Hoagies' Gifted
Education Page introduces our new Blog Hops!
What's a Blog Hop? It's a chance for bloggers to get
together and talk about a specific topic, and a chance for readers
to hop around from blog to blog, getting different perspectives on
that topic. When our girls were preschoolers, we enjoyed
hopping around the parenting blog hops. And now, we enjoy Hoagies' very own Blog Hops!
Are you a blog author who wants to join our Blog Hop? It's easy!
E-mail us at
HoagiesGifted.org.
We'll add you to our Blog Hop group, where you'll find
everything you need to know. Hop in with us, and join us for our 2019-2020 Blog Hops!
Join our Blog Hop Authors team, and help decide future
topics!
If
you only knew... To the doctor who sees her when she's well or
sick, to the psychologist she talks to about her fears, to the
teacher who sees him every day but doesn't really see him, to the
grandparents who's expectations were formed in a different
generation... What would YOU like to say? What would you like
them to know? What does it pain you not to say out loud?
It doesn't go away when gifted kids grow up. To the neighbor
who only offers small talk, without the depth of meaning you feel?
To the director of the retirement community, who offers only
superficial activities but nothing of interest to your parents, or
to you? These conversations may never happen in real life, but it's
great to to at least articulate among ourselves. Listen and join in!
Perfectionism, Anxiety,
& OCD. Perfectionism. Can I make this good enough? Anxiety. Will
they even care? And Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)... is it obsessive to
be anxious about being perfect? Are these separate, or do they all
intertwine? Can you have one without the other? Or is it a matter of
shades of gray...? What are some tools and approaches to help us
deal with our gifted realities, being good enough, reducing our
anxiety, and trying not to obsess? Learn here!
Transitions.
Whether we are talking about the little transitions from the house
to an event or school, from evening activities to bedtime, or big
transitions from home to elementary school, from high school to
college, , from adult to parent, or from adult to senior in need of
support... Gifted life is full of transitions.
Read all of this month's blogs, and learn more about different kinds
of Gifted Transitions!
Homeschooling
gifted children... Do you? Don't you? Why or why not? Did you start
from square one or switch to homeschooling later? How do you
homeschool? Using curriculum, online courses, a cyber-charter
school, or unschooling? What are the pros, and the cons, of
homeschooling vs. traditional schooling? If you had it to do all
over again, what would you do differently?
Read all of this month's blogs, and learn lots more about
Homeschooling gifted and profoundly gifted children!
Thoughts
from the Mental Trenches. Thoughts from the Depths. What makes
you a healthy gifted person? What helps when you're not feeling
mentally healthy? How about for your kids? Do they struggle with
anxiety, depression, high-functioning autism, or other mental
difference? What techniques help them maintain an even keel?
What helps you know that you're just as gifted, just as whole,
when your mind is giving you grief?
Parenting
Considerations. Concerns, worries, joys, thoughts... Any and
all. Considerations, whether you're considering parenting your kids,
parenting your elderly parents - we're the sandwich generation,
grand-parenting - a delicate dance.
What parenting considerations are on your mind this month?
The
Power
of Belonging. We are all individuals, but we are all part of
something bigger than ourselves. Whether it's a family, a
class, a school, a neighborhood, a state, country or civilization,
belonging to something bigger than ourselves is an important part of
our being. But what if you don't feel you belong to anything?
Or you feel safe at home in your family, but feel so different from
the rest of the kids in your classroom that you don't fit in?
What's the value of belonging? What's the benefit of finding
others "just like you?" How does the Power of Belonging affect
gifted children and adults?
Special
Populations in Gifted Education. 2e Gifted. LGBTQ Gifted.
Late Blooming Gifted. Learn more about these special gifted
populations! Gifted is a severe minority population, consisting of
between 2.5% and 10% of the population, depending on which
definition you subscribe to. Gifted individuals are often
marginalized, said to "have too much" or to "need nothing."
But what if your child (or you) are a minority of a minority, a
twice exceptional gifted child, a gifted late bloomer, or a gifted
LGBTQ individual? Each of these is a marginalized population, and
minor subset of an already marginalized minority population.
