From the Deep

Today is our second day of summer break. In the coming year, ESGK will be an eighth grader. Which, if you do the math (and I know you can), means the following year he’ll enter high school. I won’t even begin pondering what type of quantum physics have gotten us to this point–I assure you that just yesterday I was shedding tears at the thought of leaving him at preschool for the first time. But alas, to high school he soon will go.

The question is: Where?

The school system here isn’t the same as where–or perhaps more accurately, when–I was raised. I knew purely from where I lived which high school I’d attend. Unless I wanted (and my parents were willing to pay for) a more religious, private school experience, I really didn’t have a choice. And that was fine. Nobody really questioned it. As a gifted kid I’d make do with what I was offered. And I did.

Nowadays, with school choice being what it is, we have options as to where we can send ESGK. Many options. Our neighborhood high school. Other regular high schools in the district. Charter high schools. Private, religious high schools. Online high schools. And since we send ESGK to a charter school that sets the bar extremely high, our high school choice feels really important. Where can he go so he can continue to grow academically? On the NWEA MAPS tests, he’s already in the 98th or 99th percentiles, and those tests compare him to incoming seniors in high school. The only way to get a more advanced picture of where he stands in comparison to others is for him to begin taking the SAT and ACT tests.

But academics aren’t the only consideration. What kind of social experience do we want him to have? We could enroll him in an online school that would challenge him intellectually, but where would he play sports? Expend his highly extraverted energies? Grow into an independent young adult?

To answer these questions, we’ve hired an educational consultant. We’ve had ESGK take practice entrance exams. We’re looking into having him take the SAT or ACT over the summer too. We’re doing our homework (and ESGK is doing some too).

But really, these are details. My true point is this: very little about raising gifted kids is straightforward and easy. Look at all the questions we have to consider to make choices other parents make automatically, whether it be where to send our children to school, which extracurricular activities to sign them up for, or which friends to invite to play. We have to do our homework. And we do it. We take on these tasks because we love our children deeply and care that they make the most of the gifts they possess. This takes time and energy.

As a coach to parents of gifted children, I want to say that I see you: what you do, what it costs you, and what you and your kids gain. Keep it up. You probably doubt this at times, but you are doing an amazing job that no one else could possibly do as well as you. So before you dive into whatever homework you have this summer, give yourself a pat on the back and a moment to breathe, put your feet up, and drink a refreshing, cool beverage. You deserve it!

©2010 Lisa Lauffer

{In an effort to blog more frequently, I’m going to intersperse some personal thoughts amid my series on Why Coaching Works for the Gifted.}

Raising gifted children can challenge me to my core. Just last night I had to don my referee uniform and whistle, and mediate a conflict between my two gifted, highly sensitive children whose minds race with arguments against each other. I experience the angst of a mom who has her kids in the best school available for her children, and still sees some of their needs going unmet. I absorb the struggles of my perfectionist and procrastinatory children (I’ll leave you to guess which is which!).

And I complain. I share my frustrations with other parents of gifted kids, and listen to theirs.

Do I stop to celebrate the joys?

Today, ESGK (my thirteen-year-old son) won first place in the Physics: Force and Motion category of his school’s science fair. I cannot adequately express how proud I am of him. After three years of wrestling with science fair projects, he has garnered well-deserved accolades. He’s smart, creative, and analytical. He worked hard, sometimes well into the wee hours of the morning (OK, that wasn’t absolutely necessary. Now you know which of my kids is procrastinatory!). And he earned himself the blue ribbon.

I feel some discomfort broadcasting this news on the web. In my own history as a gifted child, my achievements earned me mixed attention. Praise was quickly followed by (frequently successful) attempts to knock me down a peg. And we parents of gifted children know that others don’t want to hear about our kids’ successes (or struggles). I’ve been well trained to keep my mouth shut.

Well, no more! Today is a day for celebration and acknowledgment! So, way to go, ESGK! I’m so proud of you, I love you so much, and you have a brilliant future ahead of you!

And to all of us parents of gifted children, may we celebrate the victories. We and our kids deserve it!

