PCCL Parent Discussion and Support Group

An ongoing discussion group for parents of gifted children. Come and share your experiences and information. Exchange tips on nurturing and supporting your child.

Meetings take place at 7 p.m. in Room 303 of the First United Methodist Church, 1008 11th St. (at the corner of 11th and Washington) in Santa Monica. Parking is available on the street and in an underground garage directly across 11th Street from the church.

The cost is $10.

If you would like to reserve a seat at our next meeting, please contact Kristine Wyatt, PCCL director, at kristine@pcclschool.org .

Exciting News!

We are thrilled to be able to offer a 10-week SENG (Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted) workshop starting Tuesday, Feb. 7. It will be facilitated by Connie Wax, LCSW and licensed SENG facilitator, who spoke at our last discussion group. The workshop will be in lieu of our discussion groups through the end of this school year.

Topics will include characteristics, communication, motivation, discipline, perfectionism and stress, depression, peers, only children and siblings, values and traditions, and successful parenting.

To learn more about Connie and SENG, see her website, www.CounselorForTheGiftedAndTalented.com , and www.sengifted.org .

The workshop will be held every other Tuesday evening for a total of 10 Tuesdays.

WHERE: Room 307 of the church (up the spiral ramp, on the third floor); see above for address and parking information.

WHEN: Every other Tuesday beginning Feb. 7, from 7 to 8:30 p.m.

COST: $250 (one or both parents). Scholarships are available. Cost includes book and materials.

TO REGISTER: Contact Connie Wax ASAP to hold your place: connie.wax@gmail.com or 714-300-3163.

Synopses of Recent Meetings

November 2011: Perfectionism, Intensity, and Stress

Connie Wax, LCSW (www.counselorforthegiftedandtalented.com), and trained SENG facilitator, knows from first-hand experience the challenges and joys of raising a gifted child (she has three boys, now adults), and she shared with us some of her own insights and discoveries in addition to answering specific questions from the audience. Her focus was on how to help our children learn to accept and appreciate their giftedness while at the same time helping them learn effective ways of living in the real world. She discussed how it is the very characteristics that make a child intellectually gifted that make it that child, especially at the younger ages, so vulnerable. The fact that they can intellectually understand issues that they don’t have the emotional maturity to deal with, for example, can lead to fears, panic, and anger. Feeling different and unable to connect with age peers can lead to frustration and acting out. It is up to the parent to identify these difficulties in order to be able to guide the child through them.

September 2011: Is It Good To Be Gifted?

Our speaker was Dr. David Palmer (http://www.palmerlearning.com/), an educational psychologist and author of Parents' Guide to IQ Testing and Gifted Education. He began by discussing IQ testing and giftedness and specifically how there are many more abilities, or possible areas of giftedness, than are tested by the standard IQ test, which focuses on verbal and mathematical skills. These include the interpersonal (which arguably could be the most important in life), intrapersonal, artistic, athletic, and musical. All of these abilities are something that the individual is born with and then enhances.

The Flynn effect, he said, which is that the average IQ seems to rise about three points every decade, seems to have stopped, so the curve is re-standardized. This is why scores from the older tests, like the Stanford-Binet LM, must be read differently from the scores of current tests, like the WISC IV and the Stanford-Binet V. Dr. Palmer enumerated the scores and their corresponding levels of giftedness. For example, whereas a score of 145-159 indicated high giftedness in the old tests, the range for that level on current tests is 138-144. Most schools use 130 as the cutoff for their gifted programs.

What is the “optimal IQ”? Perhaps somewhere between 120 and 145, Dr. Palmer said, but it also depends on the balance of abilities. There is a theory that it is a greater number of neural connections that predispose one to what we call giftedness. That same makeup, however, could be the cause of the hypersensitivity, or what Kazimierz Dabrowski called overexcitability (OE), that so many gifted children have.

Dr. Palmer ended the evening by recommending several books, including Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children and Adults, by James T. Webb, et al., and When Gifted Kids Don’t Have All the Answers, by Jim Delisle and Judith Galbraith.

May 2011: What Parents of Gifted Students Need to Know About College Planning

Our speaker, Susan Goodkin, is a graduate of Harvard University, Harvard Law School, and Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar. In addition to advising gifted students throughout the country about college admissions, Susan writes and speaks nationally on education issues including college planning. Her articles have appeared in newspapers including The Washington Post, The Miami Herald, The Philadelphia Enquirer, The Sacramento Bee, and The Houston Chronicle. Susan is executive director of the California Learning Strategies Center.

