Executive Functioning and Giftedness: Part 2

by: Erin Peace, LCSW, RPT
School Counselor

Part 1: Executive Functioning As a Spectrum of Skills

In Part 1 of this blog series on giftedness and executive functioning, we explored the dimensions of executive functioning and reviewed how to self-assess the various domains of executive functioning.

Many gifted and twice-exceptional students require executive functioning support for a variety of reasons, including a difference in their prefrontal cortex development compared to same-age peers. Many times, gifted students haven’t needed to practice study skills or time management skills due to completing material in class or finishing homework more quickly than their peers. These students can also complete material so quickly that they didn’t learn skills around planning for larger projects.

The domains of executive functioning can be found on a spectrum, and each students’ abilities vary both among the population and within the individual. In this post, you will find information on how to help your student strengthen two domains of executive functioning: organization and time management.

Collaborate: Goal-Plan-Do-Review for Organization

After an individual has identified their executive functioning strengths and weaknesses using a self-assessment (See Part 1 for more information), students should then be invited to collaborate on solutions together. Use the Goal-Plan -Do-Review approach to help students build their organization/planning skill:


    1. Goal: Before beginning, use a “team huddle” to identify what the student wants to accomplish (i.e. write a paragraph for my English essay)

    2. Plan: How will I accomplish this goal? What materials do I need? Who can help me accomplish this goal? Turn the steps into a written list or checklist

    3. Do: Implement the plan
    4. Review: Reflect on how well the plan worked, and what could be improved upon next time

Over time, adults should phase out supervision of the plan and implementation.


Time Management

Students benefit from finding a homework/assignment planner that works for them. Although some students prefer paper planners, others prefer using apps or calendar functions. Have students try out different methods like a science experiment, reviewing what worked and what needs to be tweaked. When students are able to find all of their assignments in one place, along with the due date and a section for notes, they increase their ability to organize materials and prioritize assignments.

Visual timers can be a great resource for students, especially those who experience “time-blindness.” This timer can be used to set five minute increments of work time, and five minute breaks, before building up to longer amounts of time as stamina builds. Apps such as Routinery and Tiimo allow students to set routines with visual reminders and timers.






Although many students struggle with these skills at first, with practice and scaffolding they can build their confidence and sense of self-mastery, until they no longer need adult intervention and supervision.

Executive Functioning and Giftedness

by: Erin Peace, LCSW, RPT
School Counselor

As we settle back into our routine for the school year, many of us emphasize setting resolutions for the new year. These resolutions or intentions can help us accomplish goals when we identify tasks that are meaningful and realistic; how can we encourage our gifted students to set and work towards goals that are meaningful to them?

Executive Functioning and Giftedness

Executive functioning refers to a neurological set of skills that help individuals regulate their emotions, and thereby their actions. These skills are needed in order to plan, organize, and follow-through on activities, and we can think of the executive functioning center of our brain as the concert conductor or air traffic controller of our actions.

Due to the asynchronous development of the brain among the gifted population, we see an extreme range of executive functioning abilities both among and within our students, and many of our students need scaffolding to help build these skills, especially in relation to non-preferred tasks. Due to their cognitive abilities, students may not have had to outline larger projects or executive time management as their same-age peers during elementary school, and they are forced to learn these skills in middle school or high school.

Collaboration with Gifted Students

In order to increase a student’s buy-in to increase these skills, providing education about the gifted brain and fostering collaboration with students can increase the motivation and willingness to pursue goals that are either important to them while increasing their sense of self-efficacy.

A collaborative conversation should be had with the student about a goal, and the adult can then help the student identify the steps into a checklist that the student can visualize and use daily. After using a system, we should then work with the student to evaluate the process and identify which strategies worked, and which need to be tweaked in order to be successful. Eventually, these systems should be modified to reduce adult supervision and intervention, which increases a student’s sense of self-efficacy and reduces the risk of enabling.


Task Initiation

Many times, our gifted students have an outstanding ability to focus and work on things that they find interesting or exciting. With larger or less-preferred tasks, we can help increase our student’s motivation by front-loading the work with enjoyable tasks, as well as setting a firm start time for the work. Short breaks can be interspersed with frequent acknowledgment of the student’s effort and progress. A solutions-focused approach can also be used to explore with the student about things they don’t procrastinate on, and what conditions allow for this increased sense of motivation and self-esteem. In a future blog post, we’ll explore how to help gifted students strengthen their time management skills in order to pursue these goals.