©2010 Lisa Lauffer

I love the Olympics. I enjoy watching athletes push themselves to the boundaries–and beyond–of what they can do. I appreciate the years of dedication and hard work culminating in this pinnacle of competition. And most of all, I love the stories that emerge of the sacrifices people have made to participate in this ultimate experience.

I heard one such story last night. Watching the pairs figure skating short programs, I heard the story of Yuko Kavaguti, a skater for Russia. Kavaguti, Japanese by birth, trained in skating and dreamed of being coached by Tamara Moskvina, famed figure skating coach who has coached a number of Russian pairs to Olympic gold. As the story goes, Kavaguti sent a fax to Moskvina, requesting that Moskvina become her coach, and that brash act resulted (I’m sure after many other steps) in Moskvina saying yes.

It also cost Kavaguti. For Moskvina to coach her, Kavaguti had to become a Russian citizen and compete for her new country. Scott Hamilton, himself an Olympic champion and now Olympic figure skating commentator for NBC, said “How many people defect to Russia?” Some people in Japan are calling her a traitor.

But now, with her partner Alexander Smirnov, Kavaguti stands in third place in the pairs figure skating competition. Gold is within her reach.

Obviously, this girl is talented, and to reach her potential, she had to take risks and make sacrifices. As gifted people ourselves and as parents of gifted children, we know what this is like. I remember telling the principal of our neighborhood school, who is also a friend of ours, that we were moving our children from his school to a new charter school. I felt like a traitor. But since that time, I’ve seen my children rise to the challenges presented to them. We’ve defected for excellence.

I know many of you have made similar choices. While the world may never understand, we have to do it. We have to go for the gold in our lives, for our kids’ lives, no matter the risk, the sacrifice, the misunderstanding.

Thanks to Yuko Kavaguti for the inspiration. It may be small consolation, but she has gained a fan in me.

When the Gershwin brothers–George and Ira–and their fellow writer DuBose Heyward, wrote “Summertime, and the Living Is Easy” for the opera Porgy and Bess, they clearly weren’t anticipating spending three months home with gifted children. I’ve done this gig for a few years now, and I always find myself trying to outsmart summer, to make it bow to my need for predictability and sanity. But the only two predictable things that will happen are: 1) within fifteen minutes of vacation beginning, my children will make me wish it were over, and 2) multiple times during the summer I will lose my sanity.

So what can I do to make summer easier if I can’t exactly make it easy? Here are some strategies I will be trying, and I offer them as possibilities for you and your family too:

• Sign up for summer camps! I just signed up my kids for the final camp I plan to send them to. I will also remain open to other opportunities that will present themselves. The National Association for Gifted Children has a listing of summer camp opportunities; you can access this resource here. (Note: this is not an endorsement of the list or any activity on it, merely a mention of a resource for you to view.) Giving children something to anticipate, a new experience to try, and just time out of the house can create sanity for all of us!
• Practice, practice, practice. I’m a big fan of practices, those actions we take on a regular basis for our own self care. This summer, I’ll be delving into M&Ms. No, not the candy (well, yeah, maybe the candy), but practice-wise I’ll engage in movement and meditation. If I can do those two things each day, I will maintain physical and emotional energy for meeting the challenges of being with my kids all summer and running my life coaching business. If I find I’m feeling stressed, I can do one of these two disciplines again to help me recenter myself. What practices feed your soul? Can you commit to doing them everyday for your own sake and, ultimately, for your kids’ benefit?
• Balance structure and flexibility. According to Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, we all fall somewhere on a continuum between being really structured or really flexible. (To learn more about personality type and to take a temperament test, you can click here.) I tend to fall on the side of flexibility. In fact, adaptability is a great strength of mine. It can also be a weakness for me; I rely on it too much, and with children, it can cause confusion and insecurity. I’m recognizing my need to give my kids more structure in order for us all to feel good. My kids need to know what’s going to happen each day. They also need tasks to do so they feel good about accomplishing something, so we will be exploring new chores that they can grow into doing (and that’s a win for mommy!). Others may lean more on structure and may need to allow space for flexibility in their schedules to make summer a more free-flowing, relaxing time. Where do you fall? How can you create a palatable balance between structure and flexibility for you and your kids?
• Create a summer perspective. Sometimes when we feel stuck in situations–for example, when we know we have the kids home for summer and we’re going to face a challenges such as arguments between siblings, multiple proclamations of boredom, and the responsibility of being the adult on duty 24/7–we can get ourselves unstuck by creating a new perspective about it. Think of how you currently view it. Perhaps you have an “Ack!” perspective, or an “Ugh…” perspective. Perhaps you have a “Bracing for Any and All Challenges” perspective. Can you feel how clenched these perspectives might make you, and what possibilities may or may not be available to you if you stay in these perspectives? What if you were to shift your perspective to “Ease” or “Summer Island” or “Swimming Pool”? What might be possible for your summer then? What actions would you take? How would you feel? As for myself, I’m exploring the perspective of “Bright Colors” and seeing what lightness and joy that perspective might bring me and my kids this summer.
• Have a summer powwow. Today I took my kids to Starbucks, and over our tasty drinks we imagined what we want our summer to be. I drew pictures of each of us with smiles on our faces, and asked my kids what it would take for us to look like that every day this summer. They had plenty of ideas about how to be with each other and activities they’d like to try. I was also able to share my desire of balancing my time with them with my work responsibilities in a way that can bring us all joy. Might you find value in tapping your kids’ ideas creativity about how to have an awesome, ease-filled summer?

