As I'm arranging carpooling for some Fall activities, this topic is on my mind, and has me giggling with amusement.
M doesn't like carpooling. I'm glad she has told me, but we will still be carpooling.
Let's face it. Interacting with other individuals can be irritating and complicated. That's part of the reality of being human. None of us are immune.
I know a lovely woman who is one of the most warm, tolerant people I have ever met. She will not get in the car without her son having 2 books, "because what if he finishes one?!"
When I heard this, I laughed really hard and felt very relieved to not be alone.
M likes quiet in the car, which is ironic. She never stops talking. Not just in the car, either.
When we have to drive in the morning, I am grumpy. I know I am not alone in this. Grumpiness is most common in the morning, second only maybe to driving in traffic. I'm guessing - this is not a scientific statement. It rings true, though, doesn't it?
We did some carpooling to 4H events this summer, and there were siblings riding with us. Siblings fight. It's part of being a sibling. M is an only child. She's adapting, but sibling fighting still upsets her sometimes. Siblings fight in the car, too.
In one instance, the siblings were being particularly irritable with each other. I had another I'm-Not-Alone moment when the mother, also riding with us, suggested putting an audio book on for them.
As Fall approaches, we will be in the car a lot more. More of our in-person activities are during the school year, and some of them are quite a distance. They are worth it, but the car time is still something I plan ahead for and get stressed about.
My solution this year was to stock up on audio books from the library and try some different ones, so we'll have something to look forward to in the car. I keep 2 in there, too, just in case we finish one, lol.
One activity we are new to carpooling, since we moved this calendar year. I am grateful to have a carpool. The decreased driving, reduced emissions, reduced gas cost, etc. are wonderful! M believes in all those things, too. She still seems wary however.
"Just as long as it's a quiet carpool," was her initial response. Pause for internal hysterical laughter on my part! I told her that we didn't know, and that it was going to happen either way.
Then, I talked to my husband. He suggested having coffee with the other drivers before the start so we could give them a heads up and M would not be grilled with questions.
While I understand his concern, this may not happen. It simply may not be possible. Besides, M is who she is and will have to learn to react to a variety of responses to her unique situation.
I did, however, have to disclose that she cannot ride in the front of the car. This is not something I anticipated being part of the atypicality of our lives. The place she's going, at that time, does not offer classes for her age. So, I had to let them know that she is small and young as a logistical concern.
Will I ever get used to this? Every time I think I'm close, I get surprised again.
I don't know how this is going to work, but I am grateful to have a carpool arranged, and to have M experiencing this part of life that is so much a part of so many lives in this area.
I am also grateful to have her around people who are not part of her "special population." I think in an effort to feel included, we sometimes insulate ourselves too much. This can lead to thinking about people as "us" and "them" even when that is not our intention.
My husband and I intentionally put ourselves out there. We want people to feel loved and appreciated and respected. That sometimes means that people who consider themselves part of a description that we ascribe to, disagree with our decisions. In extreme cases, we are rejected for attempting to be inclusive.
I will continue to try and be inclusive. For carpooling, I simply disclosed that she is small and young, but a HS student, adding only that it's a long story. This was acknowledged in a way that seems positive and encouraging. I responded yet again in a way that downplayed the differences, saying that it's like anything else - it has pros and cons.
I'm not going to apologize or explain myself or M to everyone. M is a HS student. Yes, she is small, because she takes after her mother. Yes, she is young. That's simply when she was born. If people assume we are snobs, then that's their impression. We cannot control their heads.
We can control ourselves. We can show interest in other people's interests, and appreciate all sorts of things in all sorts of people. We choose to focus on loving people. Hopefully, by accepting ourselves and loving ourselves and our differences, we can encourage other people to accept and love differences in themselves and others. That is also M's goal. I am so proud of her for that.
Isn't it amazing what arranging a carpool can bring up? I wonder what it would be like to have a simple life . . . Does anyone really have that?
Monday, August 29, 2016
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
Age really doesn't matter - play habits of the highly gifted
I was struck by this concept yet again during National Night Out. We met some more neighbors, including several very close to M's age. She played with some. Some were interested in a pet we brought out with us. However, there was one really cool connection.
