Julie 2E

Thu, Nov 17, 2022 11:16AM
58:08
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
gifted, parents, kid, classroom, teacher, people, giftedness, distractible, called, question, child, reframe, hear, talk, adults, tui, student, julie, excitable, superpower

00:02
I love that you guys do that. And you're suspend virtual right?
00:07
You're always I've been virtual since 2000. What's the I started in 14? So I think my first conference was 2016. Well, before COVID, if only I had invested in zoom.
00:20
I think there's a lot of us saying that. All right. So you are a busy lady. So let me let us get going here. So I will do our intro and outro separate from this conversation. And so I will go ahead and just welcome you.
00:40
I want to I want to change my Wi Fi, because I just you're skipping a little bit and I don't know ifit's me, or if it's you. It looks like I'm on the strongest Wi Fi but skip. Okay, let me hear you talk.
00:56
Your back. Can you hear? Yeah,
00:58
so yeah, but hang on, because I just got a message that my Wi Fi is unstable, which should notbe the case. So hold on. It might have just been because I was just switching. I have two super strong options. I was up on one. And you're glitching a little so I switched to the other. So let me hear you talk a little bit to make sure that we're good.

01:20
I think we're good. I hear you clearly. Hopefully you can hear me clearly. Yep, yep, that's okay.And then if it glitches we'll just kind of pause and re say what you want and cut that part out.Yep. All right. Are you ready?
01:34
Yeah, my goal is for you to not have to edit because I feel you. I know that and isn't it awesome when you don't have to? Yeah, that feeling?
01:45
I love it. All right. Um, let's actually walk. Welcome to our show. And thank you for strategizing with us today. Randy, we can connect. Thank you. Before we jump in, and I start askingquestions, can you introduce yourself and let folks know who you are and how you strategizewith our Learning Friends?
02:09
Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for having me on this wonderful podcast and I am Julie Skolnick. I'm the founder of with understanding comes comm which is also by the way mymonitor and I am passionate about everything I do. And when people ask me to give anelevator speech, typically I'll say I would love to give you an elevator speech. But my building is super tall. So put on your seatbelt, but I'll do a thumbnail today. Wendy, I work with parentswho have children who are what I call gifted and distractible, or what's known in the literatureas twice exceptional or to E. So I consult with parents and directly from all over the world, sovirtually or in person here in Maryland. And then I also train teachers on the population theprofile and strategies in the classroom or for parent clients. I meet with teacher teams to help them understand the specific child. And then third, I also mentor to eat adults, which is a whole other gifted to eat kid all grown up and and I love it. So there's that sort of the consulting side. And then I also do a lot of writing. I have a free newsletter called gifted and distractible, and I produce conferences. And that's pretty much the nutshell,
03:29
nutshell. And before we hit record, we were just talking about the importance of supportingadults because you start out as to ESA, kiddo, you're going to grow into adults. So I love that and I think we're going to talk about that later on. But as we dive in, can you just help usunderstand? What does tui mean? What does gifted mean? Because we hear these terms a lot.Are they interchangeable? How do we separate them out? How does one know?
03:58
Yeah, I love I love how you frame that question Wendy. So thank you so gifted as one thing.

This is why my back in the day when I started in 2014 when much fewer many fewer peopleknew the term to your twice exceptional I was like okay, what am I going to call this populationso people know what I'm talking about, you know when I'm talking about it, and so I came upwith gifted and distractible using actually lingo from the paediatric guide. And most people willscratch their head over the distractible moniker when it's really the gifted piece that isn'tunderstood. So twice exceptional means you're gifted and we're going to define that in a second. Plus you have some sort of a learning difference. Some people say learning disabilities,I like to say learning differences because I think that umbrella is a little bit bigger. And that distractible piece which stands for the learning differences, that's all of those diagnoses that wehear about from you know, the ever popular ADHD to high functioning autism, dyslexia. Did dysgraphia but it can also and lots of other auditory processing visual processing. But it can also include executive functioning skills working memory anxiety, processing speed, which isreally important to to know about with the gifted side by side. So that's what twice exceptional is. We're begging the question what's gifted, right? That's right. Anyone's stealing your thunder. So go ahead ask me the question
05:27
that I was waiting for. gifted me?
05:30
Yeah. Well, I love that you even know that that's a question because how many people outthere not that I can see you but I can I can see you. You're all raising your hands when I say it means smart. Right? That's what you think it means. And it doesn't. I mean, it does. Okay, there's a little piece that that's part of being gifted. That is the gift and giftedness Do you want to put it that way. But here's what I want you guys to do. I want all your listeners to close their eyes. Imagine their favorite flavor layer cake. Okay, because this is Julie's going next layer cake of giftedness. Pick your flavor minds chocolate. Okay, now you got three layers in your cake,you got to think about the frosting, okay, it could be the same or it could be different. Mine's chocolate, what can I tell you chocolate and chocolate, but the frosting piece that thin layeraround all the layers right above around between. That's the smart, bright potential piece that people assume is what gifted means. And it is part absolutely of gifted. But gifted comes with these three huge honkin pieces of cake or characteristics. And they are a synchronous development. Perfectionism, the other side of which can be anxiety. And then you can think of as intensities. But in gifted parlance, it's overexcite abilities, or OGIS. So if you Google the term over excitability, and you see oh II come up, it's the same thing. And there's another synonym,which is super stimulant abilities, which is very fun to say, but indicates how people on giftedland are trying so hard to put the positive spin on things, they feel that overexcite abilitysounds like too much. When super similar base indicates the superpower that you have, withthese overexcite abilities of being able to plug into the world into this organic way where younotice so much more you take in so much more. That's the outline.
07:18
I love that visual for us. So what are the challenges with twice exceptional students?

