2 Teenagers Now?

Today we will officially have 2 teenagers in our house.  We will have approximately 5 years and 4 months left before we will officially have an empty nest.  And yes, this year in particular, I find myself keeping track.  I have found myself reflecting on our kids in general since the beginning of the year.  WHY?  I have been asked what our secret to parenting is…and to put it in a book. 

But in reality it is simple.  We realized 2 things a long long time ago; 1.) We are very lucky to have children 2.) We only get them for 18 years of their life.  And because of these 2 things we made a promise to not take any moment for granted. 

I have debated for months on how much I wanted to explain regarding number one. It is not something that we have openly discussed for many reasons.  Long story short, Shawn was our last hope of having children.  We had losses before him, and had made a conscious decision that if we lost him too we were done trying.  We decided that we would NOT seek medical intervention to have a baby for reasons I will not go into here.  We decided we would either adopt or just not have kids. See we were also up against my intuition.  I always had this “feeling” that if we didn’t have kids by a certain age that they would just not happen.  I always knew somehow, that my biological clock was ticking away much faster than normal.  But anyway, we had a seamless pregnancy and had our beautiful son.  So we gave it another shot, but it did not go without many complications. At 26.5 weeks I went into preterm labor and the rest of the pregnancy was spent fighting to keep her in as long as possible. Fortunately we were lucky to make it to 38 weeks and a healthy beautiful baby girl was welcomed into our lives.  At that point we made the decision to be done.  Pregnancy was just too hard on my body and the worry, fear and emotional roller coaster that went along with them was enough for the both of us.  I was right about my biological clock too…not even a year after our daughter was born I quit ovulating, and that began my spiral of other issues that ultimately led to me having to have a hysterectomy at the age of 32.   But because of this we both quickly realized just how lucky and blessed we were to have our children.  We discussed it when they were born (and continue to discuss it today), and we both promised each other that we would not take them for granted. 

Which leads us to number 2-We also quickly realized that we, in theory, only get 18 years with them before they fly away from the nest.  18 years to prepare them for life as much as we could.  18 years to help them learn right from wrong.  18 years to experience as much as we could with them. 18 years to watch them experience the world through their eyes, but also to show them and teach them the beauty that the world has to offer. 18 years in theory is not a long time, considering it isn’t even a quarter of their lives.  We again, decided to not take the moments and years we had with them for granted.  We decided to make the most of the time we had with them.  We decided it was our job as their parents to lead them into adulthood and give them the tools they need to succeed.

These 2 reasons alone is why we sacrifice so much of ourselves and give 200% to parenting our children.

As we are entering this final phase (before adulthood) I find myself scared, excited, and nervous for what the future holds for them after they fly way.  With my oldest almost done with his first year of high school I have found that I haven’t quite grasped the reality of it yet.  But what I do see is him making decisions about his future, and creating goals for himself beyond what most kids his age even think about yet.  I see him beginning to use the tools that we have given him, and it is very exciting. 

Today his sister is joining him in the realm of teen years.  And she has had some minor struggles this past year in determining who she is and where she is going.  It hasn’t been as seamless of a transition for her into this phase as it was for him.  But none the less I know she will do fine.  She has more drive and motivation than most people I know.  She is most certainly going to know what she will want out of her life and shoot for it.  As long as we can all make it through the moody hormones that she needs to figure out how to get through, I think we will come out on the other end a shining star! 

None the less we have/will embrace this phase with the same dedication and drive we have their entire lives.  I remember when they were first born, I would sit and wonder and dream about what kind of people they would become. It seemed so far away, but yet we are almost there and the years are undoubtedly flying by.  And I already know that I will be a terrible empty nester.

What does GT mean? An Answer to a Commonly Asked Question

The most common question we get when I explain to people that my son (and now daughter) is a GT kid, is “What is GT?”   We get it often enough that I wanted to take a moment to explain what GT is, just for the simple understanding.  Many children are never identified which cause issues of frustrations and such with kids in school.

GT stands for Gifted and Talented.  Here is the actual definition provided by The State of Colorado, and federally. 

“Children and youth with outstanding talent who perform or show the potential for performing at remarkably high levels of accomplishment when compared with others of their age, experience, or environment.”
- US Department of Education, 1993

"Gifted and talented children" means those persons between the ages of five and twenty-one whose abilities, talents, and potential for accomplishment are so exceptional or developmentally advanced that they require special provisions to meet their educational programming needs. Children under five who are gifted may also be provided with early childhood special educational services. Gifted students include gifted students with disabilities (i.e. twice-exceptional) and students with exceptional abilities or potential from all socio-economic and ethnic, cultural populations. Gifted students are capable of high performance, exceptional production, or exceptional learning behavior by virtue of any or a combination of these areas of giftedness:

• General or specific intellectual ability.
• Specific academic aptitude.
• Creative or productive thinking.

