The current state of our world has forced many of us to be stuck inside physically. Mentally, the social distancing measures along with the uncertainty of what鈥檚 to come can cause a lot of unrest and unhappiness. I know I personally have been feeling anxious and nervous when I think about everything going on right now. Even when we weren鈥檛 in such unprecedented times and things were more 鈥渘ormal鈥�, spring has always been a wonderful time to reset mentally. It鈥檚 a season of life and growth; flowers bloom, days are longer and the weather is warmer.

If you are looking for things to keep your mind and body occupied while adhering to physical distancing, explore some of the options below.

鈼� Clean and reorganize spaces in your house.

If the prospect of deep cleaning your entire house seems daunting, simply focus on clearing out an overflowing closet or throwing away old papers on your desk. Decluttering and organizing might help you feel productive and of your situation. journal even found a correlation between people doing dishes and an increase in positive emotions like inspiration and mindfulness and a decrease in negative emotions like nervousness.

鈼� Try an online workout.

In this digital age and with social distancing in full-swing, there is no shortage of online workout classes to choose from. Check out YouTube for some free yoga flows, or find a gym that might be live-streaming a Zumba class. Exercise is linked to many , such as improved mood, decreased anxiety and boosted creativity.

鈼� Plant something.

Getting down in the dirt and growing plants can , reduce stress and increase mindfulness. If you have access to a yard, try planting flowers or vegetables. If you don鈥檛 have a yard, you can always pick up seeds from your local nursery or order them online and start an herb garden on your window sill.

鈼� Create art. Draw, paint, sculpt or write.

Whatever gets your creative juices flowing, try it out! shared that expression through art can improve cognition, reduce stress and promote relaxation. Creating art can also give your eyes a much-needed break from staring at your computer and phone screens.

鈼� Journal.

Writing your thoughts and emotions down on paper can give you a sense of release and an Sometimes, simply writing down your fears and concerns can instantly help you feel more at ease. It can also allow you to examine negative thoughts and potentially identify situations or moments that contribute most to those feelings.

鈼� Talk to someone.

Whether you choose to talk to someone you live with or call a friend or family member, interacting with other people, focusing on topics that aren鈥檛 centered around the news and enjoying the company of others can allow you to feel more social and improve your mood. There are also apps and online tools like where you can speak with licensed therapists if you are seeking professional mental health help.

鈼� Meditate.

There is may ease symptoms of anxiety and depression. In a rapidly moving and chaotic world, many people find comfort in and benefits associated with sitting and focusing on breathing through a guided meditation for a few minutes. If interested, try or an app like Calm or Headspace.

I also feel compelled to end this list with a disclaimer. The activities mentioned above are simply suggestions that might provide some relief to any mental distress you may be experiencing right now. They are not meant to stand in for professional guidance nor do I hope they make you feel anything other than intrigued or inspired to try a new, soothing activity.

Right now many of us are inundated with a seemingly constant, discouraging news cycle. Many have also been under a barrage of encouragement from brands and peers to Viral challenges and lists like the one above may make you feel like you should be as busy as– or even busier than– you were in your pre-quarantine life; baking cupcakes in the morning, running three miles in the afternoon, knitting in the evening and finishing that best-selling book you鈥檝e been meaning to read all before you go to bed.

American psychologist, Abraham Maslow, These needs are physiological, safety, love, esteem and self-actualization. Before we can even begin to work towards feeling confident in who we are (our esteem) and feel we are achieving our greatest potential (self-actualization), we must first ensure our physiological needs and safety. This means we must have food, water and a place to sleep. After that, we need to feel safe and secure, we need a predictable environment that is free from threats and harm.

In the current situation, many people鈥檚 physiological and safety needs feel threatened. If you are worried about getting food, staying healthy or ensuring you have a home to sleep in, it might be very difficult to focus on painting a portrait or feel motivated to clean your closet. Our regular lives and most basic needs are suddenly no longer guaranteed in the way we might have always known them to be.

So before you feel like you need to learn a new skill, pick up a hobby or FaceTime all your friends and family members, focus on meeting your basic needs. Setting even just three simple goals for yourself to achieve in a day, like making your bed, brushing your teeth and eating breakfast, can help you feel more productive and in control of your situation. We cannot move onto meeting our higher needs or even helping others if we have not first prioritized ourselves. Be gentle with yourself and focus on getting through your day, little by little. We can all use a bit more self-love during this strange spring season.

优蜜视频 is here for you.

In today鈥檚 media and news, I feel like I hear more stories about the benefits of sharing emotions and discussing mental health than I ever did growing up. This is a wonderful thing and through popular media including television and movie portrayals and celebrity confessions, we are growing more accustomed to talking about historically taboo or just unknown topics surrounding emotions and mental health.

With great strides being made in these conversations, it seems important to discuss emotional intensity among our country鈥檚 brightest, and sometimes most vulnerable, youth.