How can we help?
Parenting
iGen, the video game generation. What does iGen entail for kids
and parents? What's the same? What's different? How can we "step up"
our parenting game as we parent (or grandparent) the iGen
generation? What does the research say? (Which generation did
the research, anyway?)
Role models, at every age and stage. Who are your role
models? Who might make a good role model? Why, or why not? Why do we
need role models anyway? If we don't have good role models, will we
automatically pick bad ones?
Who are your role models?
Perfectionism.
What is it? What does it look like? What can we do about it, as
parents? As perfectionists? Or is it a good thing?
Perfection? Is this a goal, or something to avoid at all
costs? Will it challenge you or stifle you?
How can we help others who struggle with perfectionism? Our
kids? Come to think of it, how can we help ourselves
first?
Underachievers. Who are they? How do you identify them, or
are you misidentifying them? What
does underachievement mean to you? Is it the gifted child who
refuses to achieve in school? Is it the child who writes amazing
stories, perhaps books, but refuses to write his 5-paragraph essay
homework? Is it the gifted adult who never got a college degree?
The lawyer, a member of the bar, respected in their practice, who
chooses to stay home and raise their children?
Once defined, what can you do as the parent of an underachiever?
As the underachiever yourself? Read these great blogs to understand
underachievement, and perhaps to find a few ideas, a few
suggestions, a tidbit that will change the tide.
Just
the Facts. There are blogs and other opinions, whether in
national newspapers or in some mother-turned-blogger's unofficial
proclamation. Everyone has an opinion about giftedness, gifted
education, gifted as a term, and everything else about giftedness.
But what do we really KNOW about giftedness? What does the research
say?
Find out here! Research citations included.
Utopian Fantasies.
What does your Utopian Fantasy look like? Would you be alone?
In a community? Would there be books? music? nature? cities?
huge intricate libraries?? Or would it be the life you live today?
Does it look like something you read in a book, or something
purely from your imagination? Is it close to your reality, or
a million miles away?
What is your Wonderful World?
Relationships.
Gifted relationship issues can occur in any and every generation.
Are you struggling with gifted sibling problems? Parent / child
relationship issues? How about parent/child issues, when both are
adults and one is now a gifted elder? Gifted in-law issues? They
really do mean well. And often the most difficult relationships,
gifted co-parent issues. There are so many relationships in our
lives. How can we do better with our gifted relationships?
Things I wish I knew back then. Join those of us
who've been around the block for a while, to learn what we
wished we'd known! Wish you'd done something differently?
Glad you did something you did? Not sure what would have
been better, but you'd love to arrive at today in a different
set of circumstances?
Hindsight isn't always 20/20, but it
certainly doesn't hurt!
Gifted
Adults. That's what all those gifted kids grow up to be!
But what does it mean to you? When does it matter? College? Early
Adulthood? Family years? Middle-age? Elder years?
How does it feel to be a Gifted Adult? Do you feel alone? How do you
find other GAs? Does it matter?
Beyond
Academics. What else do we need to teach them, other than
academics... at every age! Going to school? Going to college?
Can they do their own laundry? Balance their checking account? Can
they advocate for themselves with teachers and professors? Do they
know how to handle a credit card? There will be plenty of offers,
and plenty of kids get into trouble with their first venture into
personal credit.
What else do they need to learn? And how can we teach them??
Sweet
Dreams. Do your gifted kids struggle with getting to sleep?
Staying asleep? Does your infant or toddler spend more hours awake
than you do? Many parents find that gifted kids sleep far less than
their same-age counterparts. And yet, a few gifted parents report
their kids sleep more than average, and seem to require more hours
of sleep than the nighttime allows. Any of these issues can make us
feel alone, and often make us feel exhausted! What's worked?
And what about Gifted Adults' sleep? Join us to read lots more
sleepy ideas!
The
Misdiagnosis Initiative. Founded by
SENG, the Misdiagnosis Initiative
reduces the risk of medical misdiagnosis of gifted individuals,
whether a twice-exceptional child whose giftedness is overlooked due
to their disability - or vice versa.