07:27
So if we think about the layer cake, all of the layer cake, okay, so you've got the brightpotential piece, right? Okay, but then you have this asynchronous development, which I didn'treally define. And the fastest easiest way to define a synchronous development when you arenot in sync, your development is asynchronous, is to think of it as the 510 15 rule where you're10 chronologically, let's say you're 15 and some unbelievable ability and giftedness by the way,you can be gifted academically, you can be gifted artistically, you can be gifted athletically, youcan be gifted charismatically, right. So if you have the superpower in that place, you're a synchrony. That's your You're 15, right? You're 10, chronologically, you're 15 with asuperpower, but you're five somewhere else. And the five is a learning difference, or it's anxiety, whatever's happening for you. The way the reason why this is difficult is if you think ofand I'm very visual, so I always use lots of visual cues. So if you think of a three ring diagram,it's not necessarily imprinted on your cake, but so you got this three ring, Venn diagram, right,and you got your physical, your emotional, your intellectual, that's pretty much a human beingsumdo if you're developing a synchronously that means all those three areas have strengthsand challenges all day, every day, every minute of every day. So here I am in my best class,and I love this but I'm impulsive or I have slow processing speed. So they skip over me anddon't let me answer because they think I don't know when in fact I'm just thinking and I need alittle bit more time or I'm an incredible reader but oh my God asked me to write somethingforget about it. I can't write to save my life. So that dysgraphia that that that comes dysgraphiaor written expression disorder which are similar but different things they often accompanygiftedness and is a very big source of frustration. So when these question guys just to bring usback was like what's hard? So I wouldn't want to say what's not hard because I'm a verypositive reframe type of person. What's hard is the world isn't set up for these people the world sees smart or not. The world sees learning difference or not. And so the way my wonderfulfriends Susan Baum and Robin shader describe it is you've got your blue part, which is the LDpart, you got your yellow part, which is the gift apart and nobody sees the green, buteverybody needs to see the green because you are all these things all the time. So it's hard because people define you based on assumptions, I would have to say that's the hardest part.
10:12
And I think that goes for I know we're talking about our tui population. But I think that goes forthe whole world, right? There's a lot of us that have blues in, and yellows, and we want to be seen as green. And the fight for that is is real and the passion I can hear in your voice. And thank you for explaining what that means in terms of asynchronicity. And, and what that could look like. I do want to step back What does over excitable look like in a classroom or a child in ahome? How does that play out?
10:43
Awesome, thank you for teasing that out. So overexcite abilities, is a research term that comes from the psychologist cashmeres dobrowski who's no longer with us. But he had very quicklythis theory called positive disintegration, which is kind of like the seminal reframe in order tobecome your best self or develop your best personality. dobrowski said, you had to experience some major existential angst. And in order to develop that best personality, it was the process of coming out of that angst. It's a little bit Nietzsche esque. And what he said was people who are more likely to experience this positive disintegration also had overexcite abilities in one ormore of five areas. Okay, so that was like the background. Now, what are the five areas of overexcite abilities, intellectual intellectual over excitability, emotional, imagination, allsensual, which you can think of as sensory and psychomotor. So I'm in math class, and I'm a math whiz, which, by the way, if you know me, you know, I'm totally not, but I haven't mathclass, and I'm just fantasizing about being a math whiz. And I am so excited, and I need to be up, I need to be moving around, I've got to think about this, this formula in my head, and myteachers telling me, I have to sit down and I'm so frustrated about it. So now she's not going to call on me. So now I'm going to, I mean, it's like a whole spiral. And all he had to do was be like, dude, of course, stand up, face, whatever you need. So when I see preferential seating on anIEP or 504 plan, or individualized, whatever education, I'm always saying, Well, wait a minute,what does that mean? Because under the teachers knows, for our people, not necessarilypreferential, we need side room, back a room near a door, something like that, so we can getup and move without bothering anybody. Same thing for doodling. By the way, I once gave a talk and this little boy was in attendance. And he was like, What do I do? My teacher won't let me do though. And I was like, Ah, here's what you're gonna tell your teacher. You're that part of your brain, the imagination level part of your brain. Wow, is it over excitable, which means youhave superpowers and that part of your brain, you need to create and in fact, in order to payattention you need to create in order to pay attention, the psych psychomotor over excitableperson needs to move in order to pay attention. You might have to daydream every once in awhile to bring yourself back and spend some time in your happy place. Those are that's the reality. So rather than, you know, what did I say before was the biggest problem people aren'tseeing green? Here's the other biggest problem, biggest thing one, but to the other biggestproblem is that two people aren't allowed to be their authentic selves. They're told they they're wrong. They need to be fixed, something's broken, instead of just being like, Well, what do youneed? Let's just get you what you need.

