Living With Live Wires

I want, most of all is for my children to enjoy the NOW, to enjoy the process of learning and becoming, to enjoy each other NOW, and every NOW in the future and to be prepared to meet change as it happens without worrying about the future.

They will encounter things that we could  never dream of. We need to focus on their education in new ways than the educators of our past. Just learning the basic subjects is no longer enough. Being a fast learner, a talented person, or a gifted intellectual is not enough. We need to embrace a path of mastery and creativity. We need to become more adaptable, flexible, adventurous and resourceful. We need to make sure we make connections with each other and teach our children to do the same.

We need to take on the challenge of developing a new mind and to guide our children, who may be much further along that path than we are, to do the same. And, we need to guide them to live a life of balance.

Each family has the ability to more consciously create a family legacy that is of their own choosing and one that will insure the future happiness and fulfillment of everyone in their family.

As we do – we become better people and our children benefit – we can’t lose.

[excerpt from my Minnesota Council for the Gifted and Talented State Conference presentation: Don't Fence Me In - Mastery, Creativity, and Adventure in the Home Education of Bright Children]

Nature is a great context for adventure!! For us, one of our long-term adventures is getting out on nature hikes and we’re working our way up to camping. We have managed to do nature hikes for a couple years. We spend the days out at the parks and riding bikes. I think we managed to get past the stage where I thought we were going to have to buy a screen house to stay at the park for the day – to avoid bugs. That almost happened last year.

Camping may be an easy way of life for many of you, but for us it will be a big deal. I camped a lot as a kid and never had a complaint, even when my girl scout camp got hit by severe storms and was flooded. But MANY years later, with children, I feel differently. You get used to a certain level of comfort and security. And, I’m not going to say who, but a couple of us have extremely severe arachnophobia, or really, anything that crawls – phobia. Being from Iowa, then going up north in Minnesota, we can also come down with – big-animal phobia.

We are working our way up to camping for the day, then into the evening. Maybe give it a try at home or at campgrounds near home.

In terms of adventure, dealing with the emotional aspects, takes the most time and attention for all of us. Talking about fear, anxiety, worry, taking risks, being prepared in the face of the unknown, having confidence in yourself and others is an important exercise. Increasingly I take the opportunity to discuss these issues in relation to all of life’s experiences, and what we need to learn and do to cope with these feelings. I refer to the hero’s journey, since our children are into knights, Star Wars, Harry Potter and myths.

Hopefully, it will all serve as a good opportunity to normalize these challenges in life and realize that all of life is an adventure.  Even if you don’t know what is coming next, you can still be confident and know you can survive and thrive. 

Going on small adventures in our lives helps us to experience our feelings in a safer environment, we can practice our responses, discuss them and normalize them. Then, the bigger unexpected events in life will not be quite so overwhelming.

[excerpt from my Minnesota Council for the Gifted and Talented State Conference presentation: Don't Fence Me In - Mastery, Creativity, and Adventure in the Home Education of Bright Children]