The Importance of Modeling
by Jen Merrill
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Monkey see, Monkey do, Monkey embarrass you in public by sharing that word they learned when you thought they were out of earshot.
They’re always watching. No pressure, right? The kids are always watching, and god help you if you do something you don’t want them to pick up. Do as I say, not as I do. That way is where madness hypocrisy lives, and hooooooboy do kids hate hypocrisy. They may not know exactly what it is or how to spell it, but they know it. And our G2e kids have no problem calling us out on it. No? Just me? Didn’t think so.
So if we want to raise them to be adults we can stand to be around, we have to be the adults we can stand to be around. Dammit, that’s hard. Don’t get me wrong, I have basic manners down solid. But I’m sure you grew up thinking, “When I’m a grownup I’ll do whatever I want!” Mm-hm. And then we had kids. And not just any kids, but “throw ’em into the deep end of the parenting pool, advanced parenting no prerequisite other than gestation” kids. The cherubs who will call us out on our BS at age 18 months, then smile toothlessly as they return to the chess game they are currently winning against us. We have to be the adult-ier adult and that gets exhausting. Or maybe I’m just having a crabby day because reasons.
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Jen Merrill
is a writer, music educator, and gifted family advocate. The mom of two boys, she homeschooled one twice-exceptional son through high school while happily sending the other out the door every morning. Her book,
If This is a Gift, Can I Send It Back?
, struck a nerve with families; her second book, on the needs of gifted parents and self-care, is in progress. In addition to writing on her long-time blog,
Laughing at Chaos
, Jen has presented at
SENG
,
NAGC
, and
WCGTC
.
Jen brings both her acquired wisdom and her experience as a teacher and mentor to her work in the service of parents, teaching them techniques and mentoring them into their own versions of success. Her goal is to support parents of gifted and twice-exceptional kids, because they are the ones doing the heavy lifting and are too often ignored, patronized, and discredited. It is her hope that her sons never have to deal with these issues when they raise their own likely gifted children.
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From The Editor:
Modeling Healthy Balance for Our Gifted Kids
By Celi Trépanier, MEd
Me: Gifted kids are no different than every other kid.
You: Yikes, Celi, did you just say that? Are you kidding me?
Me: Ha! Betcha thought I’d lost my marbles, right? Nah, we all know every child is different, and our gifted children have their own unique traits.
If you are the parent of gifted children, teach gifted kiddos, or you are someone who spends time with gifted kids, you know they can be quirky, intense, unpredictable, enjoyable, and exhausting. We most likely see these qualities in ourselves, and we need to model what a healthy balance looks like in a life that relentlessly zips along in high gear. Demonstrating how to modulate overwhelming emotions and calm unbridled thinking processes facilitates healthy development in our gifted children. As we regulate our lives as gifted adults, we teach our children how to do the same as they grow to be happy, purposeful adults.
This month’s GHF Journey features an article by GHF’s own Jen Merrill of
Laughing at Chaos
. Jen’s writing has always been a brilliant combination of the unvarnished truth delightfully mixed with outrageous humor. Jen gives us her take on being the role models our gifted children need because, as Jen says, “they’re always watching. No pressure, right?”
After you read Jen’s article, scroll down through the
GHF Journey
newsletter to find more new pieces from the
GHF Dialogue
. There you will find in-depth articles from the leaders in our gifted community. You will discover you are not alone with your concerns as you find the information and support you need on your gifted journey. Make sure you subscribe to both of GHF’s publications, the
GHF Journey
and the
GHF Dialogue
—the load you are carrying on your gifted journey just may become a bit lighter.
Editorial Director for GHF
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Differently Wired by
Deborah Reber
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Differently Wired
weaves together personal stories and a tool kit of expert advice. Written by Deborah Reber, a parent of a twice-exceptional son, her eighteen paradigm-shifting ideas offer a new path for parents of neurodiverse kids.
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Building Metacognition in Gifted Students for Future Success
By Dr. Michael Postma
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The ultimate goal is to empower your child with a positive self-identity, an exercise crucial to a healthy and centered child. Indeed, with and through this foundation, the child can develop social skills, learn emotional regulation, develop an expressive vocabulary to communicate deep thoughts and emotions, and learn executive functioning skills necessary for lifelong success.