13:35
I say that a lot. to parents and team meetings when I sit at the IEP table. What does that look like for a student? Like you had said, you know, does that still need to draw? Does that studentneed to stand up? Alright, what does that look like? What does preferential seating look like?And I encourage parents to ask that question of let's have a conversation of what this childneeds. And in the words of Susie more, let it be easy. Let it be easy in terms of let the studentsstand up, then if they're not distracting, if they're not impacting your lesson. Let it be easy. Let them learn. Let them wiggle. Let them be kids. Let's put it all into perspective. 100%. I am team Julie on this.
14:25
So I have a great anecdotal story that happened over COVID with a client so I had a client, Iactually don't remember where they lived in the world. But they had a little girl who was doing school in the dining room. And little girl would get up and literally run laps in the dining room around the perimeter. And mom said, What do I do about this? How do I get her to stop and Iwas like, Well, why? Why do you want her to stop? Well, it's distracting the teacher. I don't think she's paying attention. I said, Okay, hold on. Hold on, hold on. Is she running throughoutthe house out of the classroom, which is now your dining room? No, she's actually staying inthe Classroom? And who are we worried about? The teacher, the other kids? Oh, okay, that's very nice. And that's good role modeling. Let's ask the teacher what she needs because this kid's gonna run, this kid figured out what she needs to learn. Let's figure out does the teacherwant the camera on? Does the teacher want the camera off? If the cameras off? How do we check it? Do we do it via chat? What do you want to do? We can we can set this up, no prob, wedon't need to like, smash this kid into a hole.

15:27
I've had a similar conversation just recently with a parent of a student that I'm working with via zoom. And she was very concerned that I was going to be worried or upset or something thather little person was wiggling and jumping up and down. And it didn't bother me. And I said, it doesn't bother me one iota because I know the student is engaged. I know the student is providing me the answers that I'm asking and let him wiggle, let them jump. He could stand on his head, as long as he's you know, answering questions. Fantastic,
16:00
right. And here's the cool thing with the two way population, if the kids not engaged, it's it'sthe, it's the grownups problem. Because they will be engaged when it is interesting and important and meaningful. And most of all, even more than the subject matter is, if they knowthe grown up, sees and likes them, that is worth, you know, the Willy Wonka Chocolate Bar,because it's so often this two kids are told what's wrong, why can't you Why won't you whenwill you? Why don't you. And so when a teacher or a parent or any other adults, makes a kidfeel seen, understood, appreciate it. It is 180 degrees different.
16:49
Again, I have to say that's best practice for a classroom in general, right? Like I mean, ashumans you want to see seen and you want to feel appreciated and valued. And you want to feel that what you say matters. And so I think that this would be good practice for everystudent within a classroom to really try to understand what their learning preferences are, andto be able to support that as much as you can, while engaging with a student in a classroomenvironment. Why is to E an important term to use in a special education world.
17:27
So it's the same thing. So it depends on how good you are at compensating and masking. If you're really good at compensating and masking the hard part, you know, people will see youas gifted and not as Tui. If you're not so good, or you really need supports in your lD area. And by the way, that first scenario is exhausting, frustrating and absolutely leads to burnout. So it's not good to try to do that. But if you are all you are all that seen all that's if people are deficitfocusing, then they don't see the gift apart. So I gotta tell you, I gave it did a series of talks foran organization called Jaccard, which is all special needs. And I was the first person to talkabout to EA and afterwards and I did in Baltimore I did in Florida and then COVID. And then and all these teachers came up to me afterwards were like, I had no idea and my classrooms filledwith those kids. Wendy, I want to circle back to what you're talking about best practices in the classroom, because it's very true. Everything that I teach for to EA is best practices andparenting best practices in the classroom. But because human nature is such, we gravitatetowards those who are easy, and to the kids are not easy. So my mantra for teachers is find thehardest kids to love and love them the hardest because that's that's what needs to happen.

19:00
Say that again, please.
19:02
The hardest. The hardest kids are love and loving the hardest. That's my that's one of my many mantras.
19:12
So, Julie, if a student is right, and I know we're talking a lot about a classroom, but I hope thatthis will transition to a family system and in a home as well. If I had a bright learner in myclassroom, how would I know that there could be a potential of a learning difference? So it'skind of a two part question. And the reason I'm asking is because I've sat at many IP tableswhere this conversation comes up and it becomes this, you know, friction within the IEP team ofI have this bright student they're doing fine. So why would we need to give them an IEP? Sohow, how can we kind of clear that for our listeners,
20:02
well, first of all, there's a Supreme Court case called Endrew, F, E, N D or E, W F. And that reallytalks about that everybody has to have the supports that they need and to be challenged in theway that they need. And I hear time and time again, the IEP. He's doing grade level, so he's fine. The problem is, if your potential or your ability is above grade level, or you needenrichment, or you're or you're below grade level, and therefore, well, he's not gifted, thatthose that's the that's the teasing apart that when do you asked about in such a beautiful waybefore? Like, how do we tease all this apart? And so if we know that a kid is, quote, bright now,what does that mean? That means and parents should have a big say in this, that means thekid, you know, does things that are that sometimes parents don't know, because this is genetic.So it's throughout the family. But if you start talking to people and you're like, Oh, my kid'sbeen reading or my kid like builds things or my kids paperwork is like really or my kid athleticor my kids you know, doing the strategy games, it's probably an indication that there is angiftedness to be fair, even though I do my layer cake giftedness as measured by an IQ test inthis country, so but that also is complicated for to eat, because some of the distractibility piecegifted and distractible masks in a testing situation. So even though we're like wow, winding on a windy road here. One really important message is if you get your child or yourself as a tuiadult, evaluated, it can't be just with anybody it needs to be with somebody who understandsknows how to assess the sub tests, knows how to take out the working memory, or anxiety thatmight be affecting your testing ability. It's complicated, so you can't just go to anybody. And so your question goes also for parents not just sitting at the, at the IEP table or in a classroom, like, how do we advocate is really the question, right? So when I work with, when I work withparents, I do a whole advocacy training piece of my consulting, and we learn to craft the child's story. That's what we do we craft the child's story. And that includes strengths, challenges,what accommodation or Enrichment Works, what accommodation or enrichment doesn't work. And that doesn't mean like official stuff at school only. What are you doing at home? That'sworking? Right? How do we collaborate with school to say, hey, here's what I'm seeing. Here's what I tried, it didn't work, or here's what I tried to totally work. And to really share the parents,you should feel like you are the expert on your kid, because you are. And please, please,please, please reframe negatives into positives, your kid is trying so hard to compensate. They know what your expectations are. And so help them by giving them the benefit of the doubt that is super important. And I actually just got chills, which means somebody who's gonna belistening to this needs to hear that. So I know you're out there.

