Summer plans may not be shaping up the way we had imagined, but that doesn’t mean that traveling to new and exciting places are off the table. There are no limits to where our minds can take us. No matter where we find ourselves, there is always an opportunity for adventures and self-discovery right at the tip of our fingers!

Summer magic is manifested in books! Let the adventure begin.

Elementary School

Summer by Cao Wenxuan, illustrated by Yu Rong

Readers find out how some of their favorite animals stay cool during the summertime in this whimsical, poetic book. The animals fight until they are inspired by an act of love to offer shade to one another. Through lyrical text from Hans Christian Andersen Award winner Cao Wenxuan, the story comes alive with bright, delicate art from award-winning illustrator Yu Rong.

Mañanaland by Pam Muñoz Ryan

New York Times best-selling author Pam Muñoz Ryan is an American writer for children and young adults, particularly in the multicultural genre. In this magical story, Maximiliano Córdoba goes on a dangerous journey armed only with a compass, a mysterious stone rubbing, and legends about traveling mythical gatekeepers.

Clayton Byrd Goes Underground by Rita Williams-Garcia, illustrated by Frank Morrison

When his beloved grandfather, the blues man Cool Papa Byrd, dies suddenly, Clayton’s anger and misplaced alliances get him into trouble. This story of family grief, reconciliation, and the power of music is set in New York City.

Mindy Kim Series By Lyla Lee illustrated by Doug Ho

Lyla Lee’s Mindy Kim series is a heartwarming, authentic look at an 8-year-old girl trying to navigate life in a new state where her Korean heritage makes her stand out., launched in January 2020 with books,  Mindy Kim and the Lunar New Year Parade and Mindy Kim and the Yummy Seaweed Business.

Just in Case You Want to Fly by Julie Fogliano, illustrated by Christian Robinson

What do you need for your next adventure? Explore this nurturing tale through colorful pictures and lyrical text. A joyful, inclusive cast of children fly, sing, and wish their way across the pages, with everything they could ever need-a cherry if you need a snack, and if you get itchy here’s a scratch on the back-to explore the world around them.

Middle School

Wink By Harrell Rob

A wrenching and hilarious story about embracing life’s weirdness and surviving an unthinkable diagnosis, based on the author’s own experience with a rare eye cancer. Twelve-year-old Ross Maloy just wants to be normal. Not to have a rare eye cancer, not to lose his hair, not to have to wear a weird hat or have a goopy eye full of ointment. Just normal. 

Queen of the Sea by Dylan Meconis, illustrated by the author

Cult graphic novelist Dylan Meconis offers a rich reimagining of history in this hybrid novel loosely based on the exile of Queen Elizabeth I by her sister, Queen Mary. As an added bonus Candlewick Press is offering a Drawing demo with Dylan, premiering July 24th .

The Bridge Home by Padma Venkatraman

Runaway sisters Viji and Rukku end up living on the streets of Chennai, where they find a new family of friends who help them to survive by scavenging the city’s mountains of rubbish. Penguin Middle School hosts an Q&A with the Author for added context after reading the book.

The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Gemeinhart

Coyote Sunrise and her dad travel the country in their school bus. Along the way, they meet new friends who help them see their world in a new way and heal from the tragedy that hit their family five years earlier.

High School

Aix Marks the Spot by S.E. Anderson

Jamie has been dreaming of this summer forever: of road trips and intensive art camps, of meeting cute boys with her best friend Jazz. What she didn’t count on was the car accident. Anderson recently took part in YA Thriller Con, an online two-day event to celebrate and talk about all thinks YA Thriller.

Swing By Kwame Alexander & Mary Rand Hess

Kwame Alexander might be more well known for The Crossover series but these New York Times bestselling authors team up to tell this lyrical story about hope, courage, and love that speaks to anyone who’s struggled to find their voice. And the surprise ending shines a spotlight on the issues related to our current social divide, challenging perspectives and inspiring everyone to make their voice heard.

CIRCE by Madeline Miller

A bold and subversive retelling of the Circe from Homer and the Odyssey. This goddess’s story, a #1 New York Times bestseller. This remarkable journey into mythology brings the ancient gods directly and viscerally into the present. Circe is a perfect mashup of elegant language, glorious storytelling, and exquisitely modern sensibilities. 

American Road Trip By Patrick Flores-Scott

With a strong, loving family, an incredibly loyal best friend, and a budding romance with the girl of his dreams, life shows promise for seventeen-year-old Teodoro “T” Avila. But he takes some hard hits the summer before his senior year when his nearly perfect brother Manny returns from a tour in Iraq with a devastating case of PTSD.

Adult

Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang (Chiang Feng-nan)
This is a perfect example of why science fiction now calls itself speculative fiction. No aliens, no space travel, no dystopias. Only nine mind-stretching tales based on technological or historical hypotheses. From an award-winning science fiction writer (whose short story “The Story of Your Life” was the basis for the Academy Award-nominated movie Arrival), the long-awaited new collection of stunningly original, humane, and already celebrated short stories

The Peanuts Papers: Writers and Cartoonists on Charlie Brown, Snoopy & the Gang, and the Meaning of Life: A Library of America Special Publication By Andrew Blauner (Editor)

This collection offers a delightful range of commentaries, by authors from Umberto Eco to Maxine Hong Kingston, including analyses of Lucy’s incongruity as a psychiatrist and Snoopy’s triumphant narcissism, to a Jonathan Lethem parody of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl.”

