Onward (For Jim)
By Kathleen Casper

Losing Dr. James Thurman "Jim" Webb this week hit me hard, personally. But I am aware I am not the only one feeling this way (or even worse.) In fact, his sudden and unexpected death last Friday caused a universal grief to flow throughout the whole gifted community. He was adored and revered, and was a solid piece of our foundation. His calm and smooth voice flowed as clear and deep as the most forceful rivers. He knew how people thought, how they felt, and how to reach them at their worst. And he taught so many of us with encouragement and reflection.

It's almost impossible to reach out to anyone in Giftedland right now to cheer each other up because everyone is suffering the same blow. Gifted hearts hurt deeply. And gifted minds sometimes don't effectively accept the blunt-force trauma of a loss this hard.

As we all reel from the ripple of pain and sorrow of losing one of our champions of giftedness, we can't help but remember the other greats we've lost before- the local champions in our states who never stopped speaking out for the kids whose voices weren't being heard until their own voices faded; the state and national and even world champions who spoke and wrote as much as they possibly could so that we could hear their own voices loud and clear even when they left us- like Annemarie Roeper, whose voice continued beyond her death in her books about gifted elders. And it makes us pause to wonder what incredible souls will be lost next, and how we can ever effectively carry their messages forward and make sure their work continues. 

Gifted people already put a lot of pressure on themselves to do enough, and be enough, and now we have an even heavier load.

I am not a psychologist like Jim was, so I can't say for sure what we should do next. But I know what he would say- he would tell us to look to each other and hold each other close so we can continue to fight to spread gifted education, as a solid group. He would tell us again to be courageous and creative and never give up hope. And he would tell us to be kind to each other and to recognize each others' intensities and that we all want to do what's right and what's best, so to support each other and be patient with each other. 

Those were some of his many words he shared with us at the SENG board alumni luncheon before the conference last week. His message has always been about love, and about making space for each other in a world that doesn't always know what to do with us.

Jim was a big part of our tribe and often was the quiet leader from within. He knew that in order for gifted education to spread, we needed to show people the realities and needs of gifted kids and adults by showing love for their unique traits and patience and understanding when others may not. We have grown up as fledgling gifted advocates into a complex group of experts and professionals under his watchful eye, and he showed us how to fly in his calm and caring ways. So now we have to take these sad gifted hearts and focus that energy on caring for each other. On supporting each other as much as we can and standing side by side as we charge forward. We have a mission to continue. We have our marching orders from those who came before us and fought beside us. And we have so much more work to do. 

Jim, we can still hear your voice in our hearts and minds and read your words and we will carry them forward. Because the best way to live with broken hearts and loss is to keep on charging ahead, helping as many other people as we can. 

Onward... 

With love. And creativity and courage. 

There are many of us with a problem that may never be resolved... an insatiable urge and a love that just can't be sufficiently realized. And I don't think I'm alone in this impossible desire. I'm talking about the deep yearning to experience living in many different locations, all at the same time. This is the kind of polyamory that cannot be satisfied, no matter how many travels you take, (and traveling may actually add to the problem by increasing the number of places to choose from.)

It is not unheard of for any of us to fall absolutely head-over-heels for a place in the world, and to see ourselves belonging there, as opposed to anywhere else. But, what if someone feels that way about multiple places? Similar to when someone has talents in more than one area and then they have a hard time choosing a career or a hobby to stick with: falling in love with multiple places means we may have difficulty figuring out where we belong at all.

Gifted people tend to be travelers, be it in our minds, by reading books, or by actually hitting the road. Which means exposing ourselves to the idea of new places all over our states, many countries, and even the world. And, because we think deeply about everything, we may find meaning where others may merrily glass over something. 

So, as we fill our souls with connections between history, culture, things we've read about and places we've dreamed of being, and connect all of that with standing in the actual place where all of it occurred, we feel connected in very intimate ways with the place, even beyond time... understanding the place possibly more than other people who may stand in the same location. Or, perhaps as we constantly spin through the world at 100 miles a minute and then finally find somewhere that suits our hearts and makes us feel whole, that feeling of wanting to belong there makes us think about packing everything up and moving it all to that incredible, new location. But, that was likely how we felt about the last location we moved to... And all those places that we still reminisce about, that we thought about moving to when we retire someday, or when we have more money, or when we downsize and can live in a camper. 

So, where do we belong? What is the perfect place, when we can connect so deeply with so many amazing places?

Where do you want to live? Is it in the mountains, where you once spent time among the pine trees and evergreens, hiking to beautiful mountain streams and enjoying the smell of wood burning in the fireplace, as you relaxed in that cabin, tucked in the forest? Or, is it in that adorable little town, with all the shops and restaurants, and the buyers of activity from tourists and locals enjoying the day? Or the seaside, where you walked the beaches and imagined playing with your children or your grandchildren there some day? 

Can one live in multiple places, and still feel settled anywhere? Can you dabble in being a citizen of a town, if you only live there a few years, before going to the next place you swear will be the last stop, but never is?

I enjoy having a home to come back to after my travels. But I have moved my home-base back and forth between two completely different corners of the United States – Washington State in the Pacific Northwest, and Florida, along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. I've traveled enough in between those points and between the other corners of the country, and even overseas, in my attempts to feel connected to people and places all over the map. (And it doesn't help that I also have a mad crush on interesting, old houses, and I have a crazy desire to live in many of those all over the place too!)

I've thought about trying to find somewhere that I can connect with on a heritage level, such as somewhere my ancestors lived. Unfortunately, in this day and age, ancestors usually span the globe as well. I try to explain my obsession with Iceland and my amazing comfort level with Ireland by saying some of my ancestors were Scandinavian, and I imagine somewhere there was someone who was Irish somewhere in my pedigree. Yet, none of this explains my absolute heartache at leaving Costa Rica or Greece after my summer vacations there.

Some days, as much as I miss my dad and wish he was able to travel with me in person, I have to admit I envy him somewhat, because I have scattered his ashes throughout the world, leaving bits of him in every location that I also leave pieces of my heart. I really do wish I could be in all of those places at once like he is now -or at least his body remnants are. I know, I know... it is a little morbid (by definition, actually). But you have to admit, it's a creative way to make sure he gets everywhere he never got to go, and it's probably what people need to do with me when I'm gone. As much as I am trying to make it everywhere before I die, I'm probably not going to achieve that goal. Especially because there are so many places I keep wanting to go back to, because they feel like home.

As gifted people, we sometimes experience life in ways that even we feel are "too much," and this is one more example of how being gifted sometimes drives me crazy. Life is way too much some days- too much cool stuff to see, and so many places I want to be.

I finally broke down a couple years ago, and bought a little 13 foot vintage camper so I could afford my travel habit better. Instead of paying hundreds of dollars to stay in hotels all the time, we now can spend under $40 each night at campsites. And at least a couple of times each year we find cheap flights or cruises and go explore new countries, too. 

My 12-year-old daughter has been to more countries than the number of years she's been alive. Some days I wonder how she will deal with this travel obsession, when she has already been to so many places. She will have to go even farther, or dive into the cultures even deeper. I've already planted the seeds for her of studying abroad or joining some type of Peace Corps activity in the future so she never runs out of cool things to do or places to go. Because I think that is the worst feeling- when a gifted person doesn't have interesting things to look forward to. When that happens to me I panic a little until I realize and remind myself again how big the world really is and that we will never run out of places to explore. Even my local region offers new things to do once in a while. But, I find that I need more and more novel and different types of adventures to keep my mind from spinning.

I'm writing this post as I am driving from St. George Island in the Florida Panhandle, as I make my way back toward the city. I know I will be back here soon, because we have a camping reservation for one of the upcoming holiday breaks. But I still feel like I am leaving my best friend behind me in the rear-view mirror, as I catch the last glimpses of the lighthouse and the causeway. And I have mentally noted multiple bungalows for sale along the waterways, just in case I can't shake this feeling of missing this area after I get back to my real life. I've done that in so many different places that people laugh and tell me I should be a real estate agent or a travel agent because I know so much about the houses and things to do in so many places. But, I would actually rather be a bird who can fly across long distances and make my home in different locations depending on the season and the food supply.

I imagine that wanderlust and this type of travel obsession are common with many intense gifted people. This is yet another type of intensity that seems to be a combination of multiple categories of Dabrowski's overexcitabilities. Perhaps a combination between sensory and intellectual OEs... with a touch of imaginational and psychomotor... with interpersonal and intrapersonal touches. It is a love for novelty and the unknown, and a yearning for deeper connections, like a love story that never can be resolved; a relationship with the physical world and the history of time and space. The greatest obsession and craving, that we can taste but only once in a while, and unfortunately, only in one piece and one place at a time.

I used to play with dolls and stare out my second story window at the neighborhood around my house and make plans for my life. I had a baby doll named Miranda and a few other ones too, and I was a teacher or a lawyer, and sometimes a veterinarian. My Barbie was always falling in love and traveling to exciting places around the world. And sometimes she was a writer or an artist, like my grandmothers both were in real life.
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Then I grew up and I made all of that come true … I’ve been a teacher, a laywer, a writer and an artist, had four beautiful children, (one whose name is Miranda,) and I’ve traveled all over the world. I even met my first husband at a house that just happened to be located directly across the road behind my childhood bedroom window- where I stared out into the blue yonder and wished for an interesting husband. (It was at a college party, and I think he was drunk and on the roof of the house, and possibly even mostly naked, which I don’t think I imagined at age 7… but I digress…)

The point is, I have done the things I wanted to do and had a heck of a good time doing them.

SO NOW WHAT?

Some days I wonder if I need many more years on Earth. That’s morbid, I know. I don’t mean I want to die. But I would be at peace if that happened. I have had a full and amazing life. The problem is, it seems like it may be mostly downhill from here.

Some very notable people in our history have had issues with middle age. Some didn’t make it through, and took quick escape routes or did weird things like cutting off their ears (yes, I am thinking of you, Van Gogh…) I haven’t done anything drastic and have no plan to do so, but I understand their insanity some days. Mid-life is kind of tough sometimes, especially for those of us who think about things more than we probably should.

My mom, who is 27 years older than I am, said that she read somewhere that that the stage we go through during our 40’s is like another puberty, and that it is normal for us to think this way. It’s when we move beyond our “building life” stage, and get to a more content time where we get to be real adults and not worry as much about building our nests, but get to spend time enjoying them. But since I am in my 40’s and am not feeling that release of the past fun years that supposedly comes in your 50's yet, I admit, I am struggling a little.

I've done a ton of interesting things so far. My favorite parts of this crazy life have pertained to children, and I miss those years when my kids were preschoolers and I was in college and I got to spend relaxing days with them at the kinder-gym and parks and in our own backyard of the rental houses we lived in, in locations all over the two corners of the United States, (Washington State and Florida.) I hold onto those feelings by continuing to work with children as much as I can- I choose to work in schools as a teacher and director of gifted education, rather than holing up in an office building and using my law degree (that we are still paying for) to make a lot more money, because I get to laugh with little kids and see them grow like I used to get to do with my own little ones. And we do foster care for lots of children who are going through hell while their parents get their lives together- trying to make their days and nights a little brighter by having somewhere to stay that is safe and loving. I hold everyone else’s babies because I miss holding mine, and because there is something magical about children that keeps me spellbound.

I thought about having another child for many years. My husband didn’t want another one because we were parenting my other three kids from my first marriage, and we had a little one of our own. So, we did foster care and I taught in schools, and we went about life as usual. And then a little over a year ago, we got pregnant without really meaning to. We weren’t trying not to, but we weren’t trying to do so, and I thought I was getting to old for anything like that to really happen. It took a little longer than it did for past pregnancies for us to excited after thinking about how 18 more years of raising a child would impact our plans for the next couple of decades, but we fell in love with the idea of the baby and we felt like we were finally old enough to do all the best things for a baby- that we finally felt like we knew what we were doing, which we never really felt like when raising the others in the past.

And then we had a miscarriage. The autopsy showed the baby had genetic problems and had no chance of survival. It broke our hearts and I still wonder “what if?” But I also now have 18 years of not raising another baby. Which is heartbreaking, yet also a little relieving in a weird and guilty sort of way, because in 18 years I will be past retirement age (heck, some days I already feel past my ideal retirement age!) And I don’t know if I want to be a parent of a minor child for that long. Is that selfish? Yes, certainly. But is it crazy? I don’t think so. I may like to do all sorts of things and push the limits of what someone can get done in a day, now… but will I still feel that way in a decade? I’m not sure. And that makes me sad, because my identity has always been intertwined with raising my children. And now that is ending soon when my youngest grows up, which seems to be coming closer at a faster rate, every single day.

I’ve also enjoyed traveling around new places, and having a great time waking up at crazy hours so we can catch airplanes and keep up with time zone changes and rushing from place to place so as to see as many locations as possible in one map stop at a time. But I know I won’t be able to keep that pace forever into the future, as my body defies me and needs a little more sleep every year, and has a few more aches and pains than it used to. I can’t even eat all the amazing junk food that I relished unlimitedly for the last four decades, without gaining weight or feeling sluggish. What’s up with this mortality thing, anyway? I was sure enjoying feeling invincible.

I have had amazing love in my life, and two good marriages (with two men that I still love and consider my friends, even though I’m no longer married to one of them,) that resulted in beautiful and brilliant children and photo albums full of great times we spent together. I have memories of my other incredible relationships and even some great, but short, flings that I still hold close to my heart and smile about when I need something to make me grin or to laugh with my best friends about. But, I am settling in and feeling really content in my marriage and in my comfort zone. That being said, I am still a sucker for getting outside of that zone and I am ecstatic when my husband acts more like a suitor and thrills me with some romance. And when someone I look up to gives me a compliment I catch myself blinking my eyes and acting like a schoolgirl. But, then I go home and do some laundry in my beat up old t-shirt and shorts, with my hair unwashed with no makeup, and my husband still smiles at me. And then I am thankful I am not trying to survive in the dating world, or feeling forced to keep up that kind of pace. I am happier now with my home life than I used to be, when the world seemed to be full of oysters and I was collecting pearls. (Of course, if Jack Johnson or Justin Trudeau is reading this, I might still consider running away… but it would depend on my work schedule and volunteer commitments… haha.) I do miss feeling young and beautiful and sometimes even irresistible, though. I lived many years being told I looked younger than my age (which often meant people discounted me as not being as knowledgeable or capable, which was annoying too,) but time is catching up faster and faster these days. I need to learn to admire the beauty of being older. I'm willing, but sometimes I feel a little whiny about the changes that come with all that. 

Don’t worry, I do look forward to some things… I am not depressed or without hope. There are still many things that are important to me, and I definitely need a little more time on this planet to get them done. I want to see all of my kids have families of their own and have more grandchildren than our adorable first grandson (who we love to visit and are sure enjoying being his grandparents, even though it sometimes feels weird to be a GRANDMA!…) I would love to do even more traveling. We haven’t seen Asia yet, or the Land Down Under. And I would like to write more, and paint and draw more, and maybe even make more money before retirement kicks in and we are stuck at a certain income for the rest of our lives. And I am lucky to have dozens of incredible friends who I have interesting visits with and who keep me laughing and entertained, and whom I hope I give enough love and caring to as well.

But, I feel like I want to do even more. And time is not on my side as much as it used to be. Do people get college degrees and change careers and do amazing things after age 50? Of course, they do. I don’t discount my ability to continue to do interesting things, and I certainly have more plans for things like that (it’s likely the only way I can meet my retirement goals above!) But it’s harder. And it’s different. I do see what my mom means about this age being like going through a stage of grown-up puberty. Instead of zits, I get wrinkles; and instead of having to decide if I'm old enough for things I might want to do, I have to decide if I'm too old. Do I shop in the junior department with the cute jeans, or get the grandma pants in the grown-up section? Do I take a matronly attitude with the younger generation when they act like I must be a crazy old lady because I don’t know the latest fads or understand their slang, or try to act like I care? I feel like that meme that says, “I’m 40, but I still feel like I’m 20… until I go hang out with 20-year-olds, and then I’m like, nope, never mind, I’m 40.”

It’s a weird stage. And even weirder when I’m so used to everything just working out so well. Even natural disasters didn’t used to slow me down, but this year the hurricane that tore parts of our roof off and twisted the whole structure on its foundation is throwing me a little. We have so much work to do, but we aren’t jumping up and rushing to do all of it when we are home, in between work days. It’s not like we are elderly, but we are more tired after work than we used to be. And I don’t feel like taking more vitamins or running more laps in order to jump start my system any more than I already feel jumpstarted by the alarm clock waking me after fitful 40-year-old erratic sleep patterns each night.

My new goals are to find some more great mentors- some older people who give me hope and who are interested in helping a highly educated but somewhat disenchanted midlifer, find more things to be excited about. And then I’m going to plan some more travel adventures and find ways to pay for them by adding a few more dollars to my paychecks in the near future. And I’m going to hug my high schooler more and send lots of loving texts to my newly-adult children (who may ignore them sometimes, but will still read them…) and visit my grandson when I can. And I’m going to paint and write to my heart’s content, as soon as we clear more of the hurricane damage! And maybe I will forgive myself for not saving all of the world’s children, and watch less news that reminds me of all the problems that I wish I had time on Earth to solve. I’m going to enjoy quiet evenings with my husband. And I will avoid any urges to cut off either of my ears in the process.

​I think I might make it through this midlife stage without any huge crises. And if I slip a little, I will have faith that I will add those stories to the book of life and look back on them with fondness later. It is a journey, and I am hanging on for this new ride, even if it eventually kills me. (Which is guaranteed eventually for all of us anyway!)


​This article is part of the Hoagies Gifted Education Blog Hop. You can find more articles on the "Ages and Stages" of giftedness at the following link:  
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"It would be fun to see if we could hang over the edge of this thing and make it all the way across, handover hand…" I don't know where that really dumb idea came from, but we were bored and we were hiding in the church sanctuary so that we could avoid the afterschool daycare program that we both thought we were way too old for, at the elderly age of 13.
 
"I dare you to try it," Andi always knew how to keep the dumb ideas going.
 
Never being one to turn down a good dare, I put my backpack on the floor next to the pew we were sitting on and threw a leg over the railing. It was about twenty feet down to the bottom pews below us. I figured it was less dangerous than it actually was, because my teenage brain was likely not developed enough to really have any common sense yet.
 