At this meeting, Susan addressed college-planning concerns such as, What do you need to know about the PSAT/SAT/ACT?, Which classes should your child be taking in high school?, and What are the most effective ways in which to search for appropriate colleges for your child? She discussed what colleges are looking for, how to build a superior resume, and how to reduce the stress of the process.

March 2011: Helping Gifted Kids Cope With Emotional Intensity

A Guide for Teachers and Parents

Our speaker, school psychologist, author, and parent Christine Fonseca, talked about some of the typical characteristics of high giftedness that can make everyday life challenging not only for the child but for his/her family, teachers, and friends. These include complex mood cycles, the tendency to be very empathetic, unrealistic expectations of him/herself and others, and strong affective memories. Cognitive intensity and emotional intensity, she said, go hand-in-hand. Often, a child has no idea he/she is stressed until it’s too late. This is all normal for this type of child.

She then suggested specific strategies that can be used to help them deal with the acuteness of their feelings and reactions. Parents can be “emotional coaches” for their kids. This includes letting the child decompress at the end of the school day and knowing what kind of person your child is at his/her core in order to know what he/she needs in order to decompress effectively. Is he/she an introvert or an extrovert? Teach your child to recognize his/her stress response cycle. Help your child understand that, sometimes, his/her brain will “lie” by making inappropriate connections that can then cause more stress, guilt, or panic.

Basically, Ms. Fonseca explained, an effective coach understands the child at a deep level, seeks new information when necessary, understands the nature of giftedness, knows how to motivate, knows how to listen and also how to communicate effectively, is consistent, leads by example, and is committed to the process of growth. The effective coach will focus on teaching the child how to recognize intense feelings and behaviors, to understand the source of those feelings, and to redirect those feelings into more productive behaviors. The focus should be on teaching how to think, not what to think.

Christine Fonseca has worked in the field of education for more than a decade. Her primary focus is the social and emotional needs of gifted children, and her current books include Emotional Intensity in Gifted Students and 101 Success Secrets for Gifted Kids. In addition to writing books about giftedness, Ms. Fonseca writes novels for teens.

Excerpts from her talk are on our Blog page.

February 2011: Why Wait? (Be Your Own Superman!)

We watched “Waiting for ‘Superman,’” a 2010 documentary about the state of our education system today. The synopsis, from the Sundance Film Festival:

As he follows a handful of promising kids through a system that inhibits, rather than encourages, academic growth, [filmmaker Davis] Guggenheim undertakes an exhaustive review of public education, surveying "drop-out factories" and "academic sinkholes," methodically dissecting the system and its seemingly intractable problems. 

While this film does not discuss gifted students, their plight is closely linked to that of all students in the system. Indeed, in many instances, their situation is worse. Most gifted programs were cut or eviscerated long before any budget shortfalls necessitated the same moves for other programs.

Before and after the movie, we discussed local schools, mostly high schools. We heard from a parent whose son graduated from PCCL last year about how he’s faring in the high school they chose, and parents exchanged information about the schools on which they have gotten reports. Stimulated by the allegations in the documentary, we also discussed teachers’ unions, a timely topic in light of current events in Wisconsin and elsewhere.

January 2011: Intelligence and IQ Tests

Our speaker, clinical neuropsychologist Dr. Karen Wilson, managed to demystify IQ tests and the testing process for us. She started with the history of the idea of intelligence and of testing, touching on several of the more prominent figures whose names are associated with the field. She then described the two most used tests, the Stanford-Binet and the Wechsler group of tests, in detail, discussing the different parts, the scoring, the pros and cons, and giving examples. She also talked about the concepts of intelligence and multiple intelligences. The audience asked questions as she went along, and there was a very educational question-and-answer session after her presentation as well.

Dr. Wilson is an associate professor and the graduate coordinator of the Master of Arts in Psychology Program at California State University, Dominguez Hills. Dr. Wilson is also an assistant clinical professor (voluntary) in the Medical Psychology Assessment Center (MPAC), Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Behavior, David Geffen School of Medicine, at UCLA. She has been in private practice since 2003.