Notes on Living with Intensity by Susan Daniels

A school faculty member a while back recommended to me the book ​Living with Intensity: Understanding the Sensitivity, Excitability, and Emotional Development of Gifted Children, Adolescents, and Adults by Susan Daniels and Michael M. Piechowski. I recently finished reading it and learned a lot. It seemed to be geared towards professionals like therapists and educators but was still accessible and useful to parents.

I've definitely witnessed a lot of the intensities/overexcitabilities mentioned in the book, and I was relieved to hear about the wide ranges of these behaviors and how to cope with/support them best as parents. The theory and research portions were also interesting, even if less tangibly useful. This book is great for any parent of a gifted child or someone who works with gifted kids who are sometimes a "handful" to deal with.

Below are my main notes and takeaways.

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​Part 1 overexcitability, sensitivity, and developmental potential of gifted

1 embracing intensity
Gifted children should not be forced to be like others
Intensity should be embraced
Emotional level based on inner growth not age
Developmental potential
Talent
General intelligence
Self directed internal growth
Autonomy
Overexcitability
Less stimulation to produce response
Spirited
Energetic
Persistent
Psychomotor
Intellectual
Emotional
Imaginational

2 dabrowski levels and process of development 
Inner growth and comparing what is vs could be
Introspection and considering others and bigger picture
Positive Disintegration
Self actualization 

Part 2 understanding intensity

3 nurturing the sensitivity, intensity, and developmental potential of young gifted children
Asynchronous development
Emotional extremes
Over excitability
Instead of trying to suppress, learn to nurture and express in acceptable ways
Psychomotor
Individual better than team sports
Gymnastics dance fencing martial arts 
Allow verbal airtime
Teach relaxation techniques
Notebook at bedside to archive ideas
Tell them you have wonderful energy. I wish I had your energy. 
Avoid activities requiring sitting too long
Plan movement before and after sitting
Sensual 
Senses more sensitive
Picky eating
Clothing complaints
Comfort objects
Promote self efficacy
Tell them wow you like that sound or feeling so much
Adjust environment
Explain sometimes it’s good to try new things
Help them find comfortable clothing
Intellectual
Curiosity
Endless questions
Establish question limit at bedtime
Perfectionism
Explain how mistakes are necessary part of learning
Show partial progress
Tell them you have deep interests and curiosity
Help kids find answers to own questions
Imaginational
Imaginary friends normal
You have such a great imagination
Help them record their ideas
Project journal
Encourage them to share their stories
Emotional
Strong feelings
Relationships important
Help them label feelings
Listen to kids fully
Distinguish between feelings and behaviors
Relaxation techniques
Personal timeouts
Tell them you care deeply about things
Accept feelings and intensity
Teach to share feelings in productive ways like verbally or journal or art or music
Develop feeling vocabulary
Role play difficult situations beforehand 
Teach and model relaxation exercises
Model emotional temperature taking
Volunteer in places to show empathy and concern

4 inner awakening, outward journey: the intense gifted child in adolescence
Adolescence time of disintegration and transition
Asynchronous development of physical, mental, emotional
Need strong relationships
Precocious development in some areas
Arrested development 
Encourage involvement in cross age activities

5 emperor has no clothes: exquisite perception, stress, gifted child
Pressure on child to show off gifts
Concern with existential questions
Perfectionism
Listening and respect

6 theory and applications of misdiagnosis, missed diagnosis, dual diagnosis in gifted
Disintegration due to giftedness
Embrace more accelerated even if asynchronous development 
Intense focus on their interests to exclusion of other things 
Some symptoms necessary for positive disintegration

7 integrating the intense experience
Art therapy
Drama
Nature
Animals
Relaxation techniques
Some intensity cannot be seen

8 overexcitability giftedness and family dynamics 
Parents likely gifted too
Kids exhausting to live with
Parents need extra support
Kids need to learn to self nurture and module overexcitabilities

9 petunias, perfectionism, and level of development
Don’t fuss about what’s wrong; focus on what’s good
Gifted set standards based on mental not physical age and makes it hard to meet
Failure avoidance
Consciousness more common than unhealthy
Make projects hard enough so gifted work to earn good grades
Set priorities on what to be perfectionist on
Appreciate some imperfections
Don’t hold others to same perfectionist standards

Part 3 still gifted after all these years - gifted adults

10 lifespan intensity
Tough to find similar relationships
At peace with own identity

11 Annemarie roeper
Focus on social emotional development
Actualization
Interdependence
Freud
School for gifted

12 living ones spirit song
Spirituality
Spiritual experiences

13 what we may be
Gifted adults

4 current research and directions

14 building firm foundations
Content analysis
Interviews

15 under construction
Research improvements
National association of gifted children 

References
Drama of gifted child 
Helping gifted children soar