials arises from their insufficient study habits. The child who wastes most of his time and enters into an effort to produce something at the last moment cannot naturally have the chance to feel pleasure about his hidden power. This kind of problem is not encountered in families who forms an internal discipline in their children (Özbay, 2013).
Many studies have shown that parental attitudes have a significant impact on the success in different academic areas ranging from science fields to engineering such as mathematics, foreign language, science and charachteristics like discipline; also on total academic achievement in learning and teaching process (Başol & Zabun, 2014;Bicknell, 2014;Bingham, Jeon, Kwon and Lim, 2017;Garn, Matthews & Jolly, 2010;Perera, 2014;Turner, Chandler & Heffer, 2009). From this view, the relationship between parental attitudes and study habits which are increasingly important in the 21st century will be emphasized in this study.
In this scope, the research questions are as follows:  Do the gifted children's study habits-study quality and study responsibility-vary according to age and gender?
 Is there a relationship between the attitudes of the parents and the study habits-study quality and study responsibility-of the gifted students?

METHOD
In this study, the relational screening model was used. Relational screening model was preferred in order to determine the relationship between two or more variables and to obtain clues about the causal relationship between variables (Büyüköztürk, Kılıç-Çakmak, Akgün, Karadeniz and Demirel, 2012).

Participants
The universe of the research consisted of students between 7-12 years of age who were diagnosed as gifted in Istanbul in 2016-2017 and their parents. The sample consists of 100 gifted students and 100 parents selected from this group by means of convenience sampling. This kind of sampling involves taking sample elements that the researcher can easily reach. Convenience sampling is preferred in terms of being practical and economical (Monetle, Sullivan and De Jong, 1990). This method of sampling was chosen because it was difficult to reach gifted students and it was impossible to determine all of the elements of the universe. In the study, 100 students who were enrolled an institution presenting enrichment courses for gifted students and their parents were included. Of these gifted students, 61 (61%) were boys and 39 (39%) were girls. The distribution of children by age was 48 (48%) in the age group 7-8; 52% (52%) were aged between 9 and 12 years. The family group consisted of 77 mothers and 23 fathers. Parental attitudes are based on the parent who communicates most with the child. For this reason, majority parental attitude information is obtained from mothers but some of them are obtained from fathers. Children are distributed as 61% boys and 39% girls. According to the age , 48% of them are 7-8 years of age and % 52 of them are between 9-12 years of age. Parents who participated the study are formed from 23 fathers and 77 mothers.

Data Collection Tools
As data collection tools in the study, the scale of study habits applied for the gifted children and the parental attitude scale applied to their parents were used.
The study habit scales were developed by Calikoglu (2009) in order to obtain information about the study habits of the students. It was applied on 701 students and its total score average was found as 74.60, standard deviation 10.8; the highest score 92 and the lowest score 32. The Study habit scale's study quality sub-factor average score was 74, 60, the standard deviation was 4.8, the highest score was 36 and the lowest score was 12 for this sub-factor. The Study Responsibility sub-factor average score was 45. 3, the standard deviation was 7.2, the highest score was 56 and the lowest score was 17. Initially based on literature review, the scale of 59 items was reduced to 38 items after piloting and expert opinions; and the final version included 23 items as a result of validity and reliability studies. There were a total of 23 items, with 9 being positive and 14 being negative. Each of the items in the scale was arranged with four alternatives, "always", "often''", "occasionally" and "never", to be answered by marking one of the choices. Reliability of the Study Habits Scale was determined by using three different methods; Cronbach α, Spearman Brown split half and test-retest. The coefficients of the scale were 0, 88, 0, 87 and 0, 83, respectively. The validity of the scale was established in terms of its factor structure, concurrent and construct validities. Concurrent validity coefficient of the scale was 0,45. Sufficient evidence was found for its factor structure and construct validities. The Cronbach's Alpha value of the Study Habits Scale was found to be 0.72 in this study.
Parental attitude scale was developed by Demir and Şendil (2008) in order to determine the parental attitudes of mothers and fathers when raising their children. To this end, a 62-item scale consisting of four dimensions, "democratic", "authoritarian", "overprotective" and "permissive". For the validity and reliability of the scale, the data were collected from 420 mothers and fathers with low, moderate and high socioeconomic status. In order to test the construct validity of the scale, the scale was applied to 56 parents with a different scale that measured parental attitudes. As a result of the principal components and varimax rotation analyzes carried out in the scope of the studies, 16 items were removed. The scale took its last form with 46 items. As a result of the reliability analysis, Cronbach alpha coefficients were found to be .83 for "democratic" dimension, .76 for "authoritarian" dimension, .75 for "over protective" dimension and .74 for "permissive" dimension. In this study, the reliability of the Parental Attitude Scale, Cronbach's Alpha coefficient, was obtained as 0,74. In the literature, values above .70 are considered to be reliable (Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2007;Tezci, 2016). According to these values, it can be said that the internal consistency of the measuring instrument is high in this study.