I sat on the edge and angled my feet and then put one hand on the railing. I looked at Andi’s blond head and big grin and then down at my fingertips, which each were covered with a Band-Aid because I was trying so hard to grow out my fingernails. I hoped they would grip alright.
 
Then, in a moment of pure bravery (idiocy,) I swung the rest of my body around and was hanging for a brief moment with two Band-Aid-covered hands gripping the railing.
 
That pose only lasted momentarily, as the Band-Aids proved to not have any grip at all, and then my body was flying backwards into the abyss.
 
Somehow my body managed to land between the rows of pews, although I don't remember anything about the landing other than experiencing a very big POP! inside my mind, and then everything was flooded with bright lights.
 
I looked up into the brightness and could make out what seem to be shapes or shadows moving around me and I could hear a very high-pitched noise that seemed to be some kind of singing. I felt safe, painless, and surrounded by love. (Later, when trying to explain the experience to others, I likened it to being surrounded by angels and that I felt that they were all people who cared about me and could have possibly been people who knew me well. But at this point I was certainly not worried about what they were. I just knew they were there with me and that I was okay.)
 
In order to properly frame this situation, I should mention that I was attending a private Christian school for my middle school years, due to the fact that my parents thought it would make me be more well behaved. Obviously, it was not working.
 
My experience with religion up until that school tenure was fleeting at best. I attended Sunday school classes as a youth on occasion, and then went to church once in a while with my mom, mostly to spend time with her. My dad did not like very much about church so we rarely attended as a family. (Although, my father was the one person I knew who loved everyone and everything in the world the most, he just did not like organized religion or anyone telling him what to believe.)
 
I was like my father; however, I did like the singing and the community that church offered. But at age 14, I was more likely to rebel against any organized anything than to really give it much thought. I figured The Bible and it stories were an important part of our nation’s culture and enjoyed the stories as teachable moments. I did not like the idea of believing some guy came down from some heaven in order to teach us anything more than what all of us are supposed to teach each other in this life anyway. And I certainly took issue with God being portrayed as a white man.
 
The experience of hitting my head though, was thought-provoking. First, because it made me realize how physically vulnerable humans really are, as I was knocked out pretty well from the fall and ended up in the hospital that night, (after having problems saying certain phrases due to everything being jumbled when it came out of my mouth). And it was also thought-provoking because it made me wonder about what really was out there beyond this experience here on earth. It felt like there was some other dimension. And I really didn't know how to categorize all of those thoughts without it seeming somewhat aligned with religious beliefs and stories.
 
Looking back, I think that experience helped me a lot with processing the death of my father a short twelve years later when he dropped dead from a heart attack at the young age of 54. I was so upset by losing him that I spent the first few days after he left, feeling like I was half still on earth, and half in that realm that I went to when I fell off the church balcony. I described it then as feeling like I was in a "twilight zone". I didn't have any other way of explaining how it felt to still be connected spiritually to the soul of my father, while experiencing the excruciating pain of that loss.
 
During those days, my two-year-old son, Joey continued to talk about seeing my father there with us, and constantly was having conversations with him. He saw him in the hallway and suddenly stopped crying when he was throwing a tantrum; he told me that Grandpa was there, and that he was OK. And when we went to my father's new grave at the cemetery he invited Grandpa to come home with us. He told me that Grandpa was not in the grave. We also had a toy phone from a Happy Meal that would randomly start ringing sometimes and Joey would answer it. He said it was Grandpa calling and he had whole conversations with him. No one else could get that phone to ring and it never rang again after that. I've been told that young people often see and hear things that the rest of us can't anymore. I now believe it.
 
Also during those few days after the death of my father, a black cat sat on my porch outside my window for exactly three days. I always figured if my dad could be reincarnated, he would choose a cat. It was his favorite animal. That damn black cat stared at me, as I stared at it out my window. And even when I tried to scare it away, it wouldn't go. I had never seen that cat before and I never saw it again after those three days either. However, the day that my father died I saw a dead black cat on the road on the way to get to the location of the ambulance he was in. I remember thinking how depressing it was that the world was so full of death that day.
 
Sometimes I wonder if I imagined that cat on my porch, but I did have conversations with my family about it and they seemed to see it as well. In my current life as an attorney I am not talented in every area, but I certainly can do research. And I have done a lot of reading about religions and their beliefs. So many of the major world religions have a component where they believe the spirit stays in the area for about three days after a death. I'm not sure what that cat was, but after trying to scare it away and realizing it was not going anywhere I started to talk to it and I told it to tell my dad things that I wished I had been able to say before. I hope that somehow he got the messages.
 
Most of my life I have been very interested in science and the exploration of the unknown. I've experienced conversations with very scientific people who have questioned their ability to be spiritual or to believe in religion due to science sometimes proving religious stories wrong. However, I've also spoken with many people who believe that in order to be a good scientist, one needs to have faith in the unknown.
 
As a deep-thinking, gifted adult, I question a lot of things about the world and about the people in it. And I certainly question the issues of spirituality. I am not quick to believe anyone's theories about the unknown without some scientific proof. However, some of the things I've experienced were proof enough to me that there is something else out there… that we are all connected somehow, in ways that cannot be explained by the science of a physical world. And those elements of the unknown keep me waking up every morning, wondering what other interesting and exciting things might happen because we just don't know what is possible
 
So after all, I have no more answers for you than anyone else does. But I can tell you that I believe that science and religion can exist hand-in-hand. And that in this physical world we all need something to believe in. The teachings of religion help us understand each other and tie us to a somewhat-shared past. They provide us with a common language to talk about things we don’t know about and give us hope that we will all be alright in the end. Now as an adult, I am much more willing to listen to religious claims and stories and take them to heart in the hope that as humans we will continue to grow and use those teachings to be better to each other. And that someday we will see our loved ones again or at least be united in the overwhelming love that I felt when I was floating somewhere above my crumpled body on the floor between the pews when I was thirteen.
 
I am now teacher at a religious private school and that is something I could never have imagined doing, even just a few years ago. I still continue to question any type of teachings that are meant to make anybody believe anything specific when what they talk about is truly unknown. But, I am more at peace with my connection to religion and spirituality than I have ever been before. That makes me feel closer to my dad and all my other friends and family who have died. And I look forward to seeing them all again in that weird twilight zone and singing with them someday.

This article is part of the Hoagies Gifted Education Blog Hop. Please click on the link to see even more articles about this month's theme of Anxiety and Spirituality.

The Pasco-Hernando Early Learning Coalition (PHELC) has created a new position that may revolutionize the field of early gifted learning.
 
Pasco and Hernando are expansive counties on Florida’s Gulf Coast, located just north of Tampa Bay. These counties have historically struggled with a variety of social issues, including concerns related to high unemployment, school performance issues (per standardized tests and state school grading systems), and transiency among families. High school graduation rates are lower than expected; a high percentage of families have sought to benefit from public assistance programs or services at one time or another. These counties often fly under the radar in terms of innovative programs or services, while the nearby urban areas of Tampa Bay often steal the spotlight. Yet, there is something very progressive happening in this primarily suburban-rural region that should put these on the map, if not immediately, then in the near future.
 
Most experts claim that one of the areas that produces the most bang for the buck is an investment in future leaders and their families. When a population stabilizes and invigorates their youth, those investments in time, resources, and effort produce exponential returns long into the future. For that reason, it is exciting and important to watch a new program quietly entering that two-county region. Specifically, the Pasco Hernando Early Learning Coalition (PHELC) has committed to create and develop a program to inspire appropriate instructional and behavioral programming for particularly bright young children, through its network of nearly 400 contracted early learning providers.
 
PHELC first initiated these efforts in 2016 with the addition of a training opportunity for providers and staff regarding gifted characteristics and needs in young children, at the organization’s Annual Early Learning Conference, Florida’s largest conference for early educators. In mid-2017, the governing board of PHELC approved the creation and budget for a new position specifically focusing on meeting the needs of potentially gifted and twice exceptional (gifted with learning disabilities) students. This new "Inclusion Specialist II,” for gifted or potentially gifted learners will:
 
“Provide community education and consultation to contracted providers and parents to promote awareness and support for gifted learning. The Inclusion Specialist II is also responsible for screening and support of gifted and potentially gifted learners and assisting in the implementation of instructional and social emotional supports, as well as behavioral programs, to meet the unique needs of gifted preschool children enrolled in school readiness and VPK programs in Pasco and Hernando Counties.”

In other words, this new position mirrors the gifted education specialist role that exist (according to state law,) in K-12 public schools and districts throughout Florida. Yet, it differs in ways that allow for the PHELC to use flexibility and the specific individual needs of each child in the way youth are identified for services, compared with strict state guidelines for K-12 public schools. This is a major investment in the youth of Pasco and Hernando Counties, and hopefully an inspiration to the other 29 early learning coalitions across the state (and to even more preschool programs, daycares, and related administrative offices across the country.)

As of July, 2017, Melissa Hayes was hired for the new Inclusion Specialist II role. Ms. Hayes is a senior Provider Specialist within PHELC, who has served the organization with distinction for years and has previously provided educational training and support to the region’s providers. Her new role will allow her to expand her interest in gifted education and reach more providers and families who are working with/raising children who meet criteria for additional support.

Identifying potentially gifted children in the region, WILL NOT directly relate to state K-12 rules for gifted identification. There will be no requirement for a formal Intelligence Quotient (IQ) test score of 130 or higher nor evidence of a specific need for services (that is defined by each county public school district).  Instead, identification will instead be based on a combination of multiple social-emotional and academic criteria.

The idea for the new PHELC role is not to label the children in a specifically formal way, but to identify potential characteristics and needs that may make the early learner ready for additional challenges, or that may make the early learner more prone to behavioral challenges if those additional needs are not adequately supported. Ms. Hayes will contribute a new voice to ongoing state and national conversations regarding behavior issues that may have multiple causes and/or relate to gifted needs, and bring ideas and resource connections to providers and families of children who may need additional or altered academic activities.

In studies of gifted children in their older elementary school years, researchers have found that such children exhibited some specific social emotional needs as infants and preschoolers, and often achieve many of their developmental milestones at earlier times than peers. This information will be helpful for Ms. Hayes, as she reviews assessment and observation data from the different providers across the region as she prepares to support teachers’ work with children whose information shows these types of learning gains or differences.

Another important distinction between the PHELC program and others across the country is that because of the flexible nature of the identification process, Ms. Hayes will ensure that all children are reviewed for these types of needs during annual early learner screenings, therefore bucking a trend of under-identifying racially and economically diverse students that public schools across the country have been criticized for doing for many years. In Pasco and Hernando Counties, all children with potential gifted traits will be supported as needed, and all providers will be trained in gifted education issues through outreach and through specific trainings available during the year.

The combination of traditional inclusion specialist skills, including work with students with special education needs, will also enable the new Inclusion Specialist II position to embrace and support students who are twice exceptional, (or possessing gifted traits, as well as having one or more learning disabilities).  This means a unified team approach to supporting all early learning specialists who work with a broad range of student abilities, characteristics and needs throughout the two counties.

The PHELC Executive Director Jim Farrelly and Program Manager Carolyn Casler will share this exciting new endeavor with attendees as they participate in the Florida Association for the Gifted (FLAG) annual gifted education conference in St. Augustine in September, 2017. They will present as part of a panel concerning the topic, “Early Gifted Learners,” spotlighting the new Inclusion Specialist role, and specific efforts they will use to identify and support potentially gifted learners throughout the bi-county area.

There are no other early learning coalitions in the state of Florida that dedicate a full time  Inclusion Specialist role to support for potentially gifted children. In itself, this exciting endeavor will help PHELC support some of its brightest youngsters before they acquire academic and social-emotional habits that may become problematic or frustrating. This role creates a contact person in the region to serve as a liaison between district, state and national gifted and twice exceptional organizations.

Already, several local educators have reached out to PHELC with offers to collaborate on gifted education opportunities.  Many members of the gifted education community across the country have written encouragement and support messages, exhibiting their excitement about the development of this new position and the innovative and inspiring opportunities it brings to the region and the state.

For more information about this new program, please email PHELC Executive Director, Jim Farrelly, at j.farrelly@phelc.org.

*Author, Kathleen Casper, J.D. is the Gifted Education Director at Solid Rock Community School in the Tampa Bay Area of Florida, the president of the Florida Association for the Gifted, a former board member and secretary of the national gifted organization, SENG (Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted), and is on the board of the Pasco Hernando Early Learning Coalition. She has four children, one grandson, and several foster children. She enjoys traveling, writing for her blog, OneWorld Gifted, and doing art in the Florida sunshine.

Please gather 'round, dearies, as I spin you a tale- a tale of when I was a younger educator. 


You have a different world in many ways now, in this year, 2070. But, when I was a teacher and an administrator in the schools during the early 2000's, education for gifted children, who were like many of the kids you will be teaching when you exit this teaching program, was much different.


Back then, the world had a lot of troubles and we were certainly not as advanced, technology-wise or environmentally as our country is now. So maybe it will not surprise you to hear that we did not adequately meet the needs of a major portion of our country's students back then either. As educators and parents in those days, we were constantly disappointed with the slow pace of advancement in this area, (especially since we had possessed enough data and information to prove the students needed more support and opportunities, for many decades prior.)

After the Russians beat us in the initial phases of the Space Race, our country did a lot of talking about raising the standards of achievement and racing to the top of the international education game. However, the government quickly became focused on students performing on standardized testing in order to easily separate children into categories according to the scores on their exams. This push for standardization and achievement on multiple-choice testing caused all sorts of problems for the public school system, and everyone could easily see that it was really mostly benefiting those schools and those students whom already had advantages, and it was making a lot of money for corporations that sold testing materials. 

We lost a lot of good educators during those years, who were underpaid and overburdened. And we lost a lot of excitement and innovation in those that stayed.

But, most importantly, we quickly lost any potential opportunity for raising achievement and creative accomplishments from our most talented and able minds. Children who had gifted traits were not always recognized or served with whole-child support services back then, because in order to be formally labeled gifted, the system required achievement on standardized tests, which many gifted children were reluctant to jump through the hoops to do. 

We had biases that separated students by race, and created an atmosphere of stereotypes and incorrect assumptions about what gifted children should look like, or act like. So, many of our racially diverse and English language learner students were left out of screeners and evaluations for eligibility. And those who were actually evaluated were at a distinct disadvantage due to cultural and vocabulary inequities that played out in the often verbal skills-based testing. Many school districts and schools did not allow consideration for the types of proof that many of the students could have otherwise provided, including portfolios and the use of multiple criteria. 

We also had many twice exceptional students, with both gifted traits and learning disabilities, stuck sitting in special education classes or otherwise not identified for gifted services. And so, some of our most creative and hard-working gifted children were taught to think that they had deficits, rather than having their self-esteem built up around their strengths. We killed a lot of spirits during those years.

Even with all the talk from the government about identifying our most capable students, and supporting their achievement, they did not put their money where their mouth was. Students who were the most bright and innovative, often sat in overcrowded classrooms with teachers who lacked gifted education training. Many schools did not have basic materials, and teachers were expected to purchase all the things that they needed in the classroom other than textbooks and very few classroom supplies. There was a small federal tax write-off of $250 that teachers could claim towards a discount on their taxes in order to acknowledge their personal investment in their classrooms, but that never truly covered what they spent. 

With teaching one of the lower paid career options for graduates of four year degree programs, sometimes districts had to make exceptions for the minimum requirements for being a certified teacher. So, students often had teachers in front of them who had lower skills and abilities then they, themselves possessed.

Gifted children often entered school with the ability to remember and perform high above the average kindergarten entrance expectations. Yet, they were expected to sit in groups with similar-aged peers, rather than with their academic equals. Developmentally-appropriate pedagogy was put aside, and testing and test preparation were the focus, even at the ages when little bodies needed to move and play in order to best learn about their environment and academic concepts. Our gifted youngsters suffered greatly in those school formats, as they needed the chance to explore and experiment with their deeper thoughts and ideas. And even though some needed to work more on physical dexterity, like holding small objects, buttoning, holding pencils and big paint brushes, and practicing moving their different muscles, they rarely got recess or imaginative play time. And the gifted kids often needed social-emotional skills building practice, which comes most naturally from interactions with other children and adults, rather than sitting quietly in a desk following directions like what they had to do all day.

Unfortunately, gifted children were not formally evaluated or identified for giftedness until they were often six or seven years of age. This set them up by allowing them to acquire bad habits and behavioral issues during many of the most important developmental years. They sometimes were punished for normal gifted characteristics and needs when they became antsy from boredom or frustrated with the daily routines, and they were not challenged appropriately so many found school less and less interesting and created more and more distractions while the other kids learned skills that the gifted kids had already mastered.

It was a different age back then, my friends. And I am excited to stand here, discussing this as a history lesson so that you will take heed and not allow our education system to slide backwards again. The country has made huge gains in the way that we treat our gifted students and the way we value education.

I am also excited to be standing here virtually, as you receive this message on your newer technology, that I probably could not explain if I tried. We are moving forward as a society and making leaps and bounds in new technologies because of our students' comfort with innovation and risk-taking from our new school structure. The gains we have made as a society in education have led to the creation of amazing leaders who spearheaded astounding discoveries and interventions that have made our lives amazingly better. People do not die from the same diseases they used to die from, as our hospitals and our medical experts have made leaps and bounds in pursuing cures and preventative medicines that have allowed people to live much healthier lives and live longer. Our graduates from our educational system have become governmental leaders in the world with compassion and integrity, and war is not the normal way of living in most countries due to the involvement of our gifted learners in worldwide discussions and negotiations. 

Back in the early 2000's, We had discussions on a regular basis about how humans were killing the planet. And yet, in the year 2070, we do not have to have those conversations as often anymore. Our scientists and our world organizations have found ways to work together with the business world, so that products are safely sourced and pollution is a thing of the past. Much of these improvements stem from the educational overhaul that occurred mid-century, and has led to interest-based, multi age, integrated and inclusive policies and procedures in every classroom across the nation. These changes led to collaboration, cooperation, respect, and acknowledgment of the differences in every child, and encouraging and inspiring every child to find excitement and learning that helped them all reach for their goals. This was not always the way education, teachers, or students were treated in the past.