Is your child "just" gifted, or twice exceptional? Does the
diagnosis he's received make sense with the boy you see every
day? Does the lack of a diagnosis make sense with the girl you
love and live with? Gifted kids can be misdiagnosed. Some are
diagnosed as having learning differences such as ADHD or High
Functioning Autism, but are really just gifted, or bored and
gifted kids. Others are not diagnosed, when they struggle with
Executive Functioning (EF), social skills or other learning
challenges.
Ages
& Stages, Redux. Two years ago, we discussed many of the stages;
today we discuss a few more. Gifted kids give us a run for our
money, no matter how old they are, or what stage they're in...this
week. Whether you're dealing with the toddler "little lawyer" who
doesn't miss a trick, or the high schooler looking towards dual
enrollment, middle-age however you define it, or gifted elders, the
Ages and Stages of giftedness are never boring.
Creativity
and Productivity. Gifted individuals frequently need to move
beyond the rules. We play a game (or we play at life) with normal
rules once, and then the rules need to be changed, expanded, adapted
because they have this need to be part of the process, never just
accepting what they're given. It's when they have choices A, B, & C
and instead have to come up with option D mixed with a bit of F,
since simply accepting or going along with someone else's point of
view would be unthinkable. What does Gifted Creativity and
Productivity mean to you?
Philosophical/Spiritual
Anxiety. Asynchronous development means many gifted kids
understand the finality of death and the afterlife before they're
emotionally ready to handle it. It means the news is devastating
because our kids (and us, as adults!) are understanding too much and
struggling with the weight of the world. Gifted kids are often
unwilling to believe in mythical creatures - Santa Claus, the tooth
fairy, the Easter Bunny, and others. As adults, Philosophical or
Spiritual Anxiety may lead us to spiritual quests, seeking spiritual
communities, and suffering / enjoying spiritual sensitivity. What
does Philosophical/Spiritual Anxiety mean to you?
Gifted Elder Issues.
Sometimes called the "sandwich generation," gifted adults often find
themselves dealing with their gifted kids' issues on one hand, and
their gifted parents' issues on the other... eldercare, retirement
communities, and lots more. Or perhaps you *are* a Gifted Elder,
dealing with medical, residential, and other issues facing gifted
elders? How do you deal with Gifted Elder Issues? What unique
options are available to you?
Balancing
Boredom and Burnout. Gifted kids need variety and challenge, but
they need "down time," too. How does your family balance that fine
line between too many activities and not enough? Is there a magic
formula that works for you? How about in the classroom? How do you,
as a teacher, advise gifted kids to slow down and "smell the roses,"
rather than fill thier days with Academic Team, school play, choir,
band, orchestra, sports, ...?
Traveling with Gifted
Kids. Traveling
with kids is always interesting. Traveling with gifted and
intense kids can be even more... interesting. Where to go? How
to integrate with other families? How to deal with OverExcitabilities while traveling, theirs and yours?
Overthinking.
The gifted girl who "fails" the school's IQ screener, because she
over-analyzes the multiple-choice questions. The gifted boy who
focuses on the "letter of the law" in each of the teacher's
assignments, and then gets in trouble with the teacher for not
following the "spirit" of the assignments. The gifted child who
cannot get started on a long-term project because he can think of
all the time and energy and complicated steps that might need to be
taken, and cannot begin because of it. What can you do if you find
yourself, or your kids, overthinking? How can you get away from it?
Multipotentiality.
Gifted kids often have multiple strengths, and find themselves
pressured to succeed in more than one area. The gifted child
may be as talented at writing as at math, or may be as focused on
the sciences as on history. But schools and colleges often
expect kids to "settle down" and select one area of achievement.
What do we do when our kids (or we) want to achieve in more than one
(or two) area?
Educational
Options. From public school to private school, homeschool to
unschooling, distance learning to mentors and tutors, there are
nearly as many educational options as there are gifted children. And
that's good news! When we're in the throes of an educational misfit,
it's sometimes difficult to see what our options might be. Join us
this month to discuss many of the options that have worked for other
kids, and the combinations and alternatives that can help YOUR
gifted child!
