DOING YOUR PART TO MAKE HOME A GREAT PLACE TO BE

Have the people in your house driven each other crazy yet?

Having a little trouble getting along?

I know if my daughters were still living at home, we would all be having a difficult time. Even with just my husband and I, sometimes 24/7 togetherness for an extended period can be...too much.

So what can YOU do to make this time easier? Not just for you, but for your family? The adults in your home who are stressed and anxious? Younger siblings who might be frightened? How can you make what is currently your teeny tiny little world a better place?

My first idea may be a difficult one to pull off: try not to complain. (It's hard for me; ask Dr. Kelly how many times I've whined already this morning.) It may feel like things are really not going your way right now; you don't like that you're still having to do homework, you miss your friends, maybe your spring sports have been canceled, maybe a brother or sister won't leave you alone. But trust me when I say everyone is feeling like they've lost something in this crisis, and if we only focus on what's going wrong we're all going to end up being pretty miserable. I'm not saying you shouldn't talk to someone about how you're feeling, because a healthy expression of your emotions is a good strategy for better mental health. But endless whining is not, so try to catch yourself when it's getting out of control.

Next, try putting someone else first. What can you do to make the lives of parents, or the adults you currently have contact with, better? Maybe you notice that the dishwasher needs to be loaded and run, or unloaded and the dishes put away. Maybe there's a load of laundry to be washed, dried, and folded. Can you make dinner one night? Maybe you could entertain younger siblings who need a creative outlet. Ask what you can do to be helpful, or better yet, see what needs to be done and do it without being asked. If you can go outside, see if you can help your neighbors with yard work. Rake leaves or pull weeds. They will be so appreciative of any help you can provide.

If you have brothers, sisters, cousins, or any other kids living in your house, now is the time to step up to the plate and be a good role model. Keeping the complaints down and helping out are great ways to start. Keeping noise levels to a dull roar is also super nice when there are many of you in the house. Doing what you're asked - the first time, and without crabbing about it - is also near the top of the list. Not fighting might be at the very top. If you're all just getting on each other's nerves, removing yourself physically or mentally from the situation is a great first step. 

Take some time also every day to attend to your own mental health. Chat online with a friend. Practice deep breathing or yoga. Try journaling - a great place for all that complaining that you don't want to do out loud. Listen to your favorite music - use headphones or a reasonable volume unless it's a concert your whole family wants to hear. Or turn that music up and hold an impromptu dance party! Invite others to a Netflix watch party. Have family game night, start a jigsaw puzzle, discover Sudoku or, if you're like me, read A LOT! 

We know you think that the ATYP staff are just here to nag at you to do your homework, but our number one goal right now is to keep everyone safe, happy, and healthy. If everyone in the house together is making that really difficult for you right now, put your brilliant and creative mind to use and consider what you can do to make a change. Even tiny steps count!

Put in the comments section just one step you've implemented to make life easier in your home! All comments and contributions are appreciated!

MAKING "WORK FROM HOME" WORK FOR YOU

Dr. Kelly and I are both finding that working from home can be difficult. There are a lot of distractions here - the television is on, our families (who are also working from home) are noisy, the refrigerator is close by. How do we stay focused and get things accomplished? 

You may be one of those people who can work at the dining room table with chaos going on all around you, or you may have realized from the beginning of the school year that you need a distraction-free work zone. My thinking is, even if having your own space hasn't always been a big issue for you, it may have recently become an issue if suddenly your house is full of parents and siblings who can be loud, interrupt you a lot, or just don't realize how easy it is to get sidetracked with everything going on.

So first, do some self-evaluating. How long does it take you to do your homework, and how much of that time do you think might be additional because of distractions? This is not just about your physical setting, but also about digital or technological distractions, and we're going to talk about those in a minute. Now think not just about how those distractions are increasing the amount of time it takes to complete the work, but how well you're absorbing the information. Are you learning and retaining less because what's going on around you means your head's not completely in the game? You all are smart enough to know when this is happening - if you're being honest with yourself.

Next think about your physical space. Where do you normally do your homework? In your bedroom, at the kitchen table, on the living room couch in front of the tv? What type of space do you think you need? Do you like to spread everything out? Do you like a nice tidy stack? Do you need a computer in front of you all the time, or just when you're doing your virtual class? What works for you and what doesn't? Only you can know the answers to these questions.

