Selecting an appropriate summer camp for a gifted student requires careful consideration of the whole child. Who are they, and how can they benefit from the summer? There are no standard answers to this. Some students want to spend the summer more fully pursuing a passion. Others want to try something new. And some don’t want to go to camp at all, preferring to read, imagine, work for money, visit family, or more. All of these are worthwhile options.

To understand a child’s greatest strengths and needs, and how educational choices can best support a child, I often look to Dabrowski’s Theory of Overexcitabilities, also often called . If we can identify a child’s intensities, we can better analyze which resources best serve him or her. For a good understanding of Dabrowski’s theory of gifted children and their intensities, I recommend Sharon Lind’s article, “.”

Before considering the environment of a summer program, there are a few overarching questions to consider. Do they want to fill their summer with what they already know they like, or do they choose to try something personally challenging? Do they want to stay in their comfort zone, or experience a summer outside of it? After your child has answered these questions, you can think about your child’s needs more specifically. Here are ideas, based on my work with gifted children, to help you think about summer camps and programs based on their personal intensities.

Psychomotor Overexcitabilities

These children are restless, driven, usually in movement, active and energetic. They can successfully attend camps with non-athletic foci, but they must have daily opportunities for physical expression.

Last summer a gifted rising high school senior was in a college counseling seminar I led. The best part of his summer was playing basketball, and it seemed the worst part was sitting in my two-hour meeting. His dream is to attend the U.S. Naval Academy, and toward that he had an aggressive schedule of running and weight lifting. Another student told me he had to practice circus stunts every day or he would be depressed.

A summer experience for this type of student should in some way include:

• A big campus with easy access to open spaces
• Fast-paced sports options
• Challenging physical activities with some sense of riskiness
• A climate that allows daily outdoor activities
• Sleeping arrangements that accommodate students who need fewer than average hours of sleep
• Camp programing that encourages students to settle themselves into some quiet time

Sensual Overexcitabilities

These children are highly sensitive to pleasurable or displeasureable sights, smells, textures, tastes and sounds. They can feel overwhelmed by increased sensory input, especially if they are placed in a displeasureable environment. Food quality is particularly important for these children. Music, language and art camps are well suited to these students.

A summer experience for this type of student should in some way include:

• Appealing food – One ÓĹĂŰĘÓƵ client attended a Chinese language camp, which was a great experience for her – except that she did not like Chinese food. (She did come to like some of the menu’s choices.) Camps with strong kitchen odors can also be a problem for these children.
• Supportive dining arrangements – Food is what you eat, plus how you eat it. Is the meal rushed? Is the camp turning over tables to feed everyone? Is the eating area clean? Or are students encouraged to sit, have conversation and stay at the table as long as they want?
• Good air quality
• Access to music
• Visually soothing campus – One student told me she would only feel peaceful if she was surrounded by trees.

Intellectual Overexcitabilities

These children need to seek, understand, analyze and synthesize knowledge. They are able to concentrate for long periods and love to talk about theoretical and moral issues. They can be unintentionally critical of other students who are not peers.

Last month, I was in workshops with gifted high school students who aired their frustrations with limits on intellectual exploration. Most of them cited teachers who were sometimes unable to explain advanced material. AP classes are a mixed blessing: there is more advanced material, but so many assignments and a strict curriculum crowd out genuine thought.

A summer experience for this type of student should in some way include:

• Association with teachers or mentors who have complete mastery of their field
• Connection with peers who can socialize in compatible ways
• Intense learning possibilities
• Opportunities to discuss moral concerns
• Time to read

Imaginational Overexcitabilities

These children often create their own private worlds with imaginary people and storylines. They tend to prefer fantasies and dreams over facts and have preferences for the unique and unusual.

One gifted student interested in art had a superb summer in an architecture program. He was thrilled when his teacher gave him a viewfinder and told him to walk around the city, looking only at the details of architectural elements. He loved it all, especially working with the viewfinder.

A summer experience for this type of student should in some way include:

• Creative inlets and outlets such as plays, movies, creative writing, poetry, photography and crafts
• Storytelling
• Access to workshop space on an as-needed schedule
• Free time to imagine and wander
• Something within the program that is new to the student and out of the ordinary

Emotional Overexcitabilities

These children have intense feelings within themselves and strongly identify with the feelings of others. Their intensity includes physical responses, such as stomach aches, and they can be accused of over-reacting in situations.

This intensity is a challenge for residential camp staff, especially if the camp counselors are young. One student with emotional overexcitabilities was unable to sleep at residential camp until she was allowed a visitor and began to receive daily mail.

