Living With Live Wires

At this point in our home school experience, and in our home life, with seven (almost eight) year olds motivation for a path of mastery, discipline and communication are my main concerns.

I offer small rewards to my children for some of their school work. But I have established a long wait and a huge amount of work to earn the reward. I work on their delayed gratification whenever I can.

Quite often it is hard to get them started with their lessons, but after addressing their emotional needs and enticing them with some sort of motivating activity, they get going. When they get started with their work, they enjoy the process – And, I make it a point to talk about that – noting their fun, enjoyment and excitement about learning whenever it is evident.

One way we help them look at the long-term process of mastery is with a celebration when they reach certain milestones

We give them small presents, write award certificates, and read them at a ceremony once or twice a year. This time also includes their favorite foods and a small family party. We take care to tell them the positive things about who they are and how much work they put into their learning.  It is important that the emphasis be not just based on accomplishment, but on effort and character. Additionally, this is a time for us to celebrate our family legacy.

Another one of my main concern at this point in promoting a path of mastery – is discipline and communication.

In our life, that means creating clear expectations, communicating them to the kids, and consistently holding those standards when reasonable.

Isn’t it great when those things work? You can relish those moments.

In our life with gifted kids, the communication portion becomes key. It usually means having long discussions to answer all the questions – Why? What if…? Why should I do that? What if I do something different? How about this way, or that way? Why don’t you consider this? I know a better way you can do it? I have other things I want to do and this is why? Lets talk about it some more. And, our latest challenge is the reply after a lengthy discuss of – Well, I just don’t want to…

And, it also means that there are circumstances that require extra attention to the child’s sensitivities of the situations. Our son often gets overwhelmed by so many things – by his physical environment, by taking too many trips out of the house, being around too many people, being around the wrong kind of people, eating the wrong foods, getting overwhelmed by what he is doing.

It means we have to deal with all of our intensities, our areas of superabundance, referred to by Dabrowski as “overexcitabilities.” This can sometimes feel like just “too much” which is how overexcitabilities are described by others. They can refer to you or your child as just too sensitive, too energetic, too smart, too excitable.

Like everyone, my children each have their particular style of discouragement and frustration. Sometimes I have success helping them turn it around. Sometimes they need to just express and discuss those feelings, take a break and do something else, or just rest.

The extra time we have in home school has provided us with the opportunity to go through these experiences from beginning to end. To come out on the other side with more compassion for ourselves, our own difficulties and each other.

I get a personal thrill when I see my children deeply involved in projects that last hours and sometimes days. It reassures me that they are practicing the path of mastery and can feel that enjoyment in each moment of the timeless flow of energy. They can experience the intrinsic motivation and all without my help. I also know that this flow of energy is transferable to other areas and I just need to be a creative motivator to help it transfer.

[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]

Many of us have grown up in times and places that did not acknowledged creativity, gifts & talents in children. In the wider picture of history and culture, giftedness still seems to be a new burgeoning field in education. The awareness is increasing at amazingly fast rates, but progress has been more recent. It is rare when the healthcare, parenting and family life literature mention characteristics of highly creative & bright children or the importance of identifying these children.

Due to the tremendous parenting challenges that are often encountered with highly sensitive and intense children, parents tend to do their own research to find answers.  More often than not, parents hide the facts about their children’s abilities from friends, family and healthcare professionals for fear of being branded as one of those “bragging parents.”  This likely ostracizes them and their children from social experience with friends and family.

The lucky parents find local support groups for parents with bright & talented kids. In these groups, they are free to talk about their children, their unique abilities and get suggestions to support the special emotional & social needs. They find great relief and solace in finding a group of people that understand what they are going through and that their situation is challenging.  This is crucial for families who live in a world that often doesn’t acknowledge, accept, or appreciate the needs of gifted & children. The support system is crucial for those that need to advocate for their child to get their academic, social and emotional needs met in a world that sometimes doesn’t have a place for them.

Tony and I have been fortunate to be a part of an amazing support group for parents with gifted kids in Minnesota. The group we encountered when our children turned 5 years old is MCGT, Minnesota Counsel for the Gifted and Talented, a parent organization. We chose to home school our children at the time, and received invaluable help from the homeschool chapter of this organization.

