It has been a year since the pandemic caused havoc, chaos and culminating to eventual acceptance that this will be our norm for now, full of anxiety and stress. Most children and families have adjusted to our pandemic norm, from online learning, zoom meetings, parents/guardians turning into homeschool teachers whilst working from home, and having to adhere to safety protocols on a daily basis, whether taking a walk outside your neighborhood, or going into the grocery store.

Because of such added stress and anxiety, parents and children need some type of support, activity or other types of de-stressors to be able to cope.

Below are some articles, podcasts, reading materials to help parents and their children on how to cope and maintain a healthier social, emotional and mental well being: from tuning in to funny and silly podcasts to alleviate or ease the tension and sadness, to hearing and learning how children can be supported emotionally. These resources are found on our Gifted Resource Center webpage.

This is a podcast about raising kids who love learning. Listen to how others help inspire kids to view their world with play, passion and fascination. Podcasts such as talks about self-care and that parents must take care of themselves in order to take care of their children. But what about our kids, especially those who are gifted and twice exceptional? How do we help them learn coping skills and emotional regulation? How do we help them identify what they need to take care of their own bodies and souls?

The Deep End is a blog written by Stephanie Tolan, which she hopes will help create a space to discuss the needs and challenges of being a gifted child. A recent blog post 鈥淲ellbeing 鈥� A No Limits Approach鈥�, talks about what does wellbeing mean to children with non-ordinary minds and non-ordinary needs, and more than that鈥攃hildren living, suddenly, like the rest of us, in utterly non-ordinary times

The Fringy Bit is a website started by the parents of three 鈥渇ringy鈥� kids. They use this term to describe children who are gifted and those who experience other forms of neuro-diversity. Through their website, they have created a blog and podcast, focusing on creating a community for the parents of gifted children. Heather Boorman has a background in clinical social work, and her husband Jonathan is a licensed marriage and family therapist. Enjoy their bonus podcast episodes on 鈥淨uarantine Quips鈥�, that include short episodes talking about strategies, support, silliness and whatever else comes of Heather and Jon鈥檚 mouths and minds.

Help your gifted child embrace their uniqueness. In this workbook, a therapist offers fun activities and strategies to help children ages 7 to 12 boost self-confidence, reduce stress and overwhelm, and balance emotions.

Designed to provide support for the difficult job of parenting and teaching gifted children, “Emotional Intensity in Gifted Students: Helping Kids Cope With Explosive Feelings” provides the resource parents and teachers need to not only understand why gifted children are so extreme in their behavior, but also learn specific strategies to teach gifted children how to live with their intensity.

This blog provides resources for gifted children who struggle with anxiety. In addition to posts and discussions specific to giftedness and anxiety, the site also offers a purchasable 鈥淭aking Time for Me鈥� journal to help children manage their anxiety through mindfulness and gratitude.

TiLT Parenting was founded in 2016 by Debbie Reber as a podcast and community aimed at helping parents raising differently-wired kids do so from a place of confidence, connection, and joy. Debbie is passionate about the idea that being differently wired isn鈥檛 a deficit 鈥攊t鈥檚 a difference. She hopes to change the way difference is perceived and experienced in the world so these exceptional kids, and the parents raising them, can thrive in their schools, in their families, and in their lives. Check out the podcast with Dr. Michele Borba on 鈥淗ow to Help Kids Thrive in an Anxious World鈥�.

Understood is dedicated to shaping a world where millions of people who learn and think differently can thrive at home, at school, and at work. Several featured resources are available such as 鈥淗ow to help your child manage a fear, 6 signs your child is resilient鈥�.

This book by Allison Edwards guides readers through the mental and emotional process of where children鈥檚 fears come from and why they are so hard to move past. Edwards focuses on how to parent a child who is both smart and anxious. She brings her years of experience as a therapist to offer fifteen specially designed tools for helping smart kids manage their fears.

Additional Resources:

CDC鈥檚 Stress and Coping webpage provides resources and information on how to deal and cope with stress, such as coping with job stress, adults experiencing stress from Covid-19, responding to loss, and coping and support for children.

CDC developed the to help support parents, caregivers, and other adults serving children and young people in recognizing children and young people鈥檚 social, emotional, and mental health challenges and helping to ensure their well-being.

I still don鈥檛 quite know how it happened. One minute, my 3 kiddos and I were sitting at the dinner table, laughing and enjoying a conversation that (miracle of miracles) didn鈥檛 involve arguing over who鈥檚 turn it was to talk. The next minute, my 12-year-old (Cub) was screaming from a potential broken nose, one of our dogs was missing, there was a dying bird on our porch, my 4-year-old (Chimp) was in tears for the bird, but quickly began running around through the neighborhood in his underpants to hunt down the missing dog, my 9-year-old (KBear) was furiously yelling at my 12-year-old, there was a UPS guy threatening to call Child Protection (ok, that might be an exaggeration), and I was standing there bewildered by how the evening fell so far off the rails.

