Myth: Gifted students can succeed without help.

Reality: One of the biggest myths about gifted children is that they are able to succeed on their own without any assistance.聽 This is not necessarily the case and many gifted children will not be 鈥渏ust fine鈥� on their own.聽 Similar to many students with disabilities and other high-risk populations which have barriers and needs, gifted students face difficulties in school unless they have access to individualized services and support.聽 The right services can help a gifted child develop appropriately and reach for their full potential.聽 Research suggests that a gifted child鈥檚 emotional adjustment is directly related to the extent to which a child鈥檚 educational needs are addressed.

Myth: Gifted children do not know they are gifted or different from others.

Reality: Although gifted children may not be aware of the term gifted, they often recognize very early that they are different from other children. They may have atypical or more intense interests, or larger vocabularies that turn away other children.聽 Their unusual sense of humor can get them branded as 鈥渨eird.鈥� Many young gifted children feel like they are unusual because they feel very different from everyone else and that no one understands them.聽 Telling children they are gifted and assisting them with understanding their strengths and weaknesses can help a child better understand these differences and view them more positively.

Myth: Gifted children naturally want to be 鈥渓oners.鈥�

Reality: Most gifted children do feel different from their same-age peers and many like to spend some time alone.聽 Gifted children may seek to find peers who share their interests, but these friends will not necessarily be from their own age group.

Myth: Gifted children always get good grades

Reality: Gifted underachievers are real. Some gifted children are bored and disengaged from being unchallenged in the classroom, therefore they stop really trying to get good grades. Other children聽聽that required work goes uncompleted. These students benefit from the guidance of an adult to help break the cycle of underachievement.

Myth: Gifted students鈥� emotional stability is significantly atypical relative to other children.

Reality: Although the available research shows that gifted children are as well-adjusted as other groups of children, they often experience uncharacteristic social and emotional development.聽 The tendency toward perfectionism, the susceptibility to depression and the uneven or asynchronous development of the gifted child can create tension within the child both at home and in the classroom.聽 A disparity between a students鈥� needs and the educational services provided, or from inadequate support to deal with peer and societal pressures, also can result in adjustment difficulties in their lives.

Myth: Gifted children are more mature (or 鈥渟hould be鈥� more mature) than other children their age.

Reality: Regardless of extraordinary talent or ability in academic and other areas, gifted children generally show the same level of emotional maturity as other children their same age.  Adults should not expect gifted children to demonstrate a degree of maturity beyond their years.

The Institute for Educational Advancement (优蜜视频) is dedicated to the intellectual, creative and personal growth of our nation鈥檚 gifted and high potential youth. Most gifted-centered organizations focus strictly on talent development and academic achievement but neglect the personal development of gifted children who are often misunderstood and misdiagnosed.  The Institute for Educational Advancement is uniquely focused on the development of the whole child, providing programming and services that support a child鈥檚 intellectual, emotional, social, spiritual and physical needs.  优蜜视频 provides both challenging educational programming and a nurturing community that families can count on to meet the distinctive needs of their gifted children.

Source:

As part of the festivities, we will be honoring two groups instrumental to the founding of 优蜜视频.

优蜜视频 Senior Fellows

The Senior Fellows have years of experience working with gifted youth and shaping gifted discourse. Their expertise was crucial to the development of 优蜜视频 through the research and implementation of the awarding winning camps.聽 Their years of service as facilitators at Yunasa and advisors to 优蜜视频 remain invaluable.

Dr. Patricia Gatto-Walden is a licensed psychologist who has worked holistically with thousands of gifted and profoundly gifted children, adolescents, and adults for more than 35 years. In her adjunct educational consulting practice, she has helped parents, educators, and administrators understand and accept the multifaceted inner world and needs of gifted individuals. Dr. Gatto-Walden additionally provides two-day comprehensive family retreats, entitled 鈥渆ducational consulting and family renewal,鈥� which blend counseling and consulting services. She is a featured speaker at gifted conferences and educational workshops throughout the nation.

Michael M. Piechowski, Ph.D. is the author of Mellow Out, They Say. If I Only Could: Intensities and Sensitivities of the Young and Bright and Living with Intensity (with S. Daniels). Earning a PhD first in Molecular Biology and later in Counseling Psychology, he served as a faculty member at three universities and one small college. He has published extensively in the areas of emotional development, developmental potential of the gifted, and emotional and spiritual giftedness. He is one of the original designers of Yunasa. In 2016 he was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by SENG and the NAGC Global Awareness Network Annemarie Roeper Award.

Stephanie Tolan, M.A. is author of 27 books of fiction for children and young adults, including the Newbery Honor Award-winning novel Surviving the Applewhites and Applewhites at Wit鈥檚 End, Listen!, Welcome to the Ark, Flight of the Raven, and Ordinary Miracles. Her non-fiction writing includes Guiding the Gifted Child (co-author), Change Your Story, Change Your Life, and an article about highly gifted children that has been translated into more than 40 languages, 鈥淚s It a Cheetah?鈥� She is a well-known lecturer and advocate for highly gifted young people.

The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation

The has been a pivotal supporter of 优蜜视频 since the organization鈥檚 inception. Their generosity has assisted 优蜜视频 in its general operations, public policy efforts, and technology program.