Executive
Function (EF) Skills. We all want 'em, but who's got 'em? How
did we grow them? And how can we shared them with our gifted,
organizationally challenged gifted kids?? Join the Hoagies' Gifted
Blog Hop team for lots of great ideas, whether your gifted child is
a preschooler or a post-schooler (a.k.a. adult). You can always
improve Executive Function Skills!
Child
Activists - Supporting Gifted Idealist Children! You know the
child who runs a bake sale to save the tigers, or the child who
collects PCs and refurbishes them to donate to low-income families,
or the child who raises money to provide solar chargers to remote
villages in other countries... How do we support our budding
idealists? How do we guide them, and take there concerns for real?
This is the best gift we can give them!
Emotional
Intelligence. To some of us, this means everything, the
all-encompassing social/emotional development of the gifted
individual. To others, it means nothing except an excuse
schools use to decline to educate our gifted children, ignoring
their academic needs as an aside. What does Emotional Intelligence
mean to you? Read this month's blogs and I'm certain you'll
find one or many that resonate with you.
Grade
Acceleration / Early Kindergarten / Early College. What is grade
acceleration? Is it "skipping" or simply aligning the child's
learning and social levels with the curriculum and classmates? From
Early Kindergarten through Early College, what forms of Grade
Acceleration have been proven effective, in research and in
practice? And what are the negative sides to grade acceleration? No
change in placement is without risk. Learn more here!
Community. What does community mean to you? How have you found community
for your gifted kids? For yourself? Why is community so
important? What are the characteristics of a good community?
Join our community, and we'll help you find yours!
Gifted
social issues, including friendships, bullying, understanding
introverts, finding intellectual peers, and anything else you
imagine concerning the social issues surrounding giftedness at every
age...
All
things Science! Summer is a great time for playing around with
science. What are your favorite approaches to hands-on science?
Curriculum? Enrichment? Reading? STEM? STEAM? Robotics? Let's talk
science!
The
Mysteries of the Brain. From brain research to perfect pitch,
from identification to sensory integration, from soulmates to our
gifted kids, there are so many things we just don't know or don't
understand about the gifted brain... you could fill a brain with
them! Visit and read about a few of the Mysteries surrounding
and contained in the gifted brain...
Giftedness
in popular culture, positive & negative. Why are your favorite
role models? Least favorite? Resources? What would you rather see?
From Good Will Hunting to Meet the Robinsons, Doogie Howser to
Scorpion, gifted individuals have appeared in pop culture in many
ways over the years. Some gifties are stereotypical, like
Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory, while others are more down to
earth or "real." Who are your favorites? Who haven't you
discovered yet? Join us on a tour of Pop Culture, with a
"gifted" lens...
April's
blog hop is on Forming Gifted
Groups, for young and old, for parents and individuals...so many
questions along the way. Why do we need them? How do we form
them? How can we maintain them, and keep them positive and
forward-thinking? Gifted support groups. They ARE all
their cracked up to be! What gifted groups would YOU like to
be a part of?
Don't
miss our March Math-ness! Math. The subject that excites or
strikes fear, engaging our imagination or making our eyes glaze
over. Join us this month for a smorgasbord of Math, from our
favorite curriculum and enrichment sources, to our most challenging
math moments. Math phobia to Math frenzy, this month has something
for YOU!
Other Achievement: when
your child doesn't achieve where you hope. Call it
underachievement. Or non-scholastic achievement. Or
scholastic non-achievement. What is a parent or teacher to do
when the gifted child they know and love isn't accomplishing in
school what we know they can? And other achievement isn't just
about gifted kids... what about gifted adults? Gifted elders?
We all achieve, but it's not always what others are expecting!
Surviving the Holidays with a
House Full of Gifted Folks! The holidays bring school
breaks and family time, and we love the hours spent with our
friends and relatives and all the kids. But sometimes...
those large gatherings in small spaces bring along stress.
And while this was written for the holidays, these great hints will
serve you as well in your family picnics, celebrations, and holidays, no matter what time of year they
occur!