Sadly, my bewildered moment was really just a brief intermission to be followed by the second Act, which went something like this: Cub sulks off in the corner (nose in one piece, by the way), KBear in full blown autistic meltdown, followed by impromptu birds and the bees talk with her after she鈥檚 more regulated (thanks Anne with an E for providing us with that teachable moment at bedtime. Yes, sarcasm intended).

I鈥檓 assuming, as parents of gifted or 2e kids, that you can relate. I鈥檓 assuming you know how the mood of an evening can turn on a dime, or a dying bird, as the case may be. I鈥檓 assuming that you鈥檝e had those moments, standing in the driveway, trying to reign in the crazy, but feeling just as crazy as the rest of 鈥榚m. Please tell me I鈥檓 not alone in this.

Parenting these gifted kiddos is a totally different monster than parenting a more typical kid. It can feel very isolating. Many, more neurotypical, families could have experienced the dying bird, the injured, nose, the runaway dog, and the package delivery without the same level of intensity. But, that鈥檚 gifted life.听 It鈥檚 intense.

So, how do we manage these crazy-making moments?

We remember to breathe. This too shall pass. Breathe in some calm and breathe out the crazy.

We remember that this is more intense than the average family life. Many kids would react to the sight of our cat delivering a half-dead bird to our doorstep, but Chimp鈥檚 emotional intensity took hold and his empathy and emotions were big and required extra effort to regulate. I鈥檓 not a bad mom because it took me 45 minutes to console the sensitive little soul in my arms; his emotions are simply that intense. Many kids would feel pain from a wildly thrown hard toy hitting their nose. (Thanks Chimp for your lack of impulse control and hugely rambunctious psychomotor intensity.) Cub鈥檚 sensual intensity meant that he felt that pain more acutely. It took him longer to feel better because the pain is bigger for him. Kbear鈥檚 strong sense of justice and emotional intensity, not to mention all the added complexity of her other exceptionalities, meant that she wasn鈥檛 just frustrated that her brother couldn鈥檛 find the leash quickly, she was in full blown rage. And the intellectual intensity of all 3 of them meant that within the course of this evening, I was having in-depth conversations about death, dying, euthanasia, sex and relationships. Which, really isn鈥檛 all that uncommon day to day. Remembering that this is more intense than typical parenting brings comfort to those moments when we just don鈥檛 feel like we can do this, or that we must be failing this parenting thing on a massive scale.

We call in reinforcements. Since everything turned so quickly, I couldn鈥檛 actually call in others to be there to help, but I could text others to remember that I鈥檓 not alone. My exact text to my husband, who was at work, says, 鈥淥h my clusterf—鈥�. You can decide if I actually filled in those last few letters or not! We really 补谤别苍鈥檛 alone, even though it can feel like it.听 We actually do have people around who can commiserate. Whether they鈥檙e people you know IRL or only through the magic of the interwebs, there is support. My husband responded to the original text with a 鈥渧ague texts do not become you鈥� (yes, another gifted crazy-person lives in this house), to which I said, 鈥淵ep. I know. I just needed somebody else in the world to know that life got crazy for a while.鈥� And that鈥檚 the truth. It helps to know that someone else knows.

We feel what we feel. We allow ourselves to cry and get huffy and be angry. We choose our behaviors as effectively as we can, and when we can鈥檛, we show ourselves compassion.

We give ourselves a break . . . psychologically and concretely. We pour intense energy and love into our intense kids. We need intense recovery and rest, too.

We appreciate all those intensities in ourselves and our children. It might be a crazy life, but it鈥檚 also intensely rich.

And, we allow ourselves to laugh. To laugh at the amazing wit of our children. To laugh in shock as our small children use adult phrases and vocabulary perfectly. To laugh to keep from crying. To laugh at the surprising and amazingly quick responses from these people we鈥檙e honored to raise. To laugh at our own mistakes. To laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. And to laugh around the holiday tables in the decades to come, as we recount the night that we were eating dinner, cried for a dying bird, rescued a runaway dog, broke a nose, flashed our underoos to all the neighbors, worried the UPS man, and learned about sex.

Heather Boorman is a writer, public speaker, &听Licensed Clinical Social Worker who provides therapy to kids, adults, and families at her private practice, Boorman Counseling, in Western Wisconsin. She and her husband Jon maintain a blog and podcast about the real life side to having a family with gifted and twice-exceptional children. is both refreshingly honest and full of helpful information. Make sure to check it out!