I'm going to back up a bit. M, along with many highly gifted children, was most often drawn to adults as a child. Playing with other kids was fine, but she was just as often found striking up conversations with adults.
When you think about it, this makes sense. Her intellect was so much more advanced than we were aware, and she was filling a hunger for advanced verbal interaction by targeting adults instead of other preschoolers, etc. Many experts (and complete novices) will express extreme concern over this behavior and it can be mislabelled.
M has outgrown this to a large extent. She still is comfortable talking with adults and enjoys that interaction. She also enjoys interaction with some people her own age, as well as some of just about every age.
I have a theory that she somewhat skipped part of her childhood. When other kids were engrossed in their toys, she could never get very excited about them. She wanted to, and you could see it in her eyes and behavior, but the fun of toys for her was very mild, and sometimes completely absent.
At that time, she was obsessed with animals, weather, and a few other scientific ideas. Mostly, she wanted to consume documentaries and nonfiction books on those subjects. I was sad to think she might be missing out on some of her childhood.
Back to National Night Out. A girl who had been noticing M outside sought her out and asked her to play. This adorable delight is 6-7 years younger than M, which momentarily concerned M, but she said "sure," and they quickly showed how similar they were. I wonder what the kids closer to M's own age thought . .. . it doesn't really matter, but it was very interesting for me to see.
Since then, we have found that we connect very well with the parents of this girl, as well. We seem to be wired the same way. Four females had a good time doing things that wouldn't have been very interesting in other company, but was very fun in this instance. And, since M has taken the Red Cross Babysitters course, she has had the opportunity to babysit her new friend, to the satisfaction of everyone involved.
In our usual group of friends, none of them are the same age as M. One is close in age, but some are only slightly older than the neighbor girl. I find it interesting to see how M interacts with them. Things she wouldn't be interested in playing with on her own, she will get out and excited, creatively play with her friends of all ages. I like to think that she is recapturing some of what she may have missed while she was too busy reading to play with toys.
If you step back a bit and think of your own friends, this makes sense. In school, kids are arranged based on a 12 month period of time of birth. I suppose it's as good a way to divide them as any, but it doesn't always work well. As an adult, how many of your friends were born in that same 12 month period of time? Very few of mine were.
Another evidence of how much this gets ingrained into us is that our kids get steered to play with kids close to their own age. In one family, at least recently, M is more drawn to the girl who is farther from her age, and it seems this girl is more drawn to M than her older sister. Since the adults were in those neat little groups, it seems like we assumed the similar ages would be the closer connection. This is an assumption I am trying to remove from my own outlook.
When we, as adults and parents, interact with other adults, I find another phenomenon that parallels this. Most people we meet assume that we are the same age as them so long as they can relate to our life stage. For example, if someone has college-aged kids, they may assume they are older than we are, since M is younger.
Interestingly, people have children at vastly different ages and this is considered completely socially acceptable, yet we make this assumption . . . I wonder if this is the lingering effect of school grouping.
It goes a step further. Most people assume that my husband and I are the same age. While there isn't a huge age gap, there is a significant one. Unless something triggers the information, such as a reference to older TV shows or music, people assume that we are the same age.
The encouraging thing about all of this is that people who you get along with tend to assume similarity and connection. I find this incredibly comforting during a time of dissension in various groups in our country.
I do not write this with an agenda, moral, or lesson, but simply muse about an experience that I am witnessing and comparing it to other experiences in my own life.
As Dr Deb Ruf said, "you hang out with people who get your jokes." May you have many wonderfully connected people in your life of all ages, and encourage those satisfying relationships in the lives of those around you. Always.
I'm going to back up a bit. M, along with many highly gifted children, was most often drawn to adults as a child. Playing with other kids was fine, but she was just as often found striking up conversations with adults.
When you think about it, this makes sense. Her intellect was so much more advanced than we were aware, and she was filling a hunger for advanced verbal interaction by targeting adults instead of other preschoolers, etc. Many experts (and complete novices) will express extreme concern over this behavior and it can be mislabelled.
