ABOUT THIS EPISODE:
Ever wondered what it truly means to be gifted and how it impacts a child's life? Join us as we welcome Dr. Andrea Lein, a renowned mental health expert, who shares her inspiring journey from a gifted child in a mixed-race, low-income family to a leading voice in her field. Dr. Andrea opens up about her personal battles, shedding light on the unique struggles gifted students face across different socio-economic backgrounds. We delve into the complexities of defining 'giftedness' and discuss the disparities in the identification and support of gifted children nationwide.
JUMP RIGHT TO IT:
0:00 Growing up with Andrea
14:01 Equipping Parents of Gifted Children
22:30 Navigating Social Challenges With Gifted Children
33:51 Managing Emotions in Gifted Children
43:00 Gifted Children and Perfectionism
56:34 Addressing High Achieving Students' Core Fears
1:00:58 Supporting Gifted Children and Families
CONNECT WITH ANDREA:
IG: @dr.andrealein
LinkedIn: Andrea Lein, PhD
Website: https://www.andrealein.com/
Revitalize your faith and fitness with a morning routine that does not sacrifice your sleep and does start each day with God's Word and a workout. Join the community today at www.earlymorninghabit.com
Contact The Show!
Website: http://www.ahnafulmer.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@imperfectlyempoweredpodcast
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ahnafulmer/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ahnadfulmer
ABOUT THIS EPISODE:
Ever wondered what it truly means to be gifted and how it impacts a child's life? Join us as we welcome Dr. Andrea Lein, a renowned mental health expert, who shares her inspiring journey from a gifted child in a mixed-race, low-income family to a leading voice in her field. Dr. Andrea opens up about her personal battles, shedding light on the unique struggles gifted students face across different socio-economic backgrounds. We delve into the complexities of defining 'giftedness' and discuss the disparities in the identification and support of gifted children nationwide.
JUMP RIGHT TO IT:
0:00 Growing up with Andrea
14:01 Equipping Parents of Gifted Children
22:30 Navigating Social Challenges With Gifted Children
33:51 Managing Emotions in Gifted Children
43:00 Gifted Children and Perfectionism
56:34 Addressing High Achieving Students' Core Fears
1:00:58 Supporting Gifted Children and Families
CONNECT WITH ANDREA:
IG: @dr.andrealein
LinkedIn: Andrea Lein, PhD
Website: https://www.andrealein.com/
Revitalize your faith and fitness with a morning routine that does not sacrifice your sleep and does start each day with God's Word and a workout. Join the community today at www.earlymorninghabit.com
Contact The Show!
Website: http://www.ahnafulmer.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@imperfectlyempoweredpodcast
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ahnafulmer/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ahnadfulmer
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Imperfectly Empowered Podcast. I am your host, anna Fulmer. Today we have Dr Andrea Lean on the show. Dr Andrea is a mental health expert with a PhD in clinical and school psychology, with a specialty in gifted students. Andrea has devoted the majority of her career to working with gifted adolescents, young adults and their families.
Speaker 1:An eternal optimist with a passion for taking a holistic approach to help your gifted child thrive and make an impact in the world. Welcome, dr Andrea. I am so excited to have you on the show.
Speaker 1:When I was looking through what you do, I always the I always get excited when I see people who have like a niched expertise, and the amount of education and experience that you have with gifted students, children, families is something that I don't see a lot of, and I think a lot of us don't even understand what it entails, and so I'm just really excited when we you know, for those of you listening and watching, that is what we're going to dive into here, and I want you to hear it through the lens or see it through the lens of even if you don't have that child to become more empathetic or understanding for those who do and who you're doing life with. I just think is so valuable and to feel more equipped to support a family who does have a gifted student or child. So, anyway, I'm really excited. But as always, I like to press the rewind button and hear a little bit about you and how you got to where you are specifically.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, thank you. And it is a very particular niche. It's not a common one, although I feel very encouraged that today there are many more of us out in the world doing our little thing. But it's sort of. You know, it's a little bubble. But when I started in early 2000s, there really wasn't even a place to go to study what I wanted to study, so I had to create my own path. Where shall I begin?
Speaker 1:Really my story, I think Social security number where you were born.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say like most of us, especially helping professionals, we um come into this work through usually some sort of personal experience. So I I'm the oldest of four and I grew up in a family um with, with very little means, my parents neither one of them were able to go to college or finish college. My mom did start but she had to stop. That Met my father. They got married, started having babies and my dad is from the Philippines, so he is really coming to the States as an immigrant. Just their marriage.
Speaker 1:Oh was he when he came.
Speaker 2:He was in his early 20s when my parents met. They met in Australia and got married there, and my mom came from this little farm town in Wisconsin, didn't see much of the world until she left and she joined the military. They both did so. That's sort of like the context in which I came into the world, during a time where most people hadn't seen children. There were four of us that were half Filipino and half white, and so they didn't even know what we were. They were like what are you? And again, these days mixed kids are, you know, sort of a more normal occurrence. But I grew up in the 80s and 90s and, like, in addition to the questions about the hair, the main question was what are you? Pretty much, what are?
Speaker 2:you. So I had an interesting upbringing just from the standpoint of these two very different cultures coming together, different cultures coming together, and then, on top of that, I think my parents both of them had a lot of challenging things in their childhood that they brought into the marriage, like many people do, and so that created a fairly challenging childhood environment for me, and I was the oldest, so I sort of took it upon myself at a young age. As a teenager, I struggled with depression and I struggled with anxiety and I struggled with all the things. But I was in the gifted program from a young age, and one of the things I noticed as a teenager was it was like part of me was in. I had one foot in the gifted world of the gifted, the kids that were identified as gifted who tended to be wealthy white children, you know, from affluent professional families.
