Category Archives: Intensity, Perfectionism and Stress

Keeping a Healthy Perspective on Stress and Test Anxiety by Vidisha Patel April is one of my favorite months of the year. April signifies the advent of spring, and with it comes the promise of longer days and warmer weather and a sense of hope that winter is finally behind us. For our school-going children, [...]

A Recipe for a Peaceful Holiday Season Author: Vidisha Patel Citation: First published in the SENGVine, November 2011 Happy Holidays! Fall usually means cooler weather, sweatshirts, jackets, crisp apples, and changing colors in nature. Fall also brings on the holiday season and, with it, the rush of trying to get everything done in time to [...]

Living with emotionally intense children and partners can be turbulent, exciting, challenging, and joyful. Emotionally intense individuals are often accused of “overreacting.” Their compassion and concern for others, their focus on relationships, as well as the intensity of their feelings may interfere with every day tasks. It is often quite difficult and demanding to work [...]

Q: Dr. Rimm, why does perfectionism seem to be a problem for gifted children? A: Perfectionism is very close to excellence, and, of course, parents and teachers encourage excellence in children. In our great excitement at their performance, we describe their work as perfect and we award A plusses and 100 percent–all very deserving and appropriate. In [...]

Family interactions can be challenging. However, when all the family members have overexcitabilities and not necessarily the same ones, effectively managing family interactions can be extremely challenging. This article provides a brief overview of the different overexcitabilities. Then researched based recommendations are provided for how to effectively manage family interactions when overexcitabilities are involved based on the authors’ personal experiences as individuals with overexcitabilities within families whose members also have overexcitabilities. These recommendations are provided for families trying to “get over” or effectively manage their overexcitabilities.

Giftedness has an emotional as well as intellectual component. Intellectual 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. Complexity can be seen in the vast range of emotions that gifted [...]

Sal Mendaglio is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Calgary and a chartered psychologist. His interests include the emotionality of gifted persons, self-concept, Dabrowski’s theory and counselling gifted persons. Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration (TPD) (Dabrowski 1964, 1967, 1970, 1972), while largely unknown in education, psychology and psychiatry, has [...]

Overexcitability and the Gifted by Sharon Lind A small amount of definitive research and a great deal of naturalistic observation have led to the belief that intensity, sensitivity and overexcitability are primary characteristics of the highly gifted. These observations are supported by parents and teachers who notice distinct behavioral and constitutional differences between highly gifted [...]

Remember the last time you ventured out in a totally new direction, unencumbered by anyone’s expectations but your own; an individual goal focused on learning or becoming something (or someone) new? Usually, whether you succeeded to your satisfaction or not, you probably gave yourself a pat on the back for even putting forth effort. Conversely, [...]

An Interview with Sal Mendaglio: About Meeting the Emotional Needs of Gifted Children and Adolescents By Michael F. Shaughnessy Sal Mendaglio, PhD, is an associate professor in the Division of Teacher Preparation, Graduate Division of Educational Research and Research Associate, Centre for Gifted Education, University of Calgary. He is the current Chair of the Counselling [...]