How do you define success? You, personally. It's a tough one, isn't it? I bet not two people reading this would have the same definition. Let's make it harder. Define success for your kid(s). How far apart are the two definitions? 😏 Success for me has eleventy billion qualifiers, dependencies, and a couple dozen strokes of luck. Success for my G2e sons is simple: healthy, reasonably content, and in charge of their own lives. That said, nothing about raising G2e kids is ever simple. Please forgive me for using the words in the same newsletter, I really do know better.

This month's featured article takes on the topic of success from the homeschooling point of view. Marni writes of her family's gradual transition to more student-directed learning and...I'll just stop there and let you read it.

Summer has finally arrived in my neck of the woods and I hope to eventually get out and actually enjoy it. I'd like to call my summer a success with a minimum of qualifiers, dependencies, and luck.

Have a great month!

Marna Walthall Wohlfeld is a doctoral student at the Bridges Graduate School of Cognitive Diversity in Education. She is a mother of four children, 10, 9 and 5x2. While drinking buckets of coffee to try to keep up with her highly energetic children, she has deschooled, unschooled and homeschooled various kids at various times. She loves learning about and championing students' unique brains and learning styles. She hopes to use her poetry, as well as her graduate degree, to advocate for twice-exceptional students and create greater understanding about the need for strengths-focused approaches in education and life.

Since then we have moved increasingly towards self-directed learning. I see her answer as reflecting her newly-found confidence that her choices are valid and the way she wants to spend her time is worthwhile. 

Yet we know that flow is much easier to achieve when engaging in activities we have chosen ourselves. The research shows that flow is one of our greatest avenues for brain growth and long-term retention of information:

Twenty minutes later, my daughter came down ready to work on her music practice. It didn’t quite go smoothly and she decided to step away for a break. We would work on it again later in the afternoon. She also chose to work on practicing multiplication facts.

Not every day includes these more traditionally academic pursuits. She spent much of yesterday making and editing LEGO stop-motion animation videos. On Thursdays we spend the entire day playing in the woods with friends, with zero adult-directed activities. I think this is one of the most important days of the week for my children’s learning.

As a family that has homeschooled from the beginning, it is fascinating to see how things have changed as we have fully embraced self-directed learning. There is suddenly time for all those great projects we have long struggled to get to. 

I got to say “Yes!” to a board game at 9am today instead of feeling the need to stick to a schedule. My teen woke up this morning and decided to clean out a backpack and start packing for an upcoming trip. If you knew this kid, you would know this is a big deal. I’m continually surprised – and delighted – by the choices my children are making as they take responsibility for their own days.

It’s true that we are not moving through our various curriculums as quickly. We still have them around, but they are more like a choice on the menu, instead of a meal being delivered. I fully believe their educational choices will end up being more nutritious than any meal plan I could devise for them.

Marni Kammersell is a doctoral student at the Bridges Graduate School of Cognitive Diversity in Education. However, her greatest teachers are her three twice-exceptional children. Together, they've been living a self-directed learning lifestyle since 2009. As a homeschooling and neurodiversity parent coach, Marni loves sharing the latest research in neuroscience. She enjoys helping families transition from traditional educational models into homeschooling in a way that works for their unique learners. You can find her at Nurturing Neurodiversity and on Facebook.

GHF’s newest release is, unbelievably, the first mainstream book written on the subject of being female and gifted! Co-written with her mother, the beloved Christine Winterbrook, Ed.D., Abby Noel Winterbrook’s Gifted Women: On Becoming Ourselves is an exploration of the development, characteristics, and a variety of other factors relevant to gifted women throughout their lifespan – cultural and societal pulls and biases, internal conflicts, how to thrive with and despite others’ perceptions, and more importantly, one’s own. Not a woman? Chances are you have some in your life - see how the other half lives! Abby also presented at our Gifted Home Ed conference earlier this month, and the video recordings are available to GHF Choices members.

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