Speaker 2:That was not me, so I was in that world feeling a little like out of place, and yet I loved learning. And then I had friends who were just as gifted and brilliant, but they did not come from those educated high wealth homes and I watched many of them and I was friends with in both camps and I watched some of them drop out of school, get involved with drugs, struggle with all sorts of mental health issues. And I should say I saw the same with the wealthier kids too. They were different. They were eating disorders, there was substance use that was, you know, kind of under the radar, and those families had the money to send those kids off to expensive treatment programs. Yeah, yeah, so fast forward. I ended up spending most of my career. I do different things, slightly different things now, or I should say very different things now, but I I felt drawn to understand and help gifted, creative, sort of out of the box people with their social and emotional development.
Speaker 1:So that was my let's define gifted, because I'm already like hearing people's wheels turning and mine are as well. Define for me, yeah, define for me a gifted child. What would those parameters look like?
Speaker 2:Yes, Well, this question is probably one of the most important ones before we even dive into it, because even state to state researchers like there's, there's so many different ways to define it. I I rarely use the word gifted, except as just a shorthand, because sometimes people think, oh, you must be, you must have to be brilliant or a genius to be high.
Speaker 2:IQ. Um, and so there's. There's two ways to, there's many ways to define it, but there's on a practical level. So, for instance, state to state, states get to decide who qualifies as gifted. So we can look at it through the lens of how are we defining it for the purposes of access to specific educational programming? And then there are psychologists more like myself who are studying it. Or I was a therapist and ran a therapeutic program for gifted kids for most of my career up until just recently and and we're not necessarily just looking at a high IQ score.
Speaker 2:Generally speaking, though, if we're talking about intellectually gifted because then there's, you know, there's other. Everyone has gifts I like to say I believe every child on this earth has gifts and talents, that they're born with, every single one. So, and I am a huge encourager of everyone's gifts and talents. But there is something different. There's something I think, and we know the term neurodiversity is much more popular these days, and so, if you think of it from the standpoint of literally the brain and the way these kids are wired, differently, they learn faster, they're very, very curious, most, but not all, tend to read at an early age. They're like precocious readers. But I could also point to a bunch of kids who didn't read at an early age, and they're also identified as gifted.
Speaker 1:And this is primarily higher IQ, like oftentimes you are seeing higher IQ. What are those parameters Like? What's that number?
Speaker 2:So generally, if we're thinking about gifted programs, it's usually two standard deviations above the normal. So the normal IQ is 100 plus or minus 10 points. So anywhere between 90 and 110 is like a good, healthy average IQ and those scores are compared to the population.
Speaker 1:So that's what we're looking at.
Speaker 2:Once you start getting to, you know 130, which is the two standard deviations above the norm around 130 and up. Then we start looking at very in intellectual terms, superior intelligence, very superior right, and the percentages get smaller and smaller of the number of people in the population who have an IQ at that point. But most really comprehensive gifted programs and now again I'm going back to sort of school definitions will not depend just on an IQ score, because we'll have kids like me I'll put myself in this camp who maybe came from underprivileged households and while my parents certainly encouraged reading and learning and all of those things, they did what they could. And there are a lot of children out there whose parents cannot afford books or who are too busy because they're working multiple jobs and they don't even have time to take their kid to the library, right. So the access to certain activities that we know help develop cognitive skills are not present in some families.
Speaker 1:So we have to be or testing. Testing, too, is something in and of itself that is-.
Speaker 1:Totally. Yeah, I'm glad that you're saying this because I think it's helpful for people to understand from my understanding of IQ versus EQ, for example. Like IQ really doesn't change. Like your IQ is your IQ. However, the reason we might see a change in that is for a young kid who is in that environment, who was not reading from a young age with their parents or does not even take tests. Well, but they develop those skills and so they're. They're testing higher later because they've developed those fundamental abilities, but their IQ itself hasn't necessarily changed. But it makes sense why it's hard to identify. Then it's not an equal identification in third grade.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And where they're coming from.
Speaker 2:Right, and if there are any parents who are listening right now who even have a question in their mind is my kid gifted? Should I get testing done? I would highly recommend that they try to find someone to do the testing who is very knowledgeable about gifted. And then I'm going to throw another term out here just to confuse it twice exceptional students. So the other reason, aside from cultural differences and socioeconomic factors, another issue that can get, excuse me in the way of just looking at a general IQ score is there are children who are very gifted and who have learning disabilities. They have ADHD, which impacts their processing speed. They have, you know, a host of underlying issues, even anxiety, right. So there may be other things gifted and something else, meaning they're really bright, they're really gifted, they're really creative. I don't like most labels that they might be.
Speaker 2:quote underachievers meaning all the teachers or their parents are saying you have so much potential, You're so smart. We know you're so smart, right? The kids who can spew off? They've memorized everything and their brains seem like packed with knowledge and they learn really fast, and yet they can't, you know, pass 10th grade, or they're, they're, they can't.
Speaker 1:They're not getting their homework in there, which I'm assuming there's probably underlying reasons for that that are not necessarily related to their. Yeah, well, I let me also preface this. So what I'm really excited to dive into this is I happen to have a child who is that one, 30 and higher. Yes, and I can say from experience, like it is, there are challenges. It is really and truly from a parenting standpoint. Yeah, so I'm excited to dive into that because you know for those of you listening, like she just said I love that she pointed this out you know, gifted such a terrible word for it because every kid is gifted and I've literally had this conversation with my son that he has a very high IQ. But we talk about EQ because I'm all about emotional intelligence. That's right, exactly.
Speaker 2:What good is high IQ if you can't remember to put?
Speaker 1:your shoes on right Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:You know, and so we've already had this conversation. Like you know, some people have a really high emotional intelligence and, you know, helping him see that a high IQ is not the end all be all. So for those of you listening too, this is not. Every single child is gifted. However, I can honestly say from experience the high IQ kids are a whole nother okay and they're extremely difficult to parent.