Where to begin? Start with an Executive Functioning Self-Assessment from Smart but Scattered HERE.

Book Resources: Smart but Scattered, and Smart but Scattered Teens.

Image Source for EF graphic: Focus Therapy
Image Source for Homework Planner: Smart But Scattered

Nurturing Young Minds: A Parent’s Guide to Promoting Mental Health

 

Image Source

by: Erin Peace, LCSW, RPT
School Counselor

Over the last few years, educators and parents have identified a need for increased mental health support for children. These needs became especially clear after the transitions and stressors related to the start of the pandemic, and in April U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy stated that “kids’ and adolescents’ declining mental health is the crisis of our time.” A JAMA meta-analysis of over 80,000 youths globally done in 2021 showed about 1 in 4 adolescents demonstrated clinically significant signs of depression, and about 1 in 5 adolescents demonstrated clinically significant signs of anxiety. 

Parents and educators can partner to provide students with the tools needed to identify and address stress, and these shifts can start with us as the adults modeling healthy coping skills to students. Here are some tips for parents on how to have meaningful conversations about mental health with your children.

• Create a Safe and Open Environment: Begin by fostering an atmosphere where your child feels comfortable discussing their thoughts and feelings. Let them know that their emotions are valid and that you're there to listen without judgment. Encourage them to express themselves in their own time and way.

• Lead by Example: Children learn from observing their parents. Demonstrate healthy coping mechanisms and stress management strategies in your daily life. When they see you prioritize your mental well-being, they're more likely to do the same.

• Normalize Emotions: Teach your child that it's okay to experience a wide range of emotions, and that these feelings are a natural part of life. Use everyday situations as opportunities to discuss emotions and how to deal with them effectively.

• Active Listening: When your child wants to talk, be an active listener. This means giving them your full attention, maintaining eye contact, and asking open-ended questions to encourage them to share more. Avoid interrupting or immediately offering solutions; sometimes, they just need someone to listen.

• Empower Problem-Solving Skills: Instead of solving their problems for them, guide your child in finding solutions. This helps them develop critical thinking skills and boosts their self-confidence in handling challenging situations.

• Teach Stress-Reduction Techniques: Introduce relaxation techniques like deep breathing, mindfulness, or even physical activities such as yoga. These tools can help your child manage stress and anxiety effectively.

• Stay Informed Together: Keep yourselves informed about mental health together. Read age-appropriate books or articles, watch educational videos, or attend workshops that focus on mental health topics. This shared learning experience can spark valuable discussions.

• Seek Professional Help When Needed: Sometimes, children may need professional guidance to navigate their mental health challenges. Be open to the idea of seeking help from a therapist or counselor when necessary. Explain that it's a positive step towards getting the support they need.

• Celebrate Small Wins: Acknowledge and celebrate your child's achievements, no matter how small they may seem. This boosts their self-esteem and encourages them to keep working towards positive mental health.

• Consistency is Key: Make these conversations a regular part of your family life. Don't wait for a crisis to discuss mental health. Consistency will help break down the stigma and create an ongoing dialogue.

Promoting mental health is an ongoing journey, and it's okay to seek guidance from professionals if you're unsure how to approach certain situations. By fostering a safe and open environment to talk about mental health, you can create a lasting impact on your child's mental well-being, ensuring they grow up with tools to be resilient and emotionally intelligent individuals.

Giftedness and Anxiety Part 4

By Erin Peace, LCSW, RPT: ACE Academy School Counselor

Parts 1, 2, and 3

In Part 1 of this blog series on giftedness and anxiety, we explored the definition of anxiety as well as the way it manifests between the interrelation of thoughts, emotions/body sensations, and behavior. Part 2 included information on how to help your student manage the physical sensation of anxiety through progressive muscle relaxation and managing sugar/caffeine intake. In Part 3, we reviewed ways to help your student identify their anxious thoughts. In this post, we’ll identify strategies to help your student challenge those anxious thoughts.

