Parenting Children That Don't Exist

I decided to a vlog instead of a blog for this month's topic of Gifted Parenting. I wanted to take my time with this subject and share my heart in discussing my experience of parenting what I call minority cubed children (gifted, homeschooled, African American). While the video is a bit on the long side, I hope you grab a cup of tea and view!

Feel free to share your heart and comment.

Sincerely,

Dr. J

If All Kids are Gifted, Why Isn't Mine in First Place?

I decided to throw my hat into the ring in response to the “All Children are Gifted” mantra that has reared its head recently. It came about because some parents were upset because their children weren’t identified as “gifted”. Because their children weren’t identified as “gifted” they began to demand that “all children are gifted”, which really means “no children are gifted”. It is a jealous and ill-informed rant, a fear they are being left out of some exclusive club. I honestly think they picture gifted families sitting around on yachts, drinking fruity drinks in diamond rimmed glasses, and laughing as our kids get showered with money, and flowers, and candy. Guess what? That isn’t what happens in gifted families. Take a short trip in my world and I am sure you would thank your lucky stars your kid isn't "gifted".

Let me address the notion that “all children are intellectually gifted”. No one in their right mind would declare that “all children are athletically gifted”. My three, highly to profoundly intellectually gifted children are not athletically gifted. They are, however, athletes. They run track; they LOVE track. My eldest runs quite often against an athletically gifted child, let’s call him “The Rock”. The Rock is a curly haired, skinny, actually pretty short kid that you wouldn’t suspect of being a rock star on the track. All that changes when you see him run the 800 and the 1600 meter dash. Last year they were in the 8 and under category, and over the winter The Rock and my son moved up to the 9 – 10 category. The Rock runs these two races so fast that he has the fastest time for the next 3- 4 age categories consistently. I was so intrigued by his skill I looked up his times and historically, not only would he have made the Olympics if he were running 30 years ago, he would have likely been on the medal stand.

The cold hard facts are that my kid will never beat The Rock. That has not at all dampened my kid’s love of running. In fact, he enjoys running against The Rock, it encourage him to run faster. He likes to lessen the amount of time by which he is beat! I cheer for my kid as if he came in first place. I cheer not to appease, but because I know he is out there giving it his all and when he gives his all that is good enough for him and for me. We don’t need to collect medals or trophies; I just need my kid to do what he loves to the best of his ability. I also love watching The Rock run. It is a thing of beauty to see that kid in action, what the human body can do when it is doing what that particularly body is designed to do perfectly well – is stunning. My other kids like to cheer for both their brother “Speedster” (who is probably dead last in the race) and The Rock – who is running like the wind. They too can recognize giftedness and realize that Speedster and the Rock are two different types of runners. One is showing what giftedness, given an opportunity to shine, looks like. The other is showing that every race is personal, and having the courage to go, and run, and finish – outside of medal contention, outside of being put on a pedestal with cameras clicking, to only the 4 or 5 voices shouting from the crowd still watching you run – an entire lap behind the rest of the field, it is still worth competing.

At no point have I ever asked the U S A Track and Field Associated to ban The Rock. Never have I asked any sports venue to stop giving out medals. Never have I grabbed the microphone and declare that “all kids are gifted runners” because my kid wasn’t on the medal stand. I feel nothing but joy for The Rock. I am genuinely proud that I get an opportunity to witness this athletically gifted child come into his own as a track star. We often talk about how my Speedster will one day tell a group of friends while they watch The Rock run in the Olympics – yeah, I ran against him when he was 8 years old! My son would lose out on so much if The Rock ever stopped running because people got mad that he wins every, single 800 and 1600 that he enters. Oh wait, that isn’t true. The Rock doesn’t win every one. While he is the fastest in our state, he isn’t the fastest in the country. Sometimes he comes in second, or third, or fifth when he gets an opportunity to compete against his true peers. This year summer my family is looking forward to traveling to a national competition. My 3 kids will be participating in a triathlon and they might even get to compete in the national event (slowly they are getting better; sometimes they don’t come in last place). I am quite sure they won’t win, even if they quality to compete. They know it too, but they will run anyway. They are running for themselves, not chasing medals or rainbows. Just like their athletically gifted counterparts are running for themselves, and getting medals and applause because society enjoys seeing how close the human body can get to perfection.