Speaker 2:They are. It's very hard, they are, they are. I used to tease earlier in my career that and I can still make the joke that watch out for what you wish for, Cause I think a lot of parents have this romanticized idea, like about a gifted kid. I'm like well, I raised, I raised a gifted kid myself and I love them. Right.
Speaker 2:This is what my whole life work is is devoted to not just the kids but the adults they grow up to be, because we're all in the world and I hear you.
Speaker 2:This is exactly why I really wanted to focus on the EQ part of the equation for the high IQ kids is because we want them to be grounded, healthy, moral, like, with a moral compass and functioning and functioning in the world, because they do have um, and again I'm like, keep prefacing it everyone has things to offer the world. However, they have a very particular way of seeing the world and interacting with the world and if we can harness those gifts and harness and develop the EQ, they're going to be phenomenal leaders in the world. And so that is really my heart to help equip parents, to help. I also coach young people who fall into this category, but I do a lot of work with parents Um, because, as you said, it's not necessarily intuitive unless you yourself, for whatever reason you know, did a lot, did a lot of your own work and understand I mean most gifted kids have gifted parents.
Speaker 2:Um, the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree, but but most of this we don't learn, and we so.
Speaker 2:We certainly don't get a parenting manual about how to raise any child, much less a kid who I'll just use the phrase special needs.
Speaker 2:They are just as different from the norm as a child who falls to standard deviations, on the other end, from their emotional needs, from their social needs. If we stick a gifted kid or a gifted adult in a room where they're the only one like them, cognitively, intellectually, they're gonna try to have conversations with their peers that just don't. They don't normally mix easily, especially at young ages, that discrepancy, and so they grow up, often feeling I'll speak for myself I didn't know what it was from and there were lots of reasons why I felt like an other. But now that I'm an adult and now that I've studied this, I understand like, even if you never label a kid gifted, even if they never got programming for gifted, most of them know that they operate a little differently than their peers and so there's just this intuitive sense of is there something wrong with me? And that can be, especially when they get into adolescence, can really start to affect their self-esteem. So one of the things parents can do is just to affirm their uniqueness not to overblow it.
Speaker 2:Right, Because in the other side is very narcissistic and yes and all ego right. So I think it's good that you're you're talking with your child about that grounding of you know, I guess the end all be all, which is not yes, but it's certainly, you know, it certainly can take them far.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, yeah, I'm so excited to dive into it. Before we dive into Dr Andrea's expert advice on helping your gifted child thrive and impact the world, we're going to play a little round of. Would you rather? She didn't know she was signing up?
Speaker 2:for this.
Speaker 1:But we're going to get to know her a little bit better. So if you drive through starbucks, would you rather a hot drink or an iced drink, like take away the time of the year, the season doesn't matter, it's usually your go-to, it's hot.
Speaker 2:Do you have a go-to drink? The other, my go-to is a very simple, uh half calf americano with a little cinnamon sprinkled on top that sounds good. It's pretty simple.
Speaker 1:What is the Americano? What's different?
Speaker 2:about that. It's just espresso mixed with water. I like it because I can get it half decaf and I don't like drinking too, much caffeine, but it was 82 degrees here the other day and I skipped out on my hot drink and I went for an iced and it was not my normal go-to I had to like there's so many options at Starbucks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love the nitro cold brew is one of my. Yes, that's, I love it. Yes, yeah, well, I'll just take basically any coffee, yeah, yeah. So you're flying on a plane, you're going somewhere, but you're there for at least a couple hours. Would you rather beside you a crying baby or an adult who doesn't stop talking? Oh, ooh.
Speaker 2:Ooh, this is a good one.
Speaker 1:Knowing we have full empathy and love for all of you A crying baby, A crying baby.
Speaker 2:I have a lot of empathy for parents with crying babies on the plane and I'm too much of a people pleaser still where I, if someone starts talking to me on the plane, I feel like I've it's hard not to engage. I'm a psychologist. I love people, but sometimes you know you just want to put your head in a book.
Speaker 1:Yes, would you rather go to a coffee house or a concert hall? Concert hall. Do you have a favorite concert hall or is there like a favorite concert?
Speaker 2:um, you've been my well, I am such a huge lover of any kind of live music but but one of the places, our typical tradition in our household, even though we don't live in Massachusetts anymore. In the summer the Boston Symphony comes out west to the. Berkshires, at a place called Tanglewood, and so it's an outdoor concert hall and it's the most beautiful, wonderful experience and I like to go there as much as possible especially in the summer.
Speaker 1:That sounds amazing. I love that. Yeah, I'm super weird and old fashioned in that way.
Speaker 2:I would love. I would prefer to hear a symphony live than like a pop band live.
Speaker 1:I like all music, but when it comes to live, it is. It's just there's something about classical music too, and that type of music that just feels other worldly Like. It's a different experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you don't get that experience most of the time in our modern world.
Speaker 1:And they do have pop concerts there.
Speaker 2:But we pick up, we pick we pack a beautiful picnic and then that's fun, you know it gets dark and you're sitting under the stars and you're listening to these amazing performers. You know play and I grew up playing piano, so I like all that classical music, yeah.
Speaker 1:I love that. If you had the option, would you rather bike or rollerblade?
Speaker 2:Probably bike, Probably bike. I don't know if I'm such a good rollerblader, although in my midlife I thought maybe I should take it up. I hear it's better for your joints.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you should do it. We uh, we all got rollerblades for Christmas this past year because we're building a home and there's tons of paths. So I thought like let's try to like anything we can do to get our kids outside more, and we're going to have a massive unfinished basement. So we got like floor hockey stuff.
