{GHF Blog Hop} Five Tips for Raising Your Gifted Grown-Up

Raising your gifted grown-up comes with its unique set of challenges. Sure, it is fantastic to be raised by someone who understands why the line across the toe of your socks drives you into a frantic tailspin, but these grown-ups take time and patience to handle. I have put together a list of a few things you can do to keep that gifted mom/dad’s meltdowns to a minimum, and help them “meet their potential”, as we hear them say in conversation. *

1. Food. Your gifted grown-up needs healthy snacks and meals every 2-3 hours. It is important to pay attention and be sure that they are not just finishing the snacks and meals that you decided you no longer liked or wanted to eat. Grown-ups are tricky, and will tell you that they don’t feel like making another snack because they have just spent 15 minutes in the kitchen paying close attention that the peanut butter on your celery is applied with the correct peanut butter to celery ratio, and the celery strings have all been removed. If your gifted grown-up does not eat their very own snack, you will notice a quick decline in their behavior, perhaps presented in the form of short-tempered responses followed by apologies. If your grown-up continues to decline food after your generous offers, get a big scoop of that peanut butter on a spoon, and bring it to them with your best puppy-dog eyes. Tell them you just want what is best for them. Who can resist that?

2. Exercise. Your gifted grown-up needs to move. He/she builds up a great deal of energy throughout the day, and may even have psychomotor overexcitabilities. If you notice that your mom is fidgeting a lot while you are explaining to her why you have been considering that the moon has a core, and based on the recent evidence of Europa’s tectonic activity, you feel that you are on the right track, and will she please help you find some more information about this, she may need to do some jumping jacks while you talk, chew a piece of gum, or play with a stress ball. She wants to pay attention, but occasionally her mind wanders and her inner engine revs up and needs a release. It might help to encourage her to go for a run in the morning, or do some yoga in order to get some of that energy out before you expect her full attention for the day.

3. Brain Food. Your gifted grown-up requires a great deal of intellectual stimulation. Stacks and stacks of it. Take numerous trips to the library. Ask lots of questions, preferably questions that your grown-up has not considered before, or in a subject area that he is not well-versed. This will give your gifted grown-up motivation to do some research.  Your gifted grown-up has his own interests, too, and often forgets to pursue them. Watch for answers to grow shorter, eyes to grow a bit dull, and a smile that looks forced. These are signs of brain food shortage, and can be remedied by reminding him to do something that he enjoys and feeds his need for knowledge. Provide some quiet time for him so he can focus on writing, researching, or another favorite brain past-time.

…which bring me to my next tip.

4. Quiet time. Gifted grown-ups need time to recharge. Consider the morning that you and your sister were busy creating an awesome 5-pot band, complete with a harmonica, your baby brother would not let Mom put him down, and the road construction crew had been repairing your block. Mom’s sensual overexcitability was probably on overload. If she didn’t have a melt-down, it was probably a few precious threads away from happening. Send your gifted grown-up to a quiet place daily. Tell her that it is really, truly okay to take some time for herself in a calm, peaceful room. She needs to reboot, or someone may just get the boot. While she is having her quiet time, you and your siblings should also find something quiet to do, like rearrange the kitchen for her, or see how high you can stack every book from the shelf in the living room. But remember, keep it quiet. She needs some peace.

5. Grown-Up Friends. Your gifted grown-up will tell you that she has plenty of friends and adult interaction. It’s most likely not true. Adults need other adults to talk to, whether they are virtual or in-person friends. Yours may be an introvert who prefers one or two select people, and finds group interactions and office parties exhausting. He may not have found his person yet. Gifted grown-ups frequently have a difficult time finding others with whom they “fit in”. If your gifted grown-up fits this description, there are several on-line forums and groups that have the potential of showing your gifted grown-up that they are not alone, are not crazy, and do have a “tribe” somewhere. Encourage them to find these other special adults, and make some connections.

