From the Deep

I just dropped my son off at middle school. Today he begins his eighth grade year.

The “boy” I just left is much different than the boy I picked up months ago from his last day of seventh grade. Over the summer he has grown taller than I, his voice has deepened, and his face has taken on a more chiseled appearance. He is becoming a young man.

As well, these past few months we have begun discussing where he should attend high school. High school? How can I think about that? Didn’t he just begin preschool yesterday? Where has the time gone? Where has my boy gone?

Typical mother lament, I know. Even my son can quote it verbatim, and did so this morning: “I know, Mom. How have I grown so fast?” I think he had compassion on me; he didn’t even do an inner eyeroll at that one.

Not to say that life is always peachy with him. We’ve had our share of adolescent outbursts over the summer too, and I know we’ve only just begun to experience what’s coming. Perhaps this is what will help me release him when the time comes. Maybe with teenage angst on the horizon–such a tough period, but so important for our kids’ healthy development–I’ll be thankful time is fleeting. Sometimes I’ll be thankful.

For now, since high school goes by in the blink of an eye, I’m off to Target to buy toothpicks. I’ll need them for keeping my eyes open as long as I can.

These are the times that try moms’ (and dads’) souls, the dog days of summer. We’ve exhausted our supply of interesting activities. Despite promising he wouldn’t, ESGK has left his summer school project to the last minute, and now must complete it. The house is a wreck. The kids are bored, and what do bored gifted siblings do? They perfect annoying each other to an art. And here’s the kicker: because of our kids’ educational needs, we send them to a charter school, which means the school chooses its own calendar. Our school has chosen to wait a couple more weeks to begin while all the neighborhood kids are now in session. So who do my kids have to annoy…erm…play with but each other?

Me, apparently. But after two months of not being able to complete a thought, I long to do so. My temper is shorter. I have less patience. And my chocolate supply is low, suspiciously so (under-aged gremlins have apparently found it and helped themselves to it).

I do have some comfort. I am not alone. I’ve read blog posts by other moms struggling with the same thing. I’ve talked about this phenomenon with moms I’ve encountered at my kids’ activities. I’m not actually going crazy. (Who knew?!) I’m simply experiencing the last, rugged two weeks of my kids’ summer break.

My plan? Breathe. Lower the expectations for the house, yet put the kids to work when they’re annoying each other (and therefore me). Do a few more fun activities to get them out and about, to engage their minds and bodies. Accept the dog days of summer, and extend more grace to my kids and to myself.

If you’re in the same boat, I say “Welcome aboard, matey!” I’m grateful we’re in this together!

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

Today I will yet again attempt to write a blog post. I’ve written a few over the past month, but none of them (interruption 1) have seen the light of (interruption 2) Internet day. I’ve (interruptions 3 and 4–causing me to really pause and attempt to regain my thought) gotten to the point where I’ve decided it’s harder to try than not. I’ll just allow my poor blog to starve over the summer while I’m home tending to kids’ needs and incessant questions.

Now I’m not (interruption 5) complaining (too much–and interruptions 6, 7, 8, and 9). What I thought I’d do is attempt to write a blog post and log the number of interruptions that occur as I do so, just as an experiment. All of the interruptions that I’ve already logged have come from one child (the other is still in bed, so I have a fifty-percent lower chance of being stopped mid-sentence, and you can already see where it has gotten me. (Oh, interruptions 10…and 11…and this last one is going on and on and on).

Why this experiment? Well (interruption 12), first of all, I’m desperate to get a blog post onto my site! But even more than that, interruptions are a big (#13) issue for gifted people (#14 and #15). Our minds literally race. Our thought processes happen so quickly that when they face an obstacle they can become derailed, and it can feel as if a train has crashed. How do we put the pieces back together again? How do we right the train, get the cars back in order, and regain movement and direction? It takes a tremendous amount of effort.

At the same time, if we’re gifted and we have children, our children are probably gifted too with minds that race as ours do. They frequently (#16 and #17–now what was I thinking?) have no thought of waiting to say what’s on their minds, and if they try, they too can lose their train of thought and face the resulting frustration.