Speaker 2:So anyway stuff so anyway, I mean, it sounds fun for the first time in, yes, two decades.
Speaker 1:It is fun, yeah, um, and so, to give a perspective, talking about gifted students, gifted children, one of the things that I have had to learn with my son and he's just, he's so amazing, he's constantly surprising me. I never know what's going to come out of his mouth sometimes. Sometimes, I like hold the edges of my seat, I'm like, oh, it's coming. Yes, because of that lack of social awareness. Um, but just to give a perspective. So he was in kindergarten and, um, I was telling him that we need to be ready by in, by three o'clock, and at the time it was two 45 and his instant response was okay, so we need to leave in three twelfths of an hour. I was like, uh, yes, 15 minutes, but what I've had to learn is like raising a kid who fits this like high gifted profile is to help him understand that, yes, he's right. However, just so that you understand, the majority of people are going to comprehend that to be 15 minutes. So you're right, but most people are going to understand that, as we're going to leave in 15 minutes, because what ends up happening is for these kids, at least in my experience, because they just don't process information like the majority of humanity, like you said, they start to feel like they're strange, that they're weird that they're different. People kind of look at them with blank faces.
Speaker 1:Like what are you talking about? You know he's heard so many times like are you a genius? Right, like, like just that idea and it. You would think it's a compliment, but it makes him sometimes actually feel stupid because he's so smart. Yes, so just to give a like. I could give so many, but just like a little snippet of example, it's a great example. You know the challenges that we're up against. Or, for example, there are plenty of times that we've gotten to school and he doesn't have his shoes on. Yep, it's just like in his focused mind, he was on a mission, this is what and he just completely forgot to put shoes on. Just like a super practical. Anyway, just giving some insight, yeah it's so good, I think.
Speaker 2:I mean I love hearing all the unique stories that people share, whether their child's five or 15 or third grade, now a couple of weekends ago, and one, one of the I mean like textbook gifted kid, grown up.
Speaker 2:I mean he's a, he's a grown man now but African-American, came from a very disadvantaged household, brother in prison, but he got a PhD at Yale. I mean, we're sitting in my kitchen talking and I like within five seconds I just looked at my husband who had a big smile on his face because he knew I was going to be so excited to get to know this person. That way of thinking it doesn't never, it never goes away. They can learn different ways to socialize and be in the world, obviously, but that's just the beauty of their brain and that's part of I mean, I think as a parent, it's that walking the tightrope of educating them, to let them know, hey, most people are probably going to think about it this way and that's helpful and you know, when he's a grown up he may forget other. Really, you know it's like the professor, you know. I mean some of those stereotypes are not very complementary but there is some truth to it.
Speaker 2:And my messaging to kids again, whether they have learning disabilities underneath or not, or whether they have ADHD or not, but even just like whatever a straight, straight, solid, gifted kid looks like that, in and of itself looks so different across different kids, but it's their superpower, that's their superpower, so they just have to figure out how do I, without squashing their spirit, and what makes them wonderful, how do I show up in the world and how do I figure out how to navigate the social piece and the emotional and the emotional piece, cause they're wired. There's a whole conversation there about just their um, their nervous system and some tendencies there.
Speaker 1:So to touch on the social for a minute.
Speaker 1:So, for example, and like he, like we've talked about this, like if Caleb was sitting right here he would just laugh, Like he knows this. We have very open conversations, Um, but like when he was younger, we I mean this can still happen, although he's a little bit more aware now like we would be at someone's house who we had just we barely know we've been invited over for really nice dinner. This literally happened and we're sitting and we're eating this, this dinner, and Caleb, out of the blue, um, looks up and looks across the table and he said this is the worst chicken I've ever had. And you know, in his mind it's factual, there's no like morality assigned to it, there's no, um, there's no malice assigned to it, it's just simply this is the worst chicken he's ever tasted.
Speaker 1:And the lack of social. You know, like either my daughters would would never say that, or the one would never, cause he's a people pleaser, or the other would say it with the intent of stirring up trouble, Like that's the difference in my other two. Right, but for him it was just a fact. And so, helping him understand what's a fact to him and how it could affect somebody else's emotions and make them feel really badly, even though in his head it's just a fact.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like. That's just one example of also some of the challenges of the lack of social awareness and where he can feel ostracized because in his head it's a fact but he's just literally like offended an entire room and he's not aware of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah and with no yeah, not aware, but no intent, and it's hard. No, no intent. Like literally there's no malice in him, that's right, and I think again. All of those are such great examples. I also want to add, because as I'm flashing through in my head, of some students I've worked with through the years, who were yes, and like I'm literally like offering this to hear tips, yes, who?
Speaker 2:just again for variety's sake, so your listeners aren't thinking, there's just one version of this I've certainly worked with very gifted, talented students whose EQ is off the charts, like off the charts, so it's not necessarily true. This is what I mean about the variety. There are gifted kids who may feel different socially but they don't necessarily say a lot of socially. You know what we might call socially inappropriate things. There are others who I mean part of their gifts is their EQ. I mean they are very gifted socially and emotionally, like that emotional intelligence is really really high. So and they make they're the natural leaders right, like everyone is following them, even at a young age.
Speaker 2:There was a young woman that I worked with and she was about 15 or 16 and she was brilliant.
Speaker 2:Her parents were professors at a wonderful university in New York City but she had had some trauma and because of some of those things that she was walking out, she took all those gifts and she took her high EQ and you know she got into drugs and things that you know that team that kind of got got with the, the rowdy crowd and she was so effective. She was just so effective. And so that's that's what I mean about my heart and my, my goal to help them. I had so many conversations with her about, like the power that she had, that she didn't even realize because she didn't even think of herself as smart, because she did have a learning disability, but she was incredibly gifted and so I just want to paint that other picture. They can be actually one of the smartest from an emotionally intelligent standpoint. Smartest in the room can read the room and can, if not geared and you know, sort of taught into the right direction, manipulate people, really, really well, I get suspicious.