In 2014, with generous support from Sarah D. Barder, The Bradley Foundation has continued to fund the 聽 initiative. 聽Since its inception in 2002, the program has awarded 293 high school students with merit based scholarships. These students are provided with the resources and guidance to find and attend an optimally-matched high school program that meets their unique intellectual and personal needs. This guidance and support continues throughout their high school careers.

Support from The Bradley Foundation has enabled 优蜜视频 to serve thousands of gifted children over the years and continues to help us fight for a population very much in need of services.

Join the Celebration!

Join us on February 9th at our 20^th Anniversary Celebration, to be held at The Annandale Golf Club of Pasadena, and help show our appreciation for these and other exceptional advocates for gifted education.

To sponsor and/or purchase tickets or a program ad to the event, click .

Being gifted is not always easy. It is a far-too common misconception that gifted children are luckier or better off than non-gifted children and don鈥檛 struggle in any aspects of their lives. The natural assumption is that gifted children are academically advanced and therefore can sail through school and their childhood. What is not obvious to many is that some things that come quite easily to some may, in fact, be a source of confusion and anxiety for gifted children. One concept that can be difficult to grasp, understand and embrace is gratitude, which can be an all-too abstract idea for gifted and twice-exceptional children. The definition alone requires one to understand the concepts of thankful and appreciation 鈥� which, not unlike gratitude, require the ability to make emotional connections:

Gratitude: the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.

Thankfully, the science of gratitude and its effects on happiness and overall wellbeing have been studied intensely over the past decade and new strategies for helping Gifted and 2e children understand, embrace, and reciprocate gratitude have been developed. What was once thought to be a self-explanatory concept has now been broken down into manageable strategies that turn the abstract into tangible exercises.

1. Break it down mathematically. For those gifted students that think concretely, linearly, or literally, breaking the concept of gratitude into measurable terms can help make it more understandable. Not unlike a mathematical equation, the following example questions can get students to think of kind and helpful acts as realistic by placing a value on them:

• How much did your sister help you on purpose? (This aims to measure intent.)
• How much did your sister give up to help you? (This aims to measure cost.)
• How much did your sister help you? (This aims to measure outcome.)

Instead of asking open-ended questions such as 鈥淲hy should you feel grateful for what your sister did?鈥� break the act up into more manageable pieces 鈥� the sum of which will then become clearer.

2. Break it down scientifically. In recent years, the science of happiness has been a hot topic and countless books have been written about it. Gifted students with a passion for STEM disciplines can understand, scientifically, how gratitude leads to increased happiness and what effect that has on the brain and the rest of the body. Infographics and articles are tremendously helpful in this respect, such as the following:

For example, the fact that happiness releases serotonin in the hippocampus is something STEM-minded students can understand in a tangible way.

3. Break it down visually: The YouTube channel The Science of Happiness has wonderful videos that capture the power of gratitude and the effects it has on ourselves and those around us in relatable ways. In one video, , viewers see the immediate and long-term effects of being on both the receiving and the giving ends of gratitude.
4. Use Your Talents! Saying 鈥渢hank you鈥� or presenting someone with a tangible token of one鈥檚 appreciation are not the only ways to express gratitude. For example, through the project, a student-led initiative part of the Design for Change movement, students experience a service learning project that brings STEM education to children鈥檚 hospitals. Their talents in leadership, project design, and the STEM fields serve children who are unable to participate in traditional schooling, increasing participants鈥� gratitude, appreciation, and empathy through their efforts.
5. Write it Down! Gifted students may feel shy or embarrassed about verbalizing what they鈥檙e grateful for, which is where gratitude journals come in handy. This can be integrated into the school day by teachers or into a daily or weekly routine by parents. Gratitude journals can be blank journals in which students practice free writing, or journals with templates or prompts that give students ideas for how to get started. The idea is simple: Your writing won鈥檛 be judged or reviewed; it is for you and you alone. You can be as concrete or descriptive as you鈥檇 like 鈥� the main thing is, put pen to paper and chronicle the people, events, and experiences that you鈥檙e thankful for. For some great gratitude journal ideas, .
6. Think Outside the Box: Too often, students are encouraged to show gratitude only for the great things they have, for example their friends, their family, their successes, and their accomplishments. But gifted students are creative thinkers and adept at seeing things from other perspectives. Therefore, they should be challenged to think about 鈥� and be grateful for 鈥� difficulties they鈥檝e encountered. You might ask, 鈥淲hat is a shortcoming you鈥檝e experienced that you are grateful for? What has this shown and given you, and why are you a better person because of it?鈥� By viewing failure as a learning experience, students can focus on embracing challenge and risk as part of the learning process 鈥� and something to be grateful for.
7. Random Acts of Kindness: In school, club, and camp settings, Random Acts of Kindness is a great tool for giving shout-outs to students for doing everyday kind acts. When someone witnesses another person doing something kind, such as staying late to help clean up, holding the door for someone, or carrying a heavy object for a peer, they write down that person鈥檚 name and the kind act on a slip of paper, then put it in a box. During a designated time each day, one slip of paper is drawn and that student is recognized publicly, such as at mealtime or during a break in activities. This initiative works well for those students who find it difficult to show gratitude face-to-face 鈥� and the anonymity and suspense factors of this initiative create a sense of mystery and community!

What strategies and exercise have you employed to get your Gifted students or children to understand and show gratitude?

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