If everyone is “gifted” in everything, then no one is good at anything. Maybe the issue isn’t whether or not children should be identified as “gifted”, but that parents should stop being happy only if their child is identified as some sort of “elite” in everything that they do. Chances are, your 6 year old will never “catch” my 6 year old daughter in math. She finished Kindergarten, First Grade, and Second Grade math in 4 months’ time – at 5 years old. Just to be “sure” she knew her stuff, I gave her a different Second Grade math book – she finished it in 5 weeks. She was adding with binary numbers, just for fun, at 5 years old as well. She sometimes wanted us to read her math books as her bedtime story.  Does your child do that? If not, they are probably not intellectually gifted. To tell yourself that they are is to create unreasonable expectations for your child. Unless we start to define being “intellectually gifted” as being a typical 5 year old. At that point, it will be clear that my daughter is something “other” than that, and before you know it there will be some other title that you will have to find a way to tear down and destroy because you can’t bear to hear some other child get applause.

It is a scary world where people parent in a way that won’t allow their children to still feel comfortable and confident with themselves  if others are better than them at one thing or another. My kids have tasted last place and it still went down like honey because they were brave enough to try, to get out there and run, to give it their all. Sometimes my daughter meets another 6 year old that can crush her in math – she still loves math. See, it doesn’t hurt my daughter to understand there are people out there in the world that are better than her in some things, in a lot of things. My job as a parent is not to go chop the world down to a size that will make my kids always a winner, my job is to help my children find their passions in life and pursue them with gusto. My job is to help my children fly as high as they can. In some things, like track – they may fly as low as a bumblebee. They will fly low, slow, choppy, and won’t be noticed much at all. Other times they will soar like eagles and people will watch them in amazement. No matter if they are having a bumblebee moment or an eagle moment – they will always have a mother and a father there cheering them on, simply because they are flying. I personally wouldn’t be able to look at myself in the mirror if in their bumblebee moment, I got embarrassed and decided to try and destroy the innocent eagles flying around them.