Speaker 1:That might be my third, yes, yes, we'll see what her IQ looks like, but she is yeah we're being told by her therapist that might actually be the case, which is really helpful for me to hear you say Right, right.
Speaker 2:So it can look, it can present very differently and the social emotional issues are more and again. What they look like and manifest will vary very much from gifted kid to gifted kid, because there's just so many variables right.
Speaker 2:It's like saying all kids with learning disabilities are going to be one way. That's just would be a ridiculous thing to say. So not all gifted kids. I mean, you have different environments, different personalities so they can interact with the world differently, but still there are some kind of general trends because they develop as children and through adolescence with that difference and the way the world interacts with can foundationally sit and take a test that they can the other, like environmental factors, so 100%.
Speaker 1:I am curious let's tap in just for a second intentional strategies for us as parents to help that child emotionally. Because I can speak from observation and I'm not sure if this is consistent or it tends to be a trend, but there tends to be more like almost. They're more emotionally volatile. It's almost like they don't have as good of regulation because they can't even like recognize maybe, why they're responding. I don't even know. But I am curious is that a consistent or a trend that you see? And then how do we help our child thrive with this intellectual gift but also develop emotionally so that they can impact the world with more awareness and empathy and understanding?
Speaker 2:Well, one of the things it's such a good question, not all gifted kids again.
Speaker 1:I'm going to say that for everything not all of them, but many of them will experience emotions intensely.
Speaker 2:They just experience life more intensely. One of the terms that we use to describe what that is is called overexcitabilities, and overexcitabilities are intellectual overexcitabilities, which we've already been talking about. There are emotional overexcitabilities, can are intellectual overexcitabilities, which are, which we've already been talking about. There are emotional overexcitabilities. Sometimes there's the physical. So some of them you know they're the ones that get diagnosed with ADHD because they're just like they're on the move, they're like motor is overexcited, so, but emotionally they do tend to experience things, just it's like they have bigger feelings so, and oftentimes they, um, they develop with what we call like it's asynchronous development. So they may be two grade levels ahead intellectually, but emotionally they're, they seem like they're two grade levels behind again, and that changes over time. But they're not developing like in in this perfect everything's together linear fashion.
Speaker 2:So one of the things that all parents, you know, I would encourage parents of all kids to do is just to be very intentional. But I think for gifted kids, one just knowing that about them is helpful. So you can sort of prepare yourself with the patience you need to deal when there's feels like wow, this is a big, a big emotional reaction to something that doesn't seem that big of a deal. So you can have the patience and to step in and teach them the tools to regulate their emotions, because they're it's like their brain, they're, they're going so fast, like you said, they may not even realize because there's this disconnect between like what's happening in their bodies and they're, and they're just going so fast that it takes some guided practice, and for some kids that means learning some skills through therapy right, even if they're not necessarily struggling with severe mental health issues but
Speaker 2:there could just be some time set aside for a season where they are practicing emotion regulation skills, where they're developing language If they struggle with that, to just be able to name and articulate this is what I'm feeling, this is how I'm feeling, and then have the freedom, or like the permission in the family to have ways to deal with those big feelings in a way that's not shaming or guilt producing.
Speaker 1:Have you seen strategies that tend to work among your clients or among the families Like? Have you seen practices that seem to be helpful, breath grounding techniques?
Speaker 2:So one of the things I mean, I'll just throw this one as a concrete one, like 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. I just actually taught my husband this one the other day and he thought, oh, that's great, right. So it's like find five things. This just gets them very concrete in the moment Five things that you can see, four things that you can hear, three things that you can touch, two that you can smell, one that you can taste, something like that. But it's basically let's use our senses to notice where we are right now and ground ourselves in the present moment.
Speaker 2:So there are techniques like that. There's, like I said, the breath work. There's, as a parent, making sure that they're sleeping well, which for gifted kids also can be an issue. They tend to not need as much sleep or they're like up at night and it's hard to kind of get them settled back in. But making sure they just have their physical needs met right, they're eating well, they've again, all the standard things that we would do just to make sure our kids are optimally set up for the day so that they're not quite as prone to being emotionally reactive.
Speaker 2:But it could also mean, you know, if you have a kid who their big feelings. I worked with a family, uh, about a year ago, and they had a wonderful six year old but was going through a phase Um, and that those big feelings were turning into inappropriate, you know, hitting and and yeah, tantrums at school and things like that, just things that were getting really disruptive. And so they they did have a therapist, a child therapist working with him and working with the school, but it was also making sure, like when that child came home from school was, was this child getting the emotional needs met because there was a new sibling in the household. So part of that was a reaction to things that are going on environmentally, emotionally, but this child didn't have the being able to connect like I'm feeling.
Speaker 2:I'm feeling upset and I'm supposed to love my new baby brother, but you know I'm not getting as much attention because yeah, yeah, so hitting new baby brother, yes, yes, so some of these things again.
Speaker 2:they're. They are, um, when I say the, the lens through which we look. This might be just a typical therapy case, right, a child is upset, there's a sibling born. You maybe get a family therapist or a child therapist in this case. You maybe get a family therapist or a child therapist in this case. But I think that when you have this added layer of the intellectual, the precociousness, right especially at these young ages, it is very helpful to have a therapist working with a family who understands that, because they can sometimes be misdiagnosed. This is a huge issue. They can be misdiagnosed as having ADHD or some other issue, and then we're so quick in this country to medicate and that breaks my heart because a lot of traits of gifted kids overlap with traits of ADHD, but it's not the same.
