Understanding The Link Between Empathy And Anxiety In Gifted Children

For gifted children, relaxation is often hard to come by. Not only can their bright and creative minds conjure up endless reasons to worry, these children are often perfectionists. They’re prone to being highly critical of themselves and can therefore become unhealthily driven. Alternately, they may be immobilized by fears of failure and rejection. It is therefore little wonder that researchers like Kazimierz Dabrowski (1970) have observed a close relationship between anxiety and high intelligence.

Not all gifted children will develop anxiety, of course, but parents must remain aware that the possibility exists—especially when their gifted child is also highly empathetic. By understanding why and how gifted children become anxious, parents can help their children limit and manage emotional tension.

How Does High Intelligence Increase Anxiety?

The roots of heightened nervousness lie within the special brains of gifted children, suggests Dabrowski. He believed that gifted children have stronger neuronal responses to many different types of stimuli. In simpler terms, gifted children experience things more profoundly than non-gifted children. Because they feel more intensely, they are, in Dabrowski’s words, “overexcitable”. They may express this overexcitability by moving excessively, developing a preoccupation with things that stimulate their senses, or daydreaming. They may also exhibit extreme curiosity or emotionality. Ultimately, how a gifted child expresses his or her excitability will depend on his or her temperament.

Dabrowski felt that gifted children whose overexcitability manifests emotionally are the most prone to anxiety. Because children with emotional overexcitability (OE) tend to be incredibly empathetic (they are attuned to others’ feelings at all times) they cannot “dial down” their awareness of their environment. They struggle to focus on tasks and worry excessively at the slightest sign of strife or discord. If, for example, the parents of a child with high OE have had a normal argument, the child might become so distressed that he imagines all kinds of dire possibilities (e.g., that his parents will surely divorce). As a result, he will not complete his homework that evening. A fear of being reprimanded for failing to do so will then be added to his list of worries… For gifted children with high OE, it’s incredibly easy to fall into “anxiety cycles” like this.

Parents of empathetic gifted children must understand that empathy is not compassion (though these two states are indeed related to one another). A child with high OE does not simply care about the feelings of others and want to help—he quite literally feels what other people are feeling. He experiences other people’s emotions as though they were his own. If you have ever tried (without success) to calm down and concentrate when you were upset, you can imagine the bombardment a gifted child with OE can easily experience any time he’s in a group setting.

Learning To Deal With Extreme Empathy

Extreme empathy, unlike compassion, can be highly nonspecific (and therefore confusing). A gifted child may enter a room feeling perfectly calm, for example, only to find himself flooded with apprehension a moment later. He is unlikely to know where his tense feelings are coming from—he just finds himself suddenly wanting to flee from the room. Even if he can pinpoint who is experiencing the unpleasant feelings, he may find that he is more aware of the other person’s anxiety than they are.

Gifted children with high OE often end up wondering if they are “crazy” because they are so inundated with feelings they cannot make sense out of. This leads to additional fears: Fears of being flawed, of losing their sanity, of not being able to function socially, etc.

Unfortunately, rather than explaining that gifted children sometimes struggle with extreme empathy, many adults overlook this important aspect of giftedness. Indeed, some of them even believe the stereotype that intelligent people are inherently more rational and less emotional than “average” people. As such, gifted children often find that their emotional experience is invalidated by parents, teachers, and other authority figures. They’re told that what they’re feeling is normal and that they simply need to learn to deal with it. Sadly, this reinforces fears of being “broken”; when a gifted child cannot just “get on with it,” he becomes even more convinced that there must be something terribly wrong with him.

However, if a gifted child is instead told that his experience is unique—that not everyone is an empathizer—then he can begin to understand himself on his own terms. Often, simply having an “answer” as to why he’s feeling the way he is will reduce his anxiety. After all, gifted or otherwise, people tend to fear the unknown most of all.

Parents must recognize the emotional complexity of their children also act as emotional guides. They need to learn to recognize when their child is feeling anxiety that is probably not his own and they need to practice appropriate anxiety management strategies themselves. If you are the parent of a gifted child, make a habit of taking a moment to stop and “own” any anxiety you feel before it can own you. Figure out why you are feeling anxious, express your feelings, then endeavor to let them go. This will prevent you from inadvertently spreading your anxiety to your child. Likewise, you should show your child how you manage your anxiety, e.g., through positive self-talk, mindfulness, deep breathing exercises, meditation, etc. If you demonstrate healthy coping mechanisms, your child will likely pick them up automatically.

Note, however, that it’s still a good idea to step your child through the anxiety management process when he is overwhelmed. Ask him why he thinks he’s feeling the way he is and what he thinks he can do to prevent himself from getting so overloaded by fear in the future. Help him to look at the situation objectively so that he externalizes, rather than internalizes, his anxiety.

You should also emphasize to your child that anxiety is not inherently a bad thing (this will help him recognize that he is not “wrong” in feeling it). Anxiety does, after all, function as a natural alarm system. It alerts us to threats and therefore helps to keep us safe. Anxiety, when properly managed, can be used as a source of information: If an anxious child steps back from his feeling of nervousness long enough to investigate what’s causing it, he can learn a lot about the world around him. He can assess which situations are best avoided, for instance. He can also see opportunities to provide help to others in need, thereby strengthening his peer connections.

Ultimately, your gifted child needs to be taught an “action-based” strategy for living with empathetic anxiety. He should be instructed to ask himself whose anxiety he is really experiencing and what, if anything, he can do about it. He should be told that if he cannot do anything about the situation, it’s perfectly okay to leave. Seeking space in which to regroup is not a sign of weakness. Once your child learns how to apply these constructive methods of anxiety management, he can begin to see his empathy as something productive and therefore valuable. This is, of course, the first step to becoming a confident and empowered individual.