Challenging Anxious Thoughts

By using strategies such as mindfulness, your students can identify both the presence of their anxious thoughts, as well as the situations that triggered them. Anxious thoughts often manifest as negative automatic thought patterns, such as catastrophizing (assuming the worst will happen), black-and-white thinking (thinking in absolutes), and mind-reading (assuming what someone else is thinking without data), among other patterns. These thought patterns are often rigid and based on guesswork instead of data, which leads to a distorted version of reality and impacts our ability to participate in rational decision-making. In order to help your student challenge these thoughts, I recommend coming from a place of non-judgmental curiosity while helping your student search for evidence for or against the anxious thought.

For example: if your student is assigned a science fair project and their mind goes to, “I’m stupid and I’m going to fail; what’s the point of trying?”. Try reflecting back their thoughts with a calm tone of voice and relaxed body language; this helps the student feel heard, while also modeling a regulated body and nervous system that lets your student know that they are safe. Reflecting their thoughts could sound like: “I hear you saying that you think you’re going to fail; that must feel really overwhelming. I’m right here with you; let’s figure this out together.”

After validating your student’s emotion, help your student challenge an unhelpful thought by asking the following questions provided by Dr. Dennis Greenburger:

1. If your best friend had this thought, what would you tell her? What advice would you give her?

2. What evidence supports your thought? What evidence contradicts your thought?

3. Have you been in this situation before? What did you learn from a similar experience that could help you navigate this one?

4. If your thought is true, what is the worst-case scenario? What is the best-case scenario? What is the most likely scenario?

For students, it can be helpful to have these conversations while incorporating movement or playfulness, such as going on a walk or throwing a ball back and forth. By connecting with your child during these conversations, you demonstrate that your child does not have to navigate these issues on their own, and you also normalize the presence of these thoughts. In the next blog post, we’ll explore how to use these strategies to address avoidance related to anxiety.

Giftedness and Anxiety Part 3

By Erin Peace, LCSW, RPT: ACE Academy School Counselor

Parts 1 and 2

In Part 1 of this blog series on giftedness and anxiety, we explored the definition of anxiety as well as the way it manifests between the interrelation of thoughts, emotions/body sensations, and behavior. Part 2 included formation on how to help your gifted student manage the physical sensation of anxiety through progressive muscle relaxation and managing sugar/caffeine intake. In Part 3, we will review ways to help your student identify their anxious thoughts.

Anxious Thoughts Overview
When we experience anxiety, we tend to think the following thoughts: 1) The worst case scenario will happen; and 2) I will not be able to handle the situation. Although we can’t control when these thoughts arise, we can be mindful of the situations that trigger them; we can also control how we bring awareness of these thoughts and how we respond to them.

Mindfulness and Awareness

Mindfulness is the nonjudgmental awareness of what is happening in the present moment, and we can help our students use this tool to identify their thoughts and emotions. If a student can name that they are having a “worry thought” or an “anxious thought”, then we can help our students accept that the thought is present while also challenging the content of the thought. Students can practice mindfulness in a variety of ways, and this article  includes multiple activities that parents can use to help their children practice this concept. I practice mindfulness with students often, as we can practice it anytime, and anywhere, including an activity as simple as brushing our teeth.

After students have a grasp of using mindfulness, I also recommend that students track their anxious thoughts, along with what occurred right before experiencing the anxious thought. I have provided an extreme example of this below (although it is extreme, I have heard this thought many times from gifted students!):

Thought Log

I am providing a sample thought log below; encourage your student to fill it out for a week to gather more data. By empowering your student to identify their triggers, you can then help them be proactive about reducing their anxiety.

Giftedness and Anxiety Part 2

By Erin Peace, LCSW, RPT: ACE Academy School Counselor

Part 1

In Part 1 of this blog series on giftedness and anxiety, we explored the definition of anxiety as well as the way it manifests between the interrelation of thoughts, emotions/body sensations, and behavior. In this post, you will find information on how to help your student manage the physical sensation of anxiety through progress muscle relaxation and managing sugar/caffeine intake. 

Progressive Muscle Relaxation

When we feel anxiety, our bodies experience heightened heart rate and shallow breathing, which causes our muscles to tense up. In order to signal to our bodies that we are safe, we can use Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) as a strategy to slow our breathing and heart rate. Like any new routine, practice will help our bodies learn new strategies, and I recommend students first practice PMR when they’re already relatively calm. This practice then allows us to access these skills when we’re feeling a heightened sense of anxiety. See below for a graphic on how to practice PMR:

1. Sit or lie down in a comfortable and quiet surrounding.

2. Start by taking a couple of deep breaths. Allow yourself to be still for a few minutes, and let yourself start to unwind.