A summer experience for this type of student should include:

• An empathetic environment
• Mature counselors with good communication skills
• Camp commitment to accepting all feelings
• A calm environment, sometimes facilitated by a low staff to student ratio
• Good medical facilities, especially if the child is on any medication

As an organization specifically dedicated to serving gifted students, all of keep these overexcitabilities in mind. For programs not specifically designed for gifted students, theses intensities are important to consider and have the potential to make a significant difference in your child’s summer program experience.

ÓĹĂŰĘÓƵ is currently accepting applications for summer programs for gifted kids ages 5 to 18. For more information about these programs, please visit the . Apply today!

What factors do you consider when selecting a summer program for your gifted child? Please share in the comment section below.

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Lisa is the mother of 3 gifted children and lives outside of San Francisco.

Which of the following is a symptom of anxiety in a gifted child?

a. An eye twitch
b. Pacing in circles
c. Fighting with her mother

The answer?
All of the above.

The eye twitch and the pacing were easy for me. My oldest son’s eye began to twitch in fifth grade, around the same time he started to disengage at school. Our middle child began pacing in circles around the bathroom in second grade. That was the year that his teacher wrote his name on the blackboard with the word “teacher” before it because she thought he was too bossy.

My daughter is the one who fights with me. She is in an ideal educational environment. We fight because I am annoying.

If you met my daughter, you would find her to be an adorable, Justin Bieber-loving 11 year old. And she is. She is also super critical of me. According to my daughter, I clear my throat excessively. I use the word “sweetie” when I’m irritated and I make squishing noises when I chew. When I do these things, she tells me to stop. Sometimes she even imitates me.

My daughter’s need to correct me leads to terrible fights. I can’t understand why she won’t overlook my annoying behavior. She doesn’t know why I keep doing things that irritate her. Usually, I just walk away. That enrages her. She hates it when I walk away.

I don’t tell many people about my daughter’s criticism because it makes both of us look bad. It’s disrespectful. It’s insensitive. It’s evidence of my bad parenting skills. And, according to a psychiatrist I know, it’s a symptom of high anxiety.

About a year ago, I was talking with a psychiatrist about anxiety issues of my own. She went down a laundry list of symptoms. At one point she asked me if I get annoyed easily. I said no, and she seemed surprised. She said that highly anxious people are often irritable. Then I remembered my daughter. I thought about how she hates it when her younger brother cracks his knuckles, when her older brother chews ice or when her father talks with food in his mouth. It occurred to me that my daughter is irritable because she is anxious.

I am the first to admit that I might be fooling myself by thinking that my daughter’s behavior reflects anxiety instead of permissive parenting because I don’t want to take responsibility for the behavior. Having said this, I can’t escape the genetic component of her anxiety. After all, I’m anxious, and so is my husband. Our sons? Anxious and anxious. Any genetic predisposition she might have received was certainly nurtured by my anxious parenting.

Okay, maybe I lied to the psychiatrist. Sometimes I am irritable. Early in our marriage, I told my husband what to do when I behave this way. When I am at my most unlikable, what I really need is a hug. I need some physical reassurance that I am not bad despite my bad behavior.

We tried it with our daughter. Or more accurately, my husband tried it. In the middle of a particularly bad fight, he waited for her to catch her breath and then asked her if he could give her a hug. Surprisingly, she said yes. Eventually, she would ask for a hug after she made a snarky remark but before we would get into a full blown fight. Those were hard hugs for me to give. It seemed like I was rewarding bad behavior. It did, however, prevent the fight and hasten an apology from her. She always expressed genuine remorse for her behavior after we fought.

I found support for our hug therapy in a blog by Dr. Claudia M. Gold, a pediatrician and author of . According to Dr. Gold, this behavior has to do with the underdevelopment of the higher cortical centers of the brain. Our daughter didn’t experience early trauma, nor does she have sensory processing problems like the children discussed in her blog. She is, however, intense and highly sensitive like many gifted children. She has almost all of . The way she externalized her intense nature felt like a personal attack, but it was no different from the boys’ eye twitching and pacing.

I can’t say that I’m entirely at peace with the way our daughter expresses her anxiety, and if I’m wrong and I am a poor parent, please don’t tell me. I have found a solution that involves holding my daughter close and giving her a squeeze. My hope is that the memories of the fights will disappear and what she will remember are the hugs.

In what ways do your children exhibit anxiety? How do you handle these expressions of anxiety? Please share with us in the comment section below.

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