So now we come to the fifth and last overexcitability (OE), the imaginational. This is often described as a heightened imagination. It can manifest itself in a variety of ways. Many gifted children will have imaginary friends or treat their stuffed animals as if they are real. They are excellent at creating stories and using their creativity in the pursuit of art, music, or drama. They will also often pretend that they are someone else. My daughter has loved to speak with accents since she was about three years old. She will pretend to be British one moment and French the next. For the most part, it is an extremely fun part of who she is... but sometimes, it can be a bit frustrating. Like when I ask her to clean her room, and in a very French accent she tells me, "Your daughter has gone on vacation. My name is Mimi."
I feel that the drive to create lives within this OE. My daughter has been drawing since she was extremely little. She is prolific. She will go through a ream of paper in about a week. The images are all varied and wonderful. I save as much as I can, but there is a lot of it. In the morning, I have to find ways to coax her away from her drawing table so that we can go to school. In the evening, I have to do the same to make her go to bed. As an artist myself, I love this about her. But it can still be frustrating. When she is angry, she will reach for a precious piece of art that she has made and will threaten to destroy it if her demands are not met. Her art is her heart. And she knows that I understand that. The other day she became so angry that she told me that she was never going to make art again. And that if she didn't make art, she would surely die. (Have I mentioned that the imaginational OE child can be prone to exaggeration and high drama?) I told her that it would make me incredibly sad, but that I knew it was impossible for her to stop making art. She smiled. The above drawing was a quick sketch she made the other day. She told me, "The world is just a big drawing, and we are the drawers."
As you have probably noticed, with each of these OE there are strengths and challenges. Children who have over active imaginations often are prone to nightmares. They can also often mix a little fantasy with their truth, making their accounts of situations sometimes unbelievable. They love to daydream, which can create difficulties in maintaining attention. These children and adults can be misdiagnosed with a variety of mental disorders. Well meaning clinicians might not understand the imaginary friends or the need to keep their stuffed animals with them at all times. Clinicians also might see ADHD when a child has a rich daydream world and finds the real world dull by comparison. But to medicate away a child's imagination feels beyond tragic and extremely ill advised.
Finding ways to support your child's imagination and creativity and at the same time differentiate between what is real and what is fantasy is an important task for the parent of an imaginational OE child. It is also important to help them stay on track when exciting ideas create a desire to become tangential in their thought processes. Using a journal as a means to save these ideas for another time is one great way of both honoring the idea, but still requesting focus.
This is the overexcitability that can often be the most challenging. (Did I already say that about one of the other ones?) And no, I didn't take this picture when my daughter was having an actual tantrum. This was one of her dramatic reenactments. The feelings of many gifted children can be intense and overwhelming. When these children are happy, they are ecstatic. But unfortunately, many of these children and adults are prone to bouts of extreme depression and anxiety. Researchers have commented on how "existential depression" is often very common among gifted individuals. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is also very commonly diagnosed among people with higher intelligence. Both Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla were believed to have suffered from Obsessive Compulsive disorder.
Probably due to this heightened sensitivity, many gifted children and adults are also extremely empathic. They have strong feelings around issues of fairness and from a very young age are deeply interested in issues of social justice. Recently, on a family walk one Sunday morning, we passed what was probably the home of a bunch of college students in East Austin. The yard was strewn with beer bottles and red cups. My children were outraged that the occupants would have such a blatant disrespect for their environment. My husband and I had to gently ask them to keep their voices down as we passed the house. Another example is my son's recent declaration that he is now a vegetarian. He says that he can't stand that people hurt animals for food. He is only five. Because he can become very sad at dinner time, we have agreed as a family to not eat meat on certain days of the week out of respect for his beliefs. This empathic vulnerability makes watching the news difficult. When my daughter was only three a morning show told the story of someone falling into a large sink hole and dying. She cried for days. We haven't really watched morning news shows ever since.
Often times, because these emotions can seem so overblown and overwrought, as parents, it is very easy to minimize the emotional experiences our young children have. "This is nothing to get so upset about!" "Stop crying" "You have no reason to be angry." Although these statements are made in an attempt to calm an emotionally overwhelmed child, they actually create confusion and more anxiety. The child begins to doubt their own experiences. They begin to judge their feelings. And on top of that, it doesn't really work to tell someone to calm down anyway. Validating feelings is a much better strategy, but it can be difficult when you are an emotional parent! So, I will often notice when I am getting just as emotional as my daughter or son, take a deep breath, and remember the goal. Then I might ask, "Are you feeling.............? I might be feeling that way too if that happened to me. What can we do right now to help you feel better?" Helping the child to label the emotion, validate the emotion, and then talk through coping strategies not only will help them weather their emotional storm - but it also provides them the tools necessary to weather the next one.
Next up - The Intellectual Overexcitability!