On Looking: A Walker’s Guide to the Art of Observation by Alexandra Horowitz

From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Inside of a Dog. Walk as Horowitz did, in the company of observers, from a toddler to a typographer, a diagnostician to an urban designer, a doctor to a sound engineer, your walks will soon exemplify Proust’s observation,“The real voyage of discovery consists, not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli

Any writer on physics who’s praised by novelist John Banville, naturalist Michael Pollan, and actor Benedict Cumberbatch, as well as his professional colleagues, must be exceptional—and Rovelli is. He uses analogy, witty diagrams, a sense of drama, and quotations from Horace, Shakespeare, Rilke, and the Grateful Dead to make his explanations of space-time, gravitational fields, and such, as Einstein said “as simple as possible, but no simpler.”

If you shop through IEA’s Amazon Smile link, Amazon will donate a portion of the purchase to IEA. Click here to shop through our Amazon Smile link. Let us know which books you will be reading this Summer in the comments below! 

As the COVID-19 pandemic has developed over the last couple of weeks, I have been struck by my own attachments to simple comforts and small routines – they make me feel safe, and when the grocery stores started feeling post-apocalyptic, I began to feel my sense of safety diminish. I realize that my experience of the pandemic is an incredibly privileged one; many people in our community have not only experienced a shift in routine – their lives have been upended. Some have lost jobs; some are struggling to feed their children, who usually eat breakfast and lunch at school; some are struggling to work full-time from home while trying to navigate emergency homeschooling; and some have gotten very, very sick or lost loved ones to the virus.

Whatever your experience has been during this time, I know that a loss of routine can feel foreboding. Children rely on their routines for their own sense of stability, and while transitions are difficult for all of us, they are especially unsettling and scary for children. Even a transition as simple as shifting from park time to get-in-the-car time can yield a reaction so intense that you might feel compelled to hide behind the twisty slide until the volcano in the middle of the wood chips ceases its erupting.

Gifted children experience a heightened awareness that is “qualitatively different from the norm,” (Columbus Group), and your child’s response to a shift in routine (no matter how slight the shift may seem) might manifest as intense anxiety, stomach aches, outbursts, reclusiveness, or all of the above, even if this extra time spent together has felt like a gift. My own child sat in the middle of the sidewalk during her scooter ride yesterday and wailed, WAILED, because a chirping bird in a tree, whom she had named “Baby Tweetie” did not come down to play with her. I was baffled. I thought the moment would pass quickly, but she cried about Baby Tweetie for hours: “BAAABY TWEEEEETIE! I LOVE HER AND SHE LOVES MEEEEE!” Her routine hasn’t shifted as dramatically as others’ have, but she is one of the most social people I know, and not playing with friends every day has been difficult for her. She longs for connection, and she was full of despair when her friend Baby Tweetie couldn’t offer it to her.

During my time working with Yunasa campers, I noticed that many gifted children feel intense anxiety relating to their perceived inability to affect change in a world of suffering. Younger kids might feel anxiety pertaining to their inability to affect change in their own, much smaller worlds. And when their lives have seemingly turned upside down, when their stabilizing routines have vanished, that anxiety might feel really big.

As we craft new routines during this time of transition, we might also provide tools for our kids to affect change in little ways.  As I read Peace is an Offering by Annete LeBox to my daughters today, it occurred to me that it is completely within our power to spread peace right now, and we can empower our kids to do the same. What is peace, exactly? I think it is a sense of serenity, a feeling of acceptance, a knowing that we are ok, even when things are crumbling around us. We might experience peace as our anxieties calm down, our anger subsides, or our feelings of restlessness diminish. And as we work to spread peace in our little worlds (or in the world at large), we experience a greater measure of peace, too.

“Peace is an offering. A muffin or a peach. A birthday invitation. A trip to the beach. Peace is gratitude for simple things. Light through a leaf, a dragonfly’s wings. A kiss on the cheek, raindrops and dew. A walk in the park, a bowl of hot stew.”

We spread peace by putting forth little offerings of grace and kindness into our communities. We keep our eyes open and meet needs where we can. We remain attentive, looking for beauty everywhere.

“Peace is holding on to another. Peace is the words you say to a brother. Will you stay with me? Will you be my friend? Will you listen to my story till the very end?”

We help others experience peace when we offer them our presence and attention.

“And even in the wake of tragedy, even then, you might find her. In the rubble of a fallen tower. In the sorrow of your darkest hour. In the hat of a hero. In the loss of a friend.”

Peace can coexist with sorrow and turmoil.

“So offer a cookie, walk away from a fight. Comfort a friend through the long, dark night.” Sing a quiet song. Catch a falling star.”

I think this book is saying that peace is something we can all work to spread. It is something that each of us can offer. When we find needs and meet them, when offer kindness, when we provide our undivided presence (from a safe distance, of course), we are affecting change.

This week, someone sent me flowers for no reason, my neighbor offered to drop off lemon turmeