Category: Psychology

News from the convention, Day 1

Posted on by Suki

I am at the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) convention in Denver, CO, and it is NOT the evening of the first day of the convention. Yesterday evening I came back to my hotel room to write and I sat in panic in front of my smartphone: “I have way too much STUFF in my head to write!” Instead, I went through the program and planned the rest of my days here, ate chocolate, and went to bed early.

So here I am at Day 2, ready to write about yesterday.

First a note: Why am I here? Why “gifted”? To answer those questions, please click “About Suki” above to learn about all my various pursuits, my feelings about the incredibly stupid word, “gifted,” and other interesting (or not) trivia.

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On the way to the conference I read a wonderful book that anyone with a frustrated teen should check out: Forging Paths by Wes Beach. Here’s the review I wrote that will appear on Amazon.com once I can figure out how to post reviews on my phone…. or more likely when I get home!

In my recently published book, From School to Homeschool, I lamented that the stories of gifted homeschoolers had not really been told yet. That was before I read Forging Paths. Though the “kids” in this book are almost grown when they start on their paths, and what they do isn’t what most people would call “homeschooling,” each one of these unique stories adds to our collected understanding of what is possible when it comes to getting the education we need. Wes Beach’s book centers around the stories of individuals who chose unusual paths, but even in their individuality, they offer us new templates for the way education can happen. Inflexible, one-size-fits-all education is a thing of the past. Books like this one are starting to write the story of the future, in which all kids and adults are able to forge the path that is right for them in seeking the education they need and crave.

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NAGC is to your local gifted conference as a meta-study is to a small-scale experiment, or whiskey is to wine, or Proust is to Brian Selznick. Different beasts, all worthy in their own way. (OK, I must admit that the only time I ever drank whiskey I threw up, so I have my opinions in that regard.)

I started my day yesterday with Temple Grandin and thousands of other adoring audience members. If you don’t know her, Google her and learn what she has to say. She’s our first (as far as I know) autistic motivational speaker, and she deserves all the applause she gets.

I got much from her talk, but here’s what I came away with: “Making kids do the same thing: absolutely beyond rubbish!”

Grandin has no patience for sweet-talk — she tells it like she sees it, which is rather differently than the mainstream. But on this point I share her point of view completely. Our schools are completely misguided — not just for the diagnosably different child that she was, but for all children. Why do we make the poor souls learn the same thing at the same time? Who ever thought that was a good educational approach for two children, much less a nation of hundreds of millions?

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Frank Wang is “the math guy” — you can apparently see his funny videos on Youtube. I’d never heard of him, but one hour with him sold me on his approach to math. He was a self-described “dumb kid” who found his own way of making it through the world. He explains advanced math concepts in fun ways that any kid would enjoy. Although he no longer runs a for-profit company, he says his games, and more invented by a buddy of his, are available at mathfun.com and kaidy.com. Enjoy!

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Layne Kalbfleisch from Kidlab has lots to say about brain research, and much of it would conflict with what you hear in the popular press and in popular books about learning and the brain.

First of all: There are no “right brain” and “left brain” learners. We all use both sides of our brains unless our brains are physically damaged. Interestingly, those people whose IQ test scores put them in “gifted” show more symmetry when they are using their brains for tasks. Even more interestingly, the higher the IQ, the less of the brain gets activated in difficult tasks. Definitely food for thought.

I loved this talk. If you’re a brain research junkie, or if you previously thought you should take everything Malcolm Gladwell writes as fact, check out what she has to say.

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After that talk, my own feeble brain went into overload mode (someday they will be able to tell me what my brain looks like when this happens) and I needed a glass of wine and a quiet room to digest.

More later when I get to Day 2. I apologize in advance for typos and weird formatting and lack of hyperlinks. [I’ve now added a few – Ed.] This is my first conference without a laptop. I’m using my smartphone and a cool Bluetooth keyboard that my husband gave me and which I have apparently wrecked one of the keys of and yes, I know that is quite dreadful grammar but as I said….. This Is My Brain on Overload! More later.

This is exhausted me in my hotel room!

