All posts by Lucinda

10 Things that Happen to OE Families on Vacation (that probably don’t happen to other families)

28/03/2016OverexcitabilitiesFunny stories, OEs, VacationsLucinda

10 Things that Happen to OE Families on Vacation

1. When getting ready to pack (a week in advance), you pull up your ‘Holiday list – winter’ document from your computer and save a new ‘2016’ version, colour-coded according to the location of items. You then spend half an hour meandering through lists from bygone years, growing teary-eyed as you cast your eyes over things like sippy-cups, toy cars and bedtime song cassettes.

You later arrive in the mountains to discover you haven’t brought your daughter’s ski gloves, while your non-OE friend who packed without the assistance of a list hasn’t forgotten a thing. How do they do that?!

2. The middle-aged couples on two separate nearby tables ask to be reseated in the hotel restaurant because your exuberant son doesn’t understand the idea of an inside voice, let alone a polite restaurant voice.

3. You find yourself explaining Dabrowski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration to your daughter who wants to go skiing but is feeling overwhelmed at the prospect of getting into all her gear. ‘So if you use your wonderful imagination to envisage all the fun you’re going to have out on the mountains, and if your brain could break down the process of getting ready into bite-sized chunks, what would you do first?’

4. You’re not the least surprised when your son, who’s been leaping around at breakfast shouting, ‘C’mon! Let’s hit the slopes!’ announces, exhausted, at bedtime, ‘I never want to go skiing again!’ In fact, you could have written the script.

5. You run your hands through your freshly-washed hair in the hotel elevator, then turn around and are shocked to see your daughter on the verge of tears. ‘I’m sorry! I just can’t take the smell of your hair combined with Jasper’s humming in this small space!’

6. Your husband asks, ‘Do you mind if I eat pistachio nuts?’ as you enjoy a pre-dinner drink together in your hotel room. ‘Sure,’ you say, reaching for your headphones and white noise app.

7. Your 10-year-old wears the same T-shirt for seven days straight because he doesn’t like the colour of any of the other six you pulled out of his wardrobe when you packed the suitcases.

8. Your daughter’s thrilled to discover there are 15 sequels to the book she’s reading at the start of your holiday. She finishes the series on the flight home.

9. At breakfast on your last day, while contemplating the eight hour journey home, you have a lively family discussion about teleportation, time travel, worm holes and the nature of consciousness – subjects no one ever tires of.

10. You experience the blissful sensation of ASMR as you drive home past glassy Italian lakes and breathtakingly vast snow-capped Alps.

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Every single one of these things truly happened to us last week. So come on, tell me – is it just me?

* * *

What’s your favourite family vacation story?

Anyone else get blissed-out on scenery?

How do you deal with the overwhelming task of packing?

Why Raising Our Personal Baseline is the Key to Parenting Our Intense and Sensitive Children

21/03/2016ParentingParenting, Self-CareLucinda

Why Raising Our Personal Baseline is the Key to Parenting Our Intense and Sensitive Children

Have you ever resolved to make a change in the way you parent?

Perhaps you want to stay calmer when your child has a meltdown, or allow more time for everyone to get ready for school?

Maybe you want to be a better listener when your son tells you about his latest project, or be more understanding when your daughter refuses to join in the swimming class you’ve just driven 30 minutes to get to?

The life cycle of a parenting goal

Whatever your goal, if you’re anything like me, you wake up in the morning feeling inspired, energised and eager to roll out the new you.

Everything goes well for the first few hours of the day (or the first few minutes).

The kids join you in bed for five minutes of snuggles before you all get up. Teeth-cleaning becomes a fun game everyone enjoys. You don’t rush your son as he selects a T-shirt that feels just right against his skin. You skilfully defuse an argument about who gets to feed the guinea pig his celery stick before anyone ends up in tears.

And then …

You realise you forgot to charge your phone the night before. You spend an unplanned-for 10 minutes scraping ice off the car windscreen which makes you late for your doctor’s appointment. The washing machine refuses to drain (with your daughter’s football kit trapped inside). Your youngest has a meltdown because he forgot to bring his blue bunny on the journey to the supermarket. And you get home to discover the hall full of feathers leading to a decapitated pigeon in the sitting room. (Maybe only cat owners will understand this last one.)

Ten minutes of vacuuming feathers and scrubbing blood off the skirting board later (all the while fending off one child’s questions about bird anatomy while reassuring the other that you’re sure the pigeon didn’t suffer), you think about cooking dinner.

By this point you are most definitely not the parent you dreamed of being during those first, promising moments of the day.

Life happens. Our delightfully intense children behave in their wonderful, full-on ways from the moment they bounce out of bed in the morning until the second they fall asleep at night. And we react to all this through the kaleidoscope of our own overexcitabilities.

How I gave up trying to be the perfect parent

I used to fantasise about having a pause button for my life. When I felt myself getting overwhelmed I would press pause and instantly create an hour’s peace, in which I could recharge and become the perfect parent I dreamed of being.

Over the years I’ve realised that it’s not only the pause button that doesn’t exist – neither does the perfect parent.

What I can do is ensure that I’m as good a parent as I can be at any point in my life (and that’s good enough).

How do I make sure I’m as good a parent as I can be? By building up what Simone de Hoogh* calls my ‘baseline’.

What is our personal ‘baseline’?

How high or low our baseline is depends on the combination of our energy level and the strength of our resilience.

Energy

The amount of physical and emotional energy we have is the difference between feeling like we’re sinking or swimming in our lives.

Sometimes we have barely enough energy to keep our heads above water.

Other times we bob along, happily on top of things.

At times we might even have an abundance of energy, with enough spare to try new things. These are the times when we’re able to take steps towards our parenting goals and help our children deal with challenges.

Resilience

Our resilience, meanwhile, affects how we react to the little (and big) problems life throws at us. If our resilience is low, we’re easily upset when things go wrong. Even small annoyances can escalate and ruin everyone’s day.

But when our resilience is high, we can use problems to help us move towards our goals. When we know what we don’t want, we know better what we do want. This is what psychologist Kazimierz Dabrowski had in mind when he referred to using our OEs as energy for self-directed emotional growth. (I talked a bit about Dabrowski’s theory in this post.)

What drains our personal energy?

Our personal baseline is usually highest when we wake up in the morning.