Data Collection Process
After the data collection tools were prepared, appropriate dates were determined and 100 students between the ages of 7-12 years who were enrolled in an institution that offered enriched education in Istanbul in 2016-2017 and their 100 parents were invited for the study. Approval of the families was obtained for the application of scales. The data collection process was carried out by the researchers themselves on 15-22.10.2016 between 09.30-14.00 hours with the participation of volunteer students. The students who participated in the research were explained the importance of research and stated that they did not need to write their names in order to ensure their sincerity while responding. Also, the attitude scale to be filled by the families was explained in a seminar and the importance of the research is emphasized. The scale was given to the families in a closed envelope and the families were told that they should fill the scale and send it to the center with the student. Since the families of 20 students out of 120 students did not send the scales back, 20 students were excluded from the study.

The Statistical Analysis of the Data
The data obtained in the study were analyzed using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) for Windows 22.0 program. Descriptive statistics of gifted students' study habits scores and their parents' attitude scores were examined. The weighted arithmetic mean was calculated because the item numbers in the subscales of both scales were different. Independent t-test was used to examine whether the students' study habits scores differed by gender and age. In order to investigate the relationship between study habits and parental attitude, the Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient and regression analysis between these two continuous variables were calculated.

FINDINGS
The findings of this study which examines the relationship between study habits and parental attitudes in gifted children are presented in this section. In the analysis, firstly the scores obtained from the common parental attitudes and study habits of the participants were examined. Unrelated group t test was performed to determine whether the scores differed by age and gender; also pearson correlation test performed to determine the correlation between parental attitude and study habits. With regression analysis the direction of this correlation were examined. As seen in Table 4, there was no difference between the groups in terms of study quality, responsibility for studying and total working habits. Based on this finding, it can be said that gender has no effect on study quality, study responsibility and total study habits.
x ss x Sh As it is seen in Table 5, in terms of study quality, the average of 9-12 age group was found to be high and in terms of study responsibility and total study habits the average of 7-8 age group was found to be high, there was no statistically significant difference between the groups according to age.  Table 6 shows the participants' parental attitude sub-dimensions' mean and standard deviation also minimum and maximum values per items. According to this, the mean score of the parents who participated in the research for democratic dimension was 4.38; for authoritarian dimension 2.01; for overprotective dimension 3.09; and for permissive dimension 2.40.  Table 7 shows the participants' study habits' mean and standard deviation also minimum and maximum values per items. According to this, participant children who have been diagnosed as gifted the mean score for study quality is 3.40 while study responsibility mean score is 3.93 and study habits in total mean score is 3.69. When the relationship between parental attitudes and study habits was examined, there was a weak positive correlation between the study quality and the democratic dimension (r = 0.227; p = 0.023 <0.05). Apart from that, there was no correlation between the study quality and any parental attitude. There was no significant relationship between the dimension of the study responsibility and the total score of study habits and the parental attitudes in any dimension. The regression analysis used to determine the causal relationship between the democratic dimension and the quality of the study was found statistically significant (F = 5,325; p = 0,023 <0.05). As a determinant of the level of the study quality, it was found that the relation with democratic dimension variables (explanatory power) was weak (R 2 = 0.052). However, as a result, the level of democratic attitude displayed by the parents increased the quality of the study (ß = 14,021).