If you've done your evaluation and think you're getting your work done in a reasonable amount of time and absorbing the material as best you can considering everything that's going on in the world, that's great, move on. If not, what can you do to improve this situation? First, sit down with the adults in your life and talk to them about what you've discovered. Ask them to brainstorm potential solutions with you. What can you do to make improvements? There may be a limited number of places in your home that are suitable for you, and if so you might have to get creative. For instance, if you share a room with a sibling and they are in and out of that room every day, maybe you could ask if you could use your parent's room for a set number of hours. Is there a basement area that normally goes unused where you could set up a card table or makeshift desk? Consider all of your options, pick one, and try it for a week. If it doesn't work, or doesn't work as well as you like, create and try a Plan B. 

If the choices are extremely limited, or if there's no better space than what you're using and noise is an issue, earbuds or headphones may be your new best friend. Some people can listen to music they like, others find it distracting, so try different types of sounds until you find what works for you. It might be relaxing music (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GnVDPD01as) it might be white noise, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzNZxM-3xuY), who knows. Again, experiment until you find what's effective. And don't subscribe to anything - there's plenty on the internet that's free.

Once you've done everything you can to make that physical space work for you, you may find that you're STILL distracted. Why? Because digital and technological distractions are a real and ever-present concern, especially at home. Everyone should think about turning off their phone or putting it in a different room while they are doing homework. Working on math problems and don't need the computer? Turn it off or work in a different location. Typing a paper and keep getting Snapchat notifications on your computer? Turn off all your notifications and/or disconnect from the WiFi. Trying to do research and keep going down all the bunny holes? See if you can keep only one browser window up at a time, or set a timer for each website. When the timer goes off, check to see if you are still using the website for a necessary purpose or if you've gone off track. If you're in the weeds, get out and move on. And remember, focus is good, but don't sit for too long. Getting up, taking short breaks, and making sure to move around will probably help your overall effectiveness.

Let us know what's working for you! Tell us about the space you've created! Tell us about your successes and failures in the distraction department, or reach out in the comments if you need help or could use suggestions from your classmates. Here's your chance to help each other out and develop some teamwork! 

And go...

Changing It Up

Let's face it - this quarantine has us all having to make significant changes to our daily lives. Closed schools, remote work hours, no in-person friends, no fro-yo trips. Honestly, it kind of sucks. But we're going to have to muddle through and do the best we can.

One of the things we're changing at ATYP to make this situation work for everyone is the way we run our blog. Instead of general thoughts about gifted topics, we (or I, Ms. Nan here) are going to talk very specifically about what you, our ATYP students and families, can be doing to stay socially, emotionally, and academically strong during this time. 

We're also going to use this blog to be in community with each other. To share ideas on how we're making it work, to support each other, and just to be together. One of ATYP's strengths over the years has been its ability to help you find friends and like-minded peers, and we're going to rely on that strength now. So I hope that you will not only read this blog but comment, make suggestions, and contribute in meaningful ways.

I'm going to start by talking about structuring your day while you're home. First, let's be clear - some people are good at being productive without any structure, and you may be one of those people. Most of us are not. I personally find that if I don't have a pretty firm plan for the day I don't accomplish very much. What should have been a day where I got things done turns into a day of games on my phone, watching YouTube videos of cats, and eating M & Ms by the handful. So the first thing you have to do is BE HONEST with yourself. Don't just tell yourself you're good with a free-flowing type of day, really think about it. Consult with the adults in your house. And then think about creating a plan.

 

Everyone's plan will be different. Some families have already created a daily schedule to help keep themselves sane. Here is a sample one I found from the Today Show. If your family has already adopted this schedule, and it's working for you, you can probably skip the rest of this post. If you're 100% sure you don't need a schedule, you can probably also ignore the rest. But for everyone else, let's think about what should be on the to-do list.

What do you need to do on any given day? We'll use my day as an example. I am working 20 hours per week at home, and I do that over four days, so I need to plan for at least five hours of work time four days per week. Since I am getting my masters degree, I also need to allow time for my online class (Thursday mornings) and homework. I have a long research paper due in the middle of April, so that is a significant chunk. I also have meals to cook, laundry to do, and a house to keep reasonably clean (luckily all of my children are adults and there are only two of us here to mess it up). I also need some time to exercise - definitely not burning many calories sitting at my computer and not having to walk over to Sangren Hall once or twice per day. And I have some projects I can now work on in my free time.