Then, throughout the day, the energy element of our baseline takes a hit each time one of these kind of things happens:

we behave differently from how we feel
we hold back from expressing ourselves
we don’t respect our limits (e.g. we say no when we mean yes, or we don’t do what we promised)
we resist physical urges, like eating, drinking, or needing to go to the loo (bathroom 😉 )

We can’t avoid these hits completely – certainly not while we live in families!

But raising our baseline can help in two ways.

How raising our energy helps

(1) The higher our baseline is, the more hits we can take before we crash.

(Psychologists call this point when we run out of will-power ‘ego depletion’, but that doesn’t sound quite dramatic enough to me.)

(2) When our baseline is high, we make better choices and can plan ahead.

So the big question is, how do we raise our baseline?

What can we do to top up our energy levels and boost our resilience?

I’ll be looking at this question over the next few weeks, starting with a guest post over at Motherhood The Real Deal – 5 Keys to Staying Sane as a Mum to Sensitive and Spirited Kids.

* * *

What changes would you make if you had abundant energy?

How do you take care of yourself when your reserves are running low?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments, or on the Laugh, Love, Learn Facebook page.

An OE Family on Holiday

I’m just back from a week’s skiing in Italy with my lovely family. You can read about some of our quirky experiences in this light-hearted post next week – 10 Things That Happen to OE Families on Vacation (that probably don’t happen to other families).

* * *

How Many People Have Overexcitabilities? & Other FAQs

14/03/2016OverexcitabilitiesOEsLucinda

overexcitabilities FAQ

Do you ever wish you could press the pause button on your life? Slip away with a pile of books for a long weekend at a luxury spa hotel, perhaps? Then return, refreshed and ready to swing back into the groove?

I’ve found myself dreaming about that pause button over the last few weeks.

So instead of starting a new story, today I decided to dig deeper into the subject of overexcitabilities by having a little Q&A session with myself. Getting things clear in my mind feels soothing. (Is that an OE thing? ?)

What are overexcitabilities?

Overexcitabilities (OEs) are innate personality traits. You’re either born with them, or you’re not. They’re with you for life, and with any luck you get more practised at managing them as you get older.

The nervous systems of people with OEs are both more sensitive, and more responsive, to stimuli. Individuals with OEs have a greater awareness of things, inside and outside of them, than most other people.

When were overexcitabilities first identified?

Overexcitabilities are a part of the personality theory developed by Polish psychologist Kazimierz Dabrowski (1902-1980). Dabrowski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration is now credited to be the leading personality theory of the twenty-first century. Weirdly, not many people have heard of it (including me until a year ago), but I’m trying to do my little bit to spread the word.

Dabrowski identified five types of overexcitability: psychomotor, sensual, imaginational, intellectual and emotional.

How many people have overexcitabilities?

Psychologists estimate that about one in five people have OEs. Between two and four percent of people experience OEs in a way that brings challenges to daily life.

According to the latest research, OEs mostly occur in individuals with an IQ of over 110.

OEs are usually more intense in high-able individuals, but not every person with a high IQ has OEs.

Are there any risks associated with overexcitabilities?

People with the increased sensitivity, awareness and intensity that OEs bring experience the world very differently from other people. This means they behave differently.

Unfortunately we live in a society which, whatever people might say about valuing creativity and innovation, rewards conformity, especially in children.

Children who behave differently – especially when they ‘over’-react, are ’too’ sensitive, can’t stop asking questions or aren’t able to sit still – face disapproval.

One of the biggest risks to a child who has OEs is that they grow up with a negative view of themselves. Many become extremely unhappy or depressed. Some even express suicidal thoughts.

People with OEs also often experience asynchronous development, twice-exceptionality (high-ability combined with a learning difficulty like dyslexia), or sensory processing and anxiety-related issues.

Is there a positive side to having overexcitabilities?

Individuals with OEs experience life – including the good bits – more intensely.

Depending on the particular combination of OEs you have, beautiful art can be intensely moving, fine food can taste exquisite, small acts of kindness can instil deep appreciation, heavenly worlds can be imagined, passions can be pursued to their joyful fullest, and sports can be enjoyed with ferocious intensity.

Overexcitabilities - Frequently Asked Questions

According to Dabrowski, OEs are one of three factors that are necessary for advanced personal development. Innate ability is also required, and the third pre-requisite is the capacity for self-directed emotional growth.

It is this third factor, in particular – self-directed emotional growth – that we can nurture. If we allow our children to grow in tune with their authentic passions and confident of their ability to attain their goals, we can give them a huge boost along the way towards creating their happiest possible lives and contributing to the world around them.

How can we help children value their overexcitabilities?

There are many things we can do to help our sensitive, intense children appreciate who they are and find their place in the world.

We can advocate for them in a society that doesn’t always understand their needs. We can stop holding them to standards they struggle in vain to meet. We can help them stay in touch with their intrinsic motivations. And we can show them ways to manage their intensity.

But perhaps the most important place to start is with ourselves.

OE character traits are genetic – if your children have overexcitabilities, the chances are that you have them too. For me, learning to understand and appreciate my own OEs is an important first step towards helping my children manage and value theirs.

I’ve found that improving my energy levels and resilience is the best way for me to manage my own OEs. I’ll share more next time about how and why I do this.

Do you have any questions about OEs?

How do you help your children appreciate their quirkiness?

* * *

Laugh, Love, Learn posts to March 2016

07/03/2016UncategorizedLucinda

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I’m having a break from writing this week so I thought I’d take this opportunity to link to all the posts I’ve written so far, in case you missed anything.

Overexcitabilities

A light-hearted look at what OEs look like in our family:

You know your family has overexcitabilities when

Psychomotor OE:

7 Signs your child has psychomotor overexcitability

Sensual OE:

What is sensual overexcitability?

Imaginational OE:

The ups and downs of imaginational overexcitability

Intellectual OE:

6 Things you need if your child has intellectual overexcitability

Emotional OE:

15 Things your child with emotional overexcitability might say

Our story

How I first learned about OEs:

How I discovered the secret key to understanding my intense and sensitive family

How I discovered that OEs aren’t something that needs fixing

Why OEs are a starting point, not a diagnosis or a label:

My child has overexcitabilities. Now what?

My relief at meeting other parents for whom traditional parenting methods didn’t work either:

How I finally found my tribe

I’ll be back next week answering some frequently asked questions about overexcitabilities, then after that I’ll be exploring how we can be the best and happiest parents to our intense and sensitive children.

Fill in your email address in the ‘Follow by Email’ box at the top or bottom of this page to get posts straight to your inbox.