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Book Review: A Parent’s Guide to Gifted Children

Posted on by Suki

A Parent’s Guide to Gifted Children
James T. Webb, Janet L. Gore, Edward R. Amend, Arlene R. DeVries
Great Potential Press, 2007

Parents often wish their children came with an owner’s manual. If there is anything that comes close to being an owner’s manual for parents of gifted children, this book is it.

The authors comprise a who’s who of experts on gifted children. James T. Webb, the lead author, is perhaps the best-known writer and speaker on gifted issues in the United States. His more recent book, Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnosis of Gifted Children and Adults (also written with a team of experts), outlines the specific psychological pitfalls gifted children face. The other three authors, Janet L. Gore, Edward R. Amend, and Arlene R. DeVries, add both depth and breadth to Webb’s solid credentials. Together, the authors have worked with gifted children in almost all capacities.

The book serves first as a very good primer for a parent who is facing questions about raising a gifted child. The first two chapters define giftedness and explore common characteristics of gifted children. In doing so, they answer two questions that often accompany a parent’s first forays into the gifted literature: First, is my child gifted?, and second, how is my child different from other children?

The authors point out that the diagnosis itself can cause problems for gifted kids and their parents. From dismissive comments by other parents such as “all children are gifted,” to misunderstandings from educators like “bright children don’t need any special help,” gifted children and their parents face a lot of opposition as soon as their children are identified.

The second goal of the book is to teach parenting and educational approaches that work as an approach to all children, but are even more important when working with the needs and intensities of gifted children. Chapters on communication, motivation, and discipline outline an approach that takes into account both the child’s age-appropriate emotional needs as well as respecting the child’s unusual ability to process and understand information.

The parenting sections of the book expand into gifted-specific problems: How do the parents of gifted children help them in relationships with their peers? How does having a gifted child affect the relationships of siblings? How can a family’s values support a gifted child? And most importantly, how can a marriage survive the complexities of parenting a gifted child?

A Parent’s Guide only touches upon aspects of aspects of raising a gifted child with twice-exceptionalities such as learning disabilities, mood disorders, and ADD/ADHD. Parents who suspect that their gifted child may suffer from concurrent problems will do well to read Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnosis of Gifted Children and Adults after getting an introduction to the issues in this book.

Finally, the book devotes chapters to the educational needs of gifted children, as well as working with other professionals. The educational section gives a blueprint for looking at schools — what to expect in traditional schools, private schools, gifted programs, and gifted schools. There is a short section on homeschooling, a popular choice for parents of gifted children. More useful is the information offered about teacher training for gifted issues (most teachers receive no training), gifted programs in schools (which may or may not serve a gifted child’s needs), how to work with the school administration, and how to advocate for your gifted child.

A Parent’s Guide is a great starting point for educating yourself about the needs of your gifted child and the possible pitfalls you may face as you raise and educate him or her. However, more important than the actual information in the book are the pointers to how to learn more about giftedness, schools, and your child’s emotional health and educational success. If you’re just starting down the road to helping your gifted child, especially a younger child, this book offers a straightforward “owner’s manual” that will guide you through the challenges you and your child will face.

Successful on their own terms

Posted on by Suki

I once heard a brave workshop leader say something that caused multiple mom faces around the room to fall with an almost audible thunk:

“How many of you have exactly the same values and beliefs as your parents?” the workshop leader had asked. Three moms out of perhaps 50 had raised their hands.

“Well,” she said. “That’s how many of your kids are going to have the same values and beliefs as you.”

Many of the parents in the room seemed shocked that she would suggest that their children — how could this be? — had their own minds.

Personally, I appreciated her candor, because this is something I think that parents in our day and age forget all too often (and I’m including myself here!). We consult the latest research, we follow our favorite child-rearing manual faithfully, we research schools or try to have the perfect homeschool, we’re involved with our kids, we’re committed to being better parents… But we forget that in the end our kids are themselves, and all of our engineering may get them to the right schools with the right peers and the right skills for the 21st century, but it won’t get past the fact that our kids are humans, complex inside and interacting with a complex world.

Are we doing our very best to give them what they will need in life? Of course.