The 聽has a great explanation for why gifted youth tend to experience more intense emotions, saying, 鈥淚ntellectual complexity goes hand in hand with emotional depth. Just as gifted children’s thinking is more complex and has more depth than other children’s, so too are their emotions more complex and more intense.鈥�

Gifted youth are often more aware of and affected by their surroundings. Children who feel things with great intensity experience the world in a different way than their non-gifted peers. Emotional or physical reactions to events can last longer for gifted children. These experiences of heightened stimulation observed in many gifted individuals are referred to as intensities or聽Overexcitabilities. Polish psychologist identified five overexcitabilities and their associated behaviors:

1. Psychomotor: Characterized primarily by high levels of energy
2. Sensual: Characterized by a heightened awareness of all five senses: sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing
3. Emotional: Characterized by extreme emotional sensitivity
4. Intellectual: Characterized by deep curiosity and thought
5. Imaginational: Characterized by vivid imagination and visualization

The first step in managing intense emotions is identifying and understanding them. If you think your child exhibits overexcitabilities, talk to your child about how they feel and react to certain situations. Healthy discussions around expressing emotions make everyone feel safer and more understood. Starting these discussions at a young age enforces good habits for the future.

How exactly do these overexcitabilities manifest themselves? It varies from child to child, but there are common associated with all five overexcitabilities.

• Psychomotor responses can include pacing, rapid talk or use of hand gestures
• Sensual responses can include sensitivities to clothing textures, food tastes or a need for physical displays of affection like cuddles or hugs
• Emotional responses can include intense feelings of empathy or compassion, depression, anxiety or loneliness
• Imaginational responses can include visualizations, use of metaphorical speech, dreaming or magical thinking
• Intellectual responses can include constant curiosity, deep thinking or a propensity towards solving puzzles and problems

Understanding what emotional intensities are and the behaviors associated with them can help with misdiagnosis or just plain misunderstanding. While some of the more extreme behaviors associated with overexcitabilities can be worrisome for a parent or educator, such as a child鈥檚 depression or anxiety, there can also be a wonderful bright side to overexcitabilities.

Some of the benefits of overexcitabilities can include:

• Empathy and compassion towards others
• A desire to solve major world problems
• Creativity
• A high sense of self-awareness
• Enthusiasm
• High energy

Intense emotions don鈥檛 always need to be feared or regulated. They are what make so many gifted children wonderfully unique. However, for the times that overintesities do need to be managed, here are some strategies:

• Meditation
• Yoga
• Outdoor physical activities such as going on walks, hikes or playing at a park
• Quiet reflection time
• Journaling or drawing
• Encourage discussions about how your child feels and why they feel the way they do

I hope this blog post helps with identifying and managing intense emotions in a gifted child. 优蜜视频鈥檚 also hosts a list of books, articles, programs and professionals that can be used as additional sources of information about overexcitabilities.

In The Little Prince, the narrator describes a picture he drew as a child. He was rather proud of this drawing and was certain it would inspire fear in those who viewed it. When he revealed his masterpiece to the adults in his world, however, they were not afraid; all they saw was a simple drawing of a hat. The narrator was indignant: 鈥淢y drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant.鈥� Upon offering an explanation of his piece, the narrator expressed his honest thoughts about grown-ups: 鈥淭hey never understand anything by themselves and it is exhausting for children to have to provide expectations over and over again.鈥�

Twice-exceptional (or 2E) children 鈥� those who are both gifted and have a learning disability 鈥� are often rendered exhausted as they try to explain how they think and learn to 鈥済rown-ups鈥�. What is going on inside of them may differ greatly from what other people, including their teachers, are able to see.

鈥淚 saw a very different child than the teacher was seeing.鈥� 鈥� 优蜜视频 Parent

Twice-exceptional students are seldom identified as gifted, as having a disability, or as twice-exceptional. Often the disability masks the giftedness, the giftedness masks the disability, or the giftedness and disability mask each other, preventing the rest of us from understanding the inner workings of these children.

Although 2E students were identified as a 鈥渄istinct鈥� group in 1977, data regarding the number of individuals in the group were not collected until 2000. It is now estimated that between 2 and 5% of gifted children have learning disabilities and that 2 to 5% of students with learning disabilities are gifted. The Individuals with Disabilities Educational Act defines 2E as:

鈥淎 disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, which may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, speak, read, write, spell, or to do mathematical calculations.鈥�

While each individual is vastly different from each other, this distinct group of learners are connected by their exceptional intellectual ability, discrepancy between ability and achievement, challenges in learning or processing, and the anxiety of being different.

Special programs exist for children with learning disabilities, and there are programs for gifted students, but few deal with both exceptions. Without services that celebrate a child鈥檚 gifts and talents, these students fall victim to low academic self-efficacy and issues regarding self-confidence.

鈥淣o one knows what I know!!! I see and hear the answers in my head, but I just can鈥檛 get them out onto paper. Everyone thinks I am a stupid kid that is 鈥榮low.鈥� But I get it 鈥� I get it all!!! I hate myself!鈥�

Once we see what is truly going on within a child, we must support and nurture all aspects of his or her needs. A child learns through success; supporting children鈥檚 gifts feeds them and provides them with energy and confidence to tackle their learning difficulties.

