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.

Being gifted is not always easy. It is a far-too common misconception that gifted children are luckier or better off than non-gifted children and don鈥檛 struggle in any aspects of their lives. The natural assumption is that gifted children are academically advanced and therefore can sail through school and their childhood. What is not obvious to many is that some things that come quite easily to some may, in fact, be a source of confusion and anxiety for gifted children. One concept that can be difficult to grasp, understand and embrace is gratitude, which can be an all-too abstract idea for gifted and twice-exceptional children. The definition alone requires one to understand the concepts of thankful and appreciation 鈥� which, not unlike gratitude, require the ability to make emotional connections:

Gratitude: the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.

Thankfully, the science of gratitude and its effects on happiness and overall wellbeing have been studied intensely over the past decade and new strategies for helping Gifted and 2e children understand, embrace, and reciprocate gratitude have been developed. What was once thought to be a self-explanatory concept has now been broken down into manageable strategies that turn the abstract into tangible exercises.

1. Break it down mathematically. For those gifted students that think concretely, linearly, or literally, breaking the concept of gratitude into measurable terms can help make it more understandable. Not unlike a mathematical equation, the following example questions can get students to think of kind and helpful acts as realistic by placing a value on them:

• How much did your sister help you on purpose? (This aims to measure intent.)
• How much did your sister give up to help you? (This aims to measure cost.)
• How much did your sister help you? (This aims to measure outcome.)

Instead of asking open-ended questions such as 鈥淲hy should you feel grateful for what your sister did?鈥� break the act up into more manageable pieces 鈥� the sum of which will then become clearer.

2. Break it down scientifically. In recent years, the science of happiness has been a hot topic and countless books have been written about it. Gifted students with a passion for STEM disciplines can understand, scientifically, how gratitude leads to increased happiness and what effect that has on the brain and the rest of the body. Infographics and articles are tremendously helpful in this respect, such as the following:

For example, the fact that happiness releases serotonin in the hippocampus is something STEM-minded students can understand in a tangible way.

3. Break it down visually: The YouTube channel The Science of Happiness has wonderful videos that capture the power of gratitude and the effects it has on ourselves and those around us in relatable ways. In one video, , viewers see the immediate and long-term effects of being on both the receiving and the giving ends of gratitude.
4. Use Your Talents! Saying 鈥渢hank you鈥� or presenting someone with a tangible token of one鈥檚 appreciation are not the only ways to express gratitude. For example, through the project, a student-led initiative part of the Design for Change movement, students experience a service learning project that brings STEM education to children鈥檚 hospitals. Their talents in leadership, project design, and the STEM fields serve children who are unable to participate in traditional schooling, increasing participants鈥� gratitude, appreciation, and empathy through their efforts.
5. Write it Down! Gifted students may feel shy or embarrassed about verbalizing what they鈥檙e grateful for, which is where gratitude journals come in handy. This can be integrated into the school day by teachers or into a daily or weekly routine by parents. Gratitude journals can be blank journals in which students practice free writing, or journals with templates or prompts that give students ideas for how to get started. The idea is simple: Your writing won鈥檛 be judged or reviewed; it is for you and you alone. You can be as concrete or descriptive as you鈥檇 like 鈥� the main thing is, put pen to paper and chronicle the people, events, and experiences that you鈥檙e thankful for. For some great gratitude journal ideas, .
6. Think Outside the Box: Too often, students are encouraged to show gratitude only for the great things they have, for example their friends, their family, their successes, and their accomplishments. But gifted students are creative thinkers and adept at seeing things from other perspectives. Therefore, they should be challenged to think about 鈥� and be grateful for 鈥� difficulties they鈥檝e encountered. You might ask, 鈥淲hat is a shortcoming you鈥檝e experienced that you are grateful for? What has this shown and given you, and why are you a better person because of it?鈥� By viewing failure as a learning experience, students can focus on embracing challenge and risk as part of the learning process 鈥� and something to be grateful for.
7. Random Acts of Kindness: In school, club, and camp settings, Random Acts of Kindness is a great tool for giving shout-outs to students for doing everyday kind acts. When someone witnesses another person doing something kind, such as staying late to help clean up, holding the door for someone, or carrying a heavy object for a peer, they write down that person鈥檚 name and the kind act on a slip of paper, then put it in a box. During a designated time each day, one slip of paper is drawn and that student is recognized publicly, such as at mealtime or during a break in activities. This initiative works well for those students who find it difficult to show gratitude face-to-face 鈥� and the anonymity and suspense factors of this initiative create a sense of mystery and community!

What strategies and exercise have you employed to get your Gifted students or children to understand and show gratitude?

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How do you manage your emotions and your sensitivities聽while raising your super intense super smart children? How do you raise聽your children聽without unconsciously repeating the patterns set down by your own parents?

I鈥檓 guessing that you think about this a lot. Especially at 3am when you鈥檙e desperately trying to sleep. Or when you hear your mother鈥檚 criticism spewing out of your own mouth directed at your 4-year-old. Or when you notice your father鈥檚 rage lurking behind your eyes.