Comments? Questions? Cool stuff to share? Please leave me a comment below or like the Laugh, Love, Learn Facebook page. 🙂

Love Laugh Learn posts

My Child Has Overexcitabilities – Now What?

22/02/2016OverexcitabilitiesDabrowski, OEsLucinda

My Child Has Overexcitabilities - What Now?

If you followed my series on the five types of overexcitability and discovered that your child has OEs, you’re probably asking, “Now what?”

When I first learned about overexcitabilities, my first reaction was a feeling of enormous relief to finally have an explanation for my son’s intense, sensitive behaviour. Next, I wanted to know how I could use this information to help my son be happier and find his place in the world.

Overexcitabilities are one part of a much broader theory of personality development. When we understand their place in this context, we can begin to appreciate the benefits OEs bring. Only then can we can start to deal appropriately with the accompanying challenges.

Finding out about OEs is not like getting a diagnosis: OE s aren’t a disorder, although they’re often mistaken for one.

OEs and Misdiagnosis

When you’ve spent years desperately trying to figure out what’s going on with your intense/sensitive/explosive child, you’ve probably spent a lot of time blaming yourself for his behaviour, and feeling judged by others too.

You’ve tried every parenting technique out there but nothing’s worked: you’re obviously doing something wrong (you think). So you begin trailing round the professionals.

And because OEs can look a lot like psychological disorders, the chances are that before long some well-meaning professional ticks enough boxes to diagnose your child with one. When this happens, among the complex and mixed emotions you feel at this point is relief: it’s not your fault.

I know I felt this way when my son was diagnosed, aged seven, with Sensory Processing Disorder. Finally I was finally able to tell sports coaches, frowning museum curators and friends that Jasper wasn’t deliberately being rude or naughty – his behaviour stemmed from the unreliable way his senses processed information.

In retrospect, I suspect that Jasper’s SPD ‘symptoms’ were actually caused by his psychomotor and sensual OEs, which may explain why the year of therapy he received made no difference to his behaviour. (A fact the occupational therapists explained away by suggesting that my son had ADHD as well!)

I’m not saying that children can’t have OEs as well as a psychological disorder, and if your child’s been diagnosed with one and the treatment is helpful, that’s great. (Whatever works!) But often there is no effective therapy, and the relief a parent feels on receiving a diagnosis quickly turns into helplessness and frustration. Of course, effective treatment is even less likely if the child doesn’t have the disorder to begin with.

Overexcitabilities as a starting point

But when we realise that overexcitabilities are at the root of a child’s behaviour we find ourselves, not trapped inside a labelled box, but at the start of a journey.

Overexcitabilities are a part of the personality theory which was the life’s work of the brilliantly creative and humane psychologist Kazimierz Dabrowski (1902-1980).

According to Dabrowski, three factors must be present for advanced personal development:

(1) Innate ability (intelligence, talents, etc)

(2) Overexcitabilities, which provide the drive or energy to move forward

(3) The capacity for self-directed emotional growth.

In other words, OEs are a gift. Yes, our kids’ OEs can bring challenging behaviours that make us wonder, in us our darker moments, how the heck they’re going to cope with adult life. But we need to remember that it is the OEs themselves that will provide our children with the drive and energy to develop into fulfilled, self-actualised adults.

For me, reframing OEs in this way is a powerful place to start when it comes to supporting our children.

Nurturing our children’s capacity for emotional growth

Dabrowski himself believed that all three of the above factors were innate – you’re either born with them or you’re not. But other psychologists believe a person’s capacity for personal growth can be affected by their environment.

My own feeling is that this is very much the case. Someone whose basic needs (for health, shelter, or love for example) aren’t being met won’t have any spare energy to move forward, no matter what their innate potential might have been.

As parents of children with OEs, we can show our kids how to direct their energy towards their self-chosen goals. If we do it well, we’ll send our children into the world equipped to find a way through the frustration, conflict and struggle they’ll experience during their lives and able to use those feelings as opportunities for inner growth and to contribute to the world around them.

How can we support our intense and sensitive children?

Firstly, I believe we need to teach our children that their OEs are an innate and valuable strength, not something to be repressed.

Second, we must show them how to channel the powerful energy that OEs bring (“there is a delicate balance between honouring a feeling and managing its expression” – Daniels & Piechowski, Living With Intensity).

Often as parents of intense, sensitive, hyper-reactive children, all our energy gets spent fire-fighting – dealing with the day-to-day challenges that life with these children throws at us (usually at the same time as managing our own OEs).
We find ourselves desperately reaching out – “How can I stop my child doing …?”, “Help! My child keeps…”, “How do you deal with …?” etc. Of course we need this kind of support, and I intend to share tools and resources to help here on this blog.

But much of our stress as parents comes from worrying that there’s something wrong with our children and feeling anxious about their future. If we can keep focused on the positive role OEs can play in helping our kids be their best possible selves, growing towards a great future, we can save ourselves a huge amount of worry – leaving us with more energy to support and nurture these extraordinary young people.

What do you think?

What do you think it’s important for kids with OEs to know?
Was your child with OEs misdiagnosed?
What else would you like to know about OEs?

Resources

There’s a lot more to Dabrowski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration than I’ve had space to talk about here. I’ll explore other aspects of his theory in a future post. In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more, here are a few places to start:

Websites

SENG: Dabrowski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration: Some implications for teachers of gifted students

Bill Tillier: The Theory of Positive Disintegration by Kazimierz Dabrowski

Books

Living with Intensity by Daniels & Piechowski

Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnosis of Gifted Children and Adults by James T Webb

15 Things Your Child With Emotional Overexcitability Might Say

15/02/2016OverexcitabilitiesEmotional OELucinda

People with emotional overexcitability feel things deeply and intensely.

During the course of a single day (or hour) a child with emotional OE might go from dancing with joy to rolling on the floor in the depths of despair and back again. Many are acutely attuned to others’ feelings and care deeply about the wellbeing of other beings, sometimes to a degree that gets in the way of their own needs being met.

Children with emotional OE experience deeper, more complex emotions than many adults around them realise is possible for a child their age. These are the children who in generations past were told (and sadly often still are) to ‘toughen up’, ‘lighten up’, or ‘stop being so sensitive’.

Some, like my daughter, find it easy to share their feelings verbally. Others struggle to express the extreme emotions going on inside them – even to themselves. These children can grow increasingly frustrated and end up releasing their feelings in a sudden torrent, much to the bewilderment of those around them.