As my astute commenter Jen said at the end of my last post, we parents of gifted kids live on the hamster wheel of life. Even when we do something to care for ourselves, it can so easily feel as if whatever benefit we’ve gained is swallowed up immediately by the needs we face when we return to the real world. (By the way, I recommend you check out what Jen is writing these days–her blog is here.)

So how do we take care of ourselves in ways that feel lasting, in ways that will nourish us when we’re responsible for meeting the needs of our high-needs children? Well, it takes a little effort and planning (okay, a lot of effort and planning), but you can do it. And here’s the first step: know thyself.

We can all brainstorm the traditional self-care methods people use: getting a massage, exercising, eating well, getting enough rest, getting a facial, blah, blah, blah. I’m not against any of those things. In fact, I participate in those kinds of self-care rituals when I can. But the best self care comes from the practices that feed us, energize us, make us come alive. When we’re caring for high-needs kids such as gifted children, our energy can so easily be sapped. When we participate in self-care practices, we need to be efficient, just as Jen lamented. We don’t have much time for it, we end up right back on the hamster wheel, so we need to make our self-care opportunities count. The best way to do that is by knowing what truly makes us come alive.

I’ve discussed this before. It comes down to knowing what we value. You can read more about that in a previous blog post here. Values are what define us, what make us who we are, what uniquely bring life to us. We can discover our values by answering questions such as these:

• What’s really important to me?
• What brings me the most joy?
• What really makes me angry? (Often tapping into more difficult emotions can show us where our passions lie.)
• What was the best moment of my life?
• What is my biggest dream?

Often as parents, especially parents of gifted children, we find ourselves running on fumes. We’ve expended every last ounce of energy–physical and emotional–and we fall into bed at day’s end exhausted and dreading the next time we have to open our eyes (all-too early, of course) and face another twenty-four hours of running the hamster wheel.

What if it were different? What if we woke up everyday excited about what we got to do that day? What might life be like then? And how would it affect our parenting?

Thomas W. Phelan, Ph.D says this in his book 1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2-12 (Glen Elln, Illinois: ParentMagic, Inc., 2003):

…to effectively express the affection and praise that your children can thrive on, as a parent you must take pretty good care of yourself in the first place. You need to see that your needs are being met and that you are not chronically locked into helpless, angry, martyrlike or victim roles. (p. 189)

When I read this quote, I breathed a sigh of relief. We don’t need to take care of ourselves only for our own sakes (we parents often balk at that idea, but it’s true); our kids need us to. Think of it–what kind of parenting energy might you have available if you were to regularly care for yourself? What words would come out of your mouth? With what tone would you say them? What would you do with and for your kids if you had some energy in your gas tank?