The musings of Gifted and Sensory Processing Disorder

Sometimes people wonder why I talked about my kids being "gifted" so often. It isn't really about the IQ, but more about wanting to give people a glimpse into the full aspects of the world. One of the more common traits discussed among parents of gifted children is the issue of Sensory Processing Disorder, often referred to as Over Excitability. I am linking a video I did a while ago to show how the issues with Kel El/Clarke Kent in a school room were so similar to what happens with my kids. That is why I liken gifted children to Superman. When you have gifted children, you see one of the biggest things to Kel El struggles with - loneliness. It doesn't matter if he/she is in a public school/private school/ or homeschool, it is rare to find highly to profoundly gifted children with a lot of friends. Most gifted kids struggle with "fitting in" not because they are smart, but because they are different. Not just a little different. It is easy to understand how a child 2 - 3 standard deviations below the "norm" are different, we have so much compassion and empathy - we teach this empathy to our children. We rarely sit back and evaluate that 2 - 3 standard deviations above the norm is just as different and that difference shines through in sensory issues.
The easiest example for me to share is the sensory issue of hearing. We struggle often with my children and their hearing and it isn't because they can't hear - but because they hear too well. My daughter has had her hearing tested so often I am losing track. She failed her first hearing test as a newborn, then she passed the second one - they eventually concluded that maybe the machine was broken. It wasn't. My daughter fights with her hearing and turns it "off" and "on" regularly. Why? Because when her hearing is "on" she tops out every machine tried on her for testing human hearing. Meaning as high as the machine can test - she can hear at that range. Her range of hearing is literally "off the charts", meaning when they go to chart her range of hearing, the marks are above what the chart records - because so few humans can hear that well. While good normal human hearing is great, extreme hearing is debilitating. Imagine sitting in a room and hearing every, single, solitary noise that can be picked up by the human ear. Imagine hearing things other people can't hear. No really - what happens when my daughter is in a group and keeps asking people "did you hear that guy laugh?" No, they didn't hear that guy laugh, because they guy was laughing 3 rooms away with the door closed. No one even sees the guy or knows he is in a room 3 doors away - so she becomes the kid that is "hearing things". Do you want to play with a kid that "hears things"? Things no one else in a room of 20 other people hear? How would you feel if you ALWAYS heard things other people said they couldn't hear? Would you begin to feel a little crazy? In an effort to stop some of the noise, my daughter's body will automatically turn her hearing off when it just gets too much - she goes from hearing too much to not hearing thing she should. So, this little girl that was hearing a guy laugh 3 rooms away now can't hear someone calling her name. Now, take this phenomenon and apply it to all the other senses as well - taste, touch, smell, sight.
See why your kid hitting my kid "for fun" is such a big deal? Because my kid's sense of tough is so heightened that it really did hurt, even if you kids was "just kidding". I don't keep my kids in a bubble - they have to go out in the world and live their life and make friends and all that other good stuff. It's just hard that they are constantly reminded that thing aren't quite made "for them". It really is like being "Superman". Sure they can do math with ease and read even with dyslexia and discuss with great detail some of the finer points of structural engineering. But, at the end of the day - sometimes you just want to hear the birds and the breeze; sometimes you just want to smell the rain, sometimes you just want to touch the soft petals of a rose, sometimes you want to just play a fun game of tag. Being young, with sensory issues - means all of those things take my kids great lengths to experience - because they have to filter out hundreds of other sounds, smells, touches, tastes, etc. You can just eat a piece of cake, they can taste every ingredient in the cake with each bite. This is one of the reasons my kids request one thing to eat every day - rice. Just plain white rice - everything else is just so absolutely complicated. Sure, they like sweets, but those things are tiring for the body and mind because they are processing so much information just eating a cookie. My eldest had an allergic reaction to an ingredient the FDA still declares humans cannot have an allergic reaction to, so it isn't required to be on food labeling. Now, even I love rice.
So, when I say "Gifted" - don't get mad. Other people put all that pressure on "gifted" to mean something it was never intended to mean. Just like Kel El declare on his chest - it wasn't an "S". So even though everyone declared him "Superman" based on the "S" on his shirt - it wasn't even an "S" to begin with. Even though everyone thinks parents are bragging about our kids being "Smart" when we say they are "Gifted"; newsflash - it isn't an "S"

Let the Projects Begin!