If you have emotional overexcitability you may well have recognised yourself and your child in what I’ve said already. Here are some other clues.

15 Things your child with emotional overexcitability might say . . .

“I love you” Yes, most children say this, but a child with emotional OE will say it as he embraces his best friend so hard that she falls over. Or through eyes brimming with tears as she struggles to contain the intensity of her love. Or, just before she goes to sleep on Christmas Day, in a long and poignant text message, accompanied by 27 multi-coloured hearts.

“I hate you” This one will be accompanied by a facial expression that leaves you in no doubt that he really means it! (At least in the moment he’s uttering the words.)

“We need to help her” Said about a stray dog, a homeless person, or a toddler crying in the park. These children feel what others feel and are deeply affected by those feelings, often giving rise to a compelling urge to help.

“What should I do?” The heightened empathy these kids feel can mean they tend to put others’ feelings above their own needs. They might have a strong desire to do something but be paralysed by second-guessing what they believe someone else wants. Meanwhile the other person is completely unaware of the problem because the child doesn’t want to upset them by bringing it up!

My daughter had some coaching last year to help her understand more about her OEs. During one session (which she later shared with me) she talked about the clothes she wears on Scout camps. Being a good mummy, I’d always bought the exact (unisex) items written on the kit lists. Meanwhile, it transpired the other girl Scouts had started to wear more fashionable clothes, and Cordie wanted to do the same (we’re talking girl-cut combat trousers here, not high heels). But because she’d always seen me buying the exact items from the list, Cordie felt that practicality and economy were of paramount importance to me, and was afraid to tell me what she really wanted. Of course once I discovered what was going on, I was able to reassure Cordie that her feelings mattered, and now we both enjoy shopping for pretty-coloured fleeces and cute bobble hats. 🙂

“I want things to stay the same” Children with emotional overexcitability can develop deep emotional bonds with family, friends, animals, places and things. As a result, they often want everything to be permanent, and can struggle with changes like moving house or school.

So when you’re planning a trip away you might hear . . .

“I can’t go on holiday without Harvey!” [the dog]

And when you suggest pruning their wardrobe . . .

“But why can’t I wear this T-shirt any more?” (about a garment whose hem is now just above his navel). My mum once cut the arms off a cardigan I insisted on wearing long after it had become threadbare. I retrieved the sleeves from the bin and made her take this photograph of me ‘wearing’ the dismembered cardi for the last time.

“I’ve said something that upset her” People with emotional overexcitability can spend hours worrying about little things they’ve said that might have upset or caused offence to another person. One strategy that can help assuage a child’s anxiety is to validate her feelings while gently reassuring her that the other person probably isn’t experiencing what happened in the same way.

“You’re my best friend” If you have emotional overexcitability you have a strong need for depth and intensity in relationships. A child might move from one short-lived friendship to another, never feeling fulfilled. If they’re lucky enough to find a kindred spirit, they will be passionate and loyal friends.

However, their need for depth in relationships can cause them to overstep other people’s boundaries and scare away the people they’re trying to connect with. So you might hear the heart-breaking words …

“Why won’t they let me play?” When a child with emotional OE does experience a friendship intensely, he expects the friendship to last for life and might mourn for months when a new friend doesn’t want to play any more. He can also become upset when his intense feelings aren’t reciprocated. Even the most confident child with emotional OE can feel lonely and might even be the victim of bullying.

“I just want to die” I remember reeling in shock the first time I heard my son say these words. What on earth could lead an eight-year-old to say such a thing? I’ve since found out that it’s not at all uncommon for kids with emotional overexcitability to express sentiments like these.

When a child with emotional OE feels completely overwhelmed by a negative emotion, he doesn’t have the life experience to know that the feeling will pass, and he feels like it will last forever. Parents of teenagers with emotional OE have told me that, for similar reasons, as these young people get older they might experience waves of ‘What’s the point of living?’ existential crises.

“This is the best day ever!” Other times – when he’s won a game, is eating a delicious meal or is about to play with his favourite cousin – your emotionally OE child can light up the house with his radiant gladness. Maybe even on the same day as he’s told you he doesn’t want to go on living.

Which isn’t to say that this young person’s emotions are superficially felt. On the contrary, these children are genuinely capable of experiencing a breathtakingly wide range of intense and complex emotions in a short space of time.

“Turn it off!” While children with sensual OE are sensitive to input coming through their senses, kids with emotional OE react strongly to the content of what they experience. These children might be so moved by a story, TV programme or the words of a song that they become quite distressed.

When my daughter was six she loved the movie High School Musical. We were listening to the soundtrack in the car one day when Cordie suddenly stopped singing and shouted “Turn it off!” I turned round in surprise to see tears streaming down her cheeks. It wasn’t until later that I figured out that her upset had been triggered by the lyrics of a song in which the characters break up. (“I’ve got to move on and be who I am. I just don’t belong here, I hope you understand. We might find our place in this world someday. But at least for now, I gotta go my own way…”)

Now she’s 12, my daughter’s learned to be more discerning about what she watches and listens to and is better able to communicate what’s going on inside, but when she was little I had to be vigilant to help her manage the strong feelings that could be aroused by the most unlikely triggers, like Barbie movies or kids’ picture books.

These children can also be deeply upset by by real world news events, and may need special care and attention at home if upsetting stories have been discussed in school. If you have a good relationship with your child’s teacher, you might ask for your child’s sensitivity to news stories to be taken into account at these times.

“My tummy hurts” People with emotional overexcitability often respond physically to their emotions, for example with headaches or stomach aches. This can be a useful clue about what’s going on inside a child who has trouble finding the words to describe what they’re feeling.

“Arghh!” When their intense feelings become too much for the child to hold in, they might suddenly overreact to a minor setback with disproportionate meltdowns. Kids who have difficulty communicating what they’re feeling are especially prone to this.

“Adults can help these children distinguish between their feelings and behaviours. … There is a delicate balance in honoring a feeling and managing its expression.”

(Living With Intensity)

And then there are the many things children with emotional overexcitability don’t say . . .

You can be sure that for every feeling he verbalises, a child with emotional OE experiences many more emotions that aren’t expressed.

Some children learn to hide their sensitivity to protect themselves, even becoming quite withdrawn. Other children’s intense feelings simmer inside them, causing an increasing amount of inner distress until they suddenly erupt, like lava from a volcano.