Ages
& Stages of Giftedness. Giftedness looks unique
across the lifespan, yet most of what you find on the subject
addresses the K-12 school years. But are we any less gifted as
toddlers? As adults? As parents? As senior citizens? Giftedness
affects every part of our human development. Join us to explore
those ages and stages!
How and When to Ask For Help. So many
things happen with our kids, our students, older family members, and even
ourselves, that make us think, "Is this normal?" Good question!
When should we ask for help, and when should we just "let it
ride..." And how and where and to whom should we, could
we, ask for help?
As a teacher, when should we ask for help with the education of the
gifted kids in our class? As a parent, how can we ask for help
when our previously sparkle-in-their-eyes child slowly comes home
from school sullen-and-withdrawn, commenting about "never learning
again"? Our gifted teens... that's another time when both
parents and teachers find themselves scratching their heads
wondering "Is this normal?" or "Should I be worried?" There are so
many times and reasons to ask for help with the gifted...
OverExcitabilities.
Dabrowski called them over-stimulabilities, and now we call them
OverExcitabilities, or OEs, for short. They're that over-reaction
that gifted folks often have, in one or more of the 5 areas
Dabrowski identified: psychomotor, sensual, imaginational,
intellectual and emotional. How do these OverExcitabilities affect
your life as a gifted person? Your kids' lives? Your life as the
parent of a gifted child? How can we help our kids understand and
appreciate their own OverExcitabilities while still living
comfortably in the world around them?
Gifted
101. We were all beginners at one time or another, whether as
parents discovering our kids' giftedness, or as adults discovering
our own giftedness.. We welcome you to the gifted community with the
advice we wish we'd heard during those first days, weeks, months and
years! What do you know now that you wish you knew then?
What's the best (and worst) advice you received?
Gifted Relationships.
How does giftedness affect our kids relationships, with their peers
and teachers, with their siblings, with their parents and
grandparents? Do gifted kids prefer real life or online
relationships? Why?
And how does our giftedness affect our
relationships? More than we'd like to admit!
The
Gift of Free Time. Do our gifted kids get enough free time? What
do they spend their free time doing? Are our lives too organized and
regimented these days? How can we give our kids more of the gift of
free time?
Our lives, and our kids' lives, are more scheduled today than
ever. School, after-school activities, organized sports, even
daycare hours are regimented into subjects, with little time for
play. Whatever happened to summers full of free time?
Read and find out!
2e
kids. Twice Exceptional. Dually Identified. No matter what you
call them, gifted kids with another struggle are more than twice the
challenge; they're more like challenge squared. Can you imagine a
gifted mind, trapped inside a body that doesn't conform to the
expectations of school, family, or society? As challenging as
this might be for parents and teachers, the biggest challenge may be
internal to the 2e child herself!
How can you identify the 2e child? What flavors of 2e kids are
there? How does the 2e child fare in traditional school? In
homeschooling? What challenges face 2e adults? Recommendations? What
tips and tricks help the 2e child, their parents, teachers, and
other professionals, to accomplish all that they are capable of
without frustration and struggle?
Anxiety. It's real. It can be debilitating. How can we deal with it?
How can we help our kids deal?
Research tells us that gifted kids and adults are no more likely to
struggle with these difficulties than other kids and adults. Some
suggest that giftedness protects from Anxiety, while others suggest
that it can create excess anxiety. What are the symptoms and
side-effects of gifted anxiety in your life?
Acceleration:
It's not just about speeding up!
According to A Nation
Deceived, there are at least 13 kinds of academic Acceleration,
from early entrance (to kindergarten, middle school, high school or
college), subject or full grade acceleration, compacting, mentors,
and lots more. The last 100+ years of research tells the same story:
acceleration of gifted students is a good thing. The worst result
research reports is that some forms of acceleration aren't bad.
The best result includes positive growth for the academic and
social/emotional well-being of the gifted child.
What does Acceleration mean to you? Good or bad? Were you
accelerated as a child? Were your children accelerated? How does it
affect the teenage years? ...adulthood? Welcome to the world of
gifted acceleration!
We'll
start this year's Hoagies' Gifted Blog Hop with a tough topic...