Will we succeed? Probably not.

That’s not to say that our kids won’t figure out how to make their lives into a success. But they will do that on their own terms, and they will often be terms that we disagree with.

I remember a young man in college who made the agonizing decision to quit ROTC and the military career his father had planned for him. This young man was taking a huge gamble: his father had set him up for success in every way he knew. But it wasn’t on his son’s terms.

I know a man who became a scientist because he was told he was good at it. One day, he threw away that career to become a potter.

I know people who stuck with spouses their families didn’t like, who live in places their parents hate to visit, and who become vegan in spite of their meat and potatoes upbringing.

I know a lot of people who have very smart kids, kids who seem destined for success. But really, do we understand how one smart kid goes on to be Steve Jobs and another ends up picking food out of trash bins? We think we have the answers, but really, all we have is the best we can do.

I think that “the best we can do” is to offer our children tools they can use to fulfill their potential. But when we give our kids tools like a good education, they may end up using them much differently than we expected. The best we can hope is that our kids are happy with their choices in the end. Banking on your kids growing up to do exactly what you prepared them to do is not a great investment. But I hope that I do a good enough job that I’d be willing to bank on my kids being successful… on their own terms.

A boy at 13

Posted on by Suki

The big news in our town recently was that a thirteen-year-old boy was shot and killed in his neighborhood. Police say the boy had gang ties, though his mother and a counselor who worked with him said he’d been turning his life around. My son is thirteen. It’s hard to look at lives like his next to lives like my son’s and make sense of it.

It sounds like the adults in his life were trying to do the right thing. But when I read the headline, with its emphasis on gangs and police, it made me think of how little sense our systems make when you compare them to what we know about brain development. I was blown away some months ago when I read the book Inspiring Middle School Minds by Judy Willis. Willis has the impressive creds of being a pediatric neurologist who changed careers to be a middle school teacher. Not only does she get kids’ brains, she gets kids.

What I learned from Willis and from other people studying and writing about brain development is that we have it all wrong when it comes to how we’re dealing with teenagers. Somewhere along the way, someone suggested that if we get harsher with them, if we push them harder, lock them up, treat them tougher, somehow this will fix the problems that teenagers cause.

This is, of course, ridiculous. Willis talks about how teens learn everything through the emotional centers of their brains. When they are experiencing pleasure, they learn. When they are experiencing negative emotions, they turn off. So when their gang friends tell them how cool they are, how grown up and tough, they feel great. They learn exactly what their gang friends want them to learn. When the police and the juvenile justice system slam them down and lecture them, lock them up and treat them as if they should view life just like a 30-year-old does, they shut off. They literally don’t learn.

On top of that, every single piece of scientific evidence about the development of the human brain points to decision-making as the very last piece that settles into the puzzle. The average person’s decision-making capability is in place by the age of 25—this means that some people take longer than that to attain their full capacity to make rational decisions. So what does that say about how we deal with teens? Our entire approach is just dead wrong. We can’t treat them more like adults—we need to treat them more like children.

My son has never had to deal with the juvenile justice system, but like all kids, he has done wrong things. When he makes a mistake, we tell him. But at the same time, he almost always hears loving words, accepting words, and he always gets a hug, a shoulder squeezed, a smile. And our son doesn’t have to make life-changing decisions yet. Hopefully, he’ll trust us enough to consult us, just as we did our parents, well into his 20’s when making important decisions.

But many 13-year-old boys are put into situations where they have to resist the pull of gang life, which makes them feel validated and important, and where they have to make life-or-death decisions on a daily basis. I know there’s no way to solve this problem for everyone—life is, at its core, not fair. But there is a way for us to make more rational decisions about how to deal with teens in our social systems. When I read about the juvenile justice system, about the way the police and social workers deal with teens, about how families deal with their difficult teens, I wish over and over that we would trust more in what our scientists are telling us.

Teens are still kids. Yes, it’s true that we shouldn’t treat them like babies. But no, we shouldn’t expect them to have the capabilities of adults. They don’t, and no matter how we treat them like adults, they won’t. They’re still kids, and they need love, support, and encouragement from adults who care about them.