Even children who never seem to stop talking (like those with psychomotor OE) are likely to feel myriad complex emotions for every one they give voice to.

* * *

The positive side of emotional overexcitability

Of all the OEs, emotional overexcitability is the one I most wish I’d known about when I was growing up. Over time I’ve found strategies for managing my intense emotions – journalling and meditating, for instance – but I always thought there was something wrong with me for being so sensitive. It wasn’t until I learned about emotional OE last year that I finally began to value this part of myself (there were tears).

As the mother of two children with emotional OE, I’m helping my kids learn how to manage their emotions, but – even more importantly – I want them to know what an asset emotional overexcitability can be. While not every emotionally OE child will grow up to be Gandhi or Mother Theresa, everyone who has this innate personality trait has the drive to improve themselves and make a difference in the world. They were made this way for a reason and the world needs them, just the way they are.

Over to you

Do you or your child have emotional overexcitability?
How do you help your emotionally OE child with friendships?
What are your tips for helping your child to express his emotions?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

If you have any questions about any of the overexcitabilities please feel free to drop me an email or book a (free, no obligation) call with me.

* * *

This is the final part in my series on the five types of overexcitability. See also:

Part 1: 7 Signs Your Child Has Psychomotor Overexcitability

Part 2: What Is Sensual Overexcitability?

Part 3: The Ups and Downs of Imaginational Overexcitability

Part 4: 6 Things You Need If Your Child Has Intellectual Overexcitability

Next week I’ll be talking about the positive role of overexcitabililties in personal development and how we can teach our children to appreciate their OEs. Fill in the Follow by Email box below to get it straight to your inbox.

Emotional Overexcitability – Resources

Websites

Jade Ann Rivera – How to identify and cope with overexcitabilities, part 1 of 5: Emotional overexcitability

SENG – The gift of emotional overexcitabilities

Books

Living With Intensity: Understanding the Sensitivity, Excitability and Emotional Development of Gifted Children, Adolescents and Adults (Daniels and Piechowski)

Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnosis of Gifted Children and Adults (James T Webb)

To find out if you or someone in your family has overexcitabilities, take my free online overexcitabilities quiz. The quiz takes less than 5 minutes to complete and you’ll receive your unique overexcitability profile together with written and video information about each OE by return email.

6 Things You Need If Your Child Has Intellectual Overexcitability

08/02/2016OverexcitabilitiesIntellectual OELucinda

6 Things You Need If Your Child Has Intellectual Overexcitability

Intellectual overexcitability is sometimes described as ‘perpetual toddler syndrome’ (Living With Intensity). Children with intellectual OE ask questions. Lots of questions.

“How many people exactly are there in the world? That book in our bathroom says 278 babies are born in the time it takes to read to the bottom of the page. Who counts them?”

“What do you think dogs dream about?”

“Who invented scooters?”

These children have an insatiable thirst for knowledge, love solving puzzles, often have a deep interest in moral issues, and can ponder problems for hours.

“Which two animals would you like to cross, Mummy?”

“I’m not sure, sweetie. Let me have a think. How about you?”

“Well, for land, my answer would be a lobster and an elephant. My sea animals would be a swordfish and a jellyfish. For air, it would probably be peregrine falcon and a mosquito. And if I could cross land, air and sea…”

Parenting these incessantly curious children is a delight – and can be exhausting! Here are a few of the things I’ve discovered you need to make the most of the delight and minimise the exhaustion . . .

1. Books

I’m sure no one reading this needs telling that kids with intellectual OE love books. For most parents the biggest problem is probably how to prise the book out of their child’s hands during meals or at bedtime. {When I was a kid I used to cover my lamp to stop my parents seeing my reading light under my bedroom door. That stopped the day my mum came upstairs saying she could smell smoke and discovered I’d burned a hole in my dressing gown. ? }

If your intellectually OE child, like mine, has other special needs which make reading challenging (like dyslexia or ADHD), audiobooks can be a godsend.

My ten-year-old’s headphones are as permanently attached to him as a book was to me when I was growing up. With an Audible subscription each book only costs a few pounds, so your twice-exceptional child’s book habit needn’t break the bank.

6 Things You NeedIf Your Child Has Intellectual Overexcitability — We also love non-fiction compilations with plenty of pictures, like these in our bathroom ‘library’. The Bill Bryson is also available as an audiobook.

2. Smartphone

Books are all very well but what about those need-to-know-now emergencies that happen while you’re out of the house? Like when you’re walking along the beach and can’t remember the word for someone who does magic with water {hydromancer}. Or in a restaurant and you want to know which country has most vegetarians {India}. Or on a London bus and wonder how tall the tallest building in the world is {2722ft – the Burj Khalifa, Dubai. Thanks, Google!}

3. Quiet zone

Engaging with intellectually OE kids can be wonderfully stimulating, but keeping up with their energy at the same time as doing all the other things adult life requires can be a challenge. You need time to recharge, especially if you’re a sensually OE introvert like me.

As a homeschooling mum I spend almost all my time with my children so it’s crucial for me to look after my energy and emotional wellbeing throughout the day. I’ve learned the hard way that no one benefits if I ignore my body’s signs that I need a few minutes’ quiet time.

If making a physical retreat isn’t possible, like when I’m in the middle of cooking dinner or back when I had to keep an eye on little ones, I create some virtual space with a white noise app like Brain Wave.

4. A relaxation technique

Make your time in your quiet zone as restorative as possible by finding a relaxation technique that works for you. Whether it’s meditation, yoga, prayer, mindfulness or just five minutes curled up with a grown-up book, the time you invest in relaxing will allow you to give better quality attention to your intellectually OE child later.

My kids think of my 15-minute meditation sessions as ‘Mummy reboots’. I usually find my mind wanders less if I listen to guided visualisations while meditating. Other people prefer to listen to relaxing music or just to breathe deeply. I also like the Buddhify mindfulness app which has over eighty short meditations suitable for all sorts of locations and moods.

5. Thick skin

For me, one of the most challenging aspects of raising a child with OEs is dealing with other people. Whether your four-year-old is asking a woman on the train why she has a moustache or your nine-year-old isn’t letting other children get a word in edgeways at a workshop, you’re all-too-often aware of other people judging your parenting skills. This can be especially stressful if you have emotional overexcitability.