DISCUSSION, RESULTS AND SUGGESTIONS
In this study, gifted children parents attitudes, the effects of gender and age on study quality, study responsibility and total study habits, the relationship between parental attitudes and study habits were investigated.
According to the findings obtained in the study, it could be stated that the attitude attended by the participant parents was democratic and overprotective parental attitude. This finding coincides with the results of Afat (2013) and Ogurlu, Yalın, Birben (2015) conducted on the parents of gifted children. Research has shown that there is a higher level of harmony in gifted children's families in which mutual supportive relationships are given importance and family members display a clear communication (Abelman, 1991;Cornell and Grossberg, 1987;Karnes and Shwedel, 1987). In our country, families often have different attitudes in different situations, depending on the level of risk. But the common point we perceive in both of these attitudes is giving the child a route to do something or offering multiple options and giving the child the necessary feedback. It is expected that the study habits of a child raised in this way will be positive.
There were no significant differences in children's study habits scores in terms of gender in the study. In the case that study habits were examined regarding the age factor, although the average of 9-12 age group was higher in terms of study quality, the average of 7-8 age group was higher in terms of study responsibility and total study habits; there was no statistically significant difference between groups in terms of age. Çalıkoğlu (2009) reported in her study of examining the relationship between the study habits and the perfectionist characteristics of the gifted students, according to the results of 701 participant sample in reliability study, there was a significant difference in favor of females regarding study habits total scores and the subdimensions of the study quality and study responsibility and according to the class variable, the average score of the study habits, study quality and study responsibility of 5 th grade group was found as higher than the 6 th grade group. In the other part of the same study conducted with the participation of 34 gifted students; there was no significant difference between the genders and between the fifth and sixth grades in terms of the total score of the study habits, the study quality and the study responsibility. As can be seen, the study conducted in the large sample group is consistent with our findings in terms of age and the study habits of the younger ones were found higher. The study with small sample group of gifted students supported our findings in terms of gender. The non-overlapping age part is thought to be related to the number and structure of the sample.
When the relationship between parental attitudes and study habits was taken into account, there was a weak positive correlation between the study quality and the democratic dimension, the relations between the other variables were not statistically significant. Accordingly, democratic parental attitude was one of the determinants of the level of the study quality or the level of democratic attitude displayed by parents increased the study quality. Study habit, in some studies in the literature, consisted of study environment, personal characteristics, time management, study method and attention sub-factors (Çetin, 2009); in some studies, it was explained as starting and maintaining a course, deliberate study and attendance, writing notes, having reading habits, using preparing techniques for examinations, repeat for learning and use of library written sources (Vergili and Atılgan, 1998); in other studies, it was taken as study with breaks, exact learning, using planned study method, using reading method, note taking technique, making listening activities, recalling, having motivation, test doing, time management (Yenilmez and Özbey, 2007). In our research, study habits included metacognitive activities such as taking notes, repeating topics, benefitting from different sources, identifying deficiencies in the subject, using a dictionary, avoiding distractions, and conveying what was learned with own sentences. It is expected that such forms of behavior could only be possible in a democratic environment where child is offered alternatives and explained reasons, territory of freedom is defined and given. Moreira,Dias, Vaz, Vaz (2013) examined the predictors of academic performance in their study with 384 Portuguese secondary school pupils and found nine factors that predict persistence and motivation. Of these, the five were 24.6% of the total variance; these five factors were socio-economic level 9.3%; participation of the family in the education process 6.4%; academic objectives 4.9%; student teacher interaction 2.6% and academic skills 1.1%. As can be understood, family involvement is very important for academic performance. Garn et al. (2010) interviewed 30 families of gifted children in order to demonstrate the contributions of families on their children's study habits. Three themes emerged as a result that families demonstrate to promote academic motivation of their children. These themes were family as specialist, supportive family and behavior change-focused family. Family as specialist theme demonstrated relations between family attitudes and academic motivation; supportive and behavior change-focused family themes are about specific approaches that parents used to improve academic motivation at home. 80% of the parents stated that they saw themselves as specialists in understanding personal characteristics of their children and therefore in improving academic motivation, but they did not always feel successful in shaping study habits. 