3. Focus on your breathing and let your muscles slowly start to relax.

4. First, focus your attention on your forehead. Tense your muscles in this area, but not so much that you feel a great deal of pain. Notice what it feels like when these muscles are tight and tense. Tense for about 5 seconds.

5. Then relax the muscles in your forehead. Notice the different sensations in your muscles from the tense state to the relaxed state.

6. Focus on the feelings of relaxation in your hands and arms for at least 10 seconds

7. Then begin to move to the other muscle groups, repeating steps 5 through 7.

From SimpleMost.com

Tips for Relaxation:

Below is a relaxation scale and diary to help you to discover where and when you are best able to relax. It will also help you monitor your progress. Before doing the relaxation exercise, rate how relaxed you are feeling according to the scale given below. After completing the exercise, rate your level of relaxation again; you can look at these notes to try and make your practice more effective.

Reducing Caffeine and Sugar Intake

Research shows the correlation between caffeine/sugar intake and increased heart rate and shallow breathing, which can either trigger or mimic symptoms of anxiety. As you help your student identify their triggers for anxiety, you can help them keep a sugar or caffeine log to track whether their intake impacts their anxiety symptoms. You can use a log similar to the one below:

With more data, you can then help your student reduce the amount of sugar or caffeine gradually. In addition to improving the severity and frequency of anxiety symptoms, a reduction in caffeine and sugar later in the day can also benefit children’s quality of sleep. 

Giftedness and Anxiety Part 1

By Erin Peace, LCSW, RPT: ACE Academy School Counselor


What is anxiety?


The American Psychological Association defines anxiety as “ an emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts and physical changes like increased blood pressure.” Although most people will experience anxiety symptoms at some points in their lives, gifted students have a higher likelihood of experiencing anxiety symptoms than the average population.

Giftedness and Anxiety

Anxiety is a normal (albeit unpleasant) part of the human experience, and it can serve as either adaptive or maladaptive depending on its severity or frequency. For example, anxiety can motivate us to complete tasks and can warn us of impending danger. In these instances, anxiety can serve as a protective factor when we’re focusing on things we can control.

Anxiety and Avoidance

On the other end of the spectrum, anxiety can also feel debilitating when we’re ruminating on things we can’t control or acting on our cognitive distortions. These actions can often show up as avoidance of an experience that triggers our anxiety, as demonstrated by the following example:


Although we can’t control when anxiety shows up, we can provide our students with tools to respond to their thoughts and body sensations. We can also normalize the experience of anxiety with our students by reminding them that anxiety is an automatic response from our brains attempting to keep us safe; there is nothing wrong with us experiencing anxious thoughts and feelings.


Strategy 1: Managing the Physical Symptoms of Anxiety


Students often benefit from three ways to manage the physical sensations of anxiety:

1. Controlled, deep breathing (as opposed to shallow breathing) 

2. Progressive muscle relaxation 

3. Reducing sugar and caffeine intake 

Controlled, Deep Breathing

The following breathing strategy is provided by the NHS:

1. Start by noticing your breathing. Is it fast or slow? Deep or shallow? Just tune in to how you are breathing in this moment.

2. Place one hand on your chest and one on your stomach. Breathe in slowly through your nose, allowing your stomach and chest to gently swell. You will know you are breathing deeply if both hands gently rise.There will be less movement in the hand on the chest.

3. Let each breath follow naturally. When the in breath has ended let the out breath happen when it is ready. Exhale slowly and gently. It can be helpful to imagine letting go of any anxieties you have with each out breath. Imagine the worries dissolving or floating away. As you breathe in imagine a sense of health and well-being filling your lungs and stomach, and then your whole body.

4. Once you have got used to the rhythm of your breathing, try to keep your attention on the physical experience of the in and out breath. If you find your mind wanders and / or you start to feel anxious, gently bring your attention back to your breathing. Carry on practicing your controlled breathing for the desired amount of time.

As a registered play therapist (RPT), I also have a variety of tools for children that incorporate creativity, imagery, and fun into breathing exercises. Please contact me if you would like some other ideas on how to incorporate teaching breathwork to your student, especially if they are young children.

In Part 2 of this blog series on giftedness and anxiety, we will explore two more skills that can help students manage the physical sensations of anxiety: Progressive muscle relaxation and managing sugar and caffeine intake.