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Dear Davidson Families, 

Hello, this is the Family Services Team with a follow-up on the conversation we had on April 9, 2024. Below, we have included links to the resources mentioned during the Parent Consulting Circle, as well as some additional ideas and resources. 

Academic Planning for Middle School –Writing: The first question of the conversation came from a family who attended the Academic Planning for the Profoundly Gifted Student session on middle school. This family was wondering if Laurel thought there were any takeaways from the session that we didn’t have time to cover at the time.

One of the things mentioned that resonated with many families in our session was the jump in executive function expectations that occurs in middle school. Both the transition from elementary to middle school and the transition from middle to high school are places where your Young Scholar may require some extra scaffolding and support. There are a few reasons for this, one of them being that traditionally in middle school the expectations for executive functioning increase. Then in high school there’s another increase in executive functioning expectations. For Young Scholars who are on a different developmental trajectory, these demands may be developmentally mismatched.

To hear more about executive function, explore the following Understanding the PG Path sessions. Each link has some short informational videos, a recording of the live Q&A with Young Scholar families, and accompanying resources in PDF form. 

• “Meeting Expectations”
• “Misunderstood–Asynchrony, Executive Functioning, Motivation, and Social Emotional Development”

You may also find the following Parent Expert Series event recordings helpful:

• “Executive Function, Asynchronous Development of Gifted Children, and Parental Expectations with Brendan Mahan”
• “The Conundrum of High Expectations with Gail Post”

One place in particular that many Young Scholar families can see this jump in expectations clearly is in written output expectations. The writing that Young Scholars do in elementary school is different from the writing they do in middle school, and the middle school writing is different from the writing they practice in high school. For many children on asynchronous developmental timelines, these jumps in expectations that line up with grade level might not necessarily line up with the developmental phase they are in. The Family Services team likes to say that writing is executive functioning skills on paper. What does this mean?

Anecdotally, even many strong writers in our community can face periods of resistance to writing. One of the reasons for this could be that writing includes many of the same skills that we talk about more broadly when we discuss executive function. Skills like conceptualizing, planning, organization of ideas, task initiation and persistence, and frustration tolerance are all pieces of the executive functioning puzzle that contribute to the composition of a text. A quick Google search will reveal the tons of literature out there on the connection between these two skill sets, but one article that succinctly lays out this connection is “Coping with Executive Function Deficits in the Context of Writing.” To dive deeper into topic, you might check out Teresa Limpo and Thierry Olive’s Executive Functions and Writing.  Olive has also done an expert series for us titled “Managing the Cognitive Complexity of Text Composition,” that expands on these ideas even more.

Keywords for a School Search: The next question in the conversation came from a family who described that they currently have a have a 4^th grader in public school, and they don’t see a path forward for them continuing in public school. So, they are considering a move, which would be an intense change for their family. They are wondering if there are any keywords to keep in mind during their search for schools and their possible move.

On the School Map resource page, one of the first links is the “Discussion Chart for Comparing School Options.” This discussion chart goes through some key aspects of the school experience, culture, and policies. To help you reflect on each of these, there are questions meant to help you consider if the school aligns with how your family approaches various things. There are also places for your family to include things that weren’t included in other sections.

For example, one of the things that many of our families need to consider is the acceleration policies and procedures for students. Some schools do the best with their resources to follow acceleration practices from reputable research institutes like the Acceleration Institute. Other schools that have different acceleration policies or do not allow acceleration of students at all, may be less of a long term fit for many Young Scholar students.

Another consideration that many families consider is the homework policies of the school and the specific teachers. For Young Scholars who have busy schedules or participate in extra curricular activities, it is necessary that they have adequate time to complete useful homework while also having some of their own personal time to pursue what they wish. Some schools have incredibly strict homework policies, where students must complete homework on a daily basis, leading teachers to assign busy work for students instead of work that meaningfully reinforces class concepts. To read more about this, check out “Changing the Conversation About Homework from Quantity and Achievement to Quality and Engagement.”

Many of our families find that looking for educational settings and professionals who are both open and flexible serves their Young Scholars in the long term. Ideally, a professional who is open minded and flexible will be willing to adapt, accommodate, and alter their plan to tailor to your Young Scholar’s goals. Ideally, an educational environment that is open minded and flexible will ensure that your Young Scholar is learning essential skills and topics, through their interests, senses, and community experiences.

Building Community While Homeschooling –Ghosting: During the conversation, a family shared that they are having a social issue in their community right now. The Young Scholar used to attend a gifted public school with a very active community, but the family has been homeschooling for this last school year. The friends that the Young Scholar made while at the gifted school have “ghosted,” and he’s noticed it. His birthday is in a few months. He wants to invite his old friends, but they haven’t responded to the invitations and his parents are worried about how he may handle the social rejection and they are wondering about how to sustainably build community.

First off, that’s a difficult situation. It’s difficult for anyone no matter their age to be ghosted, or for someone to just stop all contact without explanation. It can seem difficult to talk to a child about a social phenomenon like this because there’s not a solid reason that we have as to the other person’s ghosting behavior. No matter their age, they aren’t too young to have their feelings of hurt and disappointment validated. Even among gifted children, the levels of friendship that they may be looking for can vary. There are a few resources to help explain this with more detail:

• “Play partner or Sure Shelter: What Gifted Children Look for in Friendship” by Miraca Gross details some of the stages of friendship that children go through, with each stage being a deeper level of friendship. Because every gifted child is on their own unique developmental timeline, even at a gifted school your Young Scholar might see other kids at various different stages.
• “Gifted Friendships: Age Mate Vs. True Peer” by the Davidson Institute details another reason that may be at play for this difficult friendship situation. Even in gifted schools, children are generally still placed with some consideration towards age in their classes. But outside of schools, it’s difficult to think of another place where people’s peers are others born during the same calendar year. Gifted children often feel and know, even if they struggle to articulate, that their age mates aren’t their true peers.