Most importantly, encourage your gifted grown-up. It is a glorious thing to have a mind like theirs, but from time to time they get bogged down in the difficulties and forget. Remind them that they are unique and get to experience the world in a way that most others do not. Give them a hug on the bad days. With your help, your gifted grown-up will flourish.

*This is, of course, a parody of the commonly seen blog posts entitled “10 ways To Motivate Your Gifted Child” or “5 Ways to Help Your Gifted Child Meet Their Potential”. Humor aside, all of these areas are important to maintain sanity. Take care of yourself, gifted grown-ups. We are a complicated bunch, and without the proper attention to our needs, life can get difficult.

For more resources/support for gifted adults, follow these links:

Gifted Homeschoolers Online Forum, from GiftedHomeschoolers.org

Gifted Adults Page, from HoagiesGifted.org

Can You Hear the Flowers Sing? from SENG.org

(This article is one of my personal favorites.)

Paula Prober’s amazing blog for gifted adults, Your Rainforest Mind

* * * * *

This blog post is part of the GHF October Blog Hop on Gifted Adults. I’m on my way to read the many insightful posts about being a gifted adult here. I hope you read them too!

Photo Credits:
Lunchbox: https://www.flickr.com/photos/buzzymelibee/8479667351/in/faves-123234002@N02/
Yoga Pose: https://www.flickr.com/photos/allmothers/4419851632/in/faves-123234002@N02/
Books: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/8139757998/in/faves-123234002@N02/

{GHF Blog Hop} Waiting for "Ready"

flickr

I bought B a new tooth brush. I put it in her bathroom, removed the old one, and went on with my day.

That evening, right around tooth-brushing time, there came a shriek from the bathroom.

“Where is my pink tooth brush? What is this red one? Where is mine?”

Followed by a five minute semi-heated discussion on the state of her pink toothbrush, the need for a new one and the strong resistance of a stubborn 6 year old.

Finally, I asked myself, “Is it really worth all of this nonsense?”, took the toothbrush from the (thankfully) top of the trash can, cleaned it and gave it back to her.

Peace and clean teeth for all.

I left the new brush in the toothbrush basket, though, just in case.

About two weeks later, B found me, and told me proudly, “Mom, I was finally ready for my new toothbrush! I have been practicing with it, and I am ready to throw my pink one away.”

Then she did.

She and I have talked about writing to a pen pal. The parents in one of my favorite facebook groups set up a pen pal list, and I encouraged her to participate.

“You could write to someone who is interested in the same things that you are. You could make a friend in another part of the country, or another country altogether!”

She declined. I though perhaps she didn’t want to do the work of writing, or she didn’t like it because it was my idea. Finally, she sighed and told me, “Mom. I am just not ready for a pen pal.”

About a month later, without any assistance from me, she became pen pals with our next door neighbor, a very nice woman who loves kids. They have been writing what B calls “beautiful letters” to each other weekly.  I asked her about it, and she shrugged nonchalantly and replied, “I was just ready.”

She rides her bicycle with the training wheels on. We can tell that she is capable of riding independently. She doesn’t feel quite equipped for that step yet. My husband took the trainers off, hoping to force the change…instead she refused to touch the bike for two months until I convinced him to put them back on.  I am confident that she will follow her usual pattern. When she feels confident about it, she will do it, and do it well. Not on our time frame, but on hers. She’ll probably take the training wheels off by herself, since she is already better with tools than I am, and I will join her for a bike ride and notice half way through the ride that they are gone.  It’s the way she is.

The unknown can be difficult for any kid.  Waiting for your child to adapt to change, or try something new can be difficult for parents. The issue seems like no big deal, you can do this, why is this such a problem? Emotional overexcitability may exacerbate the situation, perhaps for the child and the parent.