I’m so sorry that a family lost their 13-year-old boy. I hope it reminds all of us to hug our teens, love them, and remember that they can’t be anything more than their biology lets them be.

The Power of Habit: Clean at last!

Posted on by Suki

I have a weakness for books that take brain research and attempt to apply it to our everyday lives. I think this is one of the most fascinating aspects of the time we’re living in: We’re amassing all this new information about how our brains work… so what do we do with it?

My husband knows my weakness, and recently passed on a book he was reading, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. It’s a quick read, and not necessarily life-changing. Duhigg offers brain research and lots of anecdotes to back up what I think most of us instinctively know: Habits are easy to form and usually hard to break. Except sometimes, when we seem to drop a habit as easily as a smoker drops a cigarette butt.

You can read the book to get the particulars about the research and the real life anecdotes. But what interests me after reading this is thinking, How does this apply to parenting? And that’s where the point of the book becomes very interesting to me.

I’m sure your kids are a lot like mine. My husband and I have a joke that we have to think about every thing we ever allow our kids to do, because one time sets a precedent, and then suddenly one time becomes habit. One day you break down and let the kids drink a soda at Grandma’s friend’s house, and then suddenly kids who have lived their entire lives without touching soda are begging you every time you pass a convenience store.

Duhigg explains this phenomenon as a “habit loop”: You get a cue (passing a store that sells sodas), it clicks into a routine (one time when you begged and made puppy-eyes, mama said yes to a soda), and then you get your reward (the soda, sugar, caffeine, yay!). He shows that it takes a shockingly short time for our brains to develop habits, and then even if we suffer extreme brain trauma to the point that we can’t remember what someone just said to us, we still can remember—and perform—our habits.

I believe that a huge part of parenting is helping our kids set up healthy habits. Depending on each family, healthy changes its definition. In our house, we limited screen time because we thought too much was unhealthy. We emphasized filling yourself with healthy food before thinking about sweet, fatty, salty snacks. We set up the habit of reading just by doing it so much it became natural to our kids. We do the work we need to do no matter how much we’d rather do other, unnecessary things because that’s the habit that leads to a more successful life. And conversely, we’re willing to throw practical concerns to the wind if we are taken with a fun, creative idea, and we think that’s another habit worth cultivating.

But in reading this book I wondered, first, whether it is possible to be conscious about the habits you develop. Will our constant reminders ever help our kids remember to become good tooth brushers, have a neat house, or know where their jackets are? None of that seems to be catching on at all. In fact, Duhigg’s model is consistent with this: If we make a habit of reminding our kids to do things, will they just develop the habit of waiting to be reminded before they do the thing?

And that leads me to wonder, second, whether there is a better way for parents to help kids develop good habits. Should we ask them to consciously dissect their habits and decide whether they are healthy ones? Should we have them go through the process of doing things the right way, just for practice, so that it gets ingrained in them? How can we help them develop the healthy habits without inserting our own presence into the habit formation?

Lots of interesting questions here. From what I see, our successes and failures have been scattershot. On the one hand, we have a kid who would never consider leaving the house without brushing her teeth. (One time she forgot and she asked if we drive back home so she could do it. I gave her a stick of gum and hopefully didn’t set a bad habit in motion!) On the other hand, we have a kid who has never remembered, no matter what method we have used, to pick up his dirty clothing from the bathroom floor after his shower. Yes, we’ve tried it all, and still, the wrong habit persists.

Finally, Duhigg mentions the phenomenon of changing a “keystone habit” to create a larger change in life habits. In his example, a woman who decided only to give up smoking actually ended up changing every aspect of her life which was heading in the wrong direction. Is it possible that what we really need to do is—who knows?—change the way our son gets to his bathroom for the shower, or take away a picture he always looks at on the way to the shower, or…?

This sounds a bit too much like the kids I knew whose mom was getting a degree in psychology. She practiced everything she was learning on them, and drove them—not surprisingly—a little bit crazy. I don’t want to do that to my kids, but this has definitely given me some food for thought.

Ask me again in six months, and perhaps the floor of that bathroom will be clean at last.

 

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