Speaker 2:And that's not to say that you can't be gifted with ADHD, but that's where you need someone who can do an evaluation and have it be accurate, because you certainly, especially if you're thinking of treating anything with a medication, you want to make sure that that child actually needs that Um and they're not, you know and and they're gifted, getting miss understood or misdiagnosed.
Speaker 1:So there's, there's issues like that. What are ways? Um, so I, you know, as like, especially with my son, uh, he's so lovely. We're just also inherently so different. Like I am the very practical. I am not the high, I'm not the 130 and higher IQ, for sure, but for me, one of the things, too, that I have seen and that we have had to work on and again, if he was sitting here, like he would say the same thing that we've talked about and in my experience, the kids with a high IQ, if they feel uncomfortable in a situation, it almost seems like the tendency is to pull into their own minds and just seek more knowledge or like challenge. It's like that's their comfort zone is to, you know, play games by themselves and before people at one time, or, um, just something.
Speaker 1:But especially if it's like a situation where, um, there's insecurity or uncertainty or you know he's never done it before, the tendency can be well, I'd rather just stay home and play my game or whatever, and I would love to hear what is the balance there between and I should say, like anyone listening who knows my son might also be like what he's so well adjusted socially and we've done a lot of work and he really he is. He's a funny dichotomy of a lot of things, but I do see that tendency and for those of you listening, some of you adults might be like this too and you might be like, oh my gosh, I've never been talking about me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so for those of you listening and watching?
Speaker 1:this isn't just kids. Maybe this is you. And maybe I'm speaking for you here, but if that is someone's tendency to just be like, I'm uncomfortable and so I find myself just wanting to retreat into myself.
Speaker 2:I'm just going to?
Speaker 1:Yeah, how do you balance that and force somebody into that socially uncomfortable and stretch them without pushing them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, first, I would guess that there are many um, especially the, the perfectionistic women out there listening um who probably I shouldn't say probably but who may have not been identified as children.
Speaker 2:There are a lot of gifted adults out there who have no idea that they're gifted, which is one of the reasons why I don't use that term when I'm working with people, because, um, yeah, a lot of people don't identify with that. But, um, perfectionism is a is one of the core characteristics of gifted people and, um, I think again, understanding that and having empathy and honoring that is a real struggle for your son is one thing and it's always, and just like with any child struggling with anything they feel anxious about. It's like we want to validate and we don't want to just let them stay in that avoidance space because that becomes a learned behavior over time. That just builds up in their mind how horrible it must be and then they just avoid and avoid and avoid as a way of life. So the only way to counteract that avoidance is to take action and tackle it. So I was definitely that kid and to be really 100% transparency to this day.
Speaker 2:that is a challenge I have to actively actively you know, go against my tendency, which is, if I can't do it perfectly the first time, then I'm just not going to do it Because there's all these other things that I grew up as a young child, just like I used to do it first time, it was perfect, it was better, right, and so when they have those experiences and things are so easy, then when things are not easy, they've got to develop the muscle, like every child, to get some grit Right and so. So there's the nudging, there's the. You know, one of the things I did with my daughter growing up and I think my mom I haven't asked her specifically, but you're not going to just um, the, the, the. The only teacher complaint my daughter got continuously through elementary school was she reads too much, and it was.
Speaker 2:The teacher would always practice it at the parent teacher and they said and they're and she's like I know this is a crazy thing to be saying, especially in elementary school, where we're just trying to get all the kids to read and they're like she just reads all the time and I was, like I know, one of the funny stories in our house.
Speaker 1:put a book in his desk and we've gotten the teacher where he was caught reading in the book in his desk. Yeah, a hundred percent.
Speaker 2:Classic, classic gifted kid move. And one of the funny stories in our house was I think my daughter was about five or six and first of all she was very concerned that the other children, like in her kindergarten class they, did not know how to read and she took it upon herself to make sure she was going to teach them all because she was concerned that they didn't already know.
Speaker 1:But we were walking through a grocery store and she had, like her big thick, you know potter book or whatever she had, and ran right into one of the metal poles in the grocery store.
Speaker 2:I that's still needs to listen to this classic classic. I'm like audrey, you as my son. The book down for at least when we're walking through the grocery store it's dangerous.
Speaker 1:He literally again, if he was sitting here we would laugh, because this is him. I literally tell this story because it is so funny, of he will be reading. I refuse to let him walk home reading a book. I told him literally he will lose his allowance if he does it, because I swear he would get hit by a car. That's right.
Speaker 2:It's a safety concern. It's a safety concern.
Speaker 1:I feel so seen, yes, yes, I'm like, oh my gosh, what am I doing wrong? Because that would be him. I mean, he, literally. We have the funniest story of again kindergarten reading a book in the kitchen. He was walking through the kitchen and just literally face planted into the pole that had been in the middle of our house when we knocked out a wall for two years and again that emotional like accused me of making him walk into the pool when I was across the room. Like he and I laugh about it now. But it's so true, it's like that, it's yeah, it's like that hyper focus and the lack of like awareness that at times has just been like oh my gosh, they're in their little world past the age of you know what I mean, Right?
Speaker 1:Well, here's an, here's's a here's a concrete example of what keep telling me how to help him.
Speaker 2:So my daughter when she was younger, the very, um, you know, like typical suburban thing was, even, you know, when they were five, was to get on a little kid, you know, like the soccer, soccer teams in the neighborhood yeah.
Speaker 2:She did not want to do that. She did not want to play team sports. Um, she was very vocal all through elementary school, but I wanted her to develop, especially because she was an only child. I wanted her, outside of just the classroom, to be interacting with peers, developing those skills and doing something physical, because, if she had her way, she was actually a very physical kid. But, um, you know the reading thing, so so so I didn't force her to do a team sport, although, um, I thought it would be good for her to do that. But I said, okay, then you, we need, you need to get involved in something physical and something where there's I guess I should say she didn't want to do like a competitive sport. She didn't want to do a competitive sport. Probably the anxiety of it was just too much for her so, what she ended up.