• Leadership abilities.
• Visual arts, performing arts, musical or psychomotor abilities.

-Colorado Department of Education

Now exactly what do those definitions mean?  We asked ourselves that quite a bit when Shawn was first identified as being gifted.  He was tested and identified at the age of 3.  One of the very many traits of a GT kid has to do with speech, whether they have advanced speech or delayed speech, it is often a trait.  Preschool actually asked us to have his speech tested, because “it wasn’t right”, but couldn’t really explain how.  That coupled with answers provided by us on a questionnaire led to the testing.  They can test a variety of things from IQ testing, to cognitive testing, skills testing, test scores if they are already in school, observation, etc.  At 4 years old Shawn tested at (depending on what was being tested) an average 7 year old to a 9 year old.   His IQ then was in the 160 range.  They sat us down, and discussed the findings, told us he was a “GT Kid” and we should be proud, but that there would be challenges, gave us papers to read and sent us on our way.  We really had NO idea what that meant, we just knew there were already challenges…the kid was different!  For several years we did research, but never had a 200% grasp on what exactly that meant. We just adapted our parenting style to fit his needs, as we do with both of our children.

Then one time we had a teacher tell us gifted is pretty much a disability on the opposite end of the spectrum.  I wanted to be a Special Education Teacher (so a lot of my teacher training was in special ed), so once explained that way everything clicked.  I got it…….

The one thing the definitions do a good job of is explaining all the positives that come with being GT.  Nowhere in either definition does it explain all of the negatives that come with being GT.  Often the kids are highly emotional, they sense things on a different level, so they tend to be seen as over dramatic. Shawn is very dramatic.  They are persistent…..Shawn will often get on a subject and just bug and bug and bug and bug about it.  They are perfectionists (which we see in both of our children). They often struggle fitting in with kids in their age group. And  they may also have some sort of some other disorder along with being GT.  This is known as Twice Exceptional.  For example, Shawn also has Anxiety disorder with OCD tendencies.  Some other children may be Bipolar, or may have ADD, or ADHD, or some may even be Autistic. 

Instead of having an IEP, Shawn has what they call an ALP (Advanced Learning Plan).  The particular District the kids are in has recognized these kids have special needs and had good intentions in trying to work with them.  Each school has a GT liaison that are supposed to ensure their needs are being met.  They are supposed to meet with the kids regularly; whether in a classroom setting or an individual setting to ensure the needs are met (this is one of OUR frustrations, especially at the Middle School level).  It’s by far not perfect, but they are improving.  But none the less it has been helpful. 

I have spent most of the time discussing Shawn as an example, and that is because he is an obvious GT kid, he by far meets and exceeds almost every single trait. However, sometimes they may not show all or any of the traits, or because they are introverted the traits are missed, in the case of our daughter.  She is very shy, and doesn’t do a lot of talking in a public forum such as a classroom.  She has always just gotten her work done without question, and gotten good grades.  We always knew she was very smart and motivated.  But she didn’t really fit the classic traits, with the exception of maybe 2.  Then this year when the school put her in a GT and advanced class, we thought…….how the heck did we miss this?  Having 1 GT kid, we thought over the years we had become pretty well versed in the subject, so we felt awful for missing it!  After the typical yearly meeting at the school (and them elaborating even more), and doing yet MORE research we learned that we still had MUCH to learn on the subject (and figured out how we all missed it until this point!).  So now we are on the journey of fighting to make sure both of our children get the proper education they need to be successful adults (not that we didn’t fight for both before, the fight is just different).  She does not have an ALP yet, but she is very happy with the classes they put her in, and she is doing well.  At this point we will not push the ALP until she can get used to the challenge of the advanced classes.  We also aren’t sure that a traditional school will be the answer for her.  One of the traits she DOES show is the frustration with other kids in the classroom (group projects and interruptions).  She has it figured out down to a science, and she wants to be there to learn and get her stuff done and any interruptions to this, she sees as a waste of time. So we will get there in due time.

For us though….this doesn’t change a thing.  From day 1 of being parents, we knew what we wanted for our children (happy, healthy, compassionate, confident, independent adults who aren’t afraid to create goals and reach for the stars), and gifted or not that doesn’t change.   It might change how we help our kids get from point A to point B, but that’s part of parenting…being able to adapt to their needs.

For anyone further curious, I have provided some good links below that help explain much much more.  And if you are further curious yet or have any questions about either of my children, I would be happy to answer them! Just let me know.

http://www.slideshare.net/drfioriello/50-common-characteristics-of-gifted-children-18261615

http://www.giftedkids.ie/index.html 
(the one above is based in Ireland but it does a good job of explaining things!)

http://www.beliefnet.com/healthandhealing/getcontent.aspx?cid=14303

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/gifted-kids/201105/is-your-child-gifted-what-look-and-why-you-should-know