This year I decided to add a research project to our homeschooling plans. I wasn't sure exactly how it would go, my kids are still a bit young. All I can say is "wow"! My daughter decided to do a report about cats. I had in my mind it would take her at least a month to work on her report, it took her 2 days! I think this is because she really wanted a venue where she really got to talk about everything she knew about cats! Everyone that deals with gifted children understands that are deep wells of information. When they have a passion, there is no limit to what they can consume regarding that topic. However, when do they get to "let it all out", where is their forum to share with others their proficient synthesis of all that information? It is now official, we are hooked on projects!
My eldest is doing his report on ferrets (his passion). Since he is older (3rd grade), I have added a few required elements to his report. One of those is to get out there and interview some real individuals that know a thing or two about ferrets. His first stop will be to a local pet store where he has an appointment to speak with their "ferret specialist", she has even told him she will take some of the ferrets out of the cage and allow him to play with them (thanks, because we are NOT ready for a pet in our house). Teaching him that books are great, but some face time with a real life professional that can discuss things with you is a life lesson I really want to instill in him. He has been reading books, I have been reading books to him, and he has been listening to audio books - he is consuming this project. He has even been working diligently on his report cover.
It actually feels good to see Gardner's Multiple Intelligences in action. As my kids are delving into their projects, I am seeing them embrace the experience as something beyond "book work". They see a purpose behind what they are doing, and it excites them.
The "other half" of the Wonder Twins (as they like to call themselves) is still deciding on his topic. He is having trouble deciding on pigs or puppies as his theme. I am letting him take his time as I see a driving force for success and engagement is passion and interest in the topic being studied. There is no rush, he is only in the First grade - there is plenty of time.
A final aspect that I see as important with projects is a final outlet, a grand ending, a point and a purpose behind the whole event. For my daughter, she made her Youtube debut by giving her report on camera (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pql-MCxkHeI) it made her feel accomplished. She was excited to get a chance to the "the world" the efforts of her work. Sure, it has less than 100 views (and most of those are probably family members), but it wasn't about going viral, but giving her a forum.  I decided to give each child a choice in their final forum for every project they complete. It might be a Youtube video, a presentation to Grandma and Grandpa, or presented at a local college (something they have planned for chemistry projects they are working on). The point is for them to share their work, an aspect that I sometimes see missing from project based assignments.
It has been quite a fun experience thus far!

Twice Exceptional

I know a lot of people hate labels, but it works for me when I can name things. Anyone looking at my education plans for my kids will notice a big dichotomy - my kids seem to do lots of things above grade level and also have a lot of therapy. The educational "label" for that is Twice Exceptional. All three of my kids are highly/profoundly gifted - they have IQ's in the roughly 98th percentile, but they also have learning disabilities. This is one reason a traditional education environment would never work for them.

There are many people that think IQ doesn't matter, and it doesn't when it comes to most adults. However, understanding that a child is "gifted" - a term I dislike, but a label that is helpful in understanding the educational needs of a child, answers a lot of questions. For instance, normal development requires a child to experience seven repetitions of information before they have acquired new information. For a gifted child, only one to two repetitions are needed. As you can see, this makes a traditional classroom setting torture for a gifted child. Yes, they really do "get it" after they heard it the first time. Imagine sitting in a meeting and having to listen to a speaker drone on and on and on about a topic you mastered four hours ago. Now, imagine having to go to the meeting eight hours a day, five days a week, 9 months out of the year - and then have to come back and do it again for a total of 12 years. At the same time, most teachers hate having truly gifted children in the classroom. Gifted children account for approximately 10% of the population, and only 3% of gifted children are profoundly gifted (about 10% are highly gifted). Who wants to do lesson planning for a child that already knows everything that is supposed to be learned in that grade level (as well as one to two grade levels beyond that) the first day of class? What are you going to do with this kid? What happens in many classrooms is those kids are used as unpaid teacher's aid, being assigned to help struggling students. This is unfair to everyone involved. First, students should be in school to learn and if a gifted child is not allowed to learn anything new, why should they be in school. Secondly, struggling students should be taught by a teacher, if a 7 year old could truly be an effective teacher in a 2nd grade classroom - what are all those colleges of education for? Some parents of gifted children choose grade skipping as an option, but this isn't always an ideal situation. With things like Common Core Curriculum, even what is taught 2 - 3 grade levels above a gifted child may already be mastered. Secondly, grade skipping can make a gifted child an easy target for bullies; they may understand the academic content, but don't have the life experience or "street smarts" to make it in a room with kids 2, 3, or more years above them. This is one of the reasons half of all profoundly gifted children are home schooled.

