From the Deep

“Should the air pressure in the cabin depressurize, an oxygen mask will fall from the compartment above you. Place the mask over your nose and mouth, pulling the straps on either side to tighten the mask against your face. If you’re traveling with a child, place your mask on your face first, then assist your child.”

I love airplane travel, and have heard the above speech hundreds of times. Usually, I give it only cursory attention; having heard it so many times, I could probably deliver the spiel. But sometimes I wonder whether, in case of emergency, I really will know what to do should oxygen masks pop in front of my face and those of my children. I imagine my first impulse would be to help my children. Forget what the flight attendant says, my babies are in danger!

But why do the airlines give this advice? Do they hate children? Are children the disposable people on the plane? We all know the answer to this one: parents need to take care of themselves first so they can then help their children.

Applied to the rest of life where we face so many emergencies–spilled milk, sibling squabbles, skinned knees–we can easily forget this wisdom. Instead, we run between one disaster to another with little regard for our own needs. As parents of gifted kids, we may feel this even more. We’ve had to deal with more intense tantrums, discussions with teachers who don’t understand giftedness, appointments with professionals to help us deal with 2e issues, among others. At the end of the day, we fall into bed utterly exhausted emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Then we wake the next morning with low energy and dread for what the day might bring.

What might happen if we applied oxygen mask wisdom to all of our parenting? What if we took care of ourselves in the interest of caring for our kids’ needs? What might change then? How would we think differently? What would we do differently?

I believe some of us fear we’ll become selfish, narcissistic machines, doing nothing but going for massages and manicures. Our kids will go hungry and sit in squalor, crying, while we read our gossip magazines and sip our tea. But really, with the amount of sacrifice we’ve shown we can give, are we really even capable of this?

What if it were imperative that you took care of yourself so that you could take care of your children? What would you do? And what might the real results be? Could it be that your kids would have a mom who has more energy and groundedness from which to operate, more love to give away? Tell me what you think!

Yesterday I posted this question on Twitter: If you are a woman who happens to be a mom to 1 or more gifted kids, what would you say is your greatest need? I didn’t get too many bites on the question, but the ones I did get were incredible. One woman told me she couldn’t cover it in 140 characters (the Twitter limit), so she blogged about it instead. (You can read her post here.) In this beautiful, poignant rant, she listed many things she needs, from true school support to people understanding how hard it is to raise a gifted child to the ability to maintain her mind so she could develop that of her children. These are only three of many things she said she needed, and in the end, she couldn’t nail her answer down to one greatest need.

As I read her post multiple times, I felt such empathy. I’ve walked many miles in her shoes, and I know the joys and challenges of the journey. I had asked the question because I know my own experience. I’ve also researched giftedness and parenting gifted children. I have my own personal list of needs, and head knowledge gained from books and websites. But I didn’t feel confident that I really understood what moms of gifted kids need. If you’d asked me before reading her blog post, I would have thought most moms of gifted kids needed time for themselves, room of their own, a life and purpose to express.

Perhaps that’s true. But as I re-read the blog post and the comments that followed, one theme clearly emerged: moms of gifted kids need to feel seen and understood. It’s as simple as that. Most people don’t comprehend how challenging it can be to raise a gifted child, especially when that child has a learning disability, AD/HD, or another challenge added to it. They wonder why we harp on school placement; surely these smart children can figure out how to survive the system, can’t they? People look askance at us when our kids melt down in public. And often, frankly, they don’t want to hear about our struggles. We’re blessed with gifted children, after all, and we should be grateful, not complaining.

I believe we are a grateful bunch. We do appreciate how wonderful our kids are (especially when other people don’t understand them). But we also experience a set of challenges that those “outside” would never believe, perhaps wouldn’t be able to survive! Gifted children are high needs children, and as we strive to fulfill those needs, we can so easily deplete ourselves.

I say all this so that you parents of gifted kids out there know that someone sees and understands you. I do. And I know others who do too. I asked the question about needs for a reason. I want to know deep down what you need so I can create opportunities for you to be seen and understood. So stay posted. Help is on the way.