60% of the families stated that it was an intense and frightening process to develop academic motivation of gifted children. For this reason, families used very different strategies. A way that was useful one day did not work another day. More than half of the families complained about the problems related to school homework and that the repetitive work harm the climate at home. 80% of the families used different strategies to reinforce academic motivation: 25 of 30 used interactive teaching, 21 of 30 used reinventing learning environments, 12 of 30 used associating homework with interests, and 14 of 30 used to develop internalizing. Restructuring the environment was a very common application with 70%. This includes helping with time management, providing support and materials to complete assignments, segmenting assignments into doable parts. The rate of logical explanation for the gifted children to internalize the importance of school was 47%, or the combination of homework with areas of interest was 40%. Behavior change was seen in 30% of 9 people out of 30.
In fact, parents have a key role in the improving study habits of the gifted children and their school success. Parents with gifted children who do not play this role offer the greatest contribution to their children's "underachievment". Peterson (2001) conducted a study with the participation of 31 people who were professionally engaged and successful but who were underachiever during the adolescence. He examined on these people's experiences of underachievement, specifically focusing on their experiences of starting, contuniuing and reversing the underachievment. One of the striking findings of the study was the perception of the participants that they were deprived of family support. 35% of all participants indicated that none of their parents gave academic support, and 32% indicated that none of their parents encouraged them for other achievements. Effective parents knew that they would make a positive difference in the lives of their children and therefore contributed to the lives of their children at a high level (Hoover-Dempsey et al., 1992).
In summary, parents who affect their child's study habits should exhibit positive attitudes towards their school, study and work life; share it with their children, adopt a more supportive family status and support their children towards obstacles, motivate them, follow their children and give feedback, encourage them and, most importantly, perform the five family roles mentioned above effectively in required stages and times in order to make them to gain study habits. Incorrect attitudes of student parents, indifference, oppression, harshness, lovelessness or extreme interest in student cause them to feel frustrated and become uninterested in their studies (Küçükahmet, 2001). For this reason, the need for the parents to adopt a democratic attitude and to be consistent in performing this attitude in all events is another important issue.
Although the study revealed results that would contribute to the field, there are certain limitations in the research. The fact that the research group is receiving a differentiated education for gifted students creates a limitation in generalizing the results. The inclusion of gifted students, who do not receive any special support into such research is important in terms of the generalizability of the research. In addition, both the attitudes towards studying and the parents' attitudes were determined by scales based on self-assessment. There is a risk of reflecting ideal rather than current situation in the self-assessment based scales. Considering the disadvantages of the self-assessment scales further work with objective assessment tools will yield more objective results. As the study habits are multidimensional other factors that affect study habits should be included in the research. In addition, comparative studies in a sample of gifted and non-gifted students would contribute to the field. Considering that there is also a link between study habits and parental attitudes, the intercultural comparison study would contribute to the understanding of the characteristics related to study habits of the gifted children.
According to the results o the research, it can be suggested that;  Families can be provided with trainings on relation between parents attitudes and study habits  A similar research can be carried out with a group of gifted students who do not receive special education and with a larger sample group  A new research about on this issue can be supported with a qualitative part  The same study can be carried out including cross-cultural comparison.