What do you need to think about when you set up a schedule? Do your parents need you to help watch younger siblings during the day? You might have to schedule your work time at night. Are there many people using all of your bandwidth at once? Maybe schedule reading/non-internet work while they're working, and do research, etc., at night when there are fewer people online. Are you better at your homework in the morning? In the afternoon? In the evening? How much time do you need for your homework? Do you want to have most of your homework done in time for Sunday help session so you can ask questions? When does your family eat together? When can you exercise? Really give it some thought.

Option 1

Here you'll see three different ways I set up my schedule that I think might work for me. In each example, the yellow blocks are work time, the red block is classroom time, the blue blocks are homework, the purple blocks are cooking and meals, and the green blocks are free time. My work time and classroom time are fairly set, but the rest I can play with.

In the first example, I have tried to do most of my homework in the afternoons (except for Saturday morning). My thought here is that then my husband and I will both be free in the evenings to do stuff together, and I can make it so I have at least one or two days when I don't do any homework at all. In the second example, I have split up my homework between

Option 2

afternoons and evenings, thinking I might like smaller blocks of time at homework so my brain can have a breather. And I still get days off. The third example has me spreading out the homework over the course of the whole week. I wouldn't get as many full days off, but I have to commit to fewer hours per day. Which one should I choose?

Option 3

These schedules are not perfect. I should have broken out my exercise time. I could have put in specific time for meditation or some other de-stressing activity. But you can see what I thought about as I moved things around. If my husband and I start driving each other crazy being at home together all day, I may have to make my free time during the day and do homework at night! And yes, it will need to be flexible - just because I created structure doesn't mean that things won't come up. For instance, this afternoon I am going to give blood, so no homework in its regular time slot. I will have to make it up at a different (previously free) time.

So all of you who are playing along - what does your schedule look like? You can draw one like mine, with lots of colors, or you can simply make a daily list, or come up with some other visual you would like to share, and then post pictures below. Maybe your schedule will help another student who is struggling to figure this all out. If you have questions or suggestions, you can also post them below. BE CREATIVE AND HAVE FUN!

Until next time!

Ms. Nan

Handling All of our Current Collective Coronavirus Stress

Are you feeling anxious, depressed, or stressed out? We are!

Dr. Kelly and Ms. Nan freely admit that the current Coronavirus situation has us a little... overwhelmed. We are trying to get all of your courses working online, dealing with the technology issues involved with shifting to working remotely, and of course, like you, concerned about the health and safety of our students, staff, family, and friends. It's a lot.

While we are working hard to make sure that we are moving forward academically, we are also equally concerned about everyone's mental health. Here are just some basic things you can do to promote emotional well-being:

• Keep structure in your day. It's really tempting to sleep in late, play a lot of video games, and binge watch shows on Netflix - and it's okay to take some time to relax - but schedule homework time, exercise time, or free reading time. It will help remind you that this isn't actually a vacation and keep you motivated to meet goals and deadlines.
• Stay engaged in class. By keeping yourself involved in your class you help normalize your life, stay connected to classmates, and challenge your brain - all of which are important right now. If you were behind, this is a great time to get caught up when there aren't so many other priorities competing for hours in the day. Think of it as an opportunity, and take advantage so that when things do get back to normal, you can be in a much better place.
• Go outside! Try to get some fresh air and sunshine every day. It makes you feel better AND boosts your immune system. Even if you're not a big outdoors person, a few minutes is a great idea - just make sure you keep six feet of distance from your neighbors.
• Try not to watch too much of the news. We know that gifted students tend to absorb and internalize a lot of what is going on in the world around them - this is not the time to do that. While it's great to be informed so that you can make the smartest choices, turn it off when you can. 
  
• Do something to help you find your calm. Listen to your favorite music, find a great book (non-school related) to read, or try meditation. There are a number of meditation apps, some free and some not. Check with your parents before downloading anything and make sure a free trial period isn't going to rollover into something you have to pay for. The website 10% Happier - more meditation - is offering a free "Coronavirus Sanity Guide" with a number of free podcasts and other tools. 

Do you have other ideas for how to keep your calm during this crazy time? Please share them in the comments below; we would love to hear your coping strategies! You may have a suggestion that will help another student (or adult) deal with what is going on.