Living with rainforest-minded kids when you yourself have those same traits can be overwhelming and even a tad frightening. All of that energy and sensitivity roiling around. All of your kids鈥� questions, curiosities and meltdowns flying hither and thither. Not to mention the less-than-ideal parenting you may have received. Or the judgment from other parents who think you have it easy. Or the judgment from yourself that you aren鈥檛 the perfect parent. That鈥檚 a lot to handle.

Let me give you a hug right now. For starters. You are not alone. This is not easy. Hug.

Here are some thoughts:

1. There鈥檚 a lot of empathy for you online from parents who are right there with you. You can read their experiences, guidance and resources and . Read a sampling of their blogs and bookmark your favorites. There鈥檚 also a psychologist online who has raised gifted kids. Find her .
2. Make a list of ways to to , and to find . Then DO THEM. Your kids will benefit. You know this but you still don鈥檛 do it. Am I right? Remind yourself that your will be good modeling for your kids. When you feel guilty,聽tell yourself that you鈥檙e doing it for your them.
3. When you lose your cool, which you will, apologize. Your children will not be damaged irrevocably when you blow it. The apology allows your children to see that they don鈥檛 have to be perfect and that they can apologize聽when they鈥檙e not perfect. Imagine how your life would be different if your parents had apologized to you for their mistakes.
4. When it comes to not of your parents,聽well, it鈥檚聽complicated. And depending on how dysfunctional things were, it can聽feel overwhelming or impossible. As you can imagine, there鈥檚 no quick fix. But you can . You probably already have to some extent. Of course, you know I鈥檓 going to recommend if you were raised with any kind of abuse. That said, there are many creative self-help tools for you to explore. Some are: Seena Frost鈥檚 , , yoga and other , techniques, making art/ playing music, spiritual practices, and .
5. To get support for your and to find join this growing .
6. And, finally, read !听Your Rainforest Mind: A Guide to the Well-Being of Gifted Adults and Youth to be released mid-June 2016. Along with untangling聽the complexities of the rainforest mind, I describe聽client cases from my counseling practice and explain聽how we addressed both their childhood issues and their giftedness. There are many self-help strategies and resources included. Buy copies for聽your , relatives, kids, teachers, neighbors, physician, ex-partner, mail聽carrier and anyone else who might need help understanding you.

This post originally appeared on and has been reprinted with permission.

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One of the questions we routinely ask applicants during an interview for a position with 优蜜视频 is: 鈥淗ow do you deal with stress?鈥�

If one were to ask me that, I would have several answers鈥攖ake deep breaths, go for a walk, or listen to music, for example鈥攂ut the answer that would describe the tactic that is first and most effective for me would be, 鈥淛ournal about the situation.鈥�

My good friend鈥檚 father is a very wise, very prominent businessman. One piece of advice I will always remember from him is, 鈥淚f you are mad, write a letter. Don鈥檛 mail it. Put it in your desk drawer and sleep on it. If you are still mad the next day, then you can mail it, but usually by then, you won鈥檛 want to.鈥�

Writing things down is a way to get situations and feelings out and to express them, to see them in a new light. The very act of writing is cathartic. In , Mary Gordon says:

Writing by hand is laborious, and that is why typewriters were invented. But I believe that the labor has virtue, because of its very physicality. For one thing it involves flesh, blood and the thingness of pen and paper, those anchors that remind us that, however thoroughly we lose ourselves in the vortex of our invention, we inhabit a corporeal world.

There are many ways to journal; travel-writing, write on a topic, describe yesterday, scribble thoughts of your future goals, aspirations, hopes and fears. One of the most effective ways for me to journal is . One example of this is the Morning Pages, made popular by Julia Cameron in her seminal book, The Artist鈥檚 Way (1992). In it, she says, 鈥淧ut simply, the morning pages are three pages of longhand writing, strictly steam-of-consciousness: 鈥極h, god, another morning. I have NOTHING to say. I need to wash the curtains. Did I get my laundry yesterday? Blah-blah-blah鈥︹�欌��

Cameron assures us, 鈥�There is no wrong way to do morning pages. These daily morning meanderings are not meant to be art. Or even writing. I stress that point to reassure the nonwriters鈥ages are meant to be, simply, the act of moving the hand across the page and writing down whatever comes to mind. Nothing is too petty, too silly, too stupid, or too weird to be included.鈥�

One key to getting the most out of Morning Pages is that they do not need to 鈥渟ound smart鈥�, and they are not meant to be read. By anyone. Including you. You shouldn鈥檛 read them yourself for at least two months, if ever. The point is to get the thoughts out, not to analyze them.

It doesn鈥檛 matter whether you are a writer or a carpenter, there is something useful in journaling. As Brenda Ueland said, 鈥渨riting is talking, thinking, on paper. And the more impulsive and immediate the writing the closer it is to the thinking, which it should be鈥�.It has shown me more and more what I am 鈥� what to discard in myself and what to respect and love鈥� (If You Want to Write, 1938).

So, as a method of meditation or stress-management or introspection, I invite you to write. As Julia says, 鈥淛ust write three pages, and stick them into an envelope. Or write three pages in a spiral notebook and don鈥檛 leaf back through. Just write three pages鈥nd write three more pages the next day.鈥� And please, let me know as it helps you create peace in your day.

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