Another layer of gifted is that many gifted children also have learning disabilities. This is a situation I have never met a teacher that was trained to deal with. For instance, my eldest went to a private Kindergarten. He was grade skipped into Kindergarten (a one year grade skip) and was still labeled one of the better readers in the class. However, he was also dyslexic. How do you teach one of the best readers in the class how to read? Most teachers aren't trained to spot gifted guessers. My son could memorize an entire book page by page - ask him to read any page in the book and he did it flawless - by memory. Gifted dyslexics also read by "gist", once they figure out the overall theme and where the book is going, they pretty much have it covered. For instance, I am a gifted dyslexic and I can conquer a 300 page book in a matter of hours. I don't read word for word, I take in entire paragraphs - literally. I may read 5% of the words in a paragraph, but I can tell you exactly what the paragraph was about, answer questions about the concept, and even accurately teach the concept to others - just don't ask me about obscure details - like what the color of the main character's hat was. I am sure that information was in the text, but my brain never processed it. My eldest reads above grade level, but he is dyslexic and sense he doesn't qualify for services (because in most states you aren't diagnosed with dyslexia unless you read below grade level), we have to tackle the issue ourselves.

My kids, like many gifted children, also deal with sensory issues, labeled "sensory processing disorder". It isn't that their senses don't work, they just work overtime. This creates sensory overload to an extraordinary scale. For instance, my kids hear literally "off the charts", meaning their hearing is more sensitive than what most hearing tests can measure. Because they hear in levels confined to animals, not humans, in order to function they have learned to actively tune things out. Unfortunately, they can overcompensate and tune out too much information - causing them to miss when people are calling their name, or miss the nuance of phonics. So, what looks like a hearing problem is actual a hearing super ability that must be trained, not fixed. Profoundly gifted children learn through all their senses well beyond the baby stage. We understand babies learn vast amount of information through taste and touch, but most people switch to learning based on hearing and sight as they get older. Not profoundly gifted children, they continue to take in vast amounts of information through their senses. However, they are pushed into a world with a ton more sensory input than what a baby would be pushed in to. We know not to take babies some places because it would be "too much", what happens to a 7 year old that continues to take in and process through every sense, all the information around them? What happens tends to be sensory overload - with meltdowns most people consider "inappropriate" for their age. This is why gifted children tend to be misdiagnosed with things like ADD/ADHD. They melt down, a LOT, when they are overwhelmed. However, they can be overwhelmed in most environments because we live in a sensory rich environment. Take for instance a traditional school. Even though there are walls (sometimes) and doors separating classrooms - sensory rich gifted children can literally hear through those walls. How frustrating would it be to hear conversations going on not only in your classroom, but the classrooms on either side of you - in addition to not only hearing your teacher lecture, but the teachers on both sides of the classroom. You also smell everyone's lunch box in your class, perfume, shampoo, soap residue, scented lotion, and anything else with the faintest smell? Then there is touch - you feel your socks, the tag on the back of your neck, your shoes feel tight, your jeans feel stiff and itchy. Not to mention the touching that happens by accident, an innocent bump feels like a push, a friendly pat on the back feels like a punch - you never quite know if people are trying to hurt you on purpose or not. I won't go in to taste - but you get the idea. These children aren't "broken", in fact, this might be the way man was really intended to work - experiencing the world fully. If we all took in our surroundings with all of our senses, the world would be a much more calm, quiet, and gentle place. Most profoundly gifted children have food sensitivities to the poisons that have been introduced into our food supply - food coloring, HFCS, excessive gluten - their bodies know when they are being poisoned. If we were all that sensitive, Monsanto would never have been about to run rugged over our food supply.

2E children are often mislabeled simply because people are so afraid of the gifted label. Gifted is often identified by an IQ test, but that isn't the only way. However, it is clear gifted children, especially profoundly gifted children are different. A child 2 - 3 standard deviations above the "average" child is just as different than a child 2 - 3 standard deviations below. There is plenty of empathy for mentally challenged children - we create environments that take in account their needs; I have yet to see a "calm and quiet" area of a playground designed for profoundly gifted children.