M has outgrown this to a large extent. She still is comfortable talking with adults and enjoys that interaction. She also enjoys interaction with some people her own age, as well as some of just about every age.
I have a theory that she somewhat skipped part of her childhood. When other kids were engrossed in their toys, she could never get very excited about them. She wanted to, and you could see it in her eyes and behavior, but the fun of toys for her was very mild, and sometimes completely absent.
At that time, she was obsessed with animals, weather, and a few other scientific ideas. Mostly, she wanted to consume documentaries and nonfiction books on those subjects. I was sad to think she might be missing out on some of her childhood.
Back to National Night Out. A girl who had been noticing M outside sought her out and asked her to play. This adorable delight is 6-7 years younger than M, which momentarily concerned M, but she said "sure," and they quickly showed how similar they were. I wonder what the kids closer to M's own age thought . .. . it doesn't really matter, but it was very interesting for me to see.
Since then, we have found that we connect very well with the parents of this girl, as well. We seem to be wired the same way. Four females had a good time doing things that wouldn't have been very interesting in other company, but was very fun in this instance. And, since M has taken the Red Cross Babysitters course, she has had the opportunity to babysit her new friend, to the satisfaction of everyone involved.
In our usual group of friends, none of them are the same age as M. One is close in age, but some are only slightly older than the neighbor girl. I find it interesting to see how M interacts with them. Things she wouldn't be interested in playing with on her own, she will get out and excited, creatively play with her friends of all ages. I like to think that she is recapturing some of what she may have missed while she was too busy reading to play with toys.
If you step back a bit and think of your own friends, this makes sense. In school, kids are arranged based on a 12 month period of time of birth. I suppose it's as good a way to divide them as any, but it doesn't always work well. As an adult, how many of your friends were born in that same 12 month period of time? Very few of mine were.
Another evidence of how much this gets ingrained into us is that our kids get steered to play with kids close to their own age. In one family, at least recently, M is more drawn to the girl who is farther from her age, and it seems this girl is more drawn to M than her older sister. Since the adults were in those neat little groups, it seems like we assumed the similar ages would be the closer connection. This is an assumption I am trying to remove from my own outlook.
When we, as adults and parents, interact with other adults, I find another phenomenon that parallels this. Most people we meet assume that we are the same age as them so long as they can relate to our life stage. For example, if someone has college-aged kids, they may assume they are older than we are, since M is younger.
Interestingly, people have children at vastly different ages and this is considered completely socially acceptable, yet we make this assumption . . . I wonder if this is the lingering effect of school grouping.
It goes a step further. Most people assume that my husband and I are the same age. While there isn't a huge age gap, there is a significant one. Unless something triggers the information, such as a reference to older TV shows or music, people assume that we are the same age.
The encouraging thing about all of this is that people who you get along with tend to assume similarity and connection. I find this incredibly comforting during a time of dissension in various groups in our country.
I do not write this with an agenda, moral, or lesson, but simply muse about an experience that I am witnessing and comparing it to other experiences in my own life.
As Dr Deb Ruf said, "you hang out with people who get your jokes." May you have many wonderfully connected people in your life of all ages, and encourage those satisfying relationships in the lives of those around you. Always.
Friday, August 5, 2016
Autism and giftedness - a mother's reflections
I will start out by saying that I am not an expert, doctor, or any other kind of authority on the topic of autism. My experiences are those of the parent of a high gifted girl and the ways that intersects with the topic of autism. By no means do I claim to be perfect or speaking to every situation.
The topic of autism and giftedness came up in a conversation with friends who also have highly gifted children last night, and I've been pondering it ever since. To my knowledge, non of their children have autism.
"I've worked with autistic kids before, so I have a lot of knowledge about how to interact with her."
This was in an e-mail from a teacher working with my girl. I never said she had autism. In fact, she isn't, and she's been tested. She is very literal, extremely conerned about rules, highly anxious, and asynchronous in her development. I was annoyed that the teacher assumed to be so knowledgeable, but I was not angry. Other people got angry.