As graduates of your teaching program in 2070, you now see it as the norm for children to have a range of options for educational services, and to have teachers who focus on the individual needs of every student they serve. Education is no longer based on a lecture format, but is hands-on and intended to be a constant discussion and inquiry into the world and concepts around them. Our gifted children are inspired and excited about learning in ways that support their innate talents and abilities, while also helping them achieve their goals. Labeling of students is no longer necessary, but is honestly used to identify possible needs that are not seen as negative traits anymore, but are seen as differences that add to the diversity of the classrooms where they meet to engage in collaborative activities. Learning happens around the clock now, rather than during school hours. And teachers are honored and respected, and the best and the brightest college students and experts in academic fields are honored to enter the teaching field.

I am happy to be nearing the last phase of my life, knowing that gifted children are no longer having to fight for their basic educational rights, and parents of gifted children do not have the struggles I had, and others I worked with had, while trying to obtain the services and support our children needed. 

And I have more faith in the human race because I have seen changes made that will ensure a stronger and safer planet and a world focused on humans working together to solve problems, that would not have been possible prior to the changes in education that now focus on interpersonal traits and educational opportunities for the best uses of those traits that were often seen as weaknesses in the past.

We still have room to grow, but we have come along way. That is why new educators of the future, such as yourselves, need to know how it used to be, so that it never slides back and becomes that way again. Our gifted students and their families of the future are counting on you. And I am confident in your training and your experience practicing that training in the classrooms, so that I know you will meet and exceed my expectations. Good luck, and thank you for putting every child first, as the country should have done so many years ago.

There is nothing quite like seeing the eyes of an excited child light up and shoot sparks like a volcano erupting when they see something new and interesting for the first time. There also is nothing like the cool glares and silent treatment from a child who is tired of traveling and who wants nothing more than to push every button you have, until everyone in the vehicle is also just as miserable. Finding the balance between boring moments and thrilling ones is definitely the biggest challenge of traveling with a gifted child (or, if you are even more daring, multiple gifted children!)

Our family used to not travel much at all. We had four kids under 12 years of age, and just enough income to manage to stay afloat without adding the extra costs of travel. But then one of my friends took me by the hand and made me stare into his eyes, as he told me to travel as often as possible, and to just make it happen. That no matter what sacrifices I had to make with the budget, I would regret not traveling while I was young enough to enjoy it, and while the kids were home and able to come too.

So, I took that advice to heart and saved up enough money to take everyone on a cruise to the Bahamas. It was definitely not cheap to take a family of 6 anywhere, but we made it happen and we had a wonderful time. That was about a dozen years ago, and since that time we have made it our goal to travel internationally at least once a year, and to travel throughout our state as often as possible. We have been all over the United States, up into Canada, down to Mexico, throughout the western Caribbean (with goals of seeing more of the Eastern side too,) and into Central America, all over Europe, and even to Iceland. It hasn’t been easy to balance the costs or the intensities of our children, but I’ve learned some tricks that I can share with you, so maybe you can do more traveling too.

1.       USE YOUR OWN CREATIVITY SKILLS TO MAKE IT HAPPEN, TOGETHER
First of all, you have to just make the trip really happen. There’s never a perfect time to take a big trip, so you have to just take the leap and schedule it and then make it work. You may have to take time off work, or let the kids skip school for a week if you want to take the trip during the off-season to cut costs. You may miss the kids’ karate or soccer or painting classes. You might have to take that cranky teenager before he grows out of his “disliking everything” stage.  You might need to pull some strings to find the right pet sitter, or someone to check on grandma. But once you put it on the calendar and take the first substantial step towards booking something, you are committed and everything eventually can (and will) fall in line.

​This may be a fun thing to problem-solve as a family, and the trip location could be based on something that your children are studying, (such as we once took a weekend trip to Washington DC and Philadelphia while our daughter was studying civics and US history, so as to make the events and locations she was reading about seem more realistic… really, only because we got $40 flights…!) But even if your child/ren are not excited at first, you can read about interesting things to do wherever you decide to journey, and get excited together as you anticipate seeing and doing them.
 
When we plan our trips, we take our first step usually by finding a great deal on airplane tickets or a sale requiring smaller deposits for a cruise. We pay the initial amount (or a deposit that then allows us to pay installments over time until the event date,) and then we figure we can work out the other details as we go. If we need hotel rooms and rental cars, we book one night of the trip at a time each time we get a paycheck and can spare a little. If it’s a cruise and we need to plan excursions, we spend a little at a time throughout the year, picking things to add to the experience, or saving up for nice meals in each location, etc. It’s important to not feel overwhelmed by the expenses, so you can focus more on the actual trip details so as to plan the best trip possible for your unique family. But every trip is going to cost money, so just bite the bullet and make it work. Once you make it a priority, you can make it happen.
 
Some people argue that there are families that just cannot make a trip happen because they can barely pay their bills. However, I believe that when there is a will, there is a way. If you can’t make an international trip happen this year, start small. Make it a trip to an in-state location where you can spend a night at a campground and swim in a lake or go hiking up a mountain, or spend a couple days at the beach. Or perhaps join a church group or local nonprofit that needs help with building houses or teaching English to children, or find someone you know who has contacts in another region who might allow you to crash on their couch/floor for a night or two. There’s ways to make this happen if you want it badly enough, even when you really don’t think it’s within your financial reach.
 
In fact, the whole family can help with the finance plans- set family goals for saving money at the grocery store, clip coupons, give up that latte or late night snack, have kids do chores to save up for their own spending money for the trip, etc. All in all, the most important part of any trip to anywhere is to actually book it and make it happen. And I’ve found that by having a big trip to look forward to every year, our family has something fun to discuss and think about together other than just the daily stuff that can weigh us down at times.
 
2.       GIVE THE KIDS EACH A JOB
Once the trip is planned and you are ready to finally go, divvy up some of the responsibilities. Intense kids prefer to feel like they have some control over the things that happen in their lives, and feel much more comfortable about travel when they know they are helping with something. When the kids have some say in what they get to do during the trip, they are less likely to complain about the time in the car or on the plane, and much more excited about engaging with the location when you get there.
 
·         Maybe they can be in charge of planning one of the days’ adventures;
·         Perhaps they are good at organizing and can figure out how to get all the things you need into the few little bags you are trying to use to avoid extra luggage charges.
·         It’s likely that not everyone in the family will enjoy the same things, but if you want to see a museum and the kids don’t really want to, maybe find out what locals enjoy eating, and put a stop at the local sweets store into the schedule…
·         Or if they don’t like sightseeing, make them in charge of the games you can play such as scavenger hunts at science museums or art shows, or license plate hunts along the roads.
·         Maybe they can be the tour guide and research the location before you go, and then tell everyone about what you are seeing when you arrive.
​

It doesn’t take much to delegate some of the tasks, and makes everyone’s lives easier when there is less complaining from the back seat!

3.       ALLOW FOR DOWN TIME, AND EAT!
The most exciting trip becomes work when your body is too exhausted to enjoy it. Everyone falls apart when they are tired or hungry. Expect those moments and plan ahead by packing some food to dole out when people start getting snippy. Intense kids are great at pushing all our buttons when they are grumpy, and the first sign that someone’s body needs a break is usually someone starting to complain or cry or just drag their feet. At that moment, pull out a snack and find the best opportunity for sitting down for a little break. I’ve found that the best trips are those where we go strong for the first day or two, but we pepper in several rest stops where we can all zone out and nap or watch a TV show, or play games or read stuff on our phones. Then by the third day or so, we need some real rest time. That’s the day when we just know we aren’t going to make it anywhere really early in the morning and we need to just sleep in a little and take it slow.
 
Find your family’s cadence and plan for it. If you aren’t sure yet what each family member’s pace will be, build a lot of flexibility into your trips until you know that better. And don’t hold it against each other when you fall apart. Just eat something, relax, and regroup later. Don’t plan on finding the perfect snack when someone falls apart either- just have something with you. When we travel internationally, we find food as soon as possible when we get off the plane, and pocket a few little things like crackers or cookies or chips so we can pull them out later when we need to eat something. We’ve also found that if we bring or buy sandwich items that don’t need refrigeration, such as peanut butter and honey, we can make sandwiches in between meals, and even save a lot of money by not having to purchase 3 meals a day. We’ve eaten a lot of sandwiches on our trips, but there’s something comforting about having that option and not having to stress finding snacks, especially when the gifted 11-year-old is having a meltdown.
 
4.       MAKE MEMORIES AND KEEP THEM
It’s hard to imagine ever forgetting the fun things you do on your trips, but with all the things that gifted people pack into their brains, it actually will happen. There will come a time when the funny things you said along the hiking trail, or the cool sights you saw while kayaking at the beach fade from your minds. So, it’s important to find ways to preserve the memories. I am a huge fan of the “notes” option in my smartphone, where I can talk into it to record little sayings and thoughts along the route, and then go back to them later to remember the fun stuff.

I also enjoy having a built-in camera in my phone, which actually takes decent photographs. I end up being the family photographer more often than I sometimes like, (I am not always in photos unless they are selfies! An issue I’ve whined about to my husband enough that he is now actually taking more pictures too…!) But those photos come in handy at the end of the trip, when I organize them into photo book layouts online and weeks later we celebrate our trip and all the memories all over again, when the book comes in the mail. Years after our trips, we still pull those photo books out and talk about our adventures. Sometimes I get the kids to help me write the short stories that go with the photos, and sometimes I write them to get it done quickly. But there are so many ways you can make memories and keep them, that I wouldn’t feel I did this topic justice without mentioning this important part.

You can create blogs, write letters, send yourselves postcards, and so forth. Whatever you do, do something to commemorate this important part of your lives.

All in all, traveling with intense children can be a challenge, and making trips happen in the midst of all the stuff we pack into our intense lives can seem almost impossible. But by making it a priority to travel and see as much of the world as you can, you will create the memories that make your family feel closer and give you things to talk about for years. By involving your gifted kid/s in the process, they will feel even more intimately connected to the goals of the trip and take pride in the successes. The memories are worth the hassle- just make it happen!
 

​This blog post is part of the Hoagies Gifted Education Blog Hop. You can find other articles on the topic of traveling with intense gifted children by going to this link:
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/blog_hop_traveling_with_gifted_kids.htm

​
 

When the movie "gifted" came out, the public relations office for the film reached out to all the gifted organizations and offered us free tickets to the screenings; they checked in to make sure we would attend and they were happy to hear how much we loved it. From Day One, we felt invited and involved. So, it made sense that we blogged about it and raved about how great it represented gifted children. 
 
But months before, another even more ground breaking movie about gifted children hit the box offices- a movie called Hidden Figures, about another brilliant girl, also named Mary (like the little girl in the "gifted" movie,) about how she and her friends grew up to be mathematicians in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). And not only were they gifted, and amazingly were identified for their talents and supported as they grew up into uniquely high achieving women, but they were from a traditionally under-identified and certainly under-served racial background- they were Black. 
 
I finally got to see this movie. I didn't rush as fast to the theater when this came out because I normally don't like to pay for movies and I hate sitting in theaters without a remote control in my hand to turn down the loud volume as needed... But I did race to see the movie "gifted," because they gave me free tickets and because other gifted advocates had raved about it, which definitely changed my attitude enough to get me to go see it. But watching Hidden Figures tonight gave me a sick feeling in my stomach because of my awareness of the fact that I should have raced to see this one too. It is a movie that really deserved more hype in the field of gifted education than we gave it, and I am guilty of not giving it that initial attention. Luckily the movie got lots of accolades from the general population, so it may not have harmed the movie to not be so hyped by our smaller population of gifted advocates. But while many people focused on the issue of females, and particularly Black females, being allowed to work at NASA and actually being some of the most important brains behind our journeys into space, we could have been honoring it for something special... what wasn't focused on enough, was that these were gifted girls who grew up to rock the world, and this movie really did highlight their giftedness too. 
 
These women faced hardships as women, but even the white women in their office buildings and careers often treated them less than friendly. They overcame their gifted differences as small children, finding somewhere that they could fit in and excel while not being just like the other children their ages. Then they made it through the challenges of high level academics (at least one being the first Black woman in her university, as well as fighting their way up the class ranks,) then into important jobs with NASA and working there each day, while fighting the biases and prejudice of the 1960s. 
 
These women could not even go to work without having extra challenges of not having "colored" bathrooms nearby, or white men disrespecting them. Then, they had to go home and do all the parenting things that wives back then had to do (and one was even a widow...) They were role models for their own smart daughters and leaders in the civil rights cause by being role models to all of the other NASA employees and the people in their community.
 
They weren't allowed to access the books they needed or to enter certain places  in public buildings. They sat in the back of the buses and court rooms, and watched their steps, but yet they quietly challenged the status quo with their work and their questions amongst themselves, as they tried to figure out how to get the information they needed to keep up with the changing technologies and even help other Black women learn those necessary skills.
 
And throughout the movie, their gifted traits shine through. They used quick wit as they lightened the mood with their social events in between the harshness of their jobs. They worried about things- even more so than women may stress similar high level jobs, because one wrong step back then and the whites might cut their employment short. And even with all of these challenges, they still continued to question the fairness of the world around them and push back, subtly, against the "way things always have been." 
 
As we revel in the fact that giftedness is finally being highlighted in the movies, we need to give this movie the proper recognition it deserves. Hidden Figures is a wonderful movie about a few gifted girls and the futures they made for themselves against huge odds and a world in the midst of so many changes. If we don't hold this movie close to our hearts, and even hold it up higher due to the way it represents the true frontier in gifted education- that of identifying and serving ALL gifted children, not only those from the races that have stereotypically been given advantages and support, then we are still missing the most important point.
 
It is ironic that there are girls in both the "gifted" movie and "Hidden Figures" named Mary, and that both are talented mathematically... And that the talented Octavia Spencer is in both.... Yet, the similarities don't end there, and the differences are just getting started. We still have so much work to do.

I hope you will enjoy this movie as much as I did, and watch it with your children. It's beyond time for us to give all of our diverse gifted learners the support they need to excel. If NASA could do so in the 1960s, what is the excuse for our schools not doing so now in the 2000s?
 

The author's buddy, Katniss

What do you get when you put me in a dark room with a movie about a gifted six year old, foster care, legal issues, and a cat named Fred? Tears. That's what you get. So many tears that even my ridiculous cold and occasional coughs in the echoey theater couldn't hide the fact that it wasn't just my cold, and I was really bawling like a baby throughout most of the movie. They had me from just about the first line and I was sniffling throughout until the closing credits.

This movie called, "gifted" (notice there's no capital letter... That's another awesome thing about it...) had me from hello. And I have not stopped thinking about it since. It's not like me to rave about movies. And I didn't even want to like this one. So many people try to cash in on the "genius" thing- there are television shows and articles in the news about prodigies all the time. The more weird they are, the more interesting they are to the masses. But I work hard for the kids who are way less obviously brilliant. The ones who aren't even always achievers at all- the ones who may be behavioral problems or failing. And the ones who are so unsure about where they fit in, that they just don't even try.

So liking a movie that had a trailer about a math prodigy did not seem to fit my style. But then I read a couple reviews from my fellow gifted education and psychology gurus. They said it wouldn't be like the trailer implied. That, yes, there were some stereotype things, like the pushy grandma and the math prodigy issue. But the rest of it would make up for it. So I went to that theater when the public relations lady offered our gifted association board free tickets (and then when we asked, our members too.) And I sat in that rocking theater seat with so many feelings in my head- I wanted to love it, but I didn't want to expect too much. I wanted my 11 year old daughter to love it too, but didn't want to confuse her about her own giftedness if it wasn't on-point. 

And then the movie started and I fell in love with the three main characters. And even more accurately, I fell in love with Fred, the cat who stole the show.

It isn't every day that a movie not only hits the nail on the head about gifted characteristics and needs, but this one focused a lot on something that has defined our gifted household for many years- our love and interactions with our pets. You see, being gifted makes it hard sometimes to find close friendships with other people. There are some amazing friendships out there, but even those let you down. So in the end, if you love a cat or a dog, or maybe even a guinea pig, you hold that special friendship up even higher than some of the relationships you have with other humans. And in this movie, Fred was more than a cat- he was their best friend. Barely a scene went by without Fred being featured in it. And as a fellow cat lover, who doesn't go anywhere without whining about missing my kitty, Katniss... Or even taking her along with me on the boat or wherever I manage to haul her to, I understood that relationship so much. I loved that cat right alongside those characters. That was so much more real to me than just about anything that's ever been written about gifted people so far. I loved every bit of those parts of the movie.

I am excited to return to the theater to see it again, and to have my husband come this time too. And to encourage all my friends to see it. You will love it. You will love the kid... (you will love the cat...!) And I think you will understand some of the nuances of what it's like to raise a child who has amazing potential, and yet so many intensities and emotional struggles, and to feel responsible for them to not get too messed up while they are in our care.

Up until now, my favorite movies about gifted kids were The Incredibles, and Matilda. So it's not too much of a stretch for me to forgive this writer for making the main character do math really, really well (better than most gifted kids could ever do...) because I forgave those other ones for pure magic. This kid's arms don't stretch, she can't run with superhuman speed or disappear or turn into a fireball. She can't even move things with her mind. But she does math. And other than that, she does giftedness really well. She is just a kid with a different way of experiencing the world. And the family members are too. 

You will end up loving them all. I really think you will. Especially if you are someone who has been reading my blog and putting up with me and my crazy life all this time. So go soon, bring everyone you know, and see it often so it can get the ratings it deserves. And when you go, please wave to my buddy Fred. You'll know what I mean about him making this movie even more special than it would've been without him in it.

Happy movie watching!

You may think this article is about helicopter parenting... Which it isn't... It's kind of the anti-thesis of the helicopter parent. Or maybe it's a reminder of how hard it is to be one when you have a strong-willed gifted child who need more services than the school will grant her when she most needs them.
 
All I know is that one day my thirteen-year-old daughter was considered gifted in Washington State, and the next day we moved to Florida and she wasn't gifted anymore. 
 
In order to help her access the support services that I hoped Florida had for her, that might help her focus her energies and settle into the new educational system with the support she needed, I set about trying to figure out the process for getting her evaluated for gifted services. Little did I know, I was setting us all up for failure. First, because the Florida gifted identification rule is archaic and ridiculous (requiring a high score on an IQ test, above all else), and secondly, because I was dealing with a gifted thirteen-year-old, which meant everything was going to be a struggle, anyway.
 
"I'm filling out the papers to get you gifted services at your new school," I told her.
 
"Don't bother," she said. "I don't want those classes."
 
"It's not about the classes, it's about making sure your teachers can support your needs," I insisted.
 
"They can't," she said, then she left the room. A typically-long conversation, (if you don't count the tantrums she threw once in a while when I told her she couldn't do something she wanted to do...)
 
