Why handle prodigies differently? (Score 1)

With so much attention being placed on making sure the best child-raising techniques are applied to "prodigies", especially in the area of "intellectual stimulation", why is that these children are handled with greater care, or to obviously rephrase, why are we handling normal children with less care? I suppose most suggestions here come from our own frustrations in life, many from hearing similar "you have so much potential" speeches from our parents. Mix this with the illusivness of perfection to give you an even greater headache. I think many of us here are trying to solve the problem of the child not having any "regrets" when he's older by filling the child with as much "information" or "content" as possible. IANAP (psychologist) but arn't such regrets and stemming unhappiness the results of having a poor relationship with your mother and father? eg being loved for who you can be rather than who you are? Now for my crappy illustration. Imagine two 21 year young men. Both don't know how to read. Both are given the opportunity to begin learning, and they both take it. The happy guy will think "great let's start learning" whilst the unhappy guy will think "i wish i could of started earlier". Does it really matter for the "prodigy" that his potentials are realised? Or does it only matter when his potentials are defined by others?