If only growing a thicker skin really was an option. To be honest I’m still working on this one, but two things I’ve learned so far are:

(1) Try not to take other people’s reactions personally. They don’t know about OEs or what it’s like to bring up a child whose insatiable need to know can drive them to ask question after question, long after social convention would have them stop.

(2) Focus on the positive side of intellectual overexcitability by cherishing the gift of curiosity and remembering that behind all of history’s greatest engineers and scientists was probably an (at times) embarrassed mother.

6. The ability to explain complex ideas in child-friendly terms

When my kids were little, older relations used to warn me against explaining myself to them. “They should just learn to accept ‘Because I say so’”, they reasoned.

But even if I’d agreed with that advice, my kids had other ideas. Children with intellectual OE won’t be fobbed off, so in my experience there’s no point wearing yourself out trying. (Besides which, you’d miss out on some great conversations.)

A child with intellectual OE needs to understand. So whatever your child’s age, be prepared for lengthy debates on such matters as why we have to clean our teeth, whether parallel universes exist, what should be done about homelessness and why the long division algorithm works, from the second they wake up until the moment they go to sleep. (See the importance of quiet time and relaxation, above!)

Over to you

What does intellectual overexcitability look like in your family?
Have you had any embarrassing moments when your child hasn’t been able to stop themselves from blurting out a question in public?
What are your top tips for recharging your energy?

I’d love to hear from you! Please leave a comment below or on the Laugh, Love, Learn Facebook page, or drop me an email.

Intellectual overexcitability resources

Living With Intensity by Susan Daniels and Michael Piechowski

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This is part four of my series on the five types of overexcitability. See also:

7 Signs Your Child Has Psychomotor Overexcitability,

What Is Sensual Overexcitability? and

The Ups and Downs of Imaginational Overexcitability.

Next week I’ll be ending the series by talking about emotional overexcitability.

* * *

To find out if you or someone in your family has OEs, take my free online OE questionnaire. (Results come back by return email.)

Imaginary friends and playdate meltdowns – The ups and downs of Imaginational Overexcitability

01/02/2016OverexcitabilitiesImaginational OELucinda

Imaginational overexcitability

True story…

Seven-year-old Cindy peers through her tears at the kind face of the St John’s Ambulance lady.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” asks the lady.

“I’ve got a headache,” the little girl eventually whispers. It’s only half a fib. The noise of the fair has caused her head to ache, though that isn’t why she’s crying.

The lady means well, but Cindy knows that nobody can help her. As she lies down in the quiet ambulance, she can’t stop thinking of the awful thing she’s done. Her imagination is filled with the dreadful consequences that will surely follow.

Magical unicorns, or terrifying dragons

Cindy has imaginational overexcitability. What she sees in her mind can seem almost real. Her imagination is able to conjure magical worlds that delight and entrance her. But it can also create bleak, scary scenarios that would never even occur to most children her age.

Cindy enjoys school but her teacher sometimes have trouble getting her attention. On one summer’s day Cindy pauses in the middle of a subtraction problem, entranced by a shimmering pattern in the air outside her classroom. What could be causing the air to move in such a magical way? Perhaps it’s a mirage, the kind that lures thirsty travellers to trudge miles through the desert to imaginary oases. Cindy can almost feel the sun beating down on her as if she were right there in the desert, desperate for water.

Outside in the school playground Cindy and her friend Andrew whizz through time and space in their Tardis, visiting far-off worlds and battling imaginary monsters. On other days Cindy stands alone, gazing up as the sun shines in radiant lines through chinks in the clouds. Cindy smiles to herself, basking in the secret knowledge that she’s looking at a window into heaven.

When Cindy gets home from school she has a long chat with Paddington Bear. Paddington listens with interest and tells her about the adventures he’s had while Cindy’s been away.

Later Cindy visits her friend who lives next door. Alison has a big dog kennel which becomes a log cabin in which Cindy and Alison have to survive the long, harsh winter, making desperate forays into the wilds to keep from starving. Cindy and Alison both have big imaginations. They invent wonderful imaginary worlds together, but can have terrible arguments and even fights when they disagree about what should be happening in their games.

Imaginary friends

Many children with this overexcitability have imaginary friends. Parents sometimes worry that their children can’t distinguish truth from fiction, but they could console themselves in the knowledge that some of the most creative people through history have had imaginary playmates as children.

Their ability to put concepts together in novel ways usually gives these kids a delightful sense of humour, and they can invent fantastic pretend games to entertain their friends. However they may struggle if their playmates fail to fully appreciate the complexities of their sophisticated made-up worlds.

Imaginational overexcitability and playdate trouble

Playdates can be challenging in other ways, too. A guest can inadvertently cause upset by giving a beloved stuffed animal the ‘wrong’ voice or personality. And walking into a roomful of toys at a friends’ house can be overwhelming – the child knows he should politely join in the game his friend wants to play, but how can he resist immersing himself in the imaginary worlds he is instantly dreaming up?

Nightmares and night terrors

Nightmares and night terrors can be a big problem for children with imaginational overexcitabilities. They might also keep themselves awake at night making up stories, fact and fiction intermingling as they lie down to sleep.

My daughter recently reminded me of one of the many times she woke us in the night when she was younger. “Do you remember that time I told you I’d had a nightmare that Tom and Jerry were throwing tomatoes at me? You know, I didn’t really have a nightmare, I just couldn’t sleep because I had too many ideas. I felt silly saying that so I pretended I’d had a bad dream. I remember you and Daddy trying to hide your smiles when I said about Tom and Jerry throwing the tomatoes!”

Teaching children how to channel their imagination

We can help children with imaginational overexcitability harness their imaginations to serve them in positive ways. Over the years I’ve used a number of way to help my kids do this, often drawing on my training in NLP (neuro-linguistic programming).

One simple technique is to engage their imagination listening to guided visualisations. My kids – inspired by the CDs I make for my hypnotherapy clients – have even made their own visualisations. Their recordings usually start off calm and relaxing and then become louder and more animated as the story takes an exhilarating turn!

What was worrying Cindy?

Are you wondering what happened to Cindy – as I was known back then?

Well, for a few weeks more she was troubled about the raffle ticket she’d bought on a band trip to the fair.

What if hers was the winning ticket?

Where would her family find room for a pony in their tiny house?

How could they afford to feed it?!

Eventually Cindy realised she couldn’t have won the raffle. But she didn’t tell anyone about her fears for many years.

Whenever I’m tempted to laugh off my kids’ worries I remember that day when I cried in the St John’s Ambulance and told the nice lady I had a headache so she could feel better.

Imaginational overexcitability

Find out if you or your family have overexcitabilities by taking my free online quiz.

Further resources about imaginational overexcitability

Living With Intensity: Giftedness & Self-Actualisation

Living with Intensity, by Susan Daniels and Michael Piechowski

This is part in my series on the five types of overexcitability. Here’s the complete set:

Part 1: 7 Signs Your Child Has Psychomotor Overexcitability

Part 2: What Is Sensual Overexcitability?

Part 3: The Ups and Downs of Imaginational Overexcitability

Part 4: 6 Things You Need If Your Child Has Intellectual Overexcitability

Part 5: 15 Things Your Child With Emotional Overexcitability Might Say

* * *

Do you or your child have imaginational overexcitability?

How do you help guide that imagination away from worry and anxiety and towards creativity and wellbeing?

What is Sensual Overexcitability?

25/01/2016OverexcitabilitiesSensual OELucinda

Sensual overexcitability

Does your child hate the feel of labels on her clothes? Is he picky about what socks he’ll wear, or the texture of foods? Does she find certain noises excruciating?

If so, or if he’s more sensitive than most children to other types of sensory input, he might have sensual overexcitabilies.

Sensual overexcitability means you experience sounds, sights, touch, smell and/or tastes in a heightened way. You might intensely enjoy or even crave certain sensory experiences, while other forms of sensory stimulation make you feel stressed, angry or upset.

In this post I’ll share some examples of how sensual OE looks in my family. I’ll also consider whether or not it matters that we identify the underlying cause of the sensitivity.

1. Touch

People with sensual OE are often very sensitive to the feel of fabrics. They might spend ten minutes lining up their socks so that the seams don’t rub (and choose to go bare-footed as often as possible).

A woollen jumper can feel like a hair shirt. Women might need to wear a bra size too big in the back, because tight or constricting clothes are intolerable. My poor husband jokes that he only gets to see me dressed at weekends, but that’s not as exciting as it sounds – I’m always in my pyjamas (oh so comfy!) by the time he gets home from work at 7:00pm.

When it comes to temperature, layers are a sensitive person’s best friend. Right now I’m sitting on a train with my shoes off, pulling my cardigan on and off again as the train’s heating blasts out and a cold draft whips through the train whenever the doors open. Before I knew about sensual OE I would marvel at the willpower of people who could leave their coats buttoned up on in a hot, crowded underground train. Now I know they just don’t experience temperature in the same way I do.

Other tactile experiences can feel really good. When he’s upset, my ten-year-old curls up with our dogs or cat, letting the feel of their soft fur instantly calm him. Some children with sensual OEs stay attached to their soft toys or blankets until long after their peers have outgrown them. Cuddles and hugs can feel heavenly.

Some kids with sensual OEs crave the feel of things in their mouths. My son has a drawerful of chewable toys, but I still find his desk littered with bits of half-chewed plastic (I’m usually glad that at least he’s not sucking on his T-shirt). Chewing gum makes a visit to the hairdressers a whole lot more bearable. I think the cupfuls of ice my kids munch through every day might also have something to do with their sensual OEs.

And you know those deep baskets in Starbucks, filled with bags of coffee nestled among springy shredded paper? No? I’d never noticed them either, until I set out to solve the mystery of the soggy piles of paper I kept finding in my washing machine. It turned out that while I was ordering my Americanos, Jasper had taken to filling his pockets with the springy stuff, ready to crinkle deliciously to his heart’s content. 😀

2. Sounds

I’m personally affected by this one to such a degree that I can’t imagine living in a world where the everyday sounds of modern life wash over you unnoticed.

When I’m trying to focus, I find noises at best distracting and at worst extremely stressful. My solution is to carry ear plugs, earphones and a white noise app wherever I go. Ahh the bliss of instant peace!

In restaurants I try to sit next to a wall so I can focus on my companions, protected from the cacophony of clanging crockery and other diners’ conversations.

On a more positive note, nothing begins my day better than standing at my bedroom window and listening to the birdsong for a few minutes. At concerts, I can experience an intense high as the energy of the music flows through my body.

People with this OE also commonly experience misophonia – an intense dislike of certain sounds (for example people eating, cutlery scraping on plates, or what my daughter describes as ’the sound of fingernails running down a school blazer’).

3. Sights

A person with sensual OEs might be intensely moved by a colourful sunset, a beautiful view or the sight of a raindrop glistening on a petal.

Sensually OE people can also be distracted or stressed by repetitive movements in their field of vision.

4. Tastes and smells

Kids with sensual OE can be sensitive to the tastes and textures of food, which can require their parents to be extremely resourceful when it comes to ensuring a balanced diet.

Smells often also trigger extreme reactions. My daughter, for instance, can’t step foot in a fast-food restaurant. I know of other children whose full-on flight or fight response kicks in when smells are too strong for them or who plead with their parents to “turn the smell off!”

The positive side of sensual OE is that pleasant tastes and aromas can be enjoyed intensely. My kids love theme parks, but when we spent two weeks in Disneyworld a few years ago Jasper’s holiday journal was filled with descriptions and pictures not of the rides, but of hot dogs and ice cream!

Sensual Overexcitability

Sensual overexcitability, sensory processing disorder, highly sensitive or autism?

All these sensitivities might be the only non-average aspect of a person’s make-up, or they might form part of a bigger picture. Do we need to know their underlying cause, or is it enough to manage the ‘symptoms’? In my experience it’s helpful to do both.

First of all, a child with sensory issues needs help learning strategies to manage his sensitivities. If I’m on a train and the person next to me starts noisily eating an apple, I can change seats or block out the noise with headphones. Kids have much less control over their environments. We don’t need to know the underlying cause of a child’s sensitivity to compassionately address their needs and start to teach them coping skills.

On the other hand, dealing with sensory sensitivity in isolation can lead to an inaccurate or incomplete diagnosis, which could obscure the bigger picture and delay the child receiving help with other issues they might be facing.

I remember the relief my husband and I felt when we were told that our seven-year old had sensory processing disorder. We thought the diagnosis meant our son would get the right sort of help. But we felt more lost than ever when, after a year of occupational therapy, there was no change in his behaviour. It wasn’t until we finally looked at what was going on in the light of Jasper’s other overexcitabilities [intellectual, psychomotor and imaginational] that we were able to make sense of the whole picture and start to deal with all his needs.