Those of us who parent gifted children do what we must to meet our children’s high needs. We drive the universe in our mini-vans to get our children the interventions they need, to find the education that would best help them develop, to bring them to the extracurricular activities that will enhance their truest selves. We can’t do this when our own physical and emotional gas tanks are on empty.

Not to mention, we are living our own lives. Yes, we have kids and caring for them is part of our lives too. But we also possess a part of our lives that purely belongs to us (I’ll blog more on this at a later date). We don’t want it to pass us by–we don’t want to look back and wish we’d done something more for ourselves, that we’d enjoyed life more because we had more energy and love that we’d given ourselves.

I’ll blog more soon about practical ways we can take care of ourselves. But for now, let it sink it: yes, we can and ought to take time and energy for ourselves (maybe even spend some money on ourselves too).

And now, I’m going to lay down with a good book, which I hope will eventually fall to my chest as I nap blissfully!

Yesterday I shared a post about dealing with my daughter’s and my own perfectionism. Ironically, I felt it was lacking. I asked myself what I wish I had said, and I realized that I have value to offer in this area. Those of us who are gifted and/or who have gifted children often struggle with perfectionism. It dogs us. It prompts us to attempt tasks over and over. It makes us stay up late at night trying to make things just right. It drives us to tweak the tiniest details, and it never allows us to feel peaceful with what we do. It never lets us rest.

Sometimes perfectionism just plain isn’t nice.

Whether we experience ourselves suffering from it or watch our child doing so, we wish we could just shoo all perfectionistic tendencies away. Why can’t we? Why can’t we just pretend that nothing matters, take things less seriously, emulate others we see who just seem to coast through life?

Sometimes when we have a particularly persistent character trait, it sticks around for a reason. Perfectionism is no different. It is a part of us that we’ve given voice to for one reason or another (or many others). Perhaps we internalized a message from someone as a kid, or made a mistake that we vowed we’d never repeat. Whatever the reason, perfectionism moved in to help us cope with something we couldn’t face way back then…or now. It helped us, and now it feels it has a right to stay.

If you’d like perfectionism to stop affecting you so much, here’s a simple yet powerful exercise to help you. You can also adapt this for your children if they struggle with perfectionism.

• Imagine perfectionism as an entity within you that you can take outside of yourself. With perfectionism as separate from you, take a good look at it. What does it look like? Be detailed here. You can even draw it if you’d like (I recommend this if you’re guiding your children through this exercise.) Is perfectionism male or female? Tall? Short? Does it wear glasses? Have piercings? Create as complete a picture as you possibly can.
• Once you have a complete picture, ask perfectionism what it wants for you. (If you’ve drawn a picture or had your child draw a picture, place the picture on a chair or someplace where you or your child can look at it.) If perfectionism won’t leave you alone, it must have a reason. Is it trying to protect you? If so, how? From what? For what? You might be surprised at its answers. It may want something for you that you want for yourself; it’s just not being skillful in its attempts to help.
• Offer gratitude to perfectionism for the job it has done in your life so far. Even if it hasn’t acted skillfully, it has actually had your best interests at heart. Give it a pat on the back, a plaque of recognition, a gold watch.
• Now consider the relationship you want to have with perfectionism. Does it need to take a vacation? Does it need to job redesign? Does it need to retire to Florida? Has it offered you even something small that you want it to keep offering? If so, what? And how can perfectionism offer it without creating turmoil for you?
• Ask perfectionism if it needs anything from you so it can perform its new role. Maybe it needs your forgiveness. Perhaps it wants to be let off the hook. Sometimes all perfectionism needs is to know you’re going to be okay. If you tell it that, it should be able to adopt its new role without sliding into its old one.
• Start living your new relationship with perfectionism. And remember that, as in all relationships, changing relationship patterns takes time. Sometimes you’ll slip into old ways, make mistakes. Good thing you’ve redesigned your relationship with perfectionism to accept the difficulties along the way. Just remind yourself–and perfectionism–of your new relationship, and start again.

I received the e-mail via BlackBerry: “Dear Parent, Your child has received an infraction…Please discuss the offense with your child, sign the form that’s coming home in your child’s backpack, and have your child return the form tomorrow.”