So, what do you do?  I am learning to be patient, and to remember that adapting to something new is a process, not a two-second flip of the switch. I plan ahead and move gradually with the toothbrush swap, out-grown clothes removal, and rearranging the house. I give verbal notice in advance when possible. The older two are getting better at revving up their adjustment speed, and understanding that sometimes, they just have to. It’s uncomfortable and unfortunate, but occasionally, it just can’t be helped. Life is unpredictable, after all.

I am listening when my children tell me that they are not ready, and trusting that they know themselves better than I do. When they feel emotionally and physically equipped for the task at hand, they will accomplish it fantastically, without my prompting or intervention. It’s a difficult business to sit back and wait for it to happen. But, I’ve never seen a mama butterfly hovering over a chrysalis to make sure the caterpillar knows what it’s doing, and does it at the right time. The caterpillar senses the right timing, and the result is phenomenal.

It’s a beautiful thing to watch happen.

This blog post is part of the GHF July 2014 Blog Hop. Be sure to visit these other insightful bloggers’ posts on Gifted Parenting!

{GHF Blog Hop} The Case of the Car Seat Fury

C hates her car seat. She has hated it from day one. When she was a baby, we rarely ventured more than 20 minutes away from our home unless we were prepared for Ultimate Scream Fest. B was the same way, but her cry was much more mellow and, as awful as it sounds, much easier to tune out when a longer car ride was inevitable. Still, the switch to the booster seat was SUCH a welcome moment for B, and the end of many degrees of stress.

C is almost big enough to make the switch. As in one-half inch and three pounds from the recommendations. The cautious side of me would like to wait another three or six months to promote her to the booster seat. We do a lot of highway driving, and I want her to be safe.

But on the other hand, the screaming and fighting when we get in the car is getting old. She is strong enough to be a problem, and I have to plan ahead 15 minutes to leave the house, knowing that there will most likely be an incident before we can go to our destination (frustrating, multiple times daily.). Once safely buckled, she moved the chest buckle down as far as she can (unsafe), pulls on the adjusting strap and loosens the belt (unsafe). She wiggles, she groans, she states where and how this car seat buckle is ruining her life. I don’t like to think it is affecting my driving abilities, but it probably is. She’s pretty distracting with the trying to escape and all. We need an extra 10 minutes once we reach our destination so she can compose herself and act appropriately. I tallied it up the other day. We went to three places, which means in and out of the car three times….so roughly an hour of our day (plus the time IN the car) was spent on C dealing with her car seat hatred. That’s like 30 hours of my life PER MONTH.

We tried the Ride Safer travel vest. That was a disaster for a week. B liked it, but it took away her independence, because her hands just weren’t quite strong enough or dexterous enough to maneuver the belts, so that added another 5 minutes to every trip, along with some extra frustration on both of our parts. (On those three trip days, that was another 15 minutes! 7 ½ more hours per month! All together, with Little Miss Scream, that’s equivalent of THREE DAYS spent on car seat trauma, you guys.) C didn’t like the feel of the vest around her body – it’s much like a water safety vest, and those are a whole separate calamity. She didn’t like that it held her still in the seat. She began to wiggle and groan and state how this seat belt vest was ruining her life.

So, I decided enough is enough. I bought the high back car seat this morning. I am just hoping that it isn’t too straight, or too itchy, or the car seat belt isn’t too “wrong” or whatever else she might come up with. My only other options are to stay at home the rest of my life or invest in some duct tape and really, really good ear buds to drown her out.

I’ve commiserated with other parents about this… what options have worked for you?

**Edited to add: The new booster seat seems to be working well, with the exception of one seat belt removal experience while in the car. C loves the colors, silver and purple, and is actually thrilled to go places now. She also promises she will never, ever remove her seat belt again while the car is moving. We arrived everywhere on time this week. No fits were thrown. It was a miracle!

This blog post is part of the GHF April 2014 Blog Hop. Be sure to visit these other fantastic bloggers’ posts on promoting health and wellness in the gifted/2e child!

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