23:23
Yeah. 100%. So let me ask you, we talked about evaluation, right? And you're right, thereneeds to be a particular type of evaluator that really understands the to eat population. As a parent, how would we know what evaluator to go to right? So this is unchartered territory for aparent is to say, All right, I think I'm gonna have my child evaluated, which is a decision thatdoesn't always come lately for a family. What are some questions that a parent could ask asthey're reaching out to different evaluators, neuropsychologist that can do an evaluation tobetter understand and tease out how your child learns. So
24:12
that's really two questions. One is how do we find how do we find these people? And then whenonce we find them, what do we ask them? Right? So so the first question, how do you find anevaluator, the first place I would go is to send gift a.org SENGI ftd.org, which stands forsupporting the emotional needs of the gifted. I'm the Maryland liaison for saying, I'm a very bigsupporter of saying it's sort of where I started as a parent, whatever 21 years ago, and, and sothey have a listing. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean you're definitely going to findsomebody in your space or somebody that's convenient or somebody who has availability, so Iwould also go to the NH DC National Association for gifted children. And then there are certain places in the world I mean, I work with clients on this finding from all over the world finding avalue Raiders that are that are good for them. So you need to work with a professional whoreally understands and knows that the to weed population and the gifted piece of tui, not justthe LD piece of to EA, and hopefully they have a network of somebody that they can reach outto as well. We also have the gifted Development Center here in Colorado and here meaning in the US. And, you know, there are other bright spots. But that's that's a good start. The questions I love that you asked that. So it's cool news, my book gifted and distractible iscoming out in the fall, which is very exciting. And I have a whole 30 worksheets in the back of this book. And one of them is questions to ask evaluators. So it's in there. Your first question is,what is to eat? Ask the big general Hunkin question because they're like, well, all my all myclients are too we are you know, and they kind of say, you know, well, it just means you know,they're smart, but they have ADHD, you know that that's not deep enough, there needs to besome nuance, you got to look for the nuance, as well. Gifted means ask what they do to teaseout if there is a learning difference that's going to affect their gifted score, what do they doabout it? Ask what they do to compensate for whatever is tough for your child in a testing situation. Your child needs to eat, your child needs to get up your child needs is anxious, like,how are they going to mitigate for them? How do they how do they get report? What's theirstrategies for report with your child? Ask them you know what, what work they've done withgifted? What do they know about gifted? So asking those very general but then very specific toyour child questions are really important. Also, this is super important guys. I really want evaluators to meet with the child. I want them to meet with the child to talk about in this way. How their brain works. That's what they're not what's wrong, not what they need help with, butlike what is their brain do? What is what is their? How is their brain wired? What's their neurology because everybody's different. But when you're neurodiverse we need to we need toknow like what's the what's the cool stuff man? What what parts of you like wow, you you knowkit comes in emotion dysregulation Okay, so one of my intake forms has, like, I don't evenknow, I haven't counted, but probably 30 Things you can check off from ADHD to sitting at thetable to morning routine evening routine anxiety, all that stuff. Everybody, I think I've had to since 2014, not check off emotion dysregulation. So, you know, a kid is emotionally dysregulated. Rather than saying, Yeah, you, you, you, you get affected too much. You're intense you so we need to figure out how to tamper that down. It's like, Wow, you are in tune with the world. And you are like, you're like a spy. You notice everything that happens around you. You're like a giant vacuum cleaner. Nothing gets by. Right? Like, there are ways to talkabout and then and then what we have to do is talk about like the cost benefit analysis, whenwhen is this awesome? And when is this hard? And when it's hard does it matter? Because if it matters, and you really need to emote in that way. But it gets you to the principal's office, butyou don't care because you got to remote, then that's your cost benefit analysis you just did,right? Where you're an independent being. And that's hard for parents, that's hard for parents to like, let that piece go. But until and unless you let your kid be your their person. They're always trying to be somebody else's person. Yeah. And that's really a yucky message. As much as parents, I know you're doing that out of the kindness of your heart, because you see thetrain coming down the track, and it's gonna crash. I know that I know, that's what you're seeing. And that's what you're trying to help with. There are ways to kind of like fosterindependence and agency for your child to be able to learn from those situations and changetheir organic responses.

