Constructing Educational Opportunities: Understanding Giftedness and Anxiety

This presentation examines the relationship between giftedness and anxiety, gifted students' proneness to anxiety, and how to manage gifted students’ high potential and anxiety with dignity. Morawska & Sanders (2009) cite a lack of “empirically supported parenting strategies” to guide families (p.163), leading to gifted students' struggle with anxiety. Mendaglio’s (2016) research states that 12%-20% of children experiencing disabling anxiety require treatment. Parents/teachers modeling problem solving, thinking aloud, role playing, naming feelings as an anecdote to holding feelings inside or feeling paralyzed by emotion demonstrate alternatives to anxiety. Addressed consistently, gifted children learn to manage anxiety.