In the UK especially, some children with sensory issues are incorrectly diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome. These kids’ parents might know the label is an awkward fit, but in the absence of an alternative explanation they don’t know where to turn. My intention in creating this blog is to help share information about those other possibilities. I don’t claim to be an expert, but it’s no understatement to say that my life was transformed by the PowerWood OE workshop I went to last year – finally all the pieces of the puzzle came together and we were able to move forward.

If you suspect that you or someone in your family has overexcitabiliites, you can find out by taking my free online OE questionnaire.

Sensual OE – Further Resources

Living with Intensity, Daniels and Piechowski

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How does sensual overexcitability look in your family? Perhaps you’ll share the example that will help another person solve the puzzle of what’s going on with herself or her child.

This is part 2 of my series on the five types of overexcitability.

Sensual overexcitability

7 Signs Your Child Has Psychomotor Overexcitability

18/01/2016OverexcitabilitiesPsychomotor OELucinda

When my son was born we treated ourselves to a lovely new play arch. I had fond visions of my baby contentedly engaging with the arch as his sister and I played alongside him. But my newborn son had other ideas.

Within weeks, J had rolled onto his tummy and was trying to air-swim his way across the room. He literally turned his back on the toy I’d offered, in search of what he wanted to explore. He hasn’t stopped moving since.

When he was two, J’s ‘afternoon nap’ involved lying on his bed, legs kicking against the wall, happily chattering and singing to himself for an hour. I didn’t mind as long as I had time to recharge, ready for another afternoon with my busy little boy.

J has psychomotor overexcitability – an abundance of energy (or an inability to keep still, depending how you look at it. We prefer the former ;-)).

Here are seven signs your child might have psychomotor overexcitability. Remember that even if your child only has one of these behaviours, he might still have psychomotor OE – it’s more a case of degree than number.

1. He’s always in motion

Whether he’s gesticulating wildly as he tells you about his latest Minecraft creation, standing up at the table as he eats his dinner, or rebounding against your bed when he comes into your room at 10:30pm to share an idea that can’t wait until morning – this child is never still.

J, now ten, has two bins in his bedroom. It’s not that he makes a lot of rubbish, it’s just that he can’t keep his feet still and I got tired of picking pencil sharpenings out of the carpet. Now as he sits at his desk, J kicks an empty bin to his heart’s content and throws his trash in a second bin a few feet away. The wall under his desk is a bit scuffed, but that’s the kind of compromise you get used to when you have a child with psychomotor overexcitability.

2. She talks quickly and all the time

This child may never seem to stop talking, and when she gets excited or overwhelmed, speed and volume increase even more. Everyone in our family speaks quickly. When C and I get together with my aunt and her daughters I marvel at how we seem to all speak at once, yet everyone follows what everyone else is saying perfectly. To us it doesn’t feel like we speak quickly, but that other people speak slowly. Thank goodness for the triple speed button on Audible.

3.He’s always singing, often his own made-up tunes

I love overhearing J’s joyful voice when he’s in the bath or playing with his dinosaurs. If he’s had a meltdown, I smile with relief when I hear him humming to himself a little while later – a sure sign he’s re-found his equilibrium.

4. She’s a prolific art and crafter

When she was at pre-school, C would bring home so many paintings that I used to wonder how the nursery could afford the paper. Then one day a teacher mentioned that for every painting the other children made, C would make ten. Now twelve-years-old, C still paints, draws, makes popsicle stick houses and spray painted T-shirts and – her latest passion – intricately decorates her nails with a different design every day.

5. He’s extremely competitive

In my post You Know Your Family Has Overexcitabilities When… I mentioned that although everyone in my family loves board games, we rarely manage to finish one.

I’ve always encouraged my kids to value participation and enjoyment over beating other people, so before I learned about OEs I used to wonder how I’d ended up with such a competitive child. I was almost relieved to discover that competitiveness is a common aspect of psychomotor OE. Now, instead of blaming myself, I can focus my energy on helping J manage his reactions.

One of the great OE ironies is that kids with psychomotor overexcitability often lack the emotional regulation skills needed to participate in team sports. It takes a lot of parental commitment and creativity to find outlets for all that energy!

6. You know he’s very bright, but his teachers may not see it

According to psychologist and OE expert Susan Daniels, psychomotor OE is significantly correlated with high intelligence. Unfortunately, a child who’s not challenged in school and can’t keep still or stay quiet when he’s bored is more likely to be seen as disruptive and annoying than placed in the gifted class. So instead of being given more appropriate projects and the freedom to approach them in whatever way inspires him, this child is at best sidelined and at worst misdiagnosed, which brings me onto …

7. Someone’s suggested he has ADHD

When you put a bright child with heaps of energy in an under-stimulating environment he’ll often fidget, interrupt and fail to do tasks. Even when he’s highly engaged, a child with overexcitabilities might not be able to stop himself blurting out questions and answers. While it is of course possible to have both psychomotor OEs and ADHD, experts suspect that the latter is widely misdiagnosed in children with OEs.

Psychomotor Overexcitability – Further Resources

2026 Edit: Nearly ten years have passed since I first wrote this post. I now specialise in working, in my coaching and hypnotherapy practice, with people who have overexcitabilities.

If you’d like to talk about how OEs impact your family and get a few tips to help life run more smoothly, you can book a free (no obligation) half hour chat with me here.

Books

Living With Intensity: Understanding the Sensitivity, Excitability and Emotional Development of Gifted Children, Adolescents, and Adults (Daniels and Piechowski)

Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnosis of Gifted Children and Adults (James T Webb)

Over to you

Can you think of anything I’ve missed?
What does psychomotor overexcitability look like in your family?
Can you recommend any other resources?
What else would you like to know about psychomotor OE? Here are some ideas I’ve had for future posts:
- What do you do when your child has psychomotor OE and can’t do group sports?
- How to help your child learn when he can’t keep still.

I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or feel free to drop me an email or book a call with me.

My aim in writing this series on the five types of overexcitability is to help you recognise whether overexcitabilities are present in your family. I spent years doubting myself as I searched for the best way to parent my two non-average children, all the while completely in the dark about what I was dealing with. Discovering OEs was like being handed the missing instruction manual.

If you recognise OEs in yourself or your child, I hope you’ll stick around to share my journey of discovery into how to enjoy the many positives OEs can bring while learning to manage the accompanying challenges.

Next in this series I’ll be looking at sensual OE.