I imagine you sitting back and enjoying a cool drink as you read this blog. It’s nearly one hundred degrees here in Maryland and my glass of ice water is never far away. Let your shoulders relax, I want to talk to you about something – okay, it’s school – but wait! Take another sip. Relax your shoulders. Maybe rotate your neck. This will not be stressful. Let’s talk about how you can use the summer to make back-to-school less stressful.
Some parents rush to sign up their 2e kids for all sorts of courses and camps that address deficits they demonstrated during school. With every good intention, parents think they are making next year easier for their kids. What’s really happening is your child’s pathway to burn out is getting shorter. They’re on the express bus toward disengagement and maybe even school refusal. Summer is not for more work. There’s a reason summertime is referred to as a “break.” Our kids need a break from the school routine and feeling like they aren’t meeting expectations. Summer should be filled with passion projects and spending time in zones of genius. Some wise educators have advocated for paying attention to how kids behave when they are in their zones of genius.
I don’t talk to parent-clients about taking summer courses or working on executive functioning skills during the summer – no way. Summer should be the time for unplugging and rebooting (an oxymoron?) It should be the time we get into what the founder of positive psychology, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s calls, a “flow” state. Flow is when one achieves complete immersion in a task that balances challenge and ability – and causes optimum engagement. If your child can partake in hobby and interest areas he is passionate about, and can achieve anything close to a flow state – he’ll naturally strengthen his executive functioning skills and will build self confidence.
What Does Your Summertime 2e Parenting Profile Look Like? 👇
If your child is like most gifted and distractible children, he didn’t engage much in school last year. He didn’t come home describing what he learned or extolling about how much his brain was stimulated. More likely he complained about boredom, being misunderstood, and wasting his time. So please, don’t make this bored, misunderstood, kid who craves meaning in his pursuits take classes this summer to “strengthen his skills.” Instead, let him practice skills doing the things he loves.
So, this summer, as you sip your cool drink and give yourself a massage by rotating your neck and shoulders, observe your child doing what he loves. Notice his capacity for attention and ability to organize, prioritize, and initiate. Take photos, talk about accomplishments and perseverance through tough tasks and making mistakes, ask questions about what he is learning and what was hard and whether the “hard-ness” was fun. Help him see a level of interest and love for learning he likely didn’t see in school.
Once you gather data on what he loves to do and how he behaves while doing it, it’s time to prepare for the school year. Gather photos of your child engaged in flow – not holding up a finished product but actually doing the thing. This will help educators see what your child looks like when he is immersed. Take note on what was hard and where he might need support. Be sure to keep information on the skills your child was able to learn that might be counterintuitive to what teachers see in the classroom. This helps generate ideas for addressing deficits and lagging skills.
Above all, laud your child’s awareness of his interests – sometimes this goes away for gifted and distractible kids because of constant deficit focus from educators and parents. It’s important for kids to learn that self-awareness is a key to success. If you can encourage your child to really know himself and get comfortable with who he is – all the strengths and struggles that make him, him, then your summer was spent building the most important life skills your child needs to succeed.
*** And by the way, if you are a 2e adult or teacher reading this blog – take note – you too need to fill your resilience bucket. Make sure you schedule unstructured time in your week to get into flow doing your passion projects! Everyone in your life will be better for it.
Author: Julie F. Skolnick M.A., J.D.
Julie Skolnick, M.A., J.D., is the Founder of With Understanding Comes Calm, LLC, through which she passionately guides parents of gifted and distractible children, mentors 2e adults, and collaborates with and advises educators and professionals on bringing out the best and raising self-confidence in their students and clients.