So, I turned in the forms at the school anyway, and waited. And I naively figured that the copy of all her test scores from Washington State and her proof of gifted services there, would show the gifted education department that she was qualified. But no, they called and told me it was the state law that she had to be tested. She had to do an IQ test. Her old test scores were too old and not the right kinds.
 
"You have to take an IQ test this week," I told her that morning.
 
"No," she said, with her pleasant and cheerful morning self.... (I'm being generous, I don't think she even did more than a real grunt.)
 
"Yes, they said it's the law for identifying gifted kids here. So, they are going to call you in to the office to take the test sometime this week."
 
"It better not be during lunch. That's the only time that school doesn't suck," she said, this time in English instead of grunts.
 
"Maybe you would be happier at school if you got gifted services. Remember all the nice kids you met in Washington when you were in the gifted program? You said they were interesting and fun, and that you loved those teachers and those classes..."
 
She stared at me like I was dumb. "Florida gifted classes are for weird kids. And they still suck. All the people I know who took gifted classes here before, told me you just have more homework. That you work faster and you still hate school. So, they all dropped out and aren't gifted anymore either."
 
"I don't know why you won't just give it a chance. Just go do the best you can on the test and then at least you can decide later about the classes," I said. And for some reason, I thought that conversation solved it, and she would take the test.
 
I was right, on one hand... She did take the test. However, I got an interesting phone call-
 
"Ms. Casper?"
 
"Yes, this is."
 
"This is (so and so) from the school, and I tested your daughter, Miranda today for the gifted program," the lady's voice sounded a little strained, like she had bad news. 
 
"Yes, thank you for doing that," I replied.
 
"Well, she did not score very high," she told me. 
 
"That's odd," I said, "what happened?"
 
"Funny you should phrase it that way," she paused, "because she was doing well at first, but when the lunch bell rang, she started answering each question with only one word."
 
"One word?" I didn't really understand her statement. Was one word answers an issue? What if they were right answers? Maybe that lady didn't understand gifted kids...
 
"Yes, one word," she said firmly, "Your daughter would only say the word helicopter." 
 
I almost laughed out loud, and then remembered how I had insisted Miranda do her best. Apparently, she won this round- she said she would not do the test during lunch. She made her point.
 
"So, she started answering everything with the word helicopter, and you continued to test her? You actually scored that test?" I was amazed.
 
"Yes, ma'am, I did complete it because we have to test a lot of students and I'm required to get a score for each. If you disagree with the score, you can have her re-tested."
 
I was even more amazed. "What was the score, may I ask? The score for the amazing helicopter student?"
 
The lady seemed to fumble with a piece of paper, and then said, "she received a 90. The passing score for the gifted program is 130. She is in the bottom of the normal range for IQ scores. I'm very sorry she did not qualify."
 
I started laughing at that point. I managed as best I could to thank her, and let her know I did expect we would re-test her. But I was amazed anyone would bother scoring that test. I couldn't wait to talk with little miss Miranda that afternoon.
 
When she walked in the door, I was waiting. "I got your gifted test results," I told her.
 
She almost smiled. "Yeah?"
 
"Yeah," I nodded. "They said you may qualify for special classes after all."
 
"Are you serious?" She choked. "I didn't think they would actually score that test."
 
I nodded solemnly. "They did, and your score was so low that they said you are at the bottom of the normal range, and I think with your other achievement score data it shows a huge gap, which likely qualifies you for special education classes. I will be going to the school to find out what services you need. I'm very sorry I've been so unaware of the challenges you've been dealing with all these years."
 
"What?!" She almost screamed. "I don't need special education classes! Mom, really, I don't. I just didn't want to take the dumb test! I stopped doing a good job halfway through. They were making me stay in for lunch!"
 
I couldn't keep a straight face. It felt somehow satisfying to see her get worried. "What were you thinking?" I asked, trying to keep my own composure. "Now they think you are not only NOT in need of gifted classes, but that you are even less bright than your peers. That makes me look silly for insisting you need gifted services." I stared at her face, with her mouth dropped open and a look of horror on her face. "Look, I don't care if you get the label of gifted. I don't even care what classes you take. But I do want you to have the social emotional support and teachers who understand you that gifted labels are supposed to come with. And if you won't take that dumb test, I can't help you access those things."
 
She closed her mouth and the. shrugged her shoulders, "I'm fine, Mom. Really. And I refuse to be labeled with anything that makes my friends think I'm weird. You can keep making me take that test, and I will keep bombing it. Just let me do regular classes, please."
 
I spent more weeks bugging her about taking the test, and at one point I even had the evaluator try testing her again. Her score came up to a little above 100, but again, the tester admitted she could tell Miranda was not trying to give good answers. She wanted to go back to class. She said she didn't want to be gifted anymore.
 
My child who had formally maxed out every achievement test, including the CogAt and other gifted screeners, and who had been in gifted education classes, including a full time gifted classroom for several of her elementary school years, was now in the general education pool and she insisted on staying there. She had no social emotional support, and she struggled almost daily with clashes with other students and even teachers. Her chaos at school spilled over into our home life, and we had huge yelling fits from her when she refused to do her "boring" and "stupid" school work. Her teachers called us often, to tell us how she was argumentative in class, and how she was hanging out with kids who were trouble. And she even ran away a few times to hang out with boys she wasn't allowed to be with. We spent her entire teen years in crisis, even as she consistently achieved on tests and even was able to eventually access some accelerated content. She failed PE because she refused to dress down, and we had phone calls constantly about her attitude. She still consistently told me how dumb I was for wanting her to get more support for all the things that made her feel the need to fight within herself and to fight with everyone else. But she insisted she knew what was best, and that she didn't need our help.
 
We moved back to Washington where she was immediately placed in gifted education and high level classes and we watched her start to achieve again. She had a support network around her and she soared. She ran for student government and won, she started clubs about anti-bullying, and she had tons of friends who also were doing amazing things. She was placed in the dual enrollment (Running Start) program, and she graduated from high school with almost two years of college credits. It was like I had a totally different child.
 
I have since raised all of my four kids, and what I learned from raising Miranda, specifically, was that you can't force teens to do much and so it is very important that we establish whatever support systems our kids need, way before they are thirteen years old. Early gifted identification is critical, so our kids can be surrounded with support from a young age and when they hit those middle school and teen years, they have a network of people to help them, and they have more understanding of what they need. 
 
It's also critical that we not make children "prove" they are gifted once they have been identified. Giftedness does not wear off or wash out like sand after a day at the beach. It is who these kids are, and how they think and process information. And it is what makes them even harder to identify through testing as they get more independent and less likely to do what we say. By allowing Miranda to keep her gifted label in Washington, we were able to enroll her in classes without the topic of her giftedness being more than a guide for the district- she was given classes with gifted trained educators, but she wasn't forced to decide if she needed them. It was never a topic of any arguments, and she loved those classes, mostly due to the teachers understanding her and not making everything a power struggle. They worked with the gifted kids, and did not make them into delinquents because they didn't understand giftedness.
 
I can't go back and find better ways to get Miranda support as a middle schooler now. Luckily, she is an amazing twenty-one year old now with her own family and is doing well in her career. But I was able to do something that hopefully will help other kids like her- I returned to Florida after a while, and I was hired to be the Florida gifted education specialist for the Florida Department of Education, where I worked with the special education office to amend the rule that required my little Miranda and others like her, to be re-tested when they came into the state. 
 
Now, whenever a student comes into Florida and has proof of gifted identification in another state, they are automatically assumed to be gifted here. They don't have to submit to testing that makes them question their giftedness; they don't have to miss lunch; and they can be put in appropriate classes immediately, rather than being put in with students and teachers who may not understand or support their need for gifted services. Essentially, in other words, not making it a choice, but making it a normal occurrence at the beginning of their course selections, taking the power struggle with the schools and even the students, like Miranda, out of the equation. 
 
We have tons of students who enter our state each year who come from other gifted programs throughout the country and even the world. And we have special situations with students who are children of military soldiers who are entitled by law to similar educational experiences when they have to move. No child should be told when they come to Florida, just because they don't jump through our IQ test hoops well, that they aren't gifted anymore. It's presumptuous of us as representatives for any school system, to decide who is and who isn't gifted based on just one IQ score, when gifted is not something that anyone can easily box up and sell anyway. Gifted students have a multitude of characteristics and needs and every child should be supported, no matter what needs they have. We should not be in the business of trying to screen kids OUT of special services, if they already were identified as needing them in order to achieve. 
 
This new rule change will shake up the way gifted students are treated here, and gifted services in Florida will have to change from being a "program" that the kids have to fit into (as it is now with only high achieving testers qualifying for spots in "gifted classes",) to a range of services that fit the individual needs of kids who are coming from so many different places where the label of giftedness may include multiple qualifying characteristics. It's a start to move gifted services in the right direction, and I'm so proud of being a part of the committee that made this possible for so many kids to have less gate-keeping standing in their way to get services. It's the least I could do to fix what almost broke my own child, so others won't encounter that when they come to the sunshine state.
 
Perhaps the end of the days of scoring helicopter test answers is getting closer. Although I am impressed with Miranda's choice test answer word- helicopters are pretty cool machines. They are the most versatile flying machines out there, and they can get you where you need to go, even when the terrain is rocky. Our gifted kids don't have helicopters to maneuver all their challenges, and we can't get them where they need to be by hovering over them, but we should at least be able to get them the support they are entitled to so they can launch into their futures with less of a fight. My kid gave me plenty of fight, but because of her and all her challenges that came from not having access to services that motivated me, more gifted kids will have smoother entries into Florida.
 

When you were young and the teacher let your classmates chose groups to work with, and you were fought over because they knew you would do more than your share of the work... Or when you got your first job and they gave you extra hours because you always cleaned up after everyone and did more than what was expected of you... Or when you got married and realized that your new spouse expected you to not only take care of everything, but be the brains of the marital operation too... Or when the PTA needed your help, or the nonprofit board of directors immediately put you in as president-elect, or the part time job was really ending up to be a full time job that was half volunteer work, or the neighborhood association liked your ideas so much they put you in charge...

The list goes on and on, doesn't it? When people realize your special talent for balancing time and resources, or the way creative ideas just flow into your mind, or the way you hate leaving a mess and have an eye for organization or the ways ideas go together.... They grab you and don't want to let go. Let's face it- giftedness is a blessing and a curse. People may not always understand you or even want to befriend you, but they sure appreciate when you can get stuff done.

And then there are the people who do want to be your friend because they know you are someone who is competent, or they think you've got it "all figured out." The ones who invite you to their events, tell you how amazing you are, and then try to fit you into their molds so you can help them figure it out too. But there are only so many things you can talk about or do together before your quirky gifted side comes out, and they realize it's more work to try to contain you in their world than to just let you go. And you end up feeling drained from trying to help people who really have nothing to give you in return. Friendships with true gifted peers become even more priceless, but often are difficult to find. So life is a lot of making do with people who try to make friendships work, and a lot of loneliness.

It isn't a bad thing to be useful, but when the idea of helping others with their hundreds of requests is combined with all the things you need or want to do, plus all the gifted traits that make you intense- like perfectionism, anxiety, a need to solve the world's problems, obsessions and unique interests, and a penchant for asking more questions than there are answers... This all combines to make for a perfect storm, unless you can figure out how to say no, and to limit your commitments.

It's ok to flat-out say you can't do something. The world won't end. And don't worry, you will find other ways to fill your time. Probably more interesting things. And those people you don't want to let down, they will move on to try to find someone else to use if you won't do their work. The ones who are true friends will understand, and they will come back to check on you regardless. It's the ones who tell you that they can see you don't fit their mold of what they wanted you to be, anyway, and that they don't need you after all, that you should be happy are leaving your inner circle. By not allowing people to just use you as their worker bee, you can better screen your friendships. Because, for some reason, gifted people have a hard time discriminating between real friends and those who just want them for their skills.

That goes for deeper relationships too. There are many love situations built on trying to make the other person be someone you want them to be. It works both ways, but gifted people can become "projects" of others, even in marriages. And that shiny gifted mind can seem like pyrite to someone who has no real understanding of what it's worth. If you are with someone who doesn't respect or honor the amazing things you bring to the relationship, and return just as much value to your life, perhaps you got yourself into a long term commitment with someone who just wanted a piece of you, too.

It's hard to initially know when being a deep thinker and a hard worker is truly valued, and when it is not. So it's more important that gifted adults focus on what THEY need. Those projects that others need help with may actually help you too. Is it a resume builder? Does it add emotional strength to your world? Maybe the hard work will teach you skills you need for another part of your life. Maybe you don't mind smiling at someone who is a jerk to you, when you know that relationship will lead you to a promotion or a networking opportunity. Maybe the benefits outweigh the knowledge that you are being used. If any of those things are the case, then all the power to ya. But if you can't even come up with something that far-flung, then get out of there.

We only have so much to give, so many hours to live, and time is more valuable than gold. Gifted minds are a valuable commodity, so unless the situation helps you personally, if someone just wants to take and take and take, at some point we have to reassess and then move on. We have to get feisty and stick up for ourselves. Because, like when Robert DeNiro asked, "do you wanna piece of me," often the answer is yes, and it's a slippery slope before you have to fight for your own sanity.



This article is part of Hoagies Gifted Blog Hop. Please go to the Hoagies page to view other articles on topics related to Multipotentiality!
www.HoagiesGifted.org/blog_hop_multipotentiality.htm
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Empathy is the only human superpower - it can shrink distance, cut through 
social and power hierarchies, transcend differences, and provoke 
political and social change ~ Elizabeth Thomas



I don't just imagine the bad things that could happen to my loved ones... I live them. Every single tragic occurrence that I imagine could happen, plays out in my head and heart as if I am right there in the crosshairs of unbelievable horror or ecstasy. Like there is a whole other zone in my mind where I exist in virtual reality.

It happens on a regular basis- all of a sudden I am transported to a virtual world where the things I fear are really happening- When I worry that something may have happened to my teenaged daughter because she is late coming home from an event with friends, I am all of a sudden in another twilight zone, standing on the side of the road as I receive the horrible news of a child who wrecked a car and isn't coming home... 

When I warn my little ones to sit carefully in their car seats because they aren't being safe, I immediately feel the terror of the potential errant driver side-swiping the side of my car with my baby in the back seat as if I was right there while it happened in another life. 

When I think about how few years we have left with the older generation, and I think of how much I will miss having my mom someday, I am almost brought to tears by the emotions that overtake me and transport me to her funeral in my imagination, and the sadness surrounding the knowledge of her not being around anymore.

I have been to way too many funerals in my mind... And seen way too many horrific things happen- crashes, fires, poisonings, maimings, desertions, bombings, shootings... you name it, I've seen it. But luckily most of these things happen in my head, instead of in real life.

It's not just sad things, either. It's exciting things too- like imagining how it will be to have my next child on the graduation stage. Or meeting our new foster children. Or getting a new kitten. Or meeting someone and immediately knowing whether or not we will be close friends. 

Those happy feelings and being transported ahead in time in my mind make me anticipate events even more strongly. If someone questions why I'm jumping up and down and almost crying from the idea of something wonderful coming, it's because in my mind I'm already there and experiencing the joy, ahead of reality and it's amazing. 

I think of those occurrences as glimpses into a future that may or may not ever happen, but the glimpses are so emotionally engaging that for a minute I wonder if I am tapping into someone else's happiness or pain... Seeing something that has happened to someone else, somewhere else... Or if maybe I am doing what some researchers claim is reacting from the emotional experiences of my ancestors, that I am experiencing because it is coded in my DNA. (See http://discovermagazine.com/2013/may/13-grandmas-experiences-leave-epigenetic-mark-on-your-genes)

No matter what the origin of these glimpses, they have caused me to be extremely empathetic. I see not only the facts of a person's immediate situation when I read or hear about what is happening in their life, but I also sense their emotional response and I can predict (and experience my own emotional response based on that prediction,) what they will endure because of the facts and their emotional ties to the event. In other words, I can imagine how something may turn out for them, even before they experience it, because I've engaged in their hopes and fears and have seen their virtual reality movie playing in my mind before they get to that next step. All of the experiences from past events that I've experienced through my own life (or from reading about or hearing about or witnessing in person,) come flooding in and my mind puts them all together in (often worst-case type) scenarios. And I feel their anguish and their fright and their deep sadnesses before they even get there. 

People with this level of perception and empathy are also sometimes called empaths- meaning when a person's "perceptions and sensitivities allow them access to experience the feelings and sometimes thoughts and experiences of others."

And this is fitting, as one of the necessary skills one must possess for true empathy is being able to see what others are experiencing. As researchers have found, in order to empathize, one must have "the skill of "mind reading," meaning "an understanding of another's thoughts through careful observation of body language, vocal tone, facial expression, etc."(https://www.verywell.com/do-people-with-autism-lack-empathy-259887). Which also means that you must have a strong "theory of mind," meaning that you possess universal understandings, like knowing that when someone hides they are just not visible but they still exist, and unexpressed emotions may not be obvious to others, and not everyone likes and dislikes the same things we do, and that if you don't communicate something well, others may misunderstand. (https://www.verywell.com/can-children-with-autism-mind-read-259891). 

Not everyone has the ability to understand even the basic truisms in these theories of mind that many learn before kindergarten. People with autism often struggle to understand other people's motivations and interests, and some people have other conditions that limit their abilities to understand or connect with the thoughts and experiences of others.  When someone has not only mastered their own theory of mind basics, but also has insight and deep empathy and awareness of others' situations and emotional responses, they connect with the world at a different level and that connection can be overwhelming.

I have had to learn to block some of those images, so as to not hinder my real life too much. It's difficult to not react intensely to the images that briefly overtake my heart and mind at times, but I would seem like an emotional disaster if people who don't know me well had to watch me fall apart with every image or video that plays out in my head.

People see the world in different ways when they are thinking about the world around them. So I think others experience this type of connection to potential emotionally intense experiences in other ways than my realistic "glimpses" too. 

Temple Grandin, who became notorious for her journey growing up with autism and succeeding both as a university professor and for her expertise on livestock behavior, speaks about the way she sees the world in pictures: 
Here's how my brain works: It's like the search engine Google for images. If you say the word "love" to me, I'll surf the Internet inside my brain. Then, a series of images pops into my head. What I'll see, for example, is a picture of a mother horse with a foal, or I think of "Herbie the Lovebug," scenes from the movie Love Storyor the Beatles song, "Love, love, love..."
(From http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5628476)

Her ability to formulate connections between words that are spoken and the snapshots in her mind makes her effective in seeing connections between different concepts in abstract ways. Yet she said she first struggled to understand concepts such as being "nice," as she explained, "... If my mother told me to be 'nice' to someone, it was too vague for me to comprehend. But if she said that being nice meant delivering daffodils to a next-door neighbor, that I could understand." This did not mean she was not empathetic, as her work to make livestock animals more comfortable prior to slaughter shows she connects deeply with the ideas of compassion and helping others. In fact her ability to connect words in association with photos of prior events in her mind seems like it could be similar to the intensity of the videos of potential future events that pop up in mine. Which is one of the ways some people who have a diagnosis of autism, (and who are often stereotyped and misunderstood as not being empathetic,) are able to connect their understanding of their own feelings to actual emotional situations. It has been found that when people with autism have a hard time gauging others' feelings or showing empathy, it may be the result of a lack of skills rather than a lack of feeling. (https://www.verywell.com/do-people-with-autism-lack-empathy-259887). 

If showing empathy requires a mastery of certain skills, it seems reasonable that keeping empathy in check also requires certain skills.

I have to continue to fine tune my skills because I can feel flooded by these glimpses at times. I try not to be overbearing about safety concerns, while my heart feels as if it's breaking over the potential for death or destruction with one unfastened seatbelt or forgotten bicycle helmet. My son Nikolai once said, "when I was little, Mom wouldn't even let us out of the house without goggles and knee pads!" He was exaggerating, but I still smile at his recognition of my anxiety about bad things happening to him. My children are my world, and I have seen the devastation of losing them play out in my head thousands of times. I have to try my best to keep them safe without smothering them.

And whenever something happens to someone else's child (while they are young or even grown,) I cry for them. To the point where people may question whether I was personally hurt too, because the pain keeps resurfacing whenever I think about that incident, even years later. When I was a child and the space shuttle, Challenger exploded, I cried for weeks and wrote about it extensively in my diary. I still could cry about it if I let myself go there in my memories. But that's a trick I've learned- I have to avoid the triggers for memory emotions as much as possible, because otherwise they would overwhelm the day to day emotions I already experience. There are so many awful things that have happened since the Challenger explosion, so they each get tucked away after I've cried about each one. And then I use the coping skills I've discovered from each instance, in order to grow and become not only more strong regarding masking the pain they cause me, but also more fine-tuned to the feelings of people going through hard times. My empathy skills grow with each sadness I encounter, be it my own personal losses or those of others in our world community. 

I use those understandings in order to sympathize, but more importantly I feel a duty to try to make a difference so that those horrible things don't keep happening. Just as Temple Grandin uses her photo recall in her mind to connect emotional concepts, I use my video library in my mind to connect upcoming events with past events, and potential dangers to present situations in my life. It can make me seem anxious. But that anxiety makes me behave carefully and to provoke careful behaviors from others and set up situations in ways that otherwise could provoke danger. 

This isn't a bad thing, in fact, researchers have connected high levels of general anxiety with high levels of intellect. In other words, people who are thinkers often think deeply about what could go wrong. As researchers from a SUNY study put it, "an anxious mind is a searching mind,”  meaning those who worry are constantly putting things from their environment together and analyzing them from different angles. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/9202935/Worrying-is-good-for-you-and-reflects-higher-IQ.html). This is one of the areas that clearly illustrates the meaning behind giftedness being both a blessing and a curse. Gifted people may be more anxious, but that anxiety may save them from having to experience some of the awful situations they envision happening if they didn't worry. Gifted empaths may not really know what the future holds, but we have seen enough to make some pretty accurate conclusions about what could happen in certain scenarios. 

Other researchers have found that those with high levels of anxiety also may have higher levels of sentinel intelligence, meaning they are able to better see things that others don't. They can focus on real threats even while bombarded with other distractions, so this is a trait that is desirable for the preservation of the species (http://portal.idc.ac.il/he/schools/psychology/homepage/documents/tsachi-scared%20saviors.pdf), although it may not seem desirable to those who experience the actual anxiety!

It is more and more important that those of us who care so deeply and feel the pain of others so intensely, appropriately use our empathy skills, and that we not try to hide them, as tempting as it may be to do so at times. Recent research from the University of Michigan shows that college students’ self-reported empathy has declined since 1980, with an especially steep drop in the past 10 years (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-me-care/). It is interesting to note that this is "self-reported" empathy, because that in itself is questionable, as many young people may not want to admit how much they do empathize. Or perhaps they may not truly understand what empathy means and all the ways it can be exhibited, such as with connections between words and action, or even photographs like Temple Grandin. 

Or perhaps it is as Sissela Bok coined the phrase, "compassion fatigue," saying that "Empathy and fellow feeling form the very basis of morality. The capacities for empathy, for feeling responsibility toward others, and for reaching out to help them can be stunted or undermined early on, depending on a child’s experiences in the home and neighborhood.” (http://godfatherpolitics.com/acquired-violence-immune-deficiency-and-compassion-fatigue/) Perhaps all the violence on television and video games and in the news have made our society less interested in engaging in empathetic feelings because we are exhausted already from all the sadness and horrors. I certainly am worn out by experiencing my empathetic reactions over and over again and sometimes I need to escape from the media world (and even social media, where others post their emotional reactions to the news and their own hardships as well.)

But if it is true that our culture is leaning towards a lack of empathy, it makes it even more important that people who do experience deep levels of empathy, fine-tune their coping skills and use their abilities for the better. Rather than turning within ourselves and avoiding social situations, we need to be activists and speak up about things we feel are dangerous or wrong, and embrace those around us who are suffering through the disasters and hardships we envision and fear through our anxieties. We need to talk about how much we feel the weight of the sad things that happen in our world, and point out the warning signs so we can have important discussions as fellow human beings. There are no easy answers, but the discussion may be the most important part because by sharing our emotional experiences with each other, we may share better coping mechanisms too. Instead of reacting out of fear and hiding behind violence or locked doors, we may bring our society closer to identifying the ways we are more alike than different, and walk through some of the scariest doors together.

It's up to us in the gifted community to decide whether to acknowledge the abilities of highly gifted and sensitive people to perceive so much about what is happening or could happen to others. We need to support the furtherance of research into the science coming from this field, rather than hinder it. And that we must start talking about it- "softly but out loud- and with each other..." (http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/newsletters/november-2015-gifted-empaths).

We have a lot more to learn about the human mind and the ways that intellect and empathy and danger-avoidance work together. But we do know that people who are gifted often feel a need to make a difference and to do things that truly matter while they are alive and able to contribute to society. It seems reasonable that this sense of care and altruism, combined with our need for justice and fairness, and our potential to be highly sensitive and perceptive and even anxious, can all combine into one amazing ball of passion and power if it is focused and directed well. 

My Joey was a handful as a young child. He was smart and had a wicked sense of humor that helped him entertain himself when life was boring. But that same sense of humor also meant I got phone calls from teachers almost every single day.

Some gifted kids have, as psychologist, Dr. Edward Amend says, “a different perspective, creative thinking, and a unique sense of humor,” and that sometimes can alienate children and create rifts between peers when it’s misunderstood (Amend, Characteristics of Gifted Children: A Closer Look). Sometimes that sense of humor may isolate them, but it also can help them become class clowns, which may get them in trouble, but they gain points with their classmates who may or may not be gifted if they freak out their teachers or parents along the way.

For example, once my son, Joey had a crush on the student teacher who was assigned to teach his class (I think it was when he was in 2nd grade…) This is normally not a big deal, as many kids develop crushes on pretty teachers, but Joey had a teenaged brother who must have egged him on in less appropriate ways. So, Joey didn’t just have a crush on the teacher, but he gave her notes that said things that were inappropriate to the point that the teacher felt she had to call me again and again- “Today Joey gave the student teacher a note with his phone number on it, saying to call him if she wants to go on a date.” “Today Joey gave the student teacher a note saying he wants to kiss her.” “Today Joey gave the student teacher a note saying he wants to buy her a thong bathing suit and take her to the beach.” Yeah, that was my son… using his brilliant mind to cause trouble. His friends thought he was hilarious. So did his big brother.

It didn’t end there. In middle school I got phone calls from the PE teacher on a regular basis. He was failing PE. How does one possibly fail PE? Well, both of my middle children (Joey and his older sister,) managed to do that because they thought it was funny. Joey didn’t want to wear shorts when it was cold. He didn’t want to run laps. He didn’t want to hula hoop. Whatever it was they were supposed to do, Joey refused. Not because it was hard to do, or because he really cared either way- but because he thought the PE teacher’s accent was hilarious and he loved making him mad and hearing him revert to that accent and call me all upset and then make Joey get on the phone with me in front of all of his friends. I got really sick of hearing from both of them that year. But my office mates laughed every time I got a call- they came to look forward to them too. Joey was not scoring points with his teachers, but he certainly was amusing people around him.

And then there was the time he wanted to get out of going to his next class in middle school, so he called the 911 emergency number from his teacher’s desk phone. He said he didn’t think it would really dial, since you have to first dial “9” to make calls from inside the school. But yeah, it went through. And Joey ended up at home for the rest of the week on suspension for that one. His friends loved getting to mess around in the field while the fire department checked out the school, and they thought he was some kind of brave hero when they found out he was the one who called. They thought it was hilarious. Joey won again.

And another call I received from a teacher during his middle school years was when he did something inappropriate in science class. They were supposed to be playing charades- each team could write down science words on slips of paper, and the other team had to act them out. Joey wrote “boner” on a piece of paper. His teacher read it and immediately called me. He spent a couple more days at home for that one. He acted mad that the teacher would be upset- he said it was totally a science word and she should’ve set better parameters for the game if she didn’t mean ANY science word. So of course he scored major popularity points with that scenario. (We still have that discipline referral form somewhere- it was a classic one, we all were impressed the teacher really wrote the word “boner”.)

The problem was that Joey had a great sense of adult humor. But he was a child. And in order to keep a sense of order and not expose other children to material considered “inappropriate” for that age group, teachers had to censor my kid on a regular basis. And MY problem was, I had to keep a straight face while I was lecturing my son to not do whatever dumb thing he was doing at the time. In reality, the things he did and his arguments about why he shouldn’t be in trouble for them were really silly. He usually had a good excuse or argument, or at least he found a funny loophole. His intellect caused him to always see the grey areas- the ways the teachers failed to set the rules to prevent his actions, or the weaknesses of the punishment that usually ended up being more pleasant than following the rules (like getting to stay home for several days under “suspension.”) He was clever, and he saw school days as game time- he saw boundaries and rules as challenges. Just as many gifted kids do.

I’ve heard of gifted kids who have had similar disciplinary issues in the schools from drawing pictures of violent things or playing violently with sticks on the playground. Again, these kids think it’s funny, and often they are playing out things they have heard about or seen on television. There are a lot of things that smart kids pick up on that other kids don’t even notice. They ask a ton of questions at young ages and they know how to research things on their cell phones and are exposed to ideas and themes that less literate kids may never encounter.

Do you know or have a child who has an inappropriate sense of humor? Or maybe humor that is mis-timed and words come out in ways they don’t mean it or are interpreted wrong? Are they sarcastic and people think they are rude? Or are they passive aggressive in ways they think are funny but just make people frustrated?

Gifted children are wise beyond their years and often are exposed to things that parents of other children and teachers and other adults may think are not age-appropriate. It’s hard to keep our kids from being exposed to adult content when they read at adult reading-levels, or they are enamored with shows for their main content, such as the medical theme of the television show, Grey’s Anatomy (that my ten-year-old daughter currently is obsessed with… she wants to be a doctor, and she loves the characters… it just so happens they have sex scenes in every episode and she now has heard about more adult medical issues than I ever knew about, even at 20!)

It’s almost impossible to keep our bright children from learning “inappropriate” things. Even cartoons have sexual innuendos… movies are full of violence… video games and the internet expose them to new concepts that lead to new questions and Google searches. We can’t protect them from the world, but we can do our best to keep them from making fools out of themselves in public. Although, as my children have shown me over and over again, there’s only so much we can control. If they decide to use their knowledge and their humor to be the class clowns, they will not only do so, but they will be so good at it that we will get a lot of teacher phone calls and hopefully they will manage not to get kicked out of class too many times.

I am a teacher, and I understand the need to keep order in school. I understand the need to not expose other kids to “bad” things that their parents will freak out about. But I also recognize humor and see when a child is pushing buttons to get their friends to laugh, to get attention from the teachers, and get out of having to do work. Joey was great at avoiding work- he got out of going to school for days at a time.

It wasn’t going to work to hassle my Joey into behaving. What worked best with him was having a teacher who would laugh and tease him right back. “Oh, you want to be silly? Well, then I will laugh with you for a minute, express to you why you can’t do that in my classroom, and then give you an outlet for humor.” They could make him the class announcer in the mornings… make him a school yearbook photographer… encourage him to join theater classes where he can make everyone laugh in a more appropriate forum. But don’t yell at him or freak out about his attempts to shock you, and then hope he won’t do it again. Because he will do it more and more… every, single time.

One danger of gifted children being funny and acting out in ways that cause them to get in trouble in school is that they could lose their formal “gifted” eligibility in some programs. Often districts and states identify children as gifted only if they are high performing in academics. Children who stand out as trouble-makers may not be identified for gifted evaluation at all, or even if they are, they may be held as ineligible for services if they have disciplinary issues. Luckily some districts have processes set up to find gifted troublemakers, such as Pinellas County, Florida’s school district where students with disciplinary issues are screened for gifted characteristics and needs on a regular basis (https://www.districtadministration.com/article/how-schools-maximize-gifted-talent). But many schools and districts do not serve kids who have behavioral issues that distract them from the highest academic performance. Think about all the kids you know who seem really smart, but who play around at school and don’t reach their potential. Many of those kids could be gifted and under-served or not even identified.

Let’s face it, gifted kids have enough social challenges in their lives- trying to find other kids who understand them; trying to sit still in classes that they find excruciatingly boring; working in groups with other kids who aren’t as intense or who approach learning in different ways… They often use humor to lighten the mood and to connect with others. We need to help them find outlets for the need to be silly or to take the pressure off for a moment with laughter.

There’s definitely better ways for kids to get attention than to have the whole fire department show up at the school, or to constantly have power struggles with teachers. But if they don’t have other outlets for their silliness, or they feel inappropriate humor is their key to being “cool” with their classmates then we will see this happen more and more.

What we need to ensure is that our silly gifted kids have challenging and interesting things to apply themselves to each day, and teachers who understand gifted traits and can see past the silly stuff in order to encourage and serve them even when the kids are doing their best to distract everyone with their jokes. When learning is highly engaging and suits the personalities and needs of the students, inappropriate humor falls by the wayside as the children’s energy is absorbed in more appropriate ways. This takes extra planning time in some cases, and teachers may have to stay on their toes in order to keep shifting the discussions and pushing the kids to think even deeper. But it also takes a lot of effort to deal with class clown behaviors that disrupt learning.
​
And, although I did like knowing what was going on at school when I got my daily phone calls about Joey’s actions, I would have rather not had all that drama. There are better ways for parents and teachers to communicate on a regular basis about our little clowns, (and I’m sure there would have been much more engaging topics to discuss than how entertaining my child was when he pulled the fire alarm or wanted to buy his teacher a fancy bikini… thanks for the memories, Joey!)
 
 

How to love a gifted person?

Just keep holding on. 

That's it. This article could end here and most gifted people I know would nod their heads and agree.

It sounds simple, but in order to keep a relationship with a gifted person, you must be willing to hold on in a way that some people are not strong enough to do. This means putting aside your own ego. It means being flexible and ready for adventures. And it means having a sense of humor even through the hardest of times.

Holding on to a gifted person that you love means holding on with a bungee cord. 

They will pull, and challenge every boundary. They will sometimes fight against being held, and some days when they seem somewhat content, they are still like lions pacing their cage. They will find so many ways to push all your buttons and challenge all of your beliefs. And sometimes they will need to fly away in order to be happy when they come back. So you have to let your love pull and twist and stretch across the chasms. And then pull them back again and again, rebounding back to love each other briefly and replenish their hearts before they are off again on a new adventure.

But as anyone who loves a gifted person knows, they can be so amazing at times that the great times are still worth all of the hardest parts. They love fiercely and are passionate about wonderful things that others may not even notice. They keep you entertained and challenged to the edge of what you think you are capable of. Then they will fight to the death for you, risk their lives for causes that matter to you both (and to the world), and then they will hold you so close you think your souls are one. Riding along on the emotional roller coaster with a loved one who is gifted is dizzying and may make your head spin, but your heart will almost burst from the highs. Hang on tightly- There's often no other choice!

Gifted people are constantly searching for their tribe, to the point of sometimes looking right through their best and closest support system as if they don't even notice you are there. Gifted people are seekers – they are not easily satisfied and will challenge those that care about them to "step it up" even another notch, and prove their love and commitment over and over again in little ways, as well as some big ones that might take your breath away. They will demand excellence and teach you to fly with them if you show you won't just fall. And if you hold on tight, you are worth more than anything they could ever find in their searches. Gifted people often are searching for other gifted people who are also searching for something, which means they are often lonely and even when they find someone or something they still end up left alone a lot. Gifted tribe mates are often on to the next challenge too, so when they finally think they've caught each other and life will be great, one of them decides they need something more novel and they are off again. Even when gifted people seem content, they are only in a temporary holding pattern. Gifted people do not always know how to hold on, so you have to hold on for both of you. 

If you are the friend or loved one of a gifted person, and you are gifted yourself, you may have to hold on even harder! You will see the same traits in each other at times, which are the same traits that make you hard to live with. But you may forge a bond that others will never understand, and sometimes you will not understand it either.

If you are not gifted, or you at least don't think you are, then you may be the calming and stoic partner that a gifted person needs to keep them grounded and feeling safe and loved. However, there will be times you will not understand each other and in order to get through those moments, you must both find grace in each other's attempts at problem-solving. That is when holding on becomes an act of love itself.

There is something to be said for surviving a hurricane or tornado. You may feel at times like you are trying to hang on to some kind of foundation while branches and cars are being tossed in your direction... gifted people know how to throw everything in the path of love, because they may not feel they deserve happiness or because they have had so many relationship challenges and let downs in the past that they don't even trust it. Or perhaps they just have so much going on in their busy and sometimes even chaotic lives that they don't realize the way others may interpret their behaviors negatively. And other times they may run away from anything that seems boring or stable, and reaching them is like grabbing at the wind in a storm. But relationships that make it through hardships are more solid than those that seem too easy. When people know each others' weaknesses and faults and still love each other fiercely, there's less that can surprise them and shake things up.