We continue to be involved and contribute our time. Tony has served as president of the home school chapter and I taught a class at the home school co-op sponsored by chapter. We have the deepest gratitude for this organization and the parents that volunteer their time to help others. This support group has been instrumental in our lives to help us with the special needs that arise on a regular basis.

The support, resources and encouragement we have received from MCGT became our inspiration for this website. There are many locations across the country that do not have local organizations, services or resources for families with intense & sensitive children. We seek to fill, in a small part, that gap by developing an online version of what we have been fortunate enough to experience on a local level.

In addition, I am devoted, as a family therapist, to serve the needs of bright & creative children and their families. I know that intense & sensitive children are not the only focus in many families. But, the existence of intensities & sensitivities in the children usually means there are parents with similar issues. Oftentimes, the challenges that our children experience begin echoing our own childhood experiences. This often provides deep motivation for us, as parents, to understand our children in new ways and to find resources that will helpus create a family culture that will nurture each person as unique.

We are starting by opening a dialogue.

I presented at the MCGT state conference for parents of gifted children. I am also doing a presentation at the conference for gifted educators in February. I will be available at the MCGT resource fair March 7, 2009. We are beginning the website with blog content about our personal family life.  Tony and I will be starting a podcast. I will regularly post original content from my presentations about parenting and educating bright, creative children. We will increasingly post more content about relevant topics in the gifted world. We will begin by reviewing the basics concerning the identification of giftedness, testing, resources, and characteristics of giftedness. We will regularly feature interviews with families with gifted members and experts and authors. And, I will provide opportunities for parents and professionals to access online services in the form of webinars and family life coaching.

The strength of our community will evolve through the connections we make with each other. It will grow through our willingness to share our experiences, ask questions, provide feedback and become an active community of committed parents and professionals.

The journey of exploration starts now. . . but it does not have a set course nor does it have an end point.

This morning I went to the computer to check email, the temperature reading for outside temps read -22 degrees! The arctic weather continues!

Earlier this week we completed some very intense science and math lessons that really strechted their thinking.  Yesterday, they had time for creative learning projects (reference back to entry).  So, today Sean and Sophie did an independent study day. This is a day, or part of a day when they make a list of the assignments they need to complete and any projects they want to work include. Some reading assignments and lessons need to be completed individually, some need to be done together, and there a few they can choose whether to work together or not.

This morning was peaceful and they worked very well on their own. They completed reading for chemistry(Real Science 4 Kids) to prep for experiments, and language (Sentence Island). They reviewed their memorized poems and are currently memorizing all the prepositions (Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind-level 3). They completed spelling lessons (Spelling Workout), lessons and tests on CyberEd, and practiced their keyboarding (Typing Instructor). As I was preparing lunch, they acted out the stories they wrote yesterday about their lentil wilderness.

At lunch we had a few problems. I spilled a glass of water on the counter and we had to rush to rescue pictures, papers, a camera, and various other things that we didn’t want wet. They had to eat their lunch in a very small area of the table because our projects have taken over our space. Food was spilling on the floor attracting the cats and dog. They were getting a feast. Then, after I set them up for afternoon activities, I came upstairs to see the cats taking over the lentil boxes. After all, they are cat litter boxes with litter-looking lentils inside. I feared the worst, but realized they were just playing with the lentils, the paper props and eating a few lentils as a snack. I hope dried lentils will pass right through the cats!! Maybe good for a little fiber? Just more homeschool adventures in the midst of “creative clutter.”

The afternoon activities included the Great States Game for geography. They really enjoy playing that game. They wanted to do more keyboarding. We have had good luck with this software. It is very appealing to kids because of the games. I don’t mind these games because they are all typing and it really challenges them to increase their speed. I allow them to work on keyboarding as much as they want as long as they get their assignments done.  They completed their math assignments, conducted science experiments that gave them practice in scientific measurement (The Young Scientist Series). They planted their seeds to plot their growth and measured melting ice towers. They recorded results on charts and graphs.