Addressing students鈥� disabilities is often seen as a more pressing need than nurturing their gifts, and it is easy to get caught up in needing to 鈥渇ix鈥� the disability. Though we do need to support these children and help them work with and through their disabilities, we must not lose sight of their incredible intellectual capacity. We should still provide them with advanced curriculum by allowing for modifications that keep any weaknesses in mind.

A gifted child鈥檚 self-concept improves when we help him or her nurture all aspects of self 鈥� intellectual, spiritual, social, emotional, and physical 鈥� in a safe, nurturing environment surrounded by like-minded peers. Feeding the intellect of the twice-exceptional child is the best way to begin the process of personal growth. Knowing and celebrating our possibilities 鈥� as well as our limits 鈥� helps us to lead a life of purpose, passion, and wisdom.

Twice-exceptional children are not broken. We do not need to fix them. Instead, we need to help them understand both their strengths and their weaknesses, nurture their gifts, and help them find ways to succeed and grow. But before we can do this, we must truly see them for who they are.

鈥淎nd now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.鈥澛�– Antoine de Saint-Exup茅ry,聽The Little Prince

It is so incredibly important that we look at the whole child and truly understand what is going on so that we can support and nurture the growth of these wonderful individuals.

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

My middle son is a junior in high school. It鈥檚 time for him to start thinking about college. To help the process along, his school invited a speaker from to speak to the parents and students. She reminded the parents that the search should be student-centered. To make her point she told stories about over-involved parents who push their children aside during college fairs in order to speak to the admissions officers and those who get their pronouns confused when talking about the application process, as in, 鈥�We are still in the process of writing our 别蝉蝉补测蝉.鈥�

I have never pushed my children, and I am very conscious of which pronoun I use. That said, I was very involved in my oldest son鈥檚 college search, and I plan to do the same for my middle son. My experience has given me sympathy for the parents she ridiculed. It鈥檚 a fine line between over-involved helicopter parent and helpful consultant. But whichever side of the line you fall, there will be consequences for your child and a corresponding label of their own.

My involvement in my children鈥檚 educational decisions is not unlike that of many parents of gifted kids. For the past 10 years, I鈥檝e been helping my children get the resources they need to challenge themselves and feed their passions. In the past, that meant online courses, tutors, extracurricular activities and schools. Two years ago, it meant helping my oldest son find a college. It wasn鈥檛 until he began his college search that I understood how my involvement has influenced the way he thinks about his own education.

鈥淚 want a school with a good visual arts program, but I don鈥檛 want it to focus solely on the object.鈥�

He wanted to paint, draw or sculpt at a school that didn鈥檛 focus on the painting, drawing or sculpture. If you are confused, so was I. Even he didn鈥檛 know exactly what he was looking for. But that didn鈥檛 prevent me from searching for this elusive school. I (yes, I am aware of the pronoun I am using) looked through course catalogues for visual art classes with unique titles, eschewing schools that only offered the vanilla 鈥淧ainting 101鈥� or 鈥淒rawing Techniques.鈥� I looked at their capital expenditures on the arts and made charts detailing their core requirements. We visited colleges on the East Coast and in Southern California where I asked more questions than my son during the campus tours. The accordion files I created for potential colleges bulged.

My search led him to the University of Chicago. He was intrigued by the classes titled 鈥淰isual Language: On Time and Space鈥� and 鈥淧erforming Tableware.鈥� He enrolled last year. When my husband and I delivered him to the campus, we knew that the school would provide a rich academic experience for him. But he wasn鈥檛 done personalizing his education.

At the beginning of his second year, he decided that the majors available at University of Chicago were limiting. So instead of settling for a major that mostly provided what he wanted, he decided to invent his own. He is going to declare a major in Interdisciplinary Studies. This do-it-yourself major allows him to combine studies in the humanities. He is going to craft a major in the fields of anthropology, visual arts, creative writing and psychology. The tentative title of his major is 鈥淪torytelling.鈥�

Just as there are contrasting labels that can be applied to me, you may be tempted to apply one to my son. On the positive side, you could say that he is self-actualizing. On the negative: he feels entitled. While I will argue the former, I will admit that the latter also applies. My interference in his educational experiences led him to believe that he can expect a personalized education plan that feeds his passions, wherever that may take him. This may mean that he will enter a work force that does not value his efforts and that he will spend his twenties living in our basement. On the other hand, he may have developed skills that allow him to pursue a career his father and I have never imagined. After all, there are people making a living creating Google Doodles. Who knew that was a career 10 years ago?

I believe that my intentions are good and that my behavior furthers my children鈥檚 goals. My middle son is going to test that belief. An extraordinary math talent, he doesn鈥檛 want to pursue math in college. He wants the educational equivalent of Sid Meyer鈥檚 Civilization game series鈥攁 program that combines politics, economics, history and philosophy. I am going to do my best not to slip in a math component, but I can鈥檛 guarantee my behavior at this point.

I know that I am both over-involved and helpful. I am certain that my children are seen as both entitled and on the path to self-actualization. Which label you apply to my children and to me depends on your perspective. I suppose the only judgment that really matters is my children鈥檚. If later in life they are leading happy and fulfilling lives, then you can call us whatever you鈥檇 like.

Have you struggled with the fine line between helpful and over-involved? Please share your experience in the comment section below.

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