So how do you best love a gifted person? Like fire that burns swiftly and passionately when stoked, and then lays waiting and smoldering in embers when the wind blows too hard. Like the waves of the sea that ebb and flow with the tides. And like the sun that comes up again every single day. Loving a gifted person takes every element of your being sometimes. But if you think it is worth it, then the best game plan is just keep holding on.


​THIS ARTICLE IS A PART OF THE HOAGIES' GIFTED EDUCATION BLOG HOP FOR SEPTEMBER 2016.
YOU CAN FIND MORE HOAGIES' BLOG HOP ENTRIES AT http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/blog_hop_community.htm

If you spend any amount of time in Giftedland, (the universe where parents of asynchronous and intense gifted children and confused and overexciteable adults go to read about all the things that make them unique and frustrated and often very, very lonely,) you will read about how hard it is to find your "true peers," or in other words, people of our tribe... people who have similar traits and actually care about and get excited about the same types of things we do. 

There's talk about that unicorn of emotions- that almost mythical-seeming spark that happens and connects us immediately with someone to a depth and intensity that others may not comprehend and that you certainly don't expect, since it rarely happens and since when it does you feel so excited you don't even know what to do with what you've found or how to function so that you can somehow make sure that you don't ever have to go without the amazing rush that comes over you when you are together.

It's that electric jolt that throws you literally off your feet sometimes, with giddiness and amazement, and makes you want to get closer and closer and learn everything you can about this new and rare creature. It can make you do things you never imagined- give you strength and newfound self-confidence, and cause you to laugh uncontrollably or stay up for days at a time without sleep just so you can absorb everything about this other person and the connection you feel in your mind, through lengthy conversations with your new tribe mate or just staring at all wall trying to make sense of it all.

It has knocked me over when I least expected it, like seeing that spark in a new friend and connecting like lightning hit me during a hug in an elevator with someone who I never ever wanted to have to let go. It's grabbed me from across a room at a community gathering when my eyes saw someone I'd never seen before and I recognized the spark in theirs, and zapped me upside down and sideways while I was sitting back to back with someone in a restaurant whose spark had been driving me batty for years. Each one of these connections were a shock to my system In different ways. One of them made me literally unable to get out of bed for days while I pondered what to do with this new intense feeling. One had me risking my reputation and tore up my marriage and still never worked out as I hoped it might. And the other was the most incredible, but short, romance story that keeps me warm inside when I'm struggling to deal with real life and I replay it often in my head for selfish entertainment when I need it most. Each one made me richer. (And each one eventually broke my heart into a zillion little pieces.)

Some people who have never experienced this depth of connection may think I just explained "falling in love," because our culture uses those intense descriptions for that scenario- connecting with someone and never letting them go. But this isn't just a love scenario- this is much more than that. Yes, there are immediate feelings of awe and attraction, but as it has been explained by psychologists and researcher, (and I've said myself in those few instances,) it's a connection at so many levels that others may never even comprehend. It's like finding water after crawling in a desert for years. It's like believing in Santa and the Easter Bunny and World Peace and all those fantastical things all over again, like you find that every amazing emotion and possibility you ever dreamed about is standing right there in the flesh. And then you get to revel in it, if only for a brief time.

A brief time? Yes, unfortunately sometimes (perhaps even every time...) those intense connections are doomed to only occur for short periods of time, spread out across the vast landscape of a gifted person's life. There are several reasons for this, that it's important we recognize them so that we don't fall into a trap that many do fall into- the trap of disappointment, disillusionment, and overwhelming sadness when we expect them to last forever and then we eventually have to go back to real life and we can't take them with us.

Whether the connection is a friendship or a romantic relationship, or some kind of blend between the two that's about to blow up into a full fledged love and burn you both up with it like a dragon, each of these rare and special situations has their own challenges alongside the wonderful emotions that envelop you in the beginning. In other words, nothing is perfect, and nothing lasts forever.

Sometimes these true peers can't possibly be our everything. And sometimes they seem to be, and then they aren't (which can be worse.)

Time and Distance

All the reasons we have to search for information about ourselves and this elusive notion of what gifted even means, are because we realize we are so different than others. Statistically, if giftedness occurs in only 3-5 percent of the whole population, finding someone you fit with at this level is even more rare when you add in all the different intensities and social quirks and our individual obsessive interests. So it's amazing to actually find someone whose traits so closely match yours. And this often does not happen in the same neighborhood, or same part of your city, or even possibly in your same state. So it is most likely that you will meet this amazing person who you never want to part from, and they will live hundred or thousands of miles away from you. This makes never parting a lot more difficult and adds to the roller coaster of emotions you are feeling.

I've spent many an hour contemplating moving to New Mexico where one of my amazing connections lives, and even planned some great trips to Kentucky and Washington State where my other former "true peer" type friends reside, all in the hopes of alleviating the empty feeling that seems even emptier after meeting someone who I thought filled my soul so completely.

But it isn't always possible. Knowing how busy my life is because of all the things I enjoy doing and learning and being and seeing, it is reasonable that the people I connect with at this kind of level are also very busy and lead active lives. No matter how many times you talk about how amazing your connection is and how much you want to see each other or tell each other everything about yourself and learn everything about them, it's likely someone is going to have to go do something other than concentrate solely on the other person at some point. And it's not always easy to keep those discussions going across all that distance, even if you can squeeze time in for visits on occasion. Life is busy, and friendships, even of that caliber, are hard to keep up. Think about how hard it is to schedule visits with your family members. It is even harder to find ways to schedule with another person who is just as busy and overcommitted as you are. You are both planets circling the sun at a high rate of speed, so finding a similar orbit is difficult.

I've spent many weeks and even months looking forward to a rare opportunity to see the few people I felt that connected to, and I was happy to see them when I could, but I was also heartbroken at how little time we actually could spend together. And when we finally had an incredible weekend of spending hours talking and laughing and hugging, real life seemed even more cruel when I had to jump back into the stream of obligations and promised engagements that I encounter each day.

Timing

And the issue of time expands into the concept of timing... Not every connection happens when it's feasible to see each other again at all, no matter how badly your heart aches to see them. 

Even though it is likely you would move heaven and earth to be closer to each other, sometimes life commitments trump what we want for ourselves. Maybe it's family members who need your time and attention, like young children or aging parents. Or you are working on projects with dire implications to other people or the environment or the whole world.

Or, as is often the case, you aren't the only people trying to circle into each other's orbits. Often gifted people find other partners and friends to love when they are unaware of the intense connections that are possible with other intricately matched gifted souls. We fall in love with people we care about and who care about us; we settle down and have families and make plans and we often cannot, would not, should not or could not hurt the other people in our lives by abandoning them to pursue the new intensities after learning how deep our connections can be with someone else. We don't want to mess up our lives or change our futures, even if it's really tempting at the time.

So no matter how pure or true or deep our connection may be with our possible true peer who lives out in the world somewhere, we have to leave it out there and go back home. Because we care deeply about our other connections too. And because that's the world we already live in. And because even if we did want to go, change takes bravery and time and effort and sometimes we have to just go forward like robots in our real lives because we are happy enough... or at least we hope we can be. 

Disappointment

And then there are those who pursue those connections anyway. They may have the freedom or the passion that won't let them be unless they try all they can to make it happen. They move heaven and earth so they can have more time with that person who fits so well into the space beside their own soul, and they can't stay away from the electric current that is running through them both. They may find every spare moment to call or text or email; they may find ways to fit in visits or even to move as close to them as they can. Or they may throw all the risk aside and continue to let the relationship dominate their thoughts full time.

I've had those moments of thinking I could make it all work like that. I've spent hours on the phone and flown hundreds of miles to show up at their door (or at least planned those trips even when they didn't work out like we imagined... But those are another story!) And I've considered all the ways I could change my life so that I could expand my time with them as much as humanely possible. 

But look, I'm still living a life without a true peer now. That's because things don't always work out like we hope they might. 

Reality

And when we think we have found the most amazing person in the world and we want that forever after happiness promised at the end of Disney movies and fairy tales, reality sets in. 

And reality often is not just life obligations and other commitments getting in the way, many times it's personality issues too. What seems like an incredible match at first, often devolves into one of challenges. Balancing our own intensities with those of someone else, especially someone who is similar in their obsessions, is hard, to say the least. And it's even more difficult when you find you have not only similar hopes and dreams, but the same anxieties and fears too. 

Someone who enjoys your every waking moment for a while, can become possessive or resentful of your time or your other interests. They may love your passion and talking and talking, until they want to get other things done and they don't know how to nicely extricate themselves from the pattern of late night discussions or constant contact you both once established. One of you is likely to want to escape to real life more than the other one, or have other connections you need to honor too, so your life has to go back to a more realistic life pattern. Inevitably, this great puzzle piece match up is likely to become a little unbalanced. And not everyone weathers storms well. Usually it's just you having doubts and wondering whether you were too intense or you did something stupid. But now it's both of you second guessing and worrying and stressing each other out.

And that can hurt. In little bits and pieces you start to wonder if perhaps you misjudged the depth of your connection. You may find enough things you don't agree on, or enough traits you wish you could change in your perfect match, that they seem less and less like the supernatural force they once were. They are human after all, and so are you. All those great things you wanted to do together start getting squished in your mind by all the reasons it won't work out, or the novelty of your plans start wearing off.

Or their significant other or other friends decide they hate you for taking up so much space in their loved ones' head or heart. And then you watch as the are slowly convinced that they shouldn't feel the way they do about you. And you wait for calls that don't come or invitations that never appear, and you notice the passion-filled discussions that you once had are tame or disjointed or not happening at all anymore.

And no one really knows what killed the spirit of it- was it time or a lack of true compatibility? Or did it just burn so bright at first that it didn't last as long?

Then what do you do when your true peer doesn't seem so true? How do you keep going when the embers fade but you've already seen the light? Do you walk back into the regular world with your regular friendships and loves and hope you can maintain some sense of normalcy?

It's hard to keep going with the day to day things when you've experienced the depth of an intense friendship or romance. Missing the relationship takes hold of your mind and everywhere you turn you see them there. Everything reminds you of what you no longer have. The phone that used to buzz with activity sits quiet. The stories you were saving up to tell each other during those future visits and late night pillow talks may never be told. And you can't even bear to look at the photos of you laughing, hugging, grinning, so you put them somewhere safe so someday you can look back on them and not be sad.

In order to move on, here are some things to keep in mind:

1. There are still other people in the world worth meeting, and you may find someone else who is able to give you the kind of friendship or relationship you are looking for. These intense connections are rare, but they aren't impossible to find. And once you found one and know what it feels like, you can find more. I was in my thirties before I found my first adult true peer friendship. But since then I've found a few more. And the more you meet, the more you see that even these intense relationships vary in so many ways. Eventually you will find someone who doesn't want to let you go, and you will have many future days of fun and laughter again.

2. It's ok to mourn friendships, especially these ones. Just as we go through grief when someone dies, losing a friendship also causes grief. Take time to miss the good times and to take care of yourself. There are good books about grief that may interest you. Dr. James T. Webb authored a book that is specifically about different types of grief that gifted people go through because of their intensities. It's called Searching for Meaning: Idealism, Bright Minds, Disillusionment, and Hope. It is a great resource for dealing with all sorts of depressing situations. And don't feel silly asking for help. Talk to friends you can trust to pour your heart out to, or ask people to keep you company so you don't have to be alone. And if it feels overwhelming or goes on a long time (you can judge that, or others may tell you it may be lasting too long... And don't be mad if they do and you don't agree,) then consider seeing a professional who can help you conquer the existential depression. It's important to mourn, but also important to land on your feet.

3. Eventually the person you thought was a true peer and who let you down in some way will likely be back in your circle again. You may cross paths due to your common interests, you may just see them by chance, or one of you may reach back and invite the other back into some kind of working relationship or even a new kind of friendship. Don't write them off while emotions are high. They may end up being one of your closest allies or friends. I know this because even after a very sore broken heart, I became good friends again with the person I felt disappointed me the most. And now when I'm experiencing issues in my life and I doubt I'm ever going to find other amazing connections, I can call him and ask him for his advice or thoughts on the matter. Since he knows me and we spent many, many hours talking about our deepest thoughts and letting each other into our souls, his opinion is often the closest thing to truth. I would not trade knowing him for the world.

4. And finally, (speaking of "not trading knowing him,") it is important that you realize how special the relationship was in the first place and how lucky you were to have it at all. Some people don't know what that kind of intense friendship even feels like because they aren't wired in ways to ever see that many levels of connection. It may hurt like crazy to lose someone you loved and had such high hopes for, and sometimes you might wish you could turn back time and erase it all, just to avoid the heartache. But really, that was some amazing stuff, wasn't it? How could you ever really want to have gone through life without loving like that? 

At some point you will hold those memories tightly in your heart and they will float you through other painful experiences. You loved and were loved. Someone saw you as so worthwhile that they stared at you in disbelief and asked themselves (out loud or in their minds,) over and over, "where did this person come from? Where have they been? And why did I get so lucky as to meet them?" And you know you thought those same things about them. That's pretty dang lucky. And pretty darn special. And you can keep that memory close because it's yours now, no matter how crazy or silly or sad it all got later. For a while, you had the universe in your soul. It isn't gone- it's still there. So embrace it. Don't let it feel less worthwhile just because it isn't the same anymore.

Life is crazy and unpredictable. It's hard and it's wonderful. And who would have thought that in that mess of a universe you would find someone who could see you so clearly, if only for a short while? You have experienced more than many people ever do. And you made it through one of the roughest parts of living- losing those you care about. 

So pick yourself up and go forward knowing what that spark looks like- recognize that gleam in their eyes that pulled you in. And this time use the last experience to help you enter the chaos with a little more confidence and a lot more bravery. You will be ok. It happened, and you are a better person now for the whole experience. Good luck, and don't forget to raise your chin and smile. You never know when you will find yourself falling down that next incredible rabbit hole.


​For another blog entry on the topic of gifted adult relationships, please check out my article, One True Peer, at ​http://oneworldgifted.weebly.com/blog/one-true-peer.

It was back in 1985, I believe, that my entire future began. I was ten years old and dealing with the cultural and social events of the time- wearing my jean jacket and newly permed hair proudly; reeling from the nightmare of the Challenger space shuttle explosion; and learning the ins and outs of being a pre-teen. And then something happened that everyone knew was a big deal even back then- we started getting computers in our classrooms. The kinds that kids could play games on. And our class got not only one, but two computers, and they both had a new game on them that would change the way I looked at the world from that point on.... Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

I played that game, along with the Oregon Trail game that also was installed on those bulky containers, and I got pretty good at finding out where that elusive lady in the big hat was hiding out. I went from person to person, clicking on each so they would provide me with much needed clues. I got so good at it, that when they eventually added the version that allowed us to search among the states for her, I aced that game too, like a pro.

With such an introduction to this article, you may all be thinking I'm heading down the path of discussing the importance of computers in our world, or the social aspects of playing computer games... But I'm actually not. You see, regardless of the impacts of computers (such as increasing access to knowledge and social media and all that important stuff,) I believe the most important part of accessing the computers in my fifth grade classroom for me, was learning the social lessons from that one, silly game with the terrible graphics and one-track plot. In fact, to this day I use the underlying universal theme from that game in everything I do, (and I often am heard giving it credit too.)

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego operated on one premise that reverberates throughout our lives- that every person we ever talk to has an important message for us. It may not make sense now. It may not even seem to ever make sense. But everything we hear and see is giving us clues about life and even when we don't specifically know what acted on us, each interaction is making us who we are. 

That homeless person calling out to you as you walk by is teaching you that life can be tough, or perhaps when you stop to offer a kind word or a smile, or even a handout, you are gaining compassion and offering your own message to him or her- that life is also kind and that people care. And later, when you are sitting in a class or group discussion and the issue of homelessness or compassion or hard times comes up, you have an example that was given to you by that interaction with that person on the street. When someone wants to know what you think, you have information from a firsthand experience to offer as a potentially helpful insight. 

Enough of those interactions and it might even change the course of your life... You may choose to help people more, or find ways to keep your own life on track so you don't end up like that. There are so many possible outcomes to such an important interaction, and yet at the time it may seem like merely an obstruction in your path on the way to something you deemed even more important.

And when someone says something that seems to be random, just watch... That comment will come back to you when someone mentions something similar and you now have something else to connect your thoughts with. Each statement someone makes; each action someone takes; and even every inaction, adds to the context that is making your life make more sense. Nothing is wasted. 

You will use those clues you gather as you build meaning and you build the walls of who you are and what impact you will have on the world. We aren't looking for Carmen Sandiego... But each of us is looking for something that we don't even yet know exists, and those clues will get us there. 

This is especially important for gifted people to learn early and to keep in mind as we travel the journey of humanity. Sometimes we think we know something and we don't listen well to what is being said. Sometimes we have so many lofty goals that we discount things that we think are a waste of our time while we rush past them on the way to the next priority. And sometimes we struggle with social skills so we don't know how to slow down and really listen to others.

One of the most important things we need to teach our gifted children- both the ones we get to help raise and the ones we get to impact along the way in our own lives, is that everything is connected. We are all connected to each other in random, yet amazingly intricate ways. This planet is small, and we have no idea how our actions and words will impact each other. But what is guaranteed is that each encounter is a building block that will add to the richness of our experiences.

This way of looking at the world as being filled with clues has kept me more alert and more willing to pause and take in my surroundings. It helps me listen to things that otherwise might offend my sensitivities, and helps me tuck away the little comments that don't make sense or seem relevant at the time, because they often pop back up later and I realize their importance. Sometimes those clues have saved me from embarrassment (someone commenting on something they had to do before in a similar situation, or someone showing me a photo of someone doing/wearing/messing up something and it connects when I most need to tow the line right.) They have helped me navigate (when I remember statements about great restaurants or horrible traffic in areas, or even when they give a half clue about something they saw, and then I see it and the other things I know help me make sense of where I am...) And they have helped me be more sensitive (after hearing what things were or weren't helpful for people to hear when they lost someone they love, or when I see how hard it is for someone to walk far when the disability parking places are all full...) The world is full of helpful information, and if we don't listen carefully or pay attention to even the trivial things, we may miss the clues that help us get through the tough spots.