When I mentioned this to our friends last night, there was silence, which is EXTREMELY odd when those three families are in the same building. The expressions were those of stunned, confused and incredulous adults. Then another dad said that made no sense, shaking his head as if to dislodge a fly.
"Is she . . . . . on the spectrum?" was another teachers response to me - it was a drama teacher.
At least this woman was cautious, uncomfortable and honestly asking, rather than the conceited assumption that she was correct in her wondering. I said no, but acknowledged that she has some symptoms that might seem like it. She apologized and was genuinely interested in engaging my child in her class. As the dad last night would quickly point out, M has other habits and personality traits that are completely against the idea of autism. However, when she feels unsafe about acceptance, etc, she gets quiet, so those are less obvious at those times.
In that case, I had insisted that M take a drama class. I feel that learning to perform in front of people, to control expressions and actions to an end, and to control yourself under pressure are life skills. Since M is not interested in performance related activities, I do require this from time to time in order to make sure she's getting the experiences I feel are necessary, as her mother and her homeschooling principal. She hated it. It was only a few weeks, however, and she accepted that I don't require her to do many things she genuinely dislikes that much, so she was compliant.
A girl who was very loving toward her was also in this class. That girl is an incredibly gifted actress, and has gotten interest and audition invitations from Disney. Their interest levels are VERY different. In an attempt to cheer M up and simply be friends with her, she had put her arm around M's shoulder and encouarged her into the classroom, standing beside her and just trying to be friends as tween girls do.
Unfortunately, the act of an arm around the shoulder does not feel friendly to her, especially when it is speeding her progress toward something she doesn't like. Her response to those situations is to shut down and almost freeze. This is basicly what she did in that class.
Isn't it interesting how this came across to the teacher? I'm an analytical person, so I can sometimes separate myself from the emotion of it.
The discussion last night was about a child I have never met, who has recently been diagnosed with autism. The school noticed that he plays alongside other kids rather than with them, most of the time. That is the basis of the discussion from last night.
He was diagnosed because of playing alongside rather than with other kids at school. His mother and I have a mutual friend, so I heard about it. Guess what happened when her kids visited with him? There was no alongside. This precious child was engaged for hours and hours playing with the other kids. Those kids are highly gifted. They are asynchronous, so parts of their play may look young & parts may seem detailed to the extreme. They are wired differently. They are not better than anyone else. They are not worse than anyone else. They are simply different.
Play is supposed to be fun. If it is not, it's not effective play. Why should we assume there is a right way to have fun that fits every child? There isn't for adults . . . .
M played alongside other kids for a VERY long time. Part of it is that highly gifted kids play so differently.
I remember the first day that one of our friends brought her kids to the coop that is the first place we felt at home. The mom went outside with kids who were going to play predator and prey. As soon as she saw it, she decided it exemplified giftedness in play. Instead of just using predator and prey as the categories, they gave examples of animals that they were playing, then another kid would announce they were an animal that would prey upon it. Yet another kid would say they were a type of prey that is actually poisonous to the predator in question. I cannot give you the specific examples they used that day because they honestly know a lot more about animals than I do. Those kids used the specific names and types in their play.
When is the last time you heard about that at recess at a school? Might that be why they play alongside? If they like playing that way, might they get bored if they were forced to simplify all the time? Might they get ostracized for being themselves in a school environment?
In our society, which expresses so much concern for individuality being respected, gifted kids are not being shown the same level of passionate support. They are being labelled as someone with an ailment to be treated. I don't understand why. Do we think that people really only are different from each other once they turn 18? Do we believe that people only deserve respect once they are legally adults?
The legislation about special education in the 90s included giftedness when it didn't get passed. Giftedness was removed from the accomodations, and then it passed. Does that upset anyone else? Are those people less important?
The topic of autism and giftedness came up in a conversation with friends who also have highly gifted children last night, and I've been pondering it ever since. To my knowledge, non of their children have autism.
"I've worked with autistic kids before, so I have a lot of knowledge about how to interact with her."