Speaker 2:What we found she did gymnastics all growing up from a young age, but it was not competitive. And then, even when she got into middle school, we were able to find, because by that point it starts getting more competitive and she was an amazing gymnast, she. She could have competed, but she didn't want, she didn't want that pressure. So we found something that was much more um, there was still a team element. She had team members. It was more. It was a performance team, though, and so she did gymnastics and she ended up coaching gymnastics and even college coach gymnastics. That ended up being. I was so thankful because it started off at a young age and I gave her some choice in the matter and she chose gymnastics.
Speaker 2:And I didn't force her to do soccer, but from a physical standpoint she became an amazing athlete, which I don't know if she. From a physical standpoint, she became an amazing athlete which I don't know if she. I don't know what would have happened had we not had gymnastics and she developed such beautiful, wonderful relationships with the girls on her team, with her coach, and then she was a coach, and so all the things that I cared about as a parent the relationships, the physical movement, you know being just being in a place that wasn't.
Speaker 1:Of course it was more creative. It was more creative right, which is very, very creative. I can see that, yes, being really beneficial for the right, yes, for the right kid. We are. We are really. I am so grateful for my husband. He does provide sort of a unique. My husband's definitely the one with a higher IQ, but he also grew up an athlete and was a football coach for 10 years, so that nurtured sense like my son's very interested in sports and he is. But I see what you're saying. We're depending on the culture of the home too. This is probably true of any kid. It can be really easy to pull to one extreme and then miss, like you're saying, especially that need for physicality and being present and for the high IQ kid being okay with something that isn't always an intellectual challenge. It's amazing how quickly my son got super into the ex's nose of football coaching, like he loved thinking through, like where everyone's going with my husband.
Speaker 1:But then there was a point where it's like, at some point you just got to go out and hit something. Yep, yep.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's just time to go out and be physical. Yes, and this gets back actually to the question about emotion regulation because, again, for all kids, all kids, but especially the gifted ones who want to stay up here in their head and again I can speak for myself when I am in my body, when I am doing activities that get me back in my body grounded it helps me stay out of my head and a lot of the teenagers that I worked with who were struggling and, and you know, college kids who are very anxious or get depressed, like it's because they they they're not.
Speaker 2:They're not very skilled at getting out of their heads, so they live up here and so, from a young age, if you can give them a path that is enjoyable for them, that they love doing, whether it's football or soccer or gymnastics or dance or something that just helps them.
Speaker 2:It's, it's almost like the saving grace. I and I don't want to over ask, to overstate that, but my daughter even said, like what would she do? Now she's in her mid twenties and she lives in Hawaii and she surfs every day because she doesn't do gymnastics. But it's awesome. But she knows herself, she's got to find that way to get out of her head into her body. Interesting, that's a good overarching strategy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I love it and I'm even thinking, like my, my two younger ones who, um, my third one very well might have that high IQ to like what you're describing is very much making some things make sense for her too. But I love what you just said, though I do think it's really poignant, I'm even thinking about this the difference between, um you know, my younger two, that when it comes to getting out of their heads and that physical movement that the one higher IQ kid might do well with the competitive um movement or, like that, team sport, and that may be the other one, like I'm seeing the potential that, like my daughter, would do better in like the dance, the performing arts, the like more creative physical movement instead of competitive Right. She does seem to have a higher level of anxiety over those types of things than my, than my son.
Speaker 2:Anyway.
Speaker 1:I'm I'm thinking out loud and one day my kids don't look back on this and be like, oh my gosh, why'd you talk about me so much?
Speaker 2:Like I tried to be really open with them too, even at this age, about what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:But I just think it's so important to be transparent because we're all in this together and there's no value assigned to these things. They've been made in the image of God, you've been made in the image of God, so right, like it takes a village.
Speaker 2:Every kid is so different.
Speaker 1:Every kid is so different.
Speaker 2:But I think that they're, when you understand some of the overarching principles, like understanding the perfectionism, understanding the big emotions, understanding, like the tendency to live in their head and you know those things and you can knowing your child, your child, your unique child, like it's a little, there is the give and take, because you don't want to give them, any child, all the power to make all the decisions for them, because they'd be eating candy every night, or you know, or never, or reading all day right, exactly, um and so.
Speaker 2:But there still needs to be that balance and just like honoring, like I see you for who you are and how you're created to be, and I, as your parent, am here to help, steward, help you steward, those gifts and those talents so that you will become who you're supposed to be and have whatever path ahead of them that is fulfilling them. That is fulfilling yeah, that's that's. You know. We want them to feel fulfilled and I think one of the biggest dangers of gifted kids and if you're, you know there's all the, there's so many. My daughter sends them to me, the TikToks and the reels on you know the gifted kids who are like.
Speaker 2:I think that the gifted kid, dropouts, or this whole theme of or burnt out, burnt out, rather that they get put on this path from a young age because their intellect does stand out and even though I am a huge proponent, generally speaking, of a high quality gifted program, because I think there's a purpose for that they need to be challenged, they need to be stretched. They, if they're sitting in a regular classroom reading under their desk because they already know everything, that's not a useful, you know, that's just not useful for them in their development.
Speaker 2:But the danger in that is this feeling of, oh, I'm just so smart, so I have to be on this path. And being smart means I have extra homework or I have to take all the AP classes, which is just more work, and so, again, I think probably a lot of your listeners who can identify even with this trajectory, even if they weren't identified as gifted. It's this feeling of to be a good person, to have value. I have to keep doing all of these things because I don't know. That's just the story of how their lives unfold.