Just like many scientists believe that the world contains the remedies for whatever maladies ail us here- be it in the jungles we are cutting down, or deep under the seas... I believe the clues to help us through even the worst parts of life also exist here. They may be hidden along the way, but like in the game, we just have to talk to enough people and listen carefully, and we should get all the information we need.


​This blog article is part of the Hoagies' Gifted Education Blog Hop on "Social Issues". Please visit the Hoagies' site at http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/blog_hop_social_issues.htm to see some of the other great articles on this topic!

​This blog article is part of the Hoagies’ Gifted Education Page Blog Hop. You can see all of the blog hop entries at: ​www.HoagiesGifted.org/blog_hop_all_things_science.htm

I'm going to talk about another issue that is not usually talked about and may make people uncomfortable. But it really needs to be discussed. We need to come together better as a field, and we certainly don't have time to wait around for the holdouts who refuse to step up their game.

In chess they consider the end game as being, "The final stage of a game after most of the pieces have been removed from the board." It's sad to realize it, but solving some of the problems we have in gifted education most likely means having to remove some of our pieces from the board. And those pieces are the people standing in your way that keep you from accomplishing what is needed in order to best serve and support our gifted kids.

We have to keep pushing forward with what's best for our gifted children and students across the country, even when not everyone is willing to work on the hard stuff. Even when those who are in positions to help us, or those who have the power or money or influence that could really make a difference, back away, create complications, or pretend they are already doing enough.

There are many people within and around our field who are not pulling their weight. When the push comes to shove, they back up because things get a little too hard: when allowing access to more under-represented students may cause them to have to change policies and re-do forms, or god forbid, make their programs less based on white privilege and piss off the masses of people at their country clubs. There are people who talk a good talk about how important it is to understand gifted characteristics, but then they let their own lack of social skills get in the way- they throw fits when someone doesn't do what they want them to do or they have to work with other people they don't want to work with, which slows everything down and turns our larger mission into personal attacks against fellow soldiers of the greater cause.

There are people who are in teaching, administrative or psychologist roles, or who have advanced degrees in related fields and should really understand what is needed, who actually end up doing more harm to other gifted people with their bad advice, personal vendettas, and even abusive uses of their power in selfish ways that only benefit them. There are as many stories of people who don't get along, within and around our field, as there are stories of amazing friendships and collaboration. 

Yes, it's true that when you work within any cause for any length of time, you start seeing these behaviors. But I would like to think that a field based on high intellect would mean less of these sorts of petty and vindictive moves. Yet, I've seen it in every level of engagement, for example: 

-as a parent (the parents who don't like it when other kids succeed... Or who want to protect their kids from kids who "aren't really gifted"...); 

-as a teacher (the teachers, staff and/or administrators who don't want to change "how things have always been", or who have personal misconceptions about what gifted means and they don't really want to know anything else that may conflict with their beliefs...); 

-as a district gifted program facilitator (unfortunately you see even more of what you see as a teacher, only magnified by the control issues and political struggles around you and with other districts and state organizations...); 

-as a state gifted specialist working with districts (the district coordinators who don't even engage with the state for support for their gifted services, because they don't have any... Or the ones who fight like hell to keep change from happening because of misconceptions and fears that things may shake up the way they've always done things, or anger their parent groups that already give them a hard enough time...); 

-as a state gifted specialist working with other professionals within and outside of the state agencies (the ones who meet with you once to check something off a list, but are too busy to meet again because your agenda was never their priority, even though it should be... or the ones who let you work really hard on something but don't tell you that your next steps won't ever happen because they have other things scheduled that month and your work conflicts with their plans... Or the ones who constantly find reasons to shut things down because it means more work for them, or they throw up so many complicated rules for who can speak to who about what, that it makes the process ten times harder and more adversial than necessary...); 

-and as an advocate and board member of organizations (the fellow board members who stir up drama about other members, throw fits in meetings when their biases come out, or who don't pull their weight and let others do the hard stuff while they claim they are working too, or the ones who are afraid to stand up for things that would make the most impact because they aren't sure it will be supported by others immediately.) 

I could go on and on. But I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. You've seen it too.

To my good friends and fellow collaborators I've been working closely with, this list does not include you- (don't hate me now for saying all this!) But let's be honest, we all know these people and what they are capable of doing. They are the same people in most organizations, most offices, most homes, who make life harder for those of us who are working hard to actually make things better. They are the people who like group activities because those of us who truly care will do all the work. And the people who will later (when we prove to be successful,) act as if they supported what we accomplished, even after insisting we shouldn't do it when we first started out and dragging their feet through the whole thing. It's not something new in gifted education and it won't go away overnight. But we need to be aware of these people who one of my former fourth grade students would call "fun suckers," and who we formally call obstructionists. 

Next, when they show their true colors and we realize who they really are, we need a plan to get past them. Because if we slow down or stand by to wait until they are willing to work with us, we become obstructionists to necessary change too.

So I've come up with some ideas for working around these types of people, and hopefully they can be useful for you too.

First of all, you need to gather your resources and tools and be well prepared to do what needs to get done, including beefing up on the following:

Background psychology:
Read up on organizational and psychological  issues, like the psychology of procrastination, the people who worry too much about rules and have anxiety about confrontation, or the way healthy organizations work compared with unhealthy ones. 

Rules and regulations:
You need the basic tools such as information about working with bylaws and how nonprofit organizations should work... you need to know state laws, district policies and previous legal case law. And you need to know why the rules and policies were created and whether there are areas that need changing. And, know who can influence those changes.

People power: 
You need to know who you can count on to move things forward regardless of the people currently in your way (friends who will cheer you on, politicians who will back you up, other advocates in Giftedland or involved with related causes, and those who have walked a similar path before...)

Pathways: 
You also need to know what the options are and how the different variables interact and create roadblocks or passageways. You need a game plan and to create your plan you need to write it out like a choose your own adventure book- knowing alternate routes for every turn.

Collaborators:
You need to know the parts each person in the process will play and who is a strong enough player to remain on the board with you. Throughout life we know some people are more capable of the hard work and the ones who aren't, naturally fall by the wayside. Let them fall, and gather the ones who are playmakers beside you (and I would say, "hang on to them," but they hang on themselves, that's the beauty of true collaborators.)

Trade information: 
In every game in life, the true momentum comes from believing in your cause. Know who you are fighting for well, and arm yourself with enough information about why the gifted population needs you to do the work you are doing. So when you hit the snags and you get waylaid by people who try to convince you that the priority lies elsewhere, you are prepared to stay focused and remember exactly what you are trying to do.

Elevator talking points:
The information you know about the gifted education field will keep you motivated, but it's too much to try to explain to someone that you meet for the first time, or to use all of it in an argument. So pick out specific statistics, quotes, and other talking points that you can use in a short amount of time to make a strong point. You may want to categorize your elevator talking points by theme – such as when somebody questions whether eligibility requirements should be changed, and you can argue using a quote from Dr. Donna Ford or Dr. Joy Lawson Davis about the need for services for our underrepresented kids. Or when somebody says that a child is not gifted because they are not a high performer, you are prepared with information about amazing people who did not perform well in school but later became famous for being geniuses in their fields, like Einstein, or Bill Gates. You need to prepare by coming up with multiple categories of potential issues and have supporting statements that can be used quickly, efficiently and effectively to make those most important points.

Personal skills:
When working towards equality and improving support for gifted children it's important to figure out who has the appropriate skill-set to tackle each situation. If you do not have a background including publishing books in an area that would strongly support an issue you are arguing, don't keep beating people with your own quotes and statistics, but find someone who has even more information and clout to help you move beyond the surface level, such as one of the national experts. There are many well-regarded experts in gifted education who are willing to stand up with you when they see the greater cause you are working on. Find them, (there are "expert speaker" lists available on multiple gifted organization webpages,) and be brave enough to ask for their help. The worst thing they can do is say no, but often they will still provide you with insight and advice even if they cannot participate themselves. Also, evaluate your own skill-set so you know when it is appropriate for you to be the one making a move or when you should ask for help. Sometimes we underestimate our own abilities and let other people fill in when we actually can be the better person to tackle that situation because we have personal information or knowledge.

Create bridges:
One of the biggest mistakes we can make is to make enemies out of all of the people who seem to be standing in our way (unless they are utterly horrid, which might be the case!) They may make enemies of themselves, and we can't control their actions, but we certainly should not feed their fire and cause further obstruction. The field of gifted education is very small, and people like to talk and exaggerate. Give people a respectable way to get out of the corner when needed, and just move on and find someone else to work with. It's not worth causing more drama or exerting your energy on disliking someone when there's so much else to get done. Find soldiers who are strong and willing to work with you, and when you find that someone is weak or allows their own personal vendettas to get in the way, move around them and keep going. When you get bogged down on power struggles nobody wins and you start spinning in place. When you think your voice is no longer being heard by someone, find someone else to be the voice and choose something else to work on that still moves you forward.

Be skeptical:
Even if someone seems like an ally in your journey for a while, there may be times when their priorities and your priorities diverge or converge. When you see a gap widening, don't get sucked into believing that if you work with them on their cause for a while, they will come back to caring about yours. That may or may not happen, but give them space to do what they need to do while you work on what you need to do. Sometimes we all work on different pieces and it comes together in the end. Sometimes it doesn't come together at all. So be careful and constantly reevaluate what's going on. And be skeptical, while still being kind, respectful and hopeful, because something that looks bad may not actually be, and something that looks great may actually have issues. We don't really know how all the moving pieces will go together in the end, so be skeptical while staying focused.

Stay balanced:
Sometimes our passions can be overwhelming and that is why gifted people are considered intense! Balance your work with downtime with your family and friends. Don't let what we are trying to do to improve the lives of children and families get in the way of you being there for yours. By staying balanced and not becoming a one-trick pony, you will continue to have the support and encouragement from your loved ones that you need.

And in the end, no matter how well prepared you are, people will still sideswipe you and you will have moments of stress and frustration about lost friendships, working relationships that are one-sided and do not benefit gifted kids as you once hoped, and people who will otherwise let you down. So the most important thing is to just know that it happens to the best of us, and sometimes what you encounter further emphasizes the need for you to continue to speak out and be an advocate for those who do not have the ability to do so for themselves. That's why we are all in this – and that's why in the end you still win because you didn't back down or get in the way of progress like those other people do. And really, if you stay focused and use your sense of finding others who are serious about helping, you will show that you are willing to move past the negative stuff because of how much you care about helping the kids, and as we all can agree- the caring is the most important part.

​I told my mom that she should present at a gifted workshop with me someday soon. She's a retired pediatric nurse practitioner who has been an amazing source of peace and understanding for multitudes of gifted children and their families for years. Heck, she raised me, with all my overexciteabilities and roller coasters of behaviors for years and years, for Pete's sake! She not only understands gifted people, she has helped define what good medical practice for these kids looks like in our community for years. And she is the person I go to for medical and psychological advice for me, my children, and everyone else's children. She would be a great co-presenter, so I asked her if she wanted to do it.

"I can't," she said. "It's not going to happen. I'm dumb now."

I paused for a second, thinking I missed something. "Done?" I asked. "You're DONE now?" Yeah, she did just retire... I get that she may feel done with doing so many things for now.

"No," she said, "I'm DUMB. I am not gifted anymore, in fact, I'm just dumb now."

I giggled, "ok, right mom, you are not." (Did I mention how brilliant and funny she has always been? It's not like that has changed...)

"Yeah, really. I think my brain got worn out. I had that meningitis years ago and ever since, it just hasn't seemed the same. And I'm old and tired now too."

"Uhhhh, no. I still don't buy it," I told her. "You don't just lose giftedness. Besides, you still have all your gifted quirks."

"Nope," she insisted, "I'm just normal now."

I reminded her that gifted people can be twice exceptional, having disabilities and giftedness. "So maybe you now have a brain injury, if that's even true... But you're still quirky and weird, Mom. And this proves it- No one else takes pride in getting less smart. Obviously you are still gifted."

"I may be weird, but it's kind of nice to not be gifted. It was exhausting." 

And on that note, I changed the subject. You know how fun it is to argue with gifted people... You rarely win. 

That was one thing that got me thinking about giftedness and brain capacity. Another thing came early last week in the form of an email. You see, I recently left my job as the state gifted specialist, but my school district gifted coordinator community hasn't left me (and I promised not to leave them.) Over the last few weeks since I left the job, I've received many emails and messages, asking me for advice regarding gifted education questions. One of them was about a child who had so many head injuries (I assume from football, but I didn't ask for the health information...) 

"This child was gifted before, but we tested him again and now his IQ is only around 100. What should we do?" The concerned staff member asked, referring to the state law that requires a 130 IQ test score for a student to be identified as gifted. 

My response was something like this: 

"A student who is gifted will still have social emotional needs as a gifted child, even with a brain injury. He is now twice exceptional, and since he has already been identified, you do not have to ever retest him for that criteria. You also are under no obligation to exit him from the gifted program."

I continued, "The issue here, is finding the right placement for him in an academic environment. But he shouldn't have to leave his friends or be forced to move to another location. I would suggest you sit down with the family and look at a lot of different things – what they would like to do with the situation, what makes sense socially for the child, and what academic accommodations you could bring into his gifted education classroom to enable him to continue to learn at his own pace."

I was sad for this child- he obviously had a lot to worry about. Moving classrooms and leaving his friends wasn't going to help him. But the proper academic supports could help him continue to function in school, while allowing him to continue with the social emotional support from the gifted endorsed teacher and his peers.

The reality is, people are so adamant that we measure giftedness by mental capacity, that we forget that there's so much more to being gifted. Having less mental agility than you once had, cannot erase the experiences that have formed your personality and the way you engaged with the world while learning about life to begin with. Sure, you now may have to adjust to a new reality- your thoughts may not come so quickly, you may not be able to use your once witty sarcasm, or pull impressive vocabulary out of thin air. But just as any person who has to adjust to diminished mental abilities must feel frustrated and confused by these changes, gifted people with brain injuries or memory-loss issues have a lot to deal with too.

I look at my grandmother who has been losing her mind slowly over the last ten years or so, and I remember how active she used to be. Now she can't remember where she is half the time, or who any of us are. She can't watch movies or read books or articles, because a few sentences in, she can't remember what she is doing, much less what anyone said earlier in the story. She can't take care of herself at all, and I know how horrified she would be by her loss of privacy and dignity. 

But most of all, I know how mad she would be about not being able to do anything interesting or useful. I've seen her get so angry about it before- yelling about how she needed to go places and get things done (yelling at grandpa, who she divorced years ago and who has been dead for a while anyway... And cussing about things she hasn't been able to do for years... But wow, she has been mad, and I don't blame her.) 

As a gifted person, she never stopped being obsessed over justice and wanting the world to be a better place. She still perks up when we talk about world events with her. She forgets almost immediately what we tell her, but she still notices and wants to hear that things are good in the world. And she is upset when they are not. 

She also still gets excited by the creative things we show her. She loves hearing my daughter sing Broadway songs, and she has beautiful photos all around where she sits. The many books she published in her younger years sit on shelves around her. And all the furniture she has painted decorates the rooms in her house. She can't write or paint anymore. She can barely walk to the bathroom on her own. But she still shows us glimpses of her former self. And I hold on dearly to those moments.

So like the child with the head injury, and my mother who insists she isn't as smart as she used to be, I still think my grandmother is gifted. She is no longer able to perform the things she used to do. She won't pass any standardized tests, (except for those designed for proving memory loss...) and she won't be writing any best sellers or winning any art awards. But she still sees the world through the lens of a woman who had big thoughts and lived a very interesting life before. 

Non-gifted people lose their memories too, and I'm sure it's a huge loss for every family member to watch this process happen to someone they love. But seeing someone go from an overexcited ball of energy, passions, and intensities, to an inanimate blank canvas at times has been a huge loss- going from one extreme to the other.

Can you lose giftedness? Obviously we can lose everything at some point. And eventually we will all die too. But while we are here, even if we can't perform like we used to be able to achieve certain things when we were first identified as gifted, our experiences and abilities that formed the way we look at the world do not leave us. And those quirks that gifted people have don't just go away (unless everything goes away...) So they still need the understanding and support that they deserved prior to any brain injury or memory loss. In fact, I would argue, they need even more. What a cruel, confusing and scary world it must be to someone who used to feel they had so much mental control. And those with a tendency for anxiety or depression must have even more battles to fight when their worlds get harder from the inside-out. Gifted traits may get even more intense and even more intimidating and frustrating, the less a gifted person is able to understand them or express themselves well. That goes for people of any age or any stage of diminished mental capacity.

As it's been said by other gifted experts- giftedness is not what we DO, it's who we ARE. And who we are doesn't go away until we do.

An effort to focus gifted education services  on all of our gifted students, rather than only those who are high performers, began with a bang in 2015, but was put back on the back burner again after a crusade of misinformation hit the gifted parent airwaves in early 2016.

The state's rule change process is lengthy and complex, allowing for multiple points of open communications with the public, yet before the conversation could even start, the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) cancelled the first workshop suddenly, without any explanation, even to me- the state gifted education specialist. Two days prior to the widely-publicized first meeting where the first draft would be discussed, and in the middle of the public comment period where we were receiving information and edit suggestions from experts and practitioners all over the state (and even from throughout the nation,) the process came to a halt, presumably because of conflicts with other state priorities at the time (the legislative session and many other pressing issues,) but also likely because many in the gifted community were not collaborating in the efforts to discuss the potential changes. 

Hundreds of copies of one letter that was written by a district gifted coordinator from one school district were sent to the FDOE, these were copies of a letter "alert" that was sent out by a representative of a gifted organization in another county, declaring the rule change would somehow create problems for funding gifted education, due to a lack of the word "program" in its text (even though the word program was directly in the title, and even though the state has moved away from calling exceptional education services "programs," because they are supposed to be individualized and not merely a program...) And also stating that the rule change was more than what was needed, and that the current "Plan B" system was sufficient, the Plan B being a rule section that allowed districts to create more flexible identification plans for students from low socio-economic status and English language learners instead of relying on a required cut score on IQ tests that were controversial in whether they were culturally biased, (even though the majority of the plans that districts filed with the state for approval were based on cut IQ scores after all, and the FDOE could not deny them, as the decision to use that criteria did not break the law... and even though the districts had not improved diversity in gifted programs across the state for most historically under-represented student subgroups under this alternative option.)