Simply being aware of this truth can help us gain some perspective on it. Yes, we need to teach our children to wait (#18) their turn, to give us space and time (#19). At times my husband and I have had to invoke the “No Interrupting Unless There’s Blood, Vomit, or Fire” rule (#20). Children do need to learn manners, such as not interrupting when we’re talking to other adults or when we’re on the phone. And if we really do need to concentrate (#21–and #23, which happened while I was editing this post: an emergency search for a bathing suit, which will ultimately result in fewer interruptions once sweet daughter leaves for the pool), we need to draw a boundary around our thinking time. But understanding that our minds race and our children’s minds race can give us a different perspective, one that cuts us all some slack and helps us move forward (#22) with our daily lives.

What do you need to keep your thoughts on track? To get them back on track after they’ve become derailed? What’s a new perspective you can embrace about interruptions, or a new boundary you need to create to protect your precious thinking time? Answering questions such as these can help you stay sane amid interruptions (#24) as a gifted person and parent!

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?

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve written two blog posts about self care, one reminding you that you can indeed take care of yourself and the other explaining that the most powerful self care comes from knowing your values: who you are at your core and what makes you come alive. Today I’ll conclude this blog-post mini-series by giving you some concrete ways to include self care in your life. Here are three strategies you can use:

Strategy 1: Bank it, baby! When we proactively participate in self-care opportunities for ourselves, we create a reservoir of strength and energy that we can draw on later. We parents, including those of gifted children, often feel that this is selfish. We struggle with taking the time, energy, and money it takes to meet our own needs, so we constantly live in deficit mode. We’ve taken our emotional and physical credit cards and run them through slots, and we don’t have the energy in the bank to pay the bill when it comes due. Then we crack. We yell, we stomp off, we blame, we cry. And no one is happy.

So bank your self care. You can, deserve to, and in doing so will be caring for your family in the long run.

Strategy 2: Respond, don’t react. We all face stressful times, those moments when it feels that someone or some event is making a huge withdrawal from our emotional bank account. In those instances, we can often feel like reacting by blowing up, throwing objects, or doing something drastic that we regret later. What if, instead, you responded by drawing from a collection of five-, fifteen-, and thirty-minute self-care practices, little emotional snacks as it were, to help you regain some emotional energy throughout your day? What are some quick practices that would help your soul sing instead of sink in these stressful moments?

Again, go to your values. Which activities are the emotional equivalent to an energy bar or energy drink for you–quick practices that feed and center you? Maybe you need to spend five minutes working on a crossword puzzle. Perhaps you just need to dance to your favorite song. When you’ve hit your limit, go to these ideas that don’t require a huge time commitment on your part. Rejuvenate, then return to the fray. You will feel better prepared to face whatever challenge has come your way.

Strategy 3: Take a ten-second vacation. OK, this practice is something everyone should have in his/her self-care arsenal. All it involves is taking a breath to the depths of our bodies. Most of us only breathe into our lungs. But when we breathe deeply (I imagine sending breath to my lower back), we take much-needed oxygen into our systems, and that reduces our stressful feelings, helps us feel more present in the moment, and gives us a fresh perspective on whatever we’re facing. Try it now. Breathe deeply, imagining you’re directing all that fresh air to your lower back, allowing your diaphragm to expand naturally in the process. What do you experience when you do this?

You can use the ten-second vacation anytime, anywhere. So when things feel stressful, chaotic, out of control, just take a deep breath and see how your perspective changes. Feel empowered, and cope with whatever has arisen.

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!

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 had a sick kiddo home with me for the first two days of this week. Today she returned to school, and I returned to business as usual, but no one notified my brain. As I attempted to tackle my e-newsletter, blog, and e-mail, I could not squeeze out a coherent thought. About all I could do was watching tweets flash across my Twitter stream. Apparently, getting back into the swing of things is going to take a little while this time around. I’m Mom Interrupted.

Those of us who stay at home with kids frequently experience interruptions in the form of sick kids, snack requests, and sibling refereeing responsibilities among others. I find interruptions challenging–it takes time and energy for me to find the flow of a project, and when something stops that, I struggle to adjust. I do, however, take comfort from this quote by C.S. Lewis:

The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s “own” or “real” life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life–the life God is sending one day by day.

So here’s to living the real life! And, at the request of my children, who want to perform something for me right this moment, I’m going to go live it now!