Testing. Testing means so many things. In this era of annual
testing, it means those public school achievement tests that take weeks and
months away from our kids' instructional year, much to the dismay of
kids, parents, teachers, administrators... just about everyone.
But with gifted kids, testing can also mean high-stakes IQ
tests that do, or don't, qualify our kids for the "gifted" program
or school... whether it suits our kids or not.
To homeschooling parents, testing may bring up feelings of it being
unnecessary. Homeschoolers already meet their kids instructional
needs, so why test at all? Then there are our 2e kids, to whom
testing can mean the difference between diagnosis and folks
understanding and supporting them, or folks calling them "lazy" or
"unmotivated." Testing is a loaded topic!
How
can we "do" the holidays without the kids' chorus of "Give me, give
me"? How can we ignore the ads and the stores and the constant
bombardment that the less we spend, the less we love our loved ones?
What options are there for our gifted families?
Holiday Gifts without the
Buy-Buy-Buy helps us find our way, in many ways...
Before
we head into this year's holiday season, let's talk about
Gifted
Self-Care. Whether it's caring for our selves, or teaching
self-care to our kids, we all need to spend a little time taking
care of me, myself and I. Care for yourself might simply be a cup of
coffee or a chocolate bar all by yourself, a massage, a good book,
or date night with your spouse (and without the kids). For our kids,
we might teach them deep breathing, meditation or even escaping a
stressful situation, when possible. And we always want them to
know that we, like them, need to take care of ourselves!
Fall
brings school, and school brings
Gifted Advocacy. We
find ourselves advocating for our gifted children in many places.
We may be in school, talking to the teacher and administrators.
We may be in the community, signing up for a camp or afterschool
program. We may be advocating with our pastor or our neighbor,
in the grocery store line or at the soccer game. We may even find
ourselves advocating for ourselves, as gifted adults. Gifted
advocacy comes in many colors and flavors... where do you find
yourself advocating?
Gifted, How? The different faces of giftedness.
The creatively gifted, the math gifted, the chess kid, the twice
exceptional child (also known as 2e, dually identified, or gifted &
learning disabled), the introvert and the extravert, the writer, the
comic book author, the programmer, the easy-going and the anxious. All gifted
kids (and adults) don't all look alike! What does the face
of giftedness look like to you?
Friendship. One word that has many meanings. For most kids,
friends are those they play with. But for the gifted child,
friendship is often far more than that.
Gifted friendships can be
more complex, more deep, and more difficult to find. Visit our
August 2014 blog hop, where we take on Gifted Friendships, charting
the waters and traveling the seas as they affect gifted children and
adults!
For July 2014, we turn our attention to
Summer Reading. Summer
reading means so much more than a reading list sent home from
school. It might mean "mind candy" reading, just to escape
from the summer heat. Or it might mean non-fiction reading,
and hopefully spending time doing the things you learn. For some
kids, summer reading, like school-year reading, is still a struggle;
gifted kids may have these struggles too, and we can support and
help them. Reading should be fun for everyone... and with
graphic novels and books on tape in our modern repertoire, it can
be!
In
June 2014, just in time for summer, we Hop on
Gifted
@Play. What does "play" mean to gifted kids?
What kinds of play are best? Indoors or
outdoors? Structured or free-play? Creative play using
tools such as Lego, Kapla or Zome? Exploring nature through
geocaching, or exploring gravity through old-fashioned playground
equipment? What kinds of play are favorites of gifted kids, teens
and adults? What kinds of play can gifted families do
together? Play is
important to us ALL!
In May 2014, Hoagies' Gifted
Education Page introduced our very own Blog Hop with our first topic:
The "G"
Word. Bloggers from all corners of the gifted
community--parents, teachers and counselors--join us to share their
perspectives. The "G" Word. Gifted. What does it mean to you? What
does it mean to others? Is it good? Is it bad? Should we use it? Change it? Read on to see what over two dozen Hoagies' Blog Hop bloggers think
and feel! Thanks to all our bloggers for opening up this
conversation.
If you'd
like to join in our Hop, contact us at
carolyn@hoagiesgifted.org.
Special thanks to Pamela S. Ryan for our great Blog Hop graphics!
Thanks!