29:07
Can you give us an example of something that a parent could do just some low hanging fruit?To let that path be for that child? Or for the child?
29:21
Yeah, I totally can. Oh, my book is 300 pages, 200 pages or strategies. So I'm just gonna pick one of those. And the one I'm gonna pick is the parent pivot. The parent pivot is when we gofrom being the frontal lobe, telling our child what to do, how to do it, when to do it, where to doit, reminding them having reminders pop up in our phone, make sure I remind so and so to doso and so right. I mean, we all do it guys. So the gradual and incremental step is the parent pivot where you start asking questions. So you're going on that school little trip. Yay. So exciting. Um, what do you think you need? Where will you get that? When? When will you findthat? You know, like, and then they come home and haven't done anything. It's like the day before the trip and you're like, trips tomorrow. Awesome. Um, so when your bag is ready, justbring it down to the front hallway, if you need help figuring out what goes in it, just let me know. Right? Like, it wasn't really a question. But that was kind of like a, you know, I just dropped a little seed. So instead of telling and suck, because otherwise, guess what happens?Your kid at 1015 2040 is looking to you to solve their problems. We need to teach them to solve problems. And by the way, if they go on the trip and forgot their underwear, that will neverhappen again. That's correct. That's it, I have not that I have three to eight kids, or I know what I'm talking about just saying.

31:04
Well, that segues into how early Can you start serving, gifted to eat children? Since you havethree of them, and you are well versed in this area?
31:12
Yeah. So um, I would back it up and say, When can you evaluate right? Because we want toknow what we're what we're dealing with. I am a very big proponent for awesome evaluations. I am not a big proponent for waste your money evaluations that are bread and butter and don'treally delve. So typically, the industry says Not before five. I've actually had clients who'vebeen two and three their clients with two and three year olds. And sometimes we know rightaway from birth, I can tell you right now, my oldest like looked at me when I called to themwhen they were born. And it was like, wow, we were in the nurses were like, Whoa, like we had this connection. And there was this? Clearly, they had absorbed some stuff. So sometimes, youknow, really, really early I also one of my kids once asked from the backseat of the car,Mommy, do we need to live or do we have to live right? Like he was three I called my husband,I was like, Oh my God, there's another one. Anyway, so my third. So sometimes we know right away. And by the way, that story about my little guy who's now 13 I've been talking to himsince he was probably three about emotional over excitability and how what an awesomesuperpower it is, but how it very often comes with disappointment, because most people don'thave that ability. So he's going to know what you're going to know my son, you're going toknow what people need your friends need before they even know. But you're not going to get that attention back necessarily. And it's not because you're not a great person. And it's not because they're not a great person, you just have very different brains. And so you might haveto, you might have to advocate for what you want and need from your friends because it's notgoing to be as organic as it is for you. So really, when the depending on what it is you're talkingabout, if you notice it this time, there's a video on my website that talks about, it's on theparent page that talks about how to talk to your kid about being gifted into E. So my websites with understanding comes com.com. And I know when to you're probably going to ask me that at the end anyway. But there is a video there. Watch it parents first teachers, you can watch it too. It's really a great video for kids. I hear from clients that when they show their kids, theirkids are like, Whoa, there are other people like me, or Wow, does that lady know, you know?So? Yeah. So it's really important not just for you to intervene, but for them to have awarenessof who they are and what makes them awesome.
33:48
What about physical and developmental? Where does that come in with to eat kids?

33:53
So it's a great question, because not a lot of people actually talk about it or study it. There's not a whole lot of research, but I can tell you this. When you see somebody with a physicaldisability in a wheelchair blind or deaf, most people think they're not gifted, right, but that'stotally you know, we're, we're silly, the human race. We're silly. We have a lot of assumptions about a lot of things. So you absolutely can be gifted with a physical disability. You know, we have high functioning autism that are for sure. Highly and profoundly gifted. We even talk about the three layers of the three levels, I should say, of giftedness gifted, highly gifted,profoundly gifted, which are very different. Yeah, so it only comes into play as it could be another another exceptionality.
34:40
Tell me about the three layers.
34:44
Okay, so, so gifted, highly gifted, profoundly gifted. It's really on the intellectual bell curve. So people nobody really says 100% What gifted is so many school districts start at one 20, whichisn't really the two standard deviations away from from the norm, typically gifted as 130. And 140 is highly gifted and profoundly gifted is above 145. So that a synchrony they synchronousdevelopment we talked about the higher the intellectual capability, the bigger your IQ score,the more asynchrony you experience. And if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. So best practices actually dictates for within a gifted classroom to differentiate between those threelevels of giftedness. Now, I've opened up the Pandora's box of what does a gifted classroomlook like? And frankly, there aren't many real gifted classrooms. Gifted classrooms should be very much kinesthetic project based kids up challenging teachers, it is definitely not your sitand face forward answer the questions turn in your homework situation, that is not a giftedclassroom, AP not a gifted classroom. And AP is typically what a lot of districts use as gifted. And that might be interesting. Depending on the engagement and relatability of the content and the teacher. That might be a place where gifted kids enjoy school. But that isn't really gifted learning.
36:20
What can you then recommend for parents to ask if they're looking for a gifted learningenvironments? I know there's compounds, I guess, within you know, a public school setting, butwhat can parents look for or seek out if they're trying to support their child, whether it's publicor private?
36:42
So really, I gotta say, find out what your kids passion is, and find out some supplementary outschools. Awesome, by the way, awesome for two weekends two out schools is an onlineeducation, gifted homeschoolers forum ghf learners gotta work is what their URL is. They're really awesome. content for gifted learners. Otherwise, you know, if you want to look for giftedwhat whoever's advertising or marketing themselves is gifted or too weak. And you just got to ask a lot of questions. Because if it's just like, well, we give them more work. And we have them, you know, they have to write more. And that's just high. That's high achievers, high achievers is very different than gifted.

