What is it like to be the parent of a gifted child? featuring Elizabeth Blaetz

Welcome to Vanguard Gifted Academy's educational channel. I'm Elizabeth Blaetz, and I'm the head of Vanguard Gifted Academy. We're on our final episode of the exploration series about parents sharing information to parents. I hope that you've enjoyed the other episodes. If you haven't had a chance to do so, go ahead and look back and see what these parents had to share. I’m going to talk to you about parenting gifted education from the perspective of a head of school. And I have three things that I think really are going to help bring your parenting around and give you a good perspective about parenting. 

The first thing I want to talk about is taking care of yourself. As a parent of a gifted child, I know you're busy trying to find a good learning environment for your child and trying to make sure they have good experiences and friendships. All of those things are really important, but it's also important that you find your tribe. Find other parents who are raising gifted children. You might find them online, you might find them in your neighborhood, you might find them in your family, but it's really valuable for you to have an opportunity to openly share the successes of your child. 

It's a wonderful feeling to be able to give other people your story so that they are getting more tools in their toolbox for being a good parent of a gifted child. And it's wonderful to get the stories of other gifted parents to help you with the tools in your toolbox. Filling that toolbox with as many strategies as possible is going to help you in your journey of raising a gifted child. 

Number two is about the professionals you use with your gifted child. Gifted children oftentimes need a counselor or a psychologist or some kind of occupational therapy, and I wanted to talk to you today a little bit about the people you choose when you need that kind of help. It's just like when my husband went for heart surgery, we wanted the surgeon who had done the most heart surgeries. We didn't want the new guy on the block. And when you go to interview a psychologist or find an occupational therapist, find people who have worked with gifted children. 

Gifted children are unique. They need the communication in their format, in a way that they are understanding. Oftentimes professionals are used to working with children who are below the norm. And so they have a pace, they have a pattern, their speech is aimed at those children who are below the norm. When they have a gifted child, if they're not experienced with a gifted child, that poor gifted child's going to sleep! It's too slow for them. They need more in-depth information and that's going to help them help the counselor do a better job, it's going to help the child do a better job, and it is going to help the child achieve. Even if it's only a physical change that we're trying to make, help that fine motor coordination, the intellectual is so linked in a gifted child that you really need to make sure your gifted child has a professional that understands him or her. 

The other part is the teacher in the classroom. It's really important to work with the teacher that she understands, or he understands, the gifted child. It's fine to ask, “Have you had many gifted children in your classroom?” It's a really nice approach to ask rather than demand. So, you know, “Oh, what do you know about gifted children? My child was just diagnosed as gifted.” Give the teacher an opportunity to grow in a comfortable setting, and she or he is going to work with you as best they can. It's alright to share, “Oh gosh, I’ve got this great thing about the traits of a gifted child. Would you like to have that? Because I'd love to share it with you.” 

You have to remember teachers in the public arena teach every child from way below normal to gifted. It's a wide range. School districts are evaluated on how they bring up the children to the normal level. The gifted children are not their focus. And so the teacher doesn't spend a lot of extra time learning about giftedness. If you can have pointers from your psychologist or you have other information to share with them, do it! Talk to them about what they know about giftedness, help the teacher out. And I think as long as you do it in a positive way, that teacher is going to be grateful to have the knowledge to share not only with your child, but with the children that come through the school later. 

Number three is I know that you're a caring parent and you're trying to raise your baby the best you can. That's why you're looking at videos. That's why you're investigating all kinds of opportunities for your child. And one thing I want to help you remember is although he’s a baby to you, you need to raise him or her to be an adult. And that's a challenging thing to think about as your child is growing and maturing, you have to give them the freedom to make mistakes. You have to help them learn who they are as a gifted person, who they are social-emotionally, and help them fill their toolbox just like you need to fill your toolbox. 

Kind of an interesting thing that happened in my teaching is we were studying the Native Americans and the kids were all excited about it, and we were doing the Plains Native Americans, and we were talking about teepees and how they moved from place to place. And so I brought in seven poles of PVC pipe and I think five or six sheets. And I said, “Okay, today we're going to build a teepee!” And they were all excited. And I said, “Go!” And they're like, what? I said, “You can do it! How did they put up the teepees? We looked at teepees, you know you can do this.” And they're like, we can't do this. And I said, “Think about it.” 

So it was really exciting to watch them do this. I asked more questions. I guided them kindly, but I didn't give them the answers. I didn't even give them the directions because that's how life is.

Life doesn't give you directions when you come in. Life hands you a bundle and says, okay, go ahead. 

They have to learn to take chances. They have to learn that the learning isn't following directions, learning is doing it yourself. And the day that teepee actually went up and the fabric (the “buffalo skins”) was attached and they were able to climb inside and do our story, read our stories inside the teepee, was a phenomenal day that those children would have never experienced if I had guided them each step of the way through how to build a teepee. So giving them the skills to grow up along the way is just so important. 

So one of the things that I want to offer all of you as parents is resources. I'm going to include a really good reference sheet that has websites. Websites have a wonderful wealth of information from professionals and parents.

The other thing to help you build your toolbox is blogs. I'm going to give you a list of some really great blogs, and you're going to find on these blogs, there are lists of good reading materials, there are personal stories that are going to help you, and there's the opportunity for you to share your personal story, to help other people build that tool chest. And that's what we need to do as parents is just make sure we have strategies to help our children. 

Thanks for tuning in. I want to encourage you to go back and see the other episodes in this series. Parents have great stories to share, and I'm sure you have stories too. Your journey is unique and yet hearing the journey of other people is going to support you. We also want to hear about your journey. So please share with us, feel free to put your story down. Your story is going to inspire and give strategies to other parents as well. Thank you so much for joining us.