I talk a lot about gifted children, mainly because most people don't. The is often the cry of "all children are gifted" - oh really? So do you also decline birthday party invitations because you know the lights, sounds, and smells will be too much for your child? Do you purchase thousands of dollars in books and other educational materials because your child learns at such a fast pace they go through entire grade levels within weeks (my 5 year old daughter finished an entire K and an entire 1st grade math program specifically for gifted children in 8 weeks - 2 years worth of math learned in 8 weeks time). Do you spend time cutting the tags off of clothing, schedule playdates one or two children at a time, worry about the emotional sensitivity? Oh yes, the emotional sensitivity. I didn't even start to discuss that one. The strong sense of justice, the wondering about the universe, the understanding of how deeply it hurts when people are cruel, the internalizing of pain, hurt, and despair that leads to much higher levels of depression and even suicide. I remember weeping bitterly at the story of a young, profoundly gifted black teenager in NY. She was such an amazing writer, her poems and stories were so absolutely deep and profound, she was wise beyond her years. But she was still just 14, she didn't yet have the life skills necessary to deal with the cruelty of the world - so she jumped. She jumped to her death by leaping from the 4th story of an abandoned building. Smart enough to know just how high to go to ensure she would die. That is the deep, dark secret of gifted children - they know. They know just how filled with lies much of the story they are taught. They understand what it means to "colonize" a country, the know what the Spanish did to the native inhabitants of the "New World", they know the Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in the rebel states, and most importantly - the know life isn't fair. They know life is never going to be fair. Many people home school their gifted children so we can teach them, in the most gentle environment possible, how to deal with an unfair world. How to find joy in pain, how to create your own happy, how to make the pain external instead of internal, how to hit a wall instead beating themselves up in their mind, how to kick a bully's ass instead of feeling like they themselves are less then worthy of dignity and respect. The world has no love for gifted children; well world - screw you!

Oh yea, back to 2E. My kids are 2E and Twice Exceptional is a great way to describe them. This means I must be twice exceptional in meeting their educational needs. Often joke about the meme of female = Iron Man. In many ways, it isn't a joke. I often do need the money, humor, and genius of Tony Stark to meet their needs. But, it's all good, because I am, in fact - Iron Man - (female; fe = iron, male = man)

Review of the EasyRead Reading System

EasyRead (http://www.easyreadsystem.com/index/index.html) is a system designed to teach people between the ages of 4 and 94 to read. The computer based system includes many things that allow it to be a great fit for my twins who are gifted, but also dyslexic with some sensory issues. The program starts with the use of characters that remind the user of the sound that specific letters make (including separate characters for the different vowel sounds).

The things that make the program fun is that each session is short (15 minutes at the most), with the use of games sprinkled throughout. However, the games are really creative. For instance, in one game the student is a fighter pilot and must read the word to know what target to shoot – pretty big motivation to read the words correctly! Another aspect of the program is the rewards. As students complete various sessions, they get a code word. When they enter the code word into the designated area, a prize is placed in the mail. It is quite fun to get mail and each prize comes with a nice letter for the student. There are also 3 levels of achievement built into the system with certificates they earn as they achieve the levels.

Helping is good. Yes, this program has a built in premise that the parent should help the child with the program. This is in direct contrast to many programs where you feel as if you are “cheating” if you help your child with the answers, not in Easyread. Of course you don’t give them the answers, but slowly going through the pronunciations, encouraging your child to look at the characters, walking your child through the multiple choices options – not just allowed, but encouraged. Even though the program is computer based, it isn’t a “place child in front, now walk away” sort of program. This is a program in which you are actively involved in the learning process with your child, a definite plus from my standpoint.

Another thing that impresses me the most is the frequent contact with the parent built into the system. In addition to messages within the system giving me tasks to do with the kids, there are also phone consultations and short training videos to watch. There is also a training guide and downloads for flashcards and other things that may be of interest. They also help give you an understanding of how progress should be made. You get a reasonable timeline for when your child should be able to take what they are learning in the system, and apply it to reading books in general. Everyone’s expectations are managed.

