Book excerpt: An award-winning clinical psychologist is the first to codify a pattern of thinking that puts one in five children on a collision course with a conforming world.Millions of children -- one in five -- possess dazzling intelligence, an active imagination, a free-spirited approach to life, and the ability to drive everyone around them completely crazy. Such kids, Lucy Jo Palladino argues, possess the Edison Trait. Unlike their peers, they think divergently (generating many ideas at once), rather than convergently (focusing on one idea at a time).While such kids have the same restless, creative urges that helped Thomas Edison, Bill Gates, Ted Turner, Maya Angelou, and others succeed in later life, their brain-storming minds often cause distress in school, where conformity rules the classroom. Further, some Edison kids have ADD -- attention deficit disorder -- which puts them at greater risk for dysfunction.Dr. Palladino helps parents identify and appreciate the Edison Trait in their children and determine whether their child is a Dreamer, Discoverer, or Dynamo. She offers eight steps designed to help understand and support the gifts of the Edison Trait and minimize its deficits. She also includes a special section for parents whose Edison kids have ADD.