Ms. Nan will try to blog weekly during the remote learning time to communicate about what is happening and to give you other things to think about and discuss. If you have something you'd like her to talk about during this time, you can put that in the comments as well.

Happy belated St. Patrick's Day! We look forward to seeing you all (in person!) again soon.

The Weight of Expectations

One of the things our survey respondents told us was most difficult to balance was the weight of expectations - those of the adults in their lives and their own internalized expectations. Expectations can be a heavy, heavy load.

Parents and teachers sometimes look at kids' IQ test scores or early ACT/SAT test scores and think, "well obviously this child is headed for the Ivy League," which is a lot to put on an eleven or twelve-year-old. We frequently think we have to push, pull, or prod a child in the direction of what we term as success. One of the problems with this is that what we think of as success might not be what the child thinks - either it's not the path they want to take in life, or not the speed they want to go down the path, or they want to stop and take a left turn. Too many of us look at those scores and assume a child wants to be a doctor or a lawyer or an astronaut, when maybe they want to be a teacher, or a police officer, or an electrician. We want highly intelligent and thoughtful people in those fields as well; they are not careers we want to steer kids away from. Students should be encouraged to find paths that fit their strengths and interests, not those that fit our dreams of what they might achieve.

It was also very clear that some of the expectations came from students' peers. Once other kids become aware of a student's reputation as smart or high-achieving, the expressed belief is that the child will ALWAYS win, will ALWAYS be successful. The truth is everyone comes in second sometimes, everyone makes mistakes, and most of us fail brilliantly at one point or another. If other children express the expectation that a student will never do those things, it makes it difficult for authentic and mutually supportive relationships to form and be one of the reasons gifted children sometimes struggle to make friends. Even gifted kids know that at some point they are not going to win, and they don't need to surround themselves with those who are secretly hoping they lose.

These kinds of expectations can help drive students to unhealthy perfectionism. Adaptive perfectionism can be good for kids, it helps them to do their best and can certainly help students to achieve. But unhealthy perfectionism frequently means that students can't start (or finish) schoolwork, leads to anxiety, and cause students to underachieve. If a child is receiving the message that the expectation is that they will be perfect, we need to step back and rethink either what we are saying...or what they are hearing. No one is perfect, no adult and certainly no child. The message they have to hear is that we love them no matter what. Full stop.

Many of our kids, of course, have their own very clear ideas of what they want to accomplish, and what they should be able to accomplish. They sometimes push themselves to the brink of exhaustion because of their own expectations. While this can lead many students to be what others would consider "success," it sometimes comes at a very high cost. Our students discussed at length the stress, anxiety, and feelings of never being enough that came with their own internalized beliefs are about their abilities and goals. Please take a minute to hug your gifted child and let them know that they are always enough, and that your hope is that they are happy being themselves, with no expectation that they be anything else.

Finding Balance

In November, Dr. Kelly and I will be headed off to the National Association for Gifted Children's annual conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A few weeks ago we started reaching out to past and current students, as well as to students in other gifted programs across the state, to get answers to questions to use in our presentation, "You Just Don't Get It: What Gifted Students Wish Parents & Teachers Knew." In a series of blog posts, I'm going to share some of the themes, comments, and lessons we learned from your responses.

These are the questions we asked in our survey:

• What are some of the unique challenges you face as a gifted student?
• What do your parents do that is particularly helpful?
• What do your parents do that really does NOT work?
• If you could go back and change one thing about your education, what would it be?
• What would your ideal classroom look like?
• What’s the difference between appropriately challenging and overwhelming?
• How often is being gifted a curse rather than a blessing?

Probably the most common theme we heard in response to these questions was about balance. Gifted students struggle to find balance in many aspects of their lives - time, challenge, maturity level, just to name a few.

Many respondents talked about balancing time to do homework with time to play sports or participate in other extracurricular activities. Many times they want to just have time to play or veg out, but feel overwhelmed by either academic requirements or by other responsibilities. We know that many students have a variety of interests (multi-potentiality anyone?) but having so much going on can make it hard to say "no" and difficult to prioritize. Go time and down time seem to be a very difficult balancing act, leading to high levels of stress.