This was in an e-mail from a teacher working with my girl. I never said she had autism. In fact, she isn't, and she's been tested. She is very literal, extremely conerned about rules, highly anxious, and asynchronous in her development. I was annoyed that the teacher assumed to be so knowledgeable, but I was not angry. Other people got angry.
When I mentioned this to our friends last night, there was silence, which is EXTREMELY odd when those three families are in the same building. The expressions were those of stunned, confused and incredulous adults. Then another dad said that made no sense, shaking his head as if to dislodge a fly.
"Is she . . . . . on the spectrum?" was another teachers response to me - it was a drama teacher.
At least this woman was cautious, uncomfortable and honestly asking, rather than the conceited assumption that she was correct in her wondering. I said no, but acknowledged that she has some symptoms that might seem like it. She apologized and was genuinely interested in engaging my child in her class. As the dad last night would quickly point out, M has other habits and personality traits that are completely against the idea of autism. However, when she feels unsafe about acceptance, etc, she gets quiet, so those are less obvious at those times.
In that case, I had insisted that M take a drama class. I feel that learning to perform in front of people, to control expressions and actions to an end, and to control yourself under pressure are life skills. Since M is not interested in performance related activities, I do require this from time to time in order to make sure she's getting the experiences I feel are necessary, as her mother and her homeschooling principal. She hated it. It was only a few weeks, however, and she accepted that I don't require her to do many things she genuinely dislikes that much, so she was compliant.
A girl who was very loving toward her was also in this class. That girl is an incredibly gifted actress, and has gotten interest and audition invitations from Disney. Their interest levels are VERY different. In an attempt to cheer M up and simply be friends with her, she had put her arm around M's shoulder and encouarged her into the classroom, standing beside her and just trying to be friends as tween girls do.
Unfortunately, the act of an arm around the shoulder does not feel friendly to her, especially when it is speeding her progress toward something she doesn't like. Her response to those situations is to shut down and almost freeze. This is basicly what she did in that class.
Isn't it interesting how this came across to the teacher? I'm an analytical person, so I can sometimes separate myself from the emotion of it.
The discussion last night was about a child I have never met, who has recently been diagnosed with autism. The school noticed that he plays alongside other kids rather than with them, most of the time. That is the basis of the discussion from last night.
He was diagnosed because of playing alongside rather than with other kids at school. His mother and I have a mutual friend, so I heard about it. Guess what happened when her kids visited with him? There was no alongside. This precious child was engaged for hours and hours playing with the other kids. Those kids are highly gifted. They are asynchronous, so parts of their play may look young & parts may seem detailed to the extreme. They are wired differently. They are not better than anyone else. They are not worse than anyone else. They are simply different.
Play is supposed to be fun. If it is not, it's not effective play. Why should we assume there is a right way to have fun that fits every child? There isn't for adults . . . .
M played alongside other kids for a VERY long time. Part of it is that highly gifted kids play so differently.
I remember the first day that one of our friends brought her kids to the coop that is the first place we felt at home. The mom went outside with kids who were going to play predator and prey. As soon as she saw it, she decided it exemplified giftedness in play. Instead of just using predator and prey as the categories, they gave examples of animals that they were playing, then another kid would announce they were an animal that would prey upon it. Yet another kid would say they were a type of prey that is actually poisonous to the predator in question. I cannot give you the specific examples they used that day because they honestly know a lot more about animals than I do. Those kids used the specific names and types in their play.
When is the last time you heard about that at recess at a school? Might that be why they play alongside? If they like playing that way, might they get bored if they were forced to simplify all the time? Might they get ostracized for being themselves in a school environment?
In our society, which expresses so much concern for individuality being respected, gifted kids are not being shown the same level of passionate support. They are being labelled as someone with an ailment to be treated. I don't understand why. Do we think that people really only are different from each other once they turn 18? Do we believe that people only deserve respect once they are legally adults?
The legislation about special education in the 90s included giftedness when it didn't get passed. Giftedness was removed from the accomodations, and then it passed. Does that upset anyone else? Are those people less important?
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