The e-mail from my kids’ school further outlined the offense: one of my children (name not specified) was out of compliance with the school’s uniform code (the nature of which was also not specified). My children attend a charter school that requires the students to wear uniforms, and they have strict rules to adhere to.

I had been out when I received this e-mail, and because it didn’t name which child received the infraction, I spent my time driving home trying to figure out which child it could be and why. I was bracing myself for whatever awaited me at the end of the school day. If my son received the infraction, he could handle it. He knew the rules, and probably had taken a calculated risk. Plus he doesn’t seem to take this kind of discipline too much to heart.

But then fear crept in. After all, when I looked more closely at the e-mail, one word gave me pause: “her.” Somewhere, they’d used the feminine pronoun. What if my daughter had received the infraction? She’s the younger of the two, and definitely more sensitive when it comes to being disciplined. What could she have done wrong? She usually lines right up with the rules. 

From there, another level of horror set in: What if it was my fault? She had worn pants to school that day, and I knew that the only pants she owned had small holes in the knees, an infraction waiting to happen if anyone had noticed. I immediately went into defense mode. I had bought new pants for her–had them in the car–but they didn’t fit her, and I was going to exchange them. I imagined myself taking the pants and receipt to the school, begging the teacher to take the infraction off my daughter’s record.

My mortification grew worse as I realized that not only would my daughter melt down about an infraction, but on the next Dress-of-Choice Day–the last Friday of every month, when the kids can wear street clothes–she would have lost that privilege and would suffer further embarrassment.

How was I going to handle this? I felt as if I had lead in my stomach. What would I say to her?

I decided that when I picked up the kids, I’d say nothing about the infraction. I’d let the child initiate the conversation. As I proceeded through the carpool line, I took a deep breath. I picked up both my kids, and they both seemed upbeat. I bit my tongue so as not to say anything. 

A couple of minutes into her after-school check-in, my daughter ‘fessed up. She’d received an infraction for not adhering to uniform code. Instead of wearing solid-colored red, white, or blue socks as per the rules, her blue socks sported white snowflakes.

White snowflakes.

But she wasn’t alone. Well, she was probably the only child with snowflakes on her socks, but she wasn’t the only one out of reg. Apparently, a few of the school officials had performed a surprise uniform inspection, and found about half of the children out of compliance: belts missing, socks mismatched, shirts untucked, shoes with too much decoration on them. Even my son wasn’t dressed in line with code: he was wearing two different lengths of socks. He only averted an infraction by scooching the longer sock down to match the other.

When I heard the reason for my daughter’s infraction, I laughed. This was ridiculous! This was an exercise in rule-following to the nth degree, which drives us perfectionists to the brink. Now, I believe in following rules, and we all had signed the school’s registration papers that stated we would follow the uniform code. Technically, my daughter earned the infraction. But the school faculty actively looking for trouble seemed a bit over-controlling to me.

So I did something I don’t think my daughter expected: I said “Congratulations on getting your first infraction. Whew! I’m glad we’re over that hurdle!” Infractions are serious business at this school. I know my kids dreaded receiving one, especially my daughter. I wanted her to know she was okay.

And while expressing to both my kids that I expected them to follow the rules, when we got home, we held a little celebration. We did an Infraction Dance. I signed the form with a flourish. And I think we all felt better.

Many gifted children (and their parents!) struggle with perfectionism. My daughter is one of them, and I understand her pain because I fight perfectionism too. I hope I can give my daughter (and myself) the gift of grace, the gift to determine what we need to take seriously and what we can let slide. I have a hunch a lot more falls into the latter category than the former, though we perfectionists frequently forget that. We have to let up, let off some steam, and choose our priorities.

What is your relationship to perfectionism? Do your kids struggle with it? Do you? What relationship would you like to have with it? And how do you cope with it? Please share!

P.S. After writing this blog post, I struggled with whether it was good enough, and I couldn’t brainstorm the “perfect” title. LOL! Perfectionism is so insidious!

I’m joyful, heartbroken, overwhelmed, grief-stricken, and angry.