In more than two decades working within the field of both gifted education and gifted advocacy, I have worked with hundreds of students and families (and teachers) who are struggling to support the diverse needs of the gifted and/or twice-exceptional child. Given the scads of research, both qualitative and quantitative, available on the developmental needs of the G/2e child and, more recently, the new revelations on atypical neurological growth, asynchrony remains as one of the principal issues. The fact is that G/2e children have divergent growth patterns within the areas of social/emotional regulation and intellectual development. In a sense, they embody two very different people— one with extreme intellectual potential, intimately accompanied by another that struggles to cope with negative (and sometimes, positive) external stimuli. In essence, with the gifted or 2e child, we find a puzzling paradox of brilliance and dysfunction. This does not have to be. If, at an early age, we institute a balanced approach to both intellectual and social/emotional instruction or guidance, we can equip our children to accommodate regulatory shortfalls that impede optimal growth patterns.
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GHF Dialogue
GHF Dialogue publishes essays and articles based on quarterly themes. If you’d like to contribute, please read the submission guidelines, where you’ll also find the quarterly themes and deadlines. We’ve intentionally come up with themes that are fairly broad and nonspecific to create space for a variety of ideas and writing styles. We welcome deeply personal essays, research-based articles, and everything in-between.
Click here to learn more,
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GHF Membership
GHF connects all sorts of people who love gifted learners. We offer both family and professional memberships to support and encourage adults working to create new ways of educating gifted learners. Our members homeschool gifted and twice-exceptional kids, run homeschool co-ops and microschools, write to foster understanding of gifted and twice-exceptional learners, mentor students one-on-one, teach online classes, provide services specifically designed to meet the social and emotional needs of gifted and twice-exceptional learners, and more. We’d love for you to join us.
Click here to join now.
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Coffee Chats
Pour yourself a cup of something and take a minute to come meet your GHF Family Committee Chair. Kasi Peters and Pin-pin Wei will host virtual coffee breaks for you to get to know us, as well as other GHF members. This is a chance to voice to what you would like to see or what you have found most helpful about GHF. The virtual coffee breaks will be held on Zoom, so get the app. Don't worry if you can't make the first one. Virtual coffee breaks will occur every 2-3 weeks.
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GHF Press
GHF Press brings you a diversity of highly rated books from some of the most knowledgeable authors and experts on giftedness. We have published books on raising a 2e child, books which provide insight into the world of gifted adults, a how-to on homeschooling your gifted child from a former public school teacher, current insider information on college admissions, and books for support with bullying and the gifted. GHF Press puts the most vibrant information you need about gifted learners and giftedness right in your hands.
Click here to learn more.
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Don't Stop the Wonder
by Andy Mahoney
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I personally like to keep my awareness, definitions, and knowledge of giftedness fluid, robust, and evolving. This allows me to have an identity as a gifted person that is not absolute, constraining, or preventing me from wondering about myself as gifted.
People wonder about their giftedness. And they do continuously question the validity of being gifted. In the late nineties, I published my work on the Gifted Identity Formation Model
1 (GIFM, now known as The Fit) in part to address these issues. The Model allows gifted people and those working with the gifted to navigate the process of forming a healthy gifted identity and feeling your humanity.
Validation is one of the four constructs I outline in the process of forming an identity. Being valid in your giftedness equates to knowing your gifted nature, which includes your biological, neurological, developmental attributes, and more—all the attributes and uniqueness that come along with this variance in human nature. Yes, giftedness is a variance in human nature; it is not a romantic construct about being some kind of virtuoso. And if you don’t know yourself as a gifted being with a variance in your human nature, then you are more vulnerable to limiting your ability to activate your potential. I also believe you are more vulnerable in terms of activating disturbances in your life because your needs won’t be met.
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THE GHF PRESIDENT'S CLUB
For those of you who can give at least $500 we have created a special recognition program where you will be listed on the GHF website and in our monthly newsletter, The GHF Journey, as valued members of the community.
Donations may be kept anonymous.
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ABOUT GHF
GHF connects all sorts of people who love gifted learners. We offer both family and professional memberships to support and encourage adults working to create new ways of educating gifted learners. Our members homeschool gifted and twice-exceptional kids, run homeschool co-ops and microschools, write to foster understanding of gifted and twice-exceptional learners, mentor students one-on-one, teach online classes, provide services specifically designed to meet the social and emotional needs of gifted and twice-exceptional learners, and more. We'd love for you to join us.
GHF is a 501c3 organization
. Please consider supporting our community with your most generous gift today. For more information on our organization, please feel free to contact us at
info@ghflearners.org.
Thank you!
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