So how do you work through a situation like this in the moment and long term?

Let’s think about some possibilities for getting through this immediate situation in the short term. Since this family mentioned that the invitations have already gone out and received no response, you may consider being honest with your Young Scholar about that, which is easier said than done considering they are sensitive to rejection. Depending on their age, you can model how you deal with similar rejections in your own life and discuss how you’ve moved through that with them can give them some perspective that they don’t have yet from being newer in the world. When children work through their first friendship struggles, it can feel very sensitive, and they can have a lot of big feelings. If this is the first time your child is being ghosted, you can take this opportunity to have a frank conversation that:

• Acknowledges and validates their big feelings. Young Scholars, like anyone else, want to feel heard, seen, and cared for during difficult moments.
• Gives them someone to relate to. Being ghosted in a friendship can feel very isolating, so sharing a time when this happened to you, and/or seeking out a movie, book, or TV show where characters deal with a similar situation can help Young Scholars feel less isolated during this time.
• Models different outcomes. This is your opportunity to help your Young Scholar think about different possibilities. If you’ve ever reconnected or gotten an explanation for a time when you were ghosted, you can share that. If you haven’t, you can help them to think about the other person’s perspective a bit. Getting them to flip the script and think about what they’d do and asking them what they want out of a friendship can help you to think through this with more detail.

Some ideas for the party specifically that Laurel discussed:

• Plan lowkey reconnection time. Birthdays can be fraught with expectations for both parents and their children. If your Young Scholar’s heart is set on having specific people at the party that they haven’t seen in a while, then it may be a benefit to plan a small visit where they can reconnect before the party.
• Confirm other invitations. While you can’t control anyone else’s family, you can ensure that your Young Scholar has some people at their party that are genuinely excited to celebrate and see him. This can be family, other friends, an old teacher, a favorite librarian, or anyone else in your child’s life that want to see them celebrated and centered on their birthday.
• Plan for both. Some people choose to have birthday parties that have a similar set up to the following: The Young Scholar (and their family) go to the arcade from 12-4. Anyone who wants to come celebrate their birthday can come between 12 and 4, staying as long as they want to. Places where people can hang out like parks, arcades, zoos, and museums in addition to the family home are popular places to plan parties like this. At parties like this, it’s wonderful and celebratory if lots of people come, but they can be just as nice a day out with fewer guests. It takes some of the pressure off of both the guests at the party and the one having the birthday.

But in the long term, how can you help your child to cope with their sensitivity to rejection?

One of the things that Laurel discussed in the session is taking stock of these current friendships. Thinking about yourself as an adult, do you have any friends where one person is always reaching out and making the plans? How does that feel for them? Now, when you are helping your Young Scholar to make friends (or they can’t transport themselves yet) it can sometimes feel similar to that. From what this family has shared, it sounds like they are doing more of the reaching out and planning, and even that might not be working.

If that is the case, it might be time to sit down with your Young Scholar and have some honest conversations about how good friends treat each other and expectations for different kinds of relationships. You want your Young Scholar to be treated with dignity in all relationships across their life. In Writing Your Own Script: A Parent's Role in the Gifted Child's Social Development, Corin Barsily Goodwin and Mika Gustavson break down some of the elements of true friendship as common interests, shared values, and mutual understanding.

If there was a magic wand to wave that would give every Young Scholar true friends, the Family Services team would never stop waving it. But in reality, the process of finding friends takes time, trial, and error. No one is immune from social rejection, and there are ways to build healthy self-talk around rejection and cope with sensitivity:

• “Help kids learn the difference between ‘Fitting In’ and ‘Belonging’” by Karen Pace discusses how to build some nuance into your Young Scholar’s self talk around rejection. If you choose to take this approach with a child, it can also help to reflect on the differences in how they feel when they don’t ‘fit in’ versus when they don’t ‘belong.’
• “The Gifted Journey of Post-Traumatic Growth: Building Resilience Amidst Trials, Tribulations & Trauma” was a Parent Expert series by Christine Turo-Shields that discusses approaching the gifted experience with a “kaleidoscopic lens” in order to ride waves of joy in sorrow while gaining insights and wisdom.
• “Building Resilience: Strategies to Support Your Gifted Child” by Gail Post and “How Can I Improve My Gifted Child’s Resilience?” by Maureen Neihart go into how to build resilience in your child, the sense that they can bounce back after some struggle. This may be useful when coping with sensitivity towards rejection.
• Mindsets for Parents: Strategies to Encourage Growth Mindsets in Kids by Mary Cay Ricci
• The Power of Self-Advocacy for Gifted Learners: Teaching Four Essential Steps to Success by Deb Douglas goes into one of the essential skills for positive and long-term friendships: self-advocacy. When Young Scholars are able to self-advocate, that means telling others what they don’t want, and telling other people what they do want instead.
• Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive by Marc Brackett does a deep dive into what our emotions tell us, and provides a framework for thinking about emotions as sources of information instead of sources of pain, shame, or struggle.