My daughter struggles with sensory processing issues, and yesterday I took her to yet another occupational therapy session to treat it. The therapy seems to be working, my daughter enjoys it, and we love her therapist. But after every session the therapist hands me a list of more activities I need to add to our packed days, and the heartbreak and overwhelm set in. I feel so much joy when I look at my daughter, but I’m sad she faces these additional hurdles to overcome (hence the grief and anger), and I struggle to make the changes and additions to our schedule that the therapist prescribes.

So here I sit in it. And I keep trying not to run away emotionally. I wouldn’t run away physically, but I find it easy to distract myself from experiencing my feelings. I can dive into busyness. I can numb my heart with online social networking. I can call a friend and chatter meaninglessly.

None of these things are bad in themselves. Sometimes we need a healthy dose of escapism. But it’s always temporary. When we return to real life, the feelings have made themselves at home in our hearts, and sometimes they greet our return with a vengeance. They’re mad we’ve neglected them.

One of the principles of life coaching is Process, and we coaches colloquialize it using the term “being with.” Process is about the ability to be with whatever shows up in our lives. The extent to which we can be with the experiences and feelings we face, whether positive or negative, is the extent to which we have access to our fullest lives. If we can be with anger, conflict, even celebration, then our world is big, full, and rich. But if we can’t be with those emotions–if we do whatever we can, whether consciously or unconsciously, to avoid those things–then our lives shrink. We have less vitality available to us.

To gain it back, we do the tough work of “being with.” We learn to sit with difficult feelings as they arise: the deep sadness, the raging anger, even the tremendous joy (have you ever noticed how some people can’t celebrate victories or hear praise of themselves, how quickly they deflect it or distract themselves and others from it?).

The good news is that feelings are fairly fleeting. When we choose to experience them, we move through them to a place of greater peace. And not only is this a good tool for us to learn, it’s a good one for us to teach our gifted kids who are often so sensitive. Modeling it for them and giving them tools for processing their feelings will be an investment in their lifelong well-being.

So I don’t have answers for what’s going on in my world or in my twice-exceptional child’s world right now. She’ll do the therapy, we’ll support her at home, and we’ll wait for her brain to integrate the messages her body is communicating. In the meantime, if I can experience my feelings about it all and not run from them, I will have gone through this experience well. I will have lived it and gained from it whatever gift it has to give me.

What are you experiencing in your world today? What feelings have arisen as a result of your experiences? Can you be with them? By being with them, you’ll move through them and gain greater access to your fullest self and your fullest life.

P.S. If you’d like help being with any of your emotions or experiences, please contact me for a free thirty-minute sample coaching phone call. I’d love to be with you in whatever you’re feeling and experiencing!

*THUNK*

*SNAP!!!*

*silence*

The fact that silence, not screaming wails, followed the “snap” comforted me as I turned off the kitchen faucet. I’d been washing breakfast dishes when the thunk-snap-silence sequence happened. I looked into the family room where I saw two young faces, garnering stunned and guilty expressions. Both children were intact; the immense snap sound hadn’t accompanied a broken bone, thank God. The kids were gazing in the direction of the back door, so I looked at it too. From the glass door’s wood blind hung two slats, broken completely in half.

The kids had been engaging in some before-school athletics apparently, a game they’d created involving a humongous liquid-filled koosh ball and air time. Performing the post-breakfast cleaning, I hadn’t entirely tuned into what they were doing. I only put two and two together as I viewed the evidence.

A few weeks ago, the broken wood blind would have set me off in a tirade. Our house is tremendously kid-friendly, and I allow creative, messy–and admittedly sometimes rough–play in our house, more than perhaps many moms do. But I’ve repeatedly instructed my children that hurling toys in the house is strictly off-limits. Still, they’ve continued to do it, and today they learned the reasoning behind the rule. So in my mind, I had a sturdy foundation for a full-on lecture complete with voice rising in volume and pitch until it became a frenzy of unintelligible words and paraverbal utterances.

But instead, at least at first, this is what my kids heard: *silence*

I looked at the broken blind, and in some gift of divine brilliance (definitely not from me) called two mantras to mind: 1. No talking; and 2. No emotion.