Melinda Stewart argues that when overwhelming emotions defy words, they often manifest as behaviors—writer’s block, self-harm, refusal, selective mutism, disordered eating, compulsions, or substance use. She urges understanding these actions as expressions of uncontainable feeling and translating and containing the voice of the heart.
Gifted children often experience intense, early fears and anxieties because of heightened sensitivity and advanced understanding without life experience. Parents should validate feelings, maintain calm perspective, limit alarming media exposure, provide factual context, prepare practically for emergencies, and encourage helping behaviors to build resilience and coping skills.
Gifted children often feel intense, early fears and anxieties because their advanced understanding outpaces experience. Parents should validate feelings without dismissing them, offer perspective through information and preparation, limit distressing exposure, and foster helping behaviors so children build resilience and efficacy.
A curated list of ten SENG articles offering guidance for courageous parenting—emphasizing caring, creativity, and courage. The post summarizes resources on social intelligence, emotional intensity, risk-taking, and seeking professional help, helping parents support gifted children through adversity and practical parenting strategies.
An account of a mother whose gifted son struggled in kindergarten because school failed to meet his needs. After noticing changes in his drawings and behavior, she homeschooled him and advocates for recognizing giftedness and twice-exceptionalities, urging parents and clinicians to listen, assess placement, and support children’s learning needs.
This post offers strategies to help children manage test anxiety—acknowledging fear, building confidence, keeping exams in perspective, and teaching practical tools (breathing, visualization, affirmations, comforting objects). Parents should model calm, support preparation, and remind children that tests are one small part of learning.
Tips for reducing holiday stress for gifted children: anticipate schedule changes, set intentions, communicate before and during events, maintain modified routines like consistent bedtimes, limit sugar and screen time, and balance stimulation with sleep, outdoor activity, and quiet time to keep holidays meaningful and manageable.
This article explains how gifted children often respond to parental separation through four coping styles—maneuvering, equilibrating, merging, and diffusing—highlights risks like adultizing and enmeshment, and offers practical parent guidance: cooperate, communicate age-appropriately, avoid parentifying, and keep conflict low to support children.
Practical guidance for supporting highly sensitive or gifted children who experience direct or vicarious trauma. Explains common trauma responses, coping and containment strategies, breathing techniques, soothing activities, signs indicating need for professional help, and ways to involve children constructively in recovery and emotional processing.
Discusses social-emotional challenges and coping strategies of gifted adolescents (ages 11–15), including issues like impostor feelings, perfectionism, reduced risk-taking, competing expectations, impatience, and premature identity formation. Summarizes student-suggested coping strategies and notes influences such as age, sex, and participation in gifted programs.