Now, here is the absolute most impressive part of the system – an understanding of visual issues that often affect reading. I am a curriculum junkie and have some experience with almost every reading program out there – this is the only one to begin with an assessment for visual tracking! Both of my twins have vision issues that require vision therapy – the employees at Easy Read were able to have a conversation about that and also asked for progress reports so we could see how their vision therapy was affecting their progress within the program. However, for children with less severe issues they have advice for small games that can be done at home with a parent to improve visual tracking and eye coordination.  This aspect alone makes the program worth the money. I mean, I have never seen a reading program not only acknowledge vision development issues, but also integrate improving visual tracking into to reading program – score, goal, win.

While I am all for singing the praises of this program, there are some things I think could affect the ability of the program to work for other families. The first is the cost, approximately $1,200 for the first child, and $450 for each additional child. Yes, you read that right. Payments can be spread out monthly over a 10 month period. I know, the cost is high and probably a deal breaker for many families. However, for us the cost was worth it. This program for us is actually cheaper than the $150 per hour we would need to pay a tutor that was skilled in working with dyslexic children. Also, the program has all the aspects I would have to create if I wanted to do the intervention myself – which would be much more time consuming than the 15 minutes each of my kids spend on the program. At the same time, it is still a lot of money.

The second thing that might be an issue for parents is that the program is UK based, so your child we be getting a some aspects of British English. While British and US English are roughly 98% the same, they are still around 2% different. If that difference is going to be an issue for you or your children – consider that in your evaluation.

A final concern that might be an issue is the voice of narrator. Now, I love his voice and the kids haven’t had any issues at all – but he does have a kind of nasal based pattern of speech (think Seinfeld with a British accent). Every once in a while I will repeat what he says to ensure my kids heard him correctly, but he does go through great effort to pronounce sounds so they can be easily understood.  I do understand that some voice patterns can be annoying to others, and this could be one of them.

Overall, this program is a 10 out of 10 for us. In fact, I had signed up only one twin, but enrolled the other just a few days later after learning the program a bit more. The program is solid, thorough, but incredibly fun for the kids. I like that the fact that there is encouragement throughout the program, with kind words, prizes, and even real certificates of achievement as the student goes through the program.  While the program isn’t cheap, I can say that I feel we are getting what we pay for.