37:28
So let me figure out here where we're gonna go. There's so much to ask. Let's ask about what does it look like for our multilingual students?
37:45
So much so I think I mentioned that I produced conferences, and they're called Let's Talk to EAand they're all on my site on demand. And I had Wendy Behrens and joy Lawson Davis speak about this very topic. It's so annoying. Wendy. Remember the the kid who was like runningaround the classroom and all the assumptions that were made the physical disabilities? Well,when you are multilingual, they're called typically ELLs, English language learners, which is sodeficit focus. Think about the language. We're using English language learners. Oh, you don't know something as opposed to multilingual? Right? They're multilingual. That's awesome. So again, there's the whole assumption. And the percent of, of gifted in the population when welook at Strata, I think Johns Hopkins has done research on this. But there's, we know that the percent of gifted is the same in every culture, in every economic strata in every and so I dohave to say, makes me nuts. The things that are happening to actual gifted programming are great gifted funding. When we look at New York City, or Seattle, and all the fights and all theclaims that it's racist, it is racist, and there's all kids are gifted. There's a lot of myths about giftedness. And so the frustration is there actually making like making a really more of a racistassumption. The problem is the identifying criterion that that's the problem is the is how do weidentify and there's a whole ton of research on that. And that's a whole other talk. Universal Screening, which is screening everybody. Parents always have a right to say that they think their kid is gifted. So all of these different pockets of populations, oh can be gifted and therefore to key. And by the way, let me just say this really awesome controversial thing, whichis that if you if I use a synchronous develop As a defining characteristic of gifted, then doesn'tthat beg the question isn't all are all gifted people to E? So I'm just putting that out there. I know, those of you out there who don't agree with me, it's okay. I still am cool. But that's my, that's my thought like that food for thought. Yeah, good.
40:22
Can you give me a real life example of your services, and how they have changed a student'slife and educators life. I'll stop there.
40:35
Okay, because I couldn't do an adult's life too. I'm just

40:37
saying, I'm gonna follow up with that. I've not forgotten about our conversation, we're gonna get in there.
40:45
So here's the thing, I really love what I do, guys, it's, it's a blessing. It's a calling I am feel very, very. I just feel very blessed that I'm able to do what I'm able to do. And I am in awe every dayof the way that parents and teachers let it all hang out and share with me and trust me. So I do have to say that I get a lot of feedback that says that changed their lives or their child live. So if you're looking at your kid, and you're trying to fix him all the time, and how can I just get himto stop? Or how can I just get them to start? Or why does they clean his room? Or, you know,from simple to huge? I do a whole reframe. Like if I had a billboard would be reframe. Just reframe. That's my whole billboard. Because there are so many ways to reframe so here'shere's a real life example, as you asked for. One of actually my very first client. This has stuck with me all these years, 14 year old. Really, right. ADH identified with ADHD athlete some some writing challenges as I as I recall. Anyway, one day he was in his private school classroom, and he bolted. This is what I found out. Okay, so this is the first words that I hear. He just ran out of the class and the principal and the head of school, they all freaked out. They said it's a safety concern. He has to be suspended and lalalala. And I was like, so wait a minute, wait a minute. Wait. So 14, like in the lovely blossoming of adolescence, those of you who have adolescentsknow how their job is really to be obnoxious, right? They should be fired if they're not. So this kid was, you know, pretty emotional. He had three siblings, we knew we could fly off the handle. So I said, Hold up, mom. So he's in the classroom. And he didn't throw anything. He didn't hurt anybody. He didn't say anything inappropriate. He like got out, he knew he neededto get out o
f that situation, for whatever reason, back it up, we find out that the the teacherwas really pressuring him to do something that was hard. And he was feeling very embarrassed. And he needed to he needed to leave because something not good was gonna happen. So actually, I said, One, when you go home, I find that he did such a great thing Do wehave to figure out how to make it safe? Do we have to like structure up and have a flash passor some person or place for him to go so we know where he is. But look at all the stuff he didn't do look at the control he showed. So we can always reframe so that was like a huge wake up call for that parent. For teachers, it's the same thing the find the hardest kid to love and lovingthe hardest that that is fun for them to hear. I also talk a lot about making deposits. So for parents, it's making deposits in the positive perspective bank account. For teachers, it's making deposits in the Trust Bank account. So the positive perspective bank account is helpingteachers to see what your kid looks like outside of school when they're in flow or doing passionor volunteering or whatever all the awesomeness that they do. It's also helping Parent Teachers hear positive things about their classroom. Joey really loves the book you're reading duringlunch, Sally's thrilled by the lab that you're doing, you know, just to give some positive becausethen the the this goes towards advocacy, then the teachers don't feel so defensive when youcome to talk to them about something that's difficult. Putting deposits in the Trust BankAccount is because teachers have the our kids more than we have our kids. So we need them to, from the out of the gate find something positive. I don't really care if it's Sally alwaysvolunteers to have to hand out papers for Joey is always asking me what he can do to help or orLinda was out on the playground and incorporated the new kid, whatever it is that the teacher
can give some positive because there's going to be a time in a two week kid's life where theteacher has to come to the parent of the parent has come to the teacher with something hard.So we got to make sure we have a little buffer. So that advocacy tip really helps to