Speaker 2:You know, I've worked with a lot of families who kids were like like high ranking I don't know if that's the right term like chess players or they're there and they're in these families again who are high achieving parents, and so even if there's not direct pressure, yes, that's a very real fear of mine, because that's our home Full transparency.
Speaker 1:That's our home. I've never, you know, hidden that, like my husband and I are both very high achievers. Right, I've achieved a lot, and that is definitely even the subconscious. Yes, yes. There Definitely always open, yeah, and.
Speaker 1:I guess a really quick follow-up question on that, to also hit the other end of things. So there is that kid who's super high achieving and they feel like they need to do all the things to make the best use of that intellect. But then what about the kid who falls on the other side? They, they almost selfabotage and it's kind of like what you were saying, that high achieving dropout or however you phrased it earlier, where they almost don't allow themselves to experience the benefit of their gifts. How do you approach that kid and what's their core fear?
Speaker 1:Like what are we really needing to speak to Right?
Speaker 2:I would say a lot of the kids that I've worked with. It is this extreme pressure to perform. And again, on themselves.
Speaker 2:And even um, and I think also on a level from family or I or or just their community, right, like if you're in a school district or a school, even a just a school community that is characterized as many schools are. I went to one. It's just a high achieving school, right, you've got a lot of high achievers in there. It's like people are vying for the valedictorian, like there it's just um, there's a culture of that and that is not a bad thing. But some of those students who just feel like I, I can't even compete, the anxiety is so great that they're like it's like, it's like competitive sports, right, I can't even compete. The anxiety is so great that they're like it's like, it's like competitive sports, right, I don't. I don't even think I, I have, I can compete, so I'm just not even going to try. It's just another way of like, I'm just going to, I'm just dropping out of the race.
Speaker 2:So, um, and what often happens then, when those kids start to like go downhill, like the beginning part of it, like they stop turning in their homework, they stop like wanting to go to school, then there's maybe school refusal, right, and then they just stop. Um, I've worked with so many families and the all the well-meaning adults the teachers, the guidance counselor, the parents, right, they're like trying to get this kid to go to school. Um, of course, because you want them to go to school. But I would say there's usually a lot of anxiety and it could be an undiagnosed learning disability of some sort. That again, they look they're so smart.
Speaker 2:So, usually around adolescence is when we and it could happen later, I, I mean some kids they're so smart that it masks the underlying issues, um, for a long time. But they intuitively know it's like they can't keep up. They there's something. The way I describe it to kids is it's like you have a, uh, a jaguar car. It's like the engine, like you're meant to, but you're putting like the worst, like unleaded gas in there and it's not meant for that car. And so you're frustrated in yourself Cause you're like I feel like I should be able to go fast, like I have a lot of power right, so why can't?
Speaker 2:I why can't I and everyone's telling me how smart I am? What?
Speaker 1:are those learning disabilities that you see, what are the most common?
Speaker 2:There can be some processing issues, so auditory processing issues. They might like they're sitting in a classroom and literally like it's like blah, blah, blah right it's, they can hear. It's not a hearing issue, it's processing what they're hearing. That may be slower. There could be just straight reading issues.
Speaker 2:I mean that girl that I spoke about earlier who had the high EQ she ended up having. She had really really severe dyslexia which made her feel stupid even though she was brilliant in all the other ways. But then once we were able to show her like this is just the way your brain works, like you have a really creative brain A lot of creative brains also are characterized by this thing where you can just see it's like the strength looks like a weakness, but the strength is I can see an object in. You turn it any way right. That's basically what a brain of dyslexics can do, of dyslexics can do so creatively in the visual spatial area. They could take a job doing that stuff in like Excel, but when it comes to reading in a book, it's it feels near impossible.
Speaker 2:So but she used, you know, audio and now there's so many technological tools to help but a lot of these things just need to be discovered, and so I think, when there's a kid refusing or just sort of not motivated to go to school, that there could be an underlying issue there.
Speaker 2:It could also just be that it's not the right academic environment, it's just a poor fit, and so I always, always want parents to, and encourage parents to advocate in the right way, because, of course, schools are going to react to, like the parent who's coming in saying my child needs this and my child needs that, but but to ask questions and be curious alongside the teacher of yeah, do you think this might be going on? You know, we know he's really into this. So, so, working with the school, um, to the extent that you can, but you know, in really extreme cases I've I know parents have pulled their kids out of school and find schools or homeschooling, because it can be difficult. It's not impossible, um, but it can be more challenging in a public school setting, just because there's only. You know they're trying to meet the needs of so many different kinds of minds.
Speaker 1:Well, and then I would also throw out there that if somebody is concerned, there is also Andrea, that's true.
Speaker 2:Dr Andrea is here.
Speaker 1:Tell us where people can find you and how you're serving people, but how they can follow you to learn more and understand your services.
Speaker 2:Well, they can. My name is my website, so it's Andrea line L E I N Um. They can also find me on Instagram at drandrealine, and I do a lot I like I again.
Speaker 2:I specialize with gifted and creative folks, so whether you are a gifted, or maybe you are, suspecting you're an undiagnosed gifted kid who grew up and you're like, oh my goodness, I identify with all these things but I don't even know where to begin. I do coaching and consulting for those people and young adults who sort of are in that phase of figuring out their life, as well as I do a lot of parent coaching specifically for those with gifted kids of any age. But especially I have a lot of parents who come to me their gifted child might be a little bit on the older side and starting to bump up into some more, just some challenges that they're not sure how to tackle.
Speaker 1:So I help support parents in that journey. I love it. I love it. I just pray God's blessing over your heart, your home and all of the amazing families that you're serving. I learned so much I felt like it was such a blessing To me, even like I've said before you guys, it takes a village and I'm so grateful for your transparency and the way that you are serving. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to share.