Tidbit # 11-Where are we going?
I’ve been turning around a few ideas these past months about college prep, test prep, high school classes, middle school requirements — “necessary” skills and knowledge and the energetic push to guide our children as best we can (while we can) to be successful, happy, productive individuals. Or at least, happy … or at least, […]
Tidbit # 8-How to Rest
A lot of people have written on this topic over the past 5-10 years, in particular. Major studies have been completed. The Harvard Business Review has just published an article about listening to your body and learning to relax, say no, the benefits of yoga — you know the rest. Let me start off by […]
Tidbit # 7 Hobbies
Is it possible to have a hobby you’re not serious about? I mean, can you actually casually do something and somehow resist the urge to try to be the best at it? Is there even such a thing as a “hobby” or are all hobbies really just another serious interest that you’ve decided you don’t […]
Tidbit # 6-Tuning in to acknowledge the vagaries of minds
When deep thinking and an impatient urgency to fully understand a concept and all of its applications are a student’s modus operandi, dialing back to master “the basics” and being tasked with biting off small bits until being permitted to delve wider and deeper can not only be frustrating; it can be downright demotivating! What’s […]
Tidbit # 3
As my kids have gotten older, more mouthy and self-assured in their positions, I have vacillated between being pleased not to have sugar-coated or avoided difficult topics or unpleasant realities, including the fantastic set of hypocrisies that are much of life, and very uncertain about whether I took advantage of their unusual capacity to deeply […]
Tidbit # 5-The Perfect Fit
We all want to fit in — some of us more outwardly than others! The desire to be seen and heard is the desire to be accepted, to be affirmed in one’s expression of self and to feel connected with others. There are different patterns to how different people go about fitting in, and the […]
Tidbit # 4: “The fallibility of innate talent”
Just the other day, I exchanged a lengthy text communication with a student who needed to write about a weakness he had overcome. He wrote me to say that he could not for the life of him think of any weaknesses. Thus far in his 17 years, he had had nothing but success in life […]
Tidbit # 2
How to start the year on the right foot? I feel safe in saying that pretty much everyone experiences some degree of anxiety about the start of the new school year, and as one approaches the end of high school, the real and imagined pressures mount. And because gifted kids tend to have heightened emotional […]
Exordium
So it began, closer to two fleeting decades ago than the time my mind is willing to accept has passed. The chaotic birth of my daughter, Haley, the first offspring of what would (quickly) become a clan of seven Lowders. “It will be easy.”, I boasted. “We’re teachers, we’ve got this!”, we claimed. “Our kids […]
The Physical Pain of Dysgraphia: What Parents Need to Understand
Your child closes the school laptop and walks away from an unfinished assignment again. Their hand looks tense, their shoulders are tight, and they say their fingers hurt. You have heard the school describe this as a focus issue, a motivation issue, even a behavior issue. From where you sit, none of that quite fits. […]