Lentil science is on the afternoon schedule again since we have all the materials out. Right now, this is one thing we are doing that is at grade level. The activities are engaging and fun for them and they get practice in following directions, organizing themselves and taking responsibility for the entire project. Today they made a new landscape (adding a lot of their own Lego characters), hid treasure, made maps and wrote directions for others to find the treasure. This simple exercise has turned into an adventure against the perils of skeletons, aliens, and monsters who have created traps and secret codes.  I liked this activity because it provided more opportunity for them to integrate creativity into their learning activities; creating stories, writing, spelling, map-making and giving directions. They were free to make the exercise as hard and creative as they wanted. They extended their “lentil worlds” into several boxes and made more elaborate worlds. Writing came easier because they were inspired by their own creativity. The cats watched very closely and tried to become part of the lentil world to our dismay. Looks like the lentils will need to be stored in containers tonight.

After all their projects, experiments, lessons and reading they still had the chance to get in several hours of imaginary play. They dressed up as warrior knights and played with stuffed animals and legos. Today made me think about the luxury of time you experience in home school.  You can get the lessons done, design creative projects,  and still have plenty of play time. And, I also thought about the huge range of activities my 2nd -grade aged gifted kids have shifted between this week (and sometimes within the day); dress-up, playing with stuffed animals, and creating lentil worlds to 4th – 6th grade math, science and language.

Their reward for a big day of work is an episode of Gilmore Girls, our favorite Net Flix Pic right now.

We may be stuck inside today, but we still have fudge and Gilmore Girls!!

Today we were supposed to go into the cities to the Minneapolis Institute of Art to have a tour lead by their art teacher. But, the trip was canceled. An Alberta Clipper has been immobilizing most of the U.S. It was 20 degrees below zero and roads had black ice . Tony broke his all-time record for longest commute time yesterday with 3.5 hours on the way to work and 2.25 hours on the way home. His commute takes 45 minutes in good weather without traffic jams. The arctic cold is really taking it out of us. We have had several weeks now of 0 and below zero temps since the beginning of December. Where is that global warming when you need it?

We started our day slowly with our usual chores and breakfast. Sean and Sophie finished up some math assignments and were very happy to complete another math book. They both did a happy dance.

Today I decided to get motivated to do some of the lessons and projects that have been repeatedly put off due to our busy schedule and illness during the last few months. We started a geography program last year that they like, and it is finally time to get back into it. It is called Geography Matters. (do a review of this and have links to the website) We only made it through the units covering, the world and North America lessons last year.  I added a lot of supplemental materials to make more comprehensive and interdisciplinary lessons. We supplemented with Earth science units and U.S. History and cultural studies covering Canada, United States and Mexico. Today we reviewed the work that we did last year to get ready to continue with new units. Our Discovery Education United Streaming subscription is now over, so I signed up for a 30 day trial of United Streaming Plus, Discovery Science for Elementary School and Discovery Science for Middle School. This will help get us started before we have to pay for an entire year subscription. They watched videos about different kinds of maps and how they can be used. It was a helpful review to begin thinking about geography again. They also watched the Magic School Bus goes Cellular for a fun video to support our cellular biology lessons from yesterday.

Lunch and playtime were spent making fudge and preparing for our afternoon activities. I have wanted to do more with our TOPS lentil science books. The experiments are easy, but I usually find that they are very engaging and fun for the kids.  I found one experiment that will combine the subjects we are studying today. It is creative and active, so Sean and Sophie will love it. The experiments in lentil science are done in job boxes. This is cardboard boxes to hold the lentils.  We use (clean, never used, of course) cat litter pans. The exercise involves a review of landforms, creating landscapes and townscapes, drawing a map of their worlds, writing out directions to their map, telling imaginative stories about what happens in their lentil worlds, and writing the story.

We managed to do a little science, art, creative storytelling, mapping, spelling and writing in one afternoon activity. They enjoyed the entire activity including the writing assignment because they were able to write about something meaningful to them – their world that they created. We also prepared for experiments tomorrow by planting wheat and bean seeds and getting everything ready for chemistry experiments.

The tastiest part – we had fudge for a snack! A very special treat. Sean and Sophie kept asking what fudge was because they had never had any.  We talked about the differences between how various candies and cakes are are made. I shared with them the stories of my Mom making fudge at Christmas time when I was young. All the Christmas candy was stored in a breezeway where my nephew and I spent time sneaking candy before Christmas dinner.

Cooking and preparing projects and experiments can take a lot of time, but the payoffs are REALLY worth it!