Whether we believe it or not, Spring has sprung. Often, we think of new growth, new life, and renewal, but spring can also hold an underpinning of grief and loss. As soon as the weather warms and the sun shines longer, we begin to speak of summer plans, the end of the school year, graduations. While all of these things are fantastic, they also signify loss. And every loss needs to be grieved. Like many things, these losses can feel bigger and more complicated for our gifted kids, which begs the question: how can we help our gifted kids navigate loss?

Recognize that gifted kids can grieve many losses, not just deaths. In truth, all of us grieve many things: a change in a job, moving, the end of a relationship, the end of a sport鈥檚 season.听 Grief is a part of life. Due to the intense natures of many of our gifted kids, they can grieve even more things than we would ever imagine. They can grieve growing out of their favorite shirt, a change in their parent鈥檚 work schedule, the realization that superheroes are fictional (at least until one of our gifted kids develops an injectable serum that actually changes humans into web-slinging, partial spiders). What feels like a loss to your child, is a loss. It can be easy to minimize these losses from our adult viewpoints, but the loss is real to them. Allow them to grieve it.

Recognize that grief is crazy-making for anyone, and intensely crazy-making for intense kids.听One of my favorite frameworks of grief, from the book,听, describes it in 3 phases, the second of which he labels 鈥渢he second storm鈥�. Such a perfect description of the twisting, turning, disheveling, intense emotions that crash into you when you鈥檙e in this phase of grief. Of course, depending on the degree of the loss, the intensity of this second storm varies, but know that anger, sadness, despair, anxiety, numbness, physical illness, fatigue, fear are all normal. It can feel like you鈥檙e being tossed around from one moment to the next. Our gifted kids can feel this especially intensely. Allow them to. Expect behaviors to be tumultuous, at best, as they move through grief. Remember that a child or teen鈥檚 behavior is a form of communication. Figure out what they are trying to communicate. Validate that they feel crazy.

Give hope.听Validate that they feel crazy, but provide them with the hope and assurance that it is temporary. They 补谤别苍鈥檛 actually crazy; they鈥檙e grieving. At some point this loss won鈥檛 feel as big as it does right now. Let them feel it, but also let them know they won鈥檛 be stuck in the storm forever.

Gifted kids will understand grief differently than other kids. Shortly after my dad died, my oldest son, who was barely 7 at the time, appeared particularly sad one night. He said, 鈥淚 just feel so bad for Grandma Farm. She鈥檚 lost 4 of her kids and 2 husbands. She must be so sad.鈥� Gifted kids are going to be able to see the impact on a broader scope than more typically wired kids.听 Allow space for them to grieve that, too.

Gifted kids鈥� grief might not last on the timeframe you鈥檇 expect.听I鈥檝e worked with several gifted kids who have broken down in raw, sobbing grief when talking about their pet who had died years and years before. Allow them to feel it. Grief has its own time table, which will be different for each person. Sometimes it will seem longer than you think it should and sometimes it will seem shorter than you鈥檇 expect. Kids often grieve on a quicker schedule, but then re-grieve as they hit a new developmental stage and the loss and change takes on new meaning.

Help your child find a way to do something with their grief.听Rituals are fantastically helpful. Every year on my dad鈥檚 birthday we get him birthday balloons. Have a special end-of-the-school-year picnic. Have a special place where you stop and pick up an ice cream cone on the way home from summer camp each summer. Anything that creates tradition and space to honor the loss will help your child move through it

Be open and expressive with your own grief.听We often want to protect our kids from pain, but if they don鈥檛 learn how to grieve from us, how are they going to learn it? Grief is a part of life.听 Sometimes a part of daily life. It鈥檚 ok to show our own emotions. It models to our kids how to move through grief. It gives them permission to grieve openly. I was an emotional hurricane when my dad died. I will be an emotional hurricane when my kids near graduation and head off for parts unknown. It鈥檚 helpful for them to see that.

Reassure them that they will always be taken care of.听In the midst of the hurricane, kids still need to know that they are safe and will be ok. Reassure them that even if you are being emotionally tossed around in the storm, you鈥檒l make sure they will be looked after. And you will be fine too.

And the best way to help your child navigate loss? Help yourself, first. Take care of yourself. Show them how to grieve well. If you 补谤别苍鈥檛 filled up, you can鈥檛 possibly help someone else. You will all get through these losses, and you鈥檒l probably end up more resilient on the other side.

Heather is a therapist, writer, and听speaker with Boorman Counseling by day, and mom to 3 鈥渇ringy kids鈥� by night.听 She and her husband provide REAL support to parents who love a differently wired child (gifted, 2e, ASD, SPD, ADHD, etc) through their podcast, blog, and online community, The Fringy Bit. Visit her at听 or 听

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