Misinformation ran rampant, but as an employee of the FDOE, I was told to wait for approval from multiple levels of supervisors before I could proceed with any response. This was the same system that kept us working quietly within the department to create the first draft of the rule change, because until we posted the rule draft as available for public comment, I was told we could not speak publicly about it. So perhaps some of the community members who instigated the misinformation campaign did not understand that this was merely a first draft so we could bring up many important issues for discussion, such as the importance of universal screening of kids across at least one grade level so districts can find more eligible students than only those who are referred, as which occurs in many districts, if anyone is even referred at all in some... Or the issue of allowing for multiple criteria instead of only using IQ test scores as a gate keeping mechanism, since so many gifted kids may not show their abilities and their needs for social-emotional support through just one kind of test... Or the need to include wording that requires districts to ensure equitable processes, such as communicating better and linguistically-equitably with their community members about the process and their service options, so all parents will be aware of the services available for their children and therefore some families are not left out due to miscommunication.

There were so many important reasons we needed to have this conversation about improving our identification process in Florida. And many of my coworkers from bureaus throughout the FDOE were working hard with me and our revision team to open the conversation up so we could make the rule the best it could possibly be. We had people specializing in psychology, language diversity, multiple subject areas and more participating in the first draft efforts. And we got the workshops, and even the draft we started with, approved by all the supervisors... all the way up...until it was put on hold. We had huge support for updating the rule. For making it possible for us to have a conversation that would help better identify giftedness than the almost two-decades-old current rule does. 

The current rule was based on old research. In the last ten years alone, research has highlighted the ways gifted students' brains work differently than other children's. We have seen best practices developed that highlight the importance of the social emotional skill development of our asynchronous gifted children, and the need for more executive functioning practice. We've developed better inservice training opportunities for teachers, so we can support gifted students who are underperforming, and we've learned that it is best practice to find and nurture the unique nature of our quirkiest and even most underperforming gifted kids. We've learned that giftedness is not about high academic achievement, but it is about who a child is, fundamentally, and that gifted kids experience life very differently than other students and therefore need more support than was initially believed by educators who based their information on stereotypes and fears about elitism. And throughout the years the FDOE tried to improve it to make it less biased and improve the racial and low income and English language learner statistics that were even under scrutiny by the U.S. Department of Education's Civil Rights Office. But the changes were minimal and then were changed again due to court cases that eliminated wording requiring racial equity in the plan.

We know that most parents want what is truly best for their children, so elitism is not necessarily the enemy here. When given training on what giftedness really is, parents often can identify their children quite accurately and will be honest about whether they are really seeking gifted social emotional services or if their child just needs access to more of a challenge. The more districts provide options for acceleration and challenge to those students who are not gifted, but who are ready for higher levels of learning, the less we see parents feeling forced to get their children incorrectly labeled as gifted to access those higher level classes. The more we move away from the incorrect belief that being gifted means always being the best at everything, the more we can support the kids who truly are gifted and need extra support the most. And the less it will be required that parents (who have the financial ability to do so...) whose children don't qualify for services in the districts, shell out their own money to try to obtain support for their children privately. If a child is gifted in Florida, they may not be identified if they don't have the skills necessary to score high on an IQ test. And often it unfortunately comes down to our system rewarding those who already have advantages with more advantages, rather than really serving all of our gifted kids. 

And on that note, take a look at your local gifted program... Most districts (if they even have any gifted services,) identify kids and then put them in classes with teachers who still are required by state law to meet the general academic standards and there is no enforcement of, or even any requirement that they do the business of teaching any differently than in classrooms with general education students only. The standards are the same. The report cards are usually the same. And in most classrooms the methods of teaching and learning are very similar. There may be academic acceleration, but if there is, usually that acceleration is whole-class acceleration. This is based on the fallacy that gifted students all need the same level of acceleration in the same subject areas. If a student doesn't succeed in that class, then the district usually doesn't have many other service options. Either you are gifted and high performing, or you are not going to get gifted services. 

In fact, some schools push gifted kids so hard that they enter the gifted program as merely gifted, but due to the program not fitting the student, they end up labeled with other problems, from "underperforming," to even having multiple behavior disorders, ADHD, or more. Gifted "programs" are not the answer. Gifted individualized services with multiple tiers of support are the answer. (And multi-tiered systems of support are actually required by the state for all students, including gifted kids...) But not all districts are prepared to offer multiple service options. Perhaps that is why the letter "alerting" the public not to support changes to the identification rule came from a district coordinator. There have been focused efforts by some of the same anti-rule change advocates in the past. About ten years ago a group of gifted and psychology specialists attempted to change the rule to multiple criteria rather than only IQ-based, and they were met with similar resistance. Change is hard, and it requires a lot of work to switch things sometimes. Although, one could argue that changing the rule would save time and money in the long run. And save lives.

As parents and gifted advocates in the community, we need to think hard about what it means to serve gifted kids. Do we merely want to recognize those highest performers who have parents who are in the small communications loops in their districts and who have money to push the hardest for their kids to have the tutoring, extra curricular activities and extra support that is needed for success in our current programs? Or do we want to find gifted kids who have huge potential but may not always be our highest scoring test takers, and provide them with the social emotional support and academic resources to also succeed? 

By changing the identification rule to better serve all of our gifted students, all of our kids benefit. I used to hear people say they didn't want underperforming gifted kids in their kids' classes. But there are already some of them in those classes. And sometimes they are slowing down the accelerated learning for other kids. Wouldn't you prefer that districts had multiple options so that those students could get the support they need so they can succeed too? And wouldn't you like to see other options than a one-size fits all type of gifted service in your children's schools, so that if your child excels in math but not reading, your child could continue to excel and even accelerate in math, but not be kicked out of the "gifted program" due to not doing well in his or her reading? This may not be how things go at your child's school, and perhaps your child is one of the lucky ones with a truly differentiated and individualized learning experience. But I have traveled the state and can assure you that not all districts provide such service options. And many don't even recognize or serve gifted kids. 

Why wouldn't they identify their gifted kids, you may ask? There are a lot of reasons, but many have to do with only having one allowable way of qualifying them- the IQ test. Individualized IQ testing is expensive. Some districts cannot afford to pay for the testing. The way the law is currently written, gifted education funds from the state are combined with other exceptional education funds and districts get to decide how they are spent. Districts who feel they need to support their other exceptional students with that money are legally allowed to do so. And some districts don't even have people in leadership roles with gifted training. They also may not know that giftedness can be present in underperforming students, and if their districts are not high performing, they may not even believe they have enough gifted students to make up enough of a class to pay for the teacher, (and they may not be aware that gifted kids don't need to be isolated in one classroom if they have a teacher who otherwise is trained and can differentiate for them in their regular classroom...) I've also seen districts who have enough funding, but their district psychologists are overwhelmed and the referral paperwork sits on desks for months and months, awaiting their turn at evaluation. (And parents don't know to complain about the timeline being too long...) 

By allowing for multiple criteria, we could ease up some of these stresses and districts could use the money they are spending on IQ tests (or that they should be spending on them,) to instead provide more resources and training in the schools.

We are losing kids as we speak. One of my students I taught the year before I became the FDOE gifted specialist was one of the kids I'm talking about. He was a multi-racial child with big dreams and so many wonderful but distracting social emotional needs that made him struggle at times to fit in with other kids. He was gifted, but not formally identified. He needed so much, and I went to Tallahassee hoping to work for kids like him. I wrote about him in my blog too- you can see the story at http://oneworldgifted.weebly.com/blog/i-really-can-see-you-finding-hidden-giftedness-in-middle-school-kids-who-otherwise-could-be-lost. This amazing child lost his life a couple of months ago. He was found by his little brother, hanging in his home. He needed so much support and I feel terrible that I wasn't able to do more for him. But there's still time for us to find and help other gifted kids who need us. This child we lost was not just my student, he was my friend. And when I left to go work at the FDOE he made me a little poster to hang up- it was a copy of my face from a photo, pasted on a superhero body he cut out of construction paper. He said I was "Super Gifted Woman," and that he knew I would go fight hard for gifted kids. I hung that picture above my desk and looked at it every day. We need to do some amazing things to help those kids. It's time for us to do what others have struggled to do before- to change "how it's always been," and get through the initial hard work and change our system to really be responsive to the needs of our kids.

Georgia changed to multiple criteria 20 years ago. And Alabama changed their law to require universal screening a decade ago. Florida is behind the times and outside of best practices and updated research.

We need to insist on better for our gifted kids, and especially those who are not identified by the current system and likely have much less of a voice than those of you who are reading this article do. We have work to do. And I'm excited to continue with it. We have support in the FDOE. The people who are still in those offices, holding on to the work we already have done just need to hear our voices and know they have our support. And we need to spread this information like wildfire, so more people will write to the governor's and the education commissioner's offices and ask them to reopen the workshop to change rule 6A-6.03019, Florida Administrative Code, so we can have universal screening and multiple criteria for gifted identification. 

The first draft of the rule wasn't perfect. We received some wonderful suggestions for improvement and we had a second draft ready to present next. It's time that, that second draft be publicized for comments to continue, and for the rule to finally be changed to bring Florida into the modern gifted education age.

We have a chance as a community to dream more about how we can improve not only the identification rules, but also how the rules can push the needed changes in expanding support opportunities for our kids. If the way we identify them changes to be more inline with actually finding giftedness, then the schools will also have to change and be more innovative in the ways they serve them. It's time for us to stand up together and ask for these changes, especially while we have so much support and so many people know we are losing these underserved kids who otherwise could be very successful. 

Please take a moment to add a comment to this and consider asking the state to reopen our gifted education identification rule workshop so we can have the community discussions we need to have to better support our gifted kids.

I'm starting to get this little radar that goes off in my mind when somebody looks at me just a certain way. That "I don't care, I dare you to care for me," look always reels me in like no other. I don't know why those kids are my weakness – perhaps it is because I was one of them. Sometimes I still think I am, no matter how many times I prove to myself that I can tow the line and actually do what I'm supposed to do in life. There is always a part of me that pushes back against the system and asks questions like, why?, isn't there a better way?, and so forth. I have seen behind the Wizard of Oz's curtain and I know that we could do better. That these kids need us to do better. And then I become even more determined to be a part of the change that our system so desperately needs for these kids.
 
Looking back over my teaching years so far, I can see a trail behind me like I am the Pied Piper of lost souls. My kids who dance along the path of life with me, (because of course they are all my children deep down in my heart, especially these ones,) are often the ones that other people can't easily deal with. The ones who refuse to tow the line, like me, and ask all those same questions. They are the ones who have so much energy and promise, and yet they don't know what to do with all of their powers, so they fight- they fight their rough lives, they fight the school systems that often don't fit them, they fight anyone who looks at them sideways, and even people who smile at them. They fight, and it makes me fight twice as hard for them because if they are fighting so hard, then they deserve to have someone in their corner with them.
 
I've found several of these kids in my many years of teaching, and they exemplify the traits of gifted children, yet they often go unnoticed and they are usually under-identified. Which means they don't have access to the support systems they need to learn how to deal with their awesome abilities, and how to balance them with the despair, anxiety, and other rough emotions that go along with understanding things at a deep enough level to see how flawed other people really are.
 
As they march forward, I march with them, playing a tune of love and support that they don't seem to hear at first. Eventually they start to hear me... They see that I am stepping to their beat and would do anything to keep them safe and focused, and then they start stepping to my beat, slowly, too. They don't realize they are working with me, and wouldn't admit it even if they did because they don't like to admit they work with anyone. But once they realize I'm on their side and I don't let them down, they eventually look to me for the support they need. And I give it to them. I don't care if they are identified formally for services in the school district... I don't care where they are really supposed to be during the day if they come to see me. I try to find them the help they need, when they need it. 
 
These are fragile souls with the world on their shoulders. They see people in the world hurting and they want to fix them. They hear about things on the news and it terrifies them. So when they look at me with those big eyes, reaching for my hand virtually through the air between us, I reach back. And that is why it's hard for me to fit in with the current public education system, because there is less and less flexibility for us to reach out to the kids that need us the most. There's less time in the day, less allowable time and/or resources for needed discussions and social emotional support, and less ability to move children around when they need to be somewhere other than lined up in rows of desks studying for end of year, standardized tests.
 
These little "deer in the headlights" children are the reason I work as hard as I do in the field of gifted education. I see them when I close my eyes at night, I dream of a better world for them at night, and I wake up energized because I know how important what we do in our communities and our schools is for these kids, and how much they deserve better than what we do now.
 
And when the sun comes up, I join my fellow gifted education gurus who focus on the at-risk children, the under-served, the stereotyped, and the disadvantaged kids who need us most, and I keep playing my tune- declaring the importance of identifying and serving these hidden gifted kids, and then standing by their sides even when they try their hardest to prove themselves unworthy. We do what we can for these kids who have little or no voice in the system, and we hope that someday enough people will look through the misunderstandings, misinformation, and stereotypes and help us grab their hands before they slip beyond our reach. 
 
This is my song, and it is the song they need us all to sing. I hope you will join us as we dance through the streets, whistling this tune over and over again until the system finds a better way to reach them, until the leaders find a better avenue for us to teach them, and until the world recognizes the amazing potential we are otherwise discarding and finds a way to embrace these reluctant little warriors. And so, I sing my heart out, collecting those who I can reach, and we dance.
 
 
​

​Formally identified gifted kids can't win, you know. If they stand out for achieving well in school or sports or whatever, people roll their eyes and secretly wish they would stumble so they wouldn't seem so "perfect." And if they underachieve in school, people don't know why they "deserve" any special support services because they "obviously aren't gifted if they don't shine." 

And gifted parents can't win either, because if we brag at all about our kids' accomplishments, people secretly dislike us, and if we complain about their underachievement or their brattiness, people secretly wonder how our kids could be "deserving" of the gifted label and services, or they secretly are smug in knowing we don't have the perfect kids that they assume the gifted label should be gifted to.

The kids who slide under the radar and are gifted without the label and high expectation from society are also often losers as well. They may not have people judging their achievements and failures against the stereotypes that go with the formal gifted label, but they certainly are missing out on the social emotional support and self-understanding that comes from having access to gifted education trained staff in their academic world. 

So gifted experts, who often are not winning high praise from their peers or financial accolades to fund their important research, themselves, are struggling to prove to the world that our kids need help as much as other special needs kids do. Their articles tout the issues surrounding gifted youth- titles about asynchrony, anxiety, depression, at-risk behaviors and the plight of the underachieving gifted kid. Or we highlight the successes of gifted kids who against all odds and biases and other life challenges, have succeeded, and we hope that other people will see the value in our amazing kids.

But the reality is that we just keep paddling in circles, tossing out fuel to those who already swim alongside us, rather than really making huge progress. And life is tough for so many kids. Gifted kids are only one little line in a huge book of special interests begging for their fifteen minutes of fame and their line item in a budget somewhere. So the media game is often not somewhere we can win many new followers. We keep the interest of about 3-5 percent of the population, or probably less because not every gifted person knows or maybe even cares about giftedness anyway. But 3 percent of the nation wouldn't be that bad, if we could excite them all, I suppose. I'm sure there are many causes who don't even get that many people to care. But what do we really achieve for all that effort? School systems continue to go down hill, and charter schools seem to just recreate the standardized system wheel, where kids sit in classrooms listening to teachers talk for hours about things they could look up on Google in a few minutes themselves. They sit inside, often without physical exercise or the ability to move out of their chairs. And they learn how to regurgitate information by filling in bubbles on score sheets. Some lucky kids may have innovative teachers and get to do more, but often those are in more well-to-do neighborhoods and less diverse areas, unfortunately. Even when a program touts itself as a gifted class or gifted school, often those are only really for top academic performers- the kids who follow directions and turn in homework. The kids who often have parent support and don't have so many gifted traits that would otherwise cause them to rebel against the awfulness of siting and waiting their turn to learn. And they often aren't the high energy kids who wiggle or talk too much- those kids are often weeded out by test scores too.

Students and teachers are not winning these days in the school system, as legislators and big corporations dictate what they must do, and school boards who have no clue what they are doing allow the outsiders from across the state and nation to make decisions about what should happen with their unique local children. Administrators can't possibly feel like they are winning, as they can see the burn out with teachers leaving the profession and many kids leaving to homeschool or find alternate options outside of the mainstream public classrooms. Not to mention the kids who are still dying from side effects of stress and feeling worthless from not succeeding in the system or in their communities- from drug abuse, violence and suicide.

We can't just keep writing articles and sharing them amongst ourselves. We must not keep shouting loudly at school board meetings or causing fights with our district educators and leaders. We will continue to lose this fight by creating barricades instead of bridges.

So what can we do, instead? We have to find ways to create ties between our kids and others. Oh, your child is autistic? We have a lot of twice exceptional kids who are also autistic, can we join your meetings and conferences too? Oh, your child has behavior issues, many gifted kids have behavioral challenges and maybe if I could attend your support groups or your conferences, I could learn more about how to help my kid too.... Oh, you are funding a program for at-risk youth who need somewhere safe to go during the summers? Well so many foster kids and kids who are struggling with issues related to low income families and other social challenges are also gifted, can we help with your event so we can help them all together?

Because by reaching out to other groups, our arm length for supporting our kids and sharing our stories expands too. And then more people will stand behind us when we need support. By not isolating our gifted kids in classrooms for only those with formal gifted labels, we change the elitist overtones that some communities have. Oh, your gifted kid has special learning needs? A truly well trained gifted educator can certainly support them if they are also allowed to continue to advance through topics of interest and curricular areas as needed. But all kids should have access to the appropriate level of challenge (here in Florida we are trying to meet that need for all students through our Accel law that requires schools to provide acceleration opportunities for kids who are eligible.) So what becomes the most important is how well the teacher and class are able to meet the social emotional needs of gifted kids. And that doesn't have to happen in segregation or isolation. 

But what does need to happen is we all need to be finding allies to work with to counter a national culture of standardizing our schools. If we make school so miserable that even the teachers consider it to be harmful to the kids (which many now have spoken out to say they do,) then something must change. And that change is going to come by refiguring our strategies and better targeting our goals. 

The more we keep trying to convince the public to listen to all the reasons our kids need help, the more we push away our potential allies. Our gifted kids are all unique and span multiple labels and subcategories of "types of needs" or "types of kids". So let's pull those subcategories closer and find ways we can start gaining some bigger wins for not only our formally labeled gifted kids, but kids and families out there who also can benefit from our support, and who might stand up next to us when they realize we do the same for them.