Other students discussed the balance between curriculum that is challenging and curriculum that is overwhelming. They want to learn, they want to grow, they want to bend - but they don't want to break. Even so, many respondents said that what they at first found to be overwhelming they frequently learned to conquer. This led them to develop all sorts of study and time management skills that they appreciated when they got further into high school and college. Many of them agreed that the line between appropriately challenging and just too much was very fine, and sometimes difficult to understand when you're in the thick of it.

Another aspect of balance was the difference between being a gifted kid and just being...a kid. While they want to be challenged in the classroom and have their intellect respected, many respondents also want you to understand that they were still 8. Or 12. Or 16. They're still forgetting their lunch money, or having their first kiss, or going through driver's ed just like any other kid. Sometimes it's not about being smart, sometimes it's about the normal stuff, just like everyone else. 

The asynchrony between what the brain is capable of academically and intellectually and what a student is dealing with socially and emotionally can be hard for students to navigate, a lot of times because it's hard for the adults in their lives to wrap their heads around. Sometimes adults think, "You read at an 11th grade level. Why don't your think/act/understand at an 11th grade level?" and the 8-year-old has to say, "Because I'm 8." Everyone in this situation may struggle to find equilibrium.

In all of these instances parents and teachers need to stop and ask themselves whether or not the children in their care are finding balance, while at the same time understanding that balance for one child may not look like balance to another. And that sometimes what looks like stability can be more precarious than we think. Sometimes the stresses of life and school can build up quickly, leading us to tip over. More about some of those stressors next time...

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF GIFTED EDUCATION?

Here is a stunner for some of our students - gifted education experts argue about you. A lot. 

Some experts on gifted education (Linda Silverman, Jim Delisle, The Columbus Group, etc.), believe that giftedness is a psychological trait that is just a part of who you are. It's the way you were born, and you need to be challenged in school because this is what you need to be a happy and fulfilled person. Experts in the talent development movement (such as Paula Olszewski-Kubilius) believe that while you may have been born with greater intellectual potential, the goal of gifted education is to turn you into a high-achieving adult.

What do you think?

Dr. Kelly and I have thought a lot about this disagreement and, surprise!, we think the truth of the matter lies somewhere in the middle.

As a "gifted student" you were born with a brain that may think faster, be better able to comprehend complex material, or absorb more. This used to be defined by an IQ score, but nowadays more psychologists look at it as a combination of traits that add up to academic or intellectual ability beyond that of the typically developing student of your age. This is sometimes called asynchronous development, meaning that your body is like that of an average 12-year-old, but your brain works like a 16-year-old (and maybe your executive functioning skills are that of a ten-year-old). And yes, you may need challenging academic opportunities because learning more makes you happy - but it also keeps your brain growing and helps you to develop those talents you were born with. And that's fine, too.

Here's where the split comes in - talent developers think you must grow this potential until you are preeminent in your field. We certainly want you to grow, and think you have the ability to grow, but we also know that motivation and ambition are not traits that everyone possesses, no matter what their inherent skills. If you have the intelligence to become a brain surgeon but decide that this is not something you want to devote years of your life to achieving, and decide instead that you are happy being a physician's assistant, are you less successful? It depends on your definition of success. If you can feed yourself and your family, sleep well at the end of the day knowing you have helped someone, and feel a sense of satisfaction in your life and career, is that success? Or do you need to have reached some level of eminence for your gifts to have born fruit?


To put this in an analogy you can understand, let's think about Olympian Michael Phelps. Phelps was born with certain physical attributes that contributed to his success - he's tall, has flipper-like feet, and an extremely long wing-span. He has also put in countless of hours working and training to be an exceptional athlete. Phelps took what he had, yes, an inherent advantage, and developed it until he achieved eminence in his field - certainly a path that talent developers would appreciate. But say Phelps had been a swimmer, been pretty good at it, but decided he really wanted to become a teacher instead - that's where he found his passion. Should he have stayed in the pool, or should he have followed this other dream? Is an excellent and happy teacher of less value than an Olympic athlete?

At ATYP, we want to give you the tools to become highly skilled. If you were an athlete, we would say we are providing you with the coaches and the training you need to develop all that potential - and instilling you with the understanding that true success requires effort and hard work. But we also want you to follow your dreams to your own definition of achievement, and that looks different for every student and for every person. Only you can decide what makes you feel fulfilled, and only you can determine what success looks like. Now dive in!