Hi Jennifer,

I’ve always felt my daughter was maybe gifted somehow. She is 8 years old and extremely hard on herself. I think she is a perfectionist and gets very upset if she doesn’t do something perfect the first time. She then shuts down and won’t redo something. I am hoping this website might help me respond to these outbursts. She also has difficulty handling conflict with her peers. Her father (who doesn’t live with her) doesn’t think these are things to worry about but I do.

- Julie

Hi Julie,

Thanks for your question. You may be on the right track with your daughter. Gifted children have many of the characteristics you are describing. Giving up quickly, melting down when they can’t master something right away, anxiety, struggles with peers, even tactile or taste issues. They can also be very dramatic and get incredibly upset, crying and sobbing, claiming that life is awful and can be very difficult to soothe at times. Gifted children have big emotions. I call them tidal wave emotions because they can have a hard time regulating.

Think of it this way: the left brain which understands patterns and sequences is logical, mathematical and reasonable. In gifted children, it also understands too much. The right side of the brain, whose job it is to regulate emotion, can’t cope with it all. These kids tend to be worriers, stressing out about things before they even happen. At six years old, they could be lying in bed worrying whether they will have a good job when they grow up and get really worked up about it.

They become overwhelmed by these emotions and begin to feel that their emotions control them and not the other way around. They often have trouble sleeping and self soothing. Learning a new task like bike riding can be a nightmare because they expect to be able to do it right away and when they can’t they fall apart screaming, “This is stupid… it’s impossible! And I have the worst life.” It is challenging to parent a child like this and very difficult to help them learn to calm themselves and organize these feelings. It is however very important that they learn to master this ability and develop resilience.

If your daughter is in the regular school system, they do test children for gifted-ness in grade three. If you are in a private school, you may consider having your child tested privately. This will help you understand your daughter and help with school placement but you will still need to help her develop the skills to cope with what life throws at her.

It can be incredibly frustrating to parent such a reactive child. The parenting bond, as much as you love her, can get frayed by this behaviour and can cause us as parents to withdraw, become frustrated or try to constantly talk these kids out of their feelings. Then, this adds to their anxiety and emotional disorganization. Try really listening to her feelings and try to understand her before you correct her even if those feelings seem unreasonable. Spend extra time cuddling and connecting with her this will also help.

Parents will spend hours, days, and often months thinking of a name for their unborn child. It can be an agonizing and often unpleasant experience for many. The permanence of the decision feels overwhelming and we feel a weight of responsibility as we ponder the issues of name suitability. We often want uniqueness and conformity simultaneously in our desire to secure the “right” name for our child. We feel as though we are somehow securing their identity and ultimately who they will become.

The care we take in naming our child reflects the beginning of a deep concern for their well-being. We hope that they will develop all the positive qualities that will promote their ultimate success and happiness. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we, as parents, could be active participants in this process? We can. Once our children are named and have arrived, we can then begin the real process of NAIM-ing them.

NAIM is an acronym that will teach your child the abc’s of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence, also known as EQ, refers to our ability to understand our emotions and the emotions of others. Emotional intelligence is a human skill and like all skills must be taught. We would not expect our children to be able to read without first teaching them the rudiments of letters, so too we must do the same with emotional intelligence.

Name -  Emotional intelligence is about knowing who you are and what you are feeling, acting on this knowledge, and thus determining your success and happiness. Helping your child to name or identify their feelings is the first step to reaching this goal. We can do this in many different ways. The most powerful way is to use your child’s own emotions as they happen. Take your cues from their responses to a situation. You will generally know when you have hit on the right feeling because they will tell you in some way. Affirming their feelings provides them with a feeling of connection; that they’ve been understood. It often has a calming effect. There are other ways you can identify feelings even when you don’t have cues from your child. Using imaginative play with dolls, characters, and games is one; demonstrating emotions through children’s literature is another.

Accept – Once children have acknowledged and learnt how to identify feelings, you then have to teach them that it’s OK to have them. Parents generally have no problem doing this with positive emotions but often have to learn to do this with negative ones. Sadness, anger, frustration, and envy are some emotions that are part of the human experience and your children need to accept them as much as their happier feelings. They will accept them if you accept them. You can empathize and let them know that you have experienced similar feelings and that it’s a normal human experience.

Investigate – Next, you have to become an investigator. You now have to explore with your child why they are feeling in a particular way. This is an essential part of emotional intelligence. Children learn in this phase the interaction between the way they feel and their environment. They learn to understand what situations make them feel happy, sad, angry, excited, etc. Linking their feelings to environmental or situational cues in this way allows them to bring their experience to future situations and to transfer their learning. It brings understanding and increases their abilities to control their emotions and their environment.

Manage – This is the part of the teaching process that most parents understand. Within a family there are rules. Rules of acceptable behaviour and rules of what we say to each other. This is essential not only to families but to society as a whole. We know that people who have characteristics of kindness, empathy, confidence, and perseverance are more likely to succeed than people who are lacking in these traits. Children whose feelings have been heard and accepted are much more likely to be receptive to management. Consequences, suggestions, solutions, and direction are all better executed at this point. Being consistent and resolute is important during this stage. Children need and want boundaries. They need to understand what is acceptable and what is not. If you give your child mixed messages at this point, it can be detrimental to their development of positive emotional intelligence.

The order of this teaching is very important. Children will not listen effectively unless they are heard first. Try to avoid the word but. “I hear how you feel and understand and accept, BUT …,” tends to invalidate the hard work you put into the first two stages.

Remember that we as parents are also human with our own set of feelings. We all make mistakes! These can also be powerful tools for exploring and developing emotional intelligence.

How do we bolster our emotional strength? Of course we must focus on everyone but it is vital to put most of our efforts towards our children and provide them with the tools that they need. Skills learned in childhood are the foundations upon which all other skills rest.

Teaching our children emotional intelligence is the greatest investment we can put into their futures. Our children are these wonderful little people who look to parents and educators for guidance. Open, not yet jaded or cynical, they see the value in being “nice” and feel real empathy when they have hurt someone’s feelings. They give us a head start and all we have to do is pick up on their cues and affirm their belief in goodness.

As parents, we feel comfortable focusing on the positive aspects of our children. We compliment them when they are happy and when they achieve something.

Instead, stop and listen. Children love to talk about all of their feelings. They instinctively do this and they are taught that it is wrong to do so. They know that all feelings, negative and positive, are a natural part of our human experience. As parents we must teach our children to accept the full spectrum of their feelings and teach them what to do with them. This is the essence of emotional intelligence.

Adults are almost afraid of negative feelings because they believe that this means their children are unhappy. We should welcome negative feelings as another opportunity for our children to learn about adversity, an inescapable fact of our existence. Ignoring these feelings gives these feelings a power that they shouldn’t have.

Finally, if it is success and achievements that we seek as parents, there can be no better way to make this happen than through raising our child’s emotional intelligence.

Take some time to read about emotional intelligence and how we can help our children develop characteristics that will greatly increase their chances for success and happiness.

Stay tuned because I will be providing lots of information, resources, and recommendations in future blogs!