I think the main thing is that when you read Dabrowski you find he didn’t think OEs should be simply accepted and accommodated. He thought of them as the goad that pushes the individual toward higher level functioning, or what I can only think of as virtue. So perhaps we as parents should be helping with that push. Yes, understanding that they hyper-react to certain things. But also helping them find ways to deal with, correct, and self-regulate in positive ways. Make sense?

I can be a social and talkative person and I sometimes need to think out loud and I appreciate having another parent to bounce ideas off of. Sometimes it is lonely having a child that you are not allowed to talk about.

As for OE’s. I certainly have them and I think I have mostly come to terms with them. In fact I have grown quite fond of them. It helps me be more understanding of Z’s OEs, though not always.

Mostly, I think the problem IS with school, when — let’s face it — they can be generally so unhelpful, so rigid, so unwilling to educate except according to bureaucratic lockstep.

Sorry…(wiping foam off mouth and stepping off soapbox). I do see where you’re coming from, though.

I’ve always felt that giftedness isn’t just in the head, that it is something that encompasses the whole person, but in some biochemical way I don’t have the education to explain.

My primary interest in OEs is simply finding a way to cope with all the intensity in this house — some of what I have read elsewhere (probably from Davidson or SENG?) has at least allowed us to get off the “what wrong with her/me/us?” thing.