All Mixed Up: Our Journey Through Sensory Processing Disorder

Having three gifted children, I think we have seen all that gifted has to offer - the good and the bad. The latest waters we are rafting are Sensory Processing Disorder or SPD. This condition disproportionately affects highly and profoundly gifted children, and all three of my children deal with it to some extent. SPD can be summed up best with the words - mixed messages. This condition is when the brain doesn't quite get the messages from the five senses correct. SPD is a whole system condition that isn't accurately diagnosed until you step back and look at the big picture. It presents itself with a lot of "little" things that seem more annoyance that disability. For instance, when messages from the sense of touch get mixed up, this is when we see the often found issue with profoundly gifted children - the clothing wars! Jeans are a no no, socks are a struggle, and tags are simply too painful to even consider. Going to the store to buy clothing with a gifted child affected by SPD isn't a joyful experience; it's akin to picking out a cast or a brace! It is choosing the least horrible torture device. A tap feels like a shove, or they don't realize how close they are to other people. They like to touch walls and surfaces and jump and bounce - they need big reminders of where their body is in space because they can't trust what their senses are telling them about their bodies position.
SPD and the sense of taste comes in with severe food preferences, my eldest prefers bland foods like rice, bread, and pasta. I had to become a "creative" home chef, sneaking in more variety whenever I can. I am constantly throwing jars of baby food into pasta sauces and cooking extreme rice blends to improve his nutritional intake (who knew there were so many different varieties of rice!). For my daughter, texture - she is only five but can tell you with one bite if something is "smooth and creamy" versus "soft and mushy". She isn't being rude or mean, "soft and mushy" feels to her the equivalent of someone forcing you to eat live, squirming worms - it just feels so wrong.
SPD and the sense of sight I have blogged about quite a bit. We have been in vision therapy for over a year. They have made amazing progress, but it was a process just finding out what was wrong with their eyes. Their first eye exams were when the twins were just 2 years old. They were "20/20 and just fine", or so we were told. It wasn't until we found a developmental optometrist that we got the real story - sure they saw "20/20", but they also saw an independent picture in each eye, had poor tracking and convergence, almost no periphery vision, and their eyes often jumped around when trying to focus. Yes, those messages to the brain were getting all mixed up!
SPD and the sense of hearing has been as much trouble as the eyes to us. The children all hear so accutely the register off the charts in standard hearing test. They can hear as good as some animals! Unfortunately, they hear at different levels in each ear and they have limited ability to filter out background noise. This makes birthday parties with screaming children, lots of sounds, and flashing lights absolute misery for my children - especially the twins. I often tell people it's like someone taking 5 radios, tuning them to different stations, turning them each up to full volume - then trying to have a conversation with you! All you would want is for the noise to stop! This is how my children experience the world around them - a jumbled mess of too much noise.
SPD and smell is another fun one - I don't think people realize just how many smells there are in the world! My children smell it all, intensely. For the good smells, it is wonderful. I remember my 5 year old son telling me that he loved flowers because they smelled so beautiful - wow. But, life stops when you get to an absolutely repulsive smell. Most people can just ignore a bad smell, but my kids don't just "smell it", they "feel" the smell.
This overwhelming of the senses leads to emotional intensity as well - everything is "felt" on so many levels they just need a break from the world. If they don't get their break from the world, well - it's not pretty. The number one recommended educational interventions for children with SPD is: computer based learning and home schooling. This explains why half of all profoundly gifted children are home schooled. Often times the best "therapy" for SPD is environmental control, and you get that the most with home schooling. You also limit the things that would send children into absolute overdrive - like too much noise, too many smells, too much touching.
My children are also doing Sensory Integration Therapy - an intensive therapy where the senses are "shocked" in a controlled environment to try to rewire some of those crossed connections. We have had great results, but it isn't a "cure". Environmental control is still important, so is buying clothing with no tags and allowing them to have their emotions do what they need to do - release.
There is more to SPD, but the big thing is that when I speak with parents of gifted kids and talk about SPD, they shake their heads. Not everyone knew a name for it, but I haven't met one parent of a profoundly gifted child that didn't also have a story about socks or jeans, or the child covering their ears in loud places - even as a small child, or even them "needing" to jump and bounce to figure out where their body really is in space.
When you look into SPD, it makes sense that it affects gifted children more. They make so many connections so fast, there is bound to be some cross wiring. The big thing is finding others that know and understand. My friends have a few other gifted friends and watching them play together is so refreshing. They "get" each other, they experience the world in a similar way - they are more gentle with each other, but also more patient. Less than 10% of the population of gifted; less than 20% of gifted children are "highly" gifted, and less than 10% of gifted children are profoundly gifted. We hear a lot about the "1%" when it comes to socioeconomic status in this country, no one talks about the 2% in the area of "intelligence". These kids are rare, but so are their issues. So many people think having a gifted child is about their ability to recite the alphabet at 2 years old, or do multiplication at 6, or Algebra at 7. People rarely see the many disabilities that come with profoundly gifted children. I understand and that is why I blog - so others like our family can find they are not alone. Also, so those that haven't interacted with highly and profoundly gifted children can have a bit more understanding. Yes, most of our time our world is a beautiful as the smell of a flower; yet there are times when we deal with the thorns of a disability. So yes, I do consider parenting gifted children the blessing of a thousand roses - beautiful to see, wonderful to smell, gentle to touch; but that doesn't mean there are no thorns. There are thorns, a lot of them.