44:59
we've come In a team that we, that you work with adults that we're going to talk about adults,what does that look like, if as an adult, you have never received support up to that adult, pointthat adult age.
45:15
So adult clients are fast. I mean, all my clients are fascinating. And by the way, parents are adults too. And by the way, this is genetic. So 9.9 out of 10 times, I'm pretty much doing it all the time anyway. But when adults come to me on their own, because parents will come to me,usually both together, not always, even if they're divorced, or separated, they come to metogether, which is awesome. have such such esteem for those people who try to come together and CO parent. But adults will come to me for tip one or two of two reasons. They're looking for personal fulfillment, or professional fulfillment. And they're burnt out frustrated, feeling likejob's not meaningful, a small talk can't deal with that, like, I don't want to deal with people whomaybe speak slowly, maybe, you know, don't care about certain things that are reallyimportant to this person. And so we work on those things, I do an exercise called the tick tick off chart. So what makes you tick and what ticks you off and how you make those things tick,and how you make those things tick off from anywhere from your, your partner, to your child,to your pet, to the world, to your office, to your you know, all of those things, because all ofthose things matter. To me, people care about the environment and the world and homelesspeople and war and things and they think about it. So we need to tease out why. Why does thatwhat matters and what doesn't matter? And how do we get to meaning because we needmeaning in our lives, to people really need meaning. And so adults very often, you know,they've masked their whole life, or they didn't even know their whole life at so many ahamoments happen. I just met with a new client yesterday, a new adult. It's like, My mind is blown. Like, whoa, I've thought a lot about this, but I never put that and that together. And so when I come with the tui lens, it helps to sort of filter out all those assumptions and things thatyou've heard from everybody else who didn't know what they what the heck they were talkingabout, to be honest. And to really look at what's going on and what matters. What matters. What matters. Yeah, what matters. That's another billboard what matters.
47:33
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So can you give me a real life example of how you have changed that adult's life?
47:44
Oh, I have a great example. So I had a client, a male in Portugal. And he was so clearlybeautifully emotionally over excitable and, and imagination only over excitable and he was at a concert. Last in the music, his eyes were closed. And he was just absorbing. Remember I said concert. Last in the music, his eyes were closed. And he was just absorbing. Remember I said like a vacuum cleaner spot like it can happen in such a beautiful petting a dog like lots of coolsensory stuff. And if he was taken away by this music, he was just so enthralled. And he opened his eyes. And he saw people on their phones had enraged him. How could they be texting ontheir phones, when this beautiful concert is happening? And how disrespectful and rude hewent down this whole emotional, you know? And he was like, my girlfriend thinks I'm nuts. And and I said, Well, you're not nuts. You just have superpowers. So you know, and we just kind of talked about it. And then we talked about, again, what matters? Like, are you going to let thisdisrupt your amazing ability to be in this moment? And what do you need to do to help yourself,like get out of your amygdala and back into your frontal lobe? We do a lot of work about that.So that's one of many many examples of somebody saying to me, so and so says I'm not soand so says, I'm, when I go to a hotel, I have to be the furthest room away away from the icemachine. I need this kind of pillow and I Okay, awesome. You're self aware. You should have all those things. When I go to a restaurant I need to and you know, my wife thinks that I get this all the time. And there's a permission like I give permission to parent differently. I give permission to teach differently. I give permission to adult differently. It's okay.

49:43
That's a gift. It's a gift to give your folks it's life changing. So in your opinion, what are the topthree things parents should know or do and their to E journey?
49:55
Oh, top three things. Okay, um, I will say, learn. So I actually, it's really funny that you ask it that way, because I have a cycle for success. And it has three things my cycle for success, butthen I'm going to say something about my cycle for success is understanding strategies, andadvocacy. So you need to learn, you need to, based on that learning, create impactfulstrategies, appropriate strategies, not strategies that you're learning in your parenting class,because all kids are the same. Those parents in classes, I promise you, you're, it's just not going to work for you. And so we need strategies that are actually crafted for your child'ssituation, your child who's in your home with you as the parents. And by the way, extendedfamily has a big effect, or can have a big effect positively and negatively on our kids. Four strategies for that kid in the classroom, they're in today, with that teacher and the other peerswho are with them. Right? It's all important. And then how do we advocate? How do we advocate in a collaborative way? Even though this is all very emotional, and we ourselves asparents might be emotionally over excitable? How do we advocate in a collaboratively waycollaborative way for other people to learn and to apply appropriate strategies? Those are thethree things.
51:27
As we're winding down, I have a couple questions for you. What's your favorite productivity tool or resource that you're using now?
51:36
Pdti it fil

Productivity as, as a, as a professional,
51:40
it could be for as a professional, or it could be as a recommendation for one of your families.Ah.
51:49
Well, I mean, I'm sure you've all heard of this, or maybe not, but I love the tomato timer. So the tomato timer is something that you set and you say how much time you're going to work andhow much time you're gonna take per break. But the important thing about the tomato timer isactually that that break has to be away from your desk away from a screen, and should be, ifpossible, incorporating nature, or something to eat, and some movement. So if you work for 20minutes, take a five minute break, stand up, walk outside, take a breath, grab a banana, getback to work. And it's research base that it's best, especially for ADHD brains.
52:30
Yes, yes. Yes. What should I have asked that I didn't know enough to ask. Um
52:42
I guess you did not ask me why I'm called with understanding comms calm. So the reason I'm called with understanding comms calm, is because understanding when you ask me the threemost important things, one of the things I said was understanding and education. It's not just understanding education about why things happen. But think about it. You come home from work, and you say to your partner had a crappy day. And partners like Yeah, me too. I also had a crappy day. Here's all the things that happened to me, and whatever. Now think you comehome and your partner says, oh, man, it was a tough day for you today, huh? Suddenly, youwant to share all the stuff that was tough, because you know, this person is listening andunderstanding you. When we feel understood. There's calm. So if you feel like you're in thegrocery store, and your kid is having a tantrum and throwing stuff everywhere, and you're like,Oh, my God, you just need to stop, which of course, we've all done and said, that's one way tohandle it. Some kids might respond to that. Some kids respond to threats and fear, which I am not at all a proponent of. But if you stop and you say, what's going on, and what do you needright now, even though it feels like that takes so much more time, it's actually the mostefficient way to solve a problem and to learn about your kid and help them feel understood. So they trust you in the future, and they don't feel like they're bad or broken. So that's why I'm calling with understanding
54:18
that that is such a magical phrase. And I have three boys, myself and I have also used Do youwant me to listen, or do you need help with this? And they're just like, I like that. Cool. All right. And usually, it's I just need you to listen. Or if you Oh, wow, that sounds really challenging.

And usually, it s I just need you to listen. Or if you Oh, wow, that sounds really challenging. Especially my middle one will go Thank you. It is and then keep talking. And I think just those reframing is priceless.
54:50
Yeah, yeah, I call it so you know, you've already learned that I have all these little phrases andvisuals but I call it validate reiterate, so validate is what When you say wow, that you soundslike that, that was really tough or that doesn't sound like it felt so good or whatever that'svalidate. reiterate when it's hard to validate. I just made it sound super easy, but it's really hard. So when you can't validate, just reiterate the facts that just show said to you. Oh, so you were on the playground today. And Sally didn't ask you to play with her. It opens up the floodgates, guys. It's such a cool magical, like, there's no magic bullet, but man, it's the secret sauce. It
55:26
feels magical, though. Because they do. They're like, yeah. And that, that that that. So as opposed to
55:33
when the right like, Oh, don't you remember Sally was over last week. And I'm sure she really likes you like that, that we think we're assuaging. But we're actually undermining.
55:43
Yeah, yeah. So I mean, oh, my gosh, Julie, so many nuggets in this conversation. And, youknow, I always ask at the end of my show, at the end of the podcast, what would it be? Andwhy if you could have a billboard for one tip for parents, but you've already shared and you'revery clear about it reframing and what matters 100% We need to billboards, we cannot
56:05
just throw with understanding homes calm up there too. If you want it, I
56:09
would not hurt. So that leads me to where can folks find you? You mentioned your website, giveus all the goodness so folks can can find more, Julie?
56:19
Sure. Thank you for asking. So with understanding comes com.com is the hub that's the main

Sure. Thank you for asking. So with understanding comes com.com is the hub that s the main page. But let's talk to e.com is also part of the main page. But if you wanted to go straight toconferences or communities because I do do parent empowerment groups, as well as we'regoing to launch some empowerment groups for adults as well and teachers. So let's talk to E is another place to find me. Gifted and distractible is a free weekly newsletter and if you go up onmy website, I think it's two media and then newsletters you can subscribe there for free andthen I am everywhere on social media. So if you're looking for me on social media, I have fourFacebook groups so there's the with understanding homes calm then there's let's talk to theadults. Let's talk to the parents and let's talk to the teachers lounge. On Twitter. I'm actually Skolnik on Instagram, I'm let's talk to E on LinkedIn. I'm Julie Rosenbaum Skolnick. So it's basically my name with understanding comes com or let's talk to E that you're going to find meand I post all the time, information resources, inspiration. So there's just a lot of ways ways tofind me if you want to schedule a free 20 minute phone consultation, you can do that. Currentlyat Julie Skolnick dot you can book.me I do know we are converting our calendar system and Idon't know when this is coming out but you can always go to my website and find out how youcan book that 20 minute free consultation.
57:43
I love that. Thank you so much for your time. Like Thank you incredible positive nuggets thatyou have sprinkled throughout our conversation so very grateful I pray you can think of
57:58
them as little chocolate chips on top of your three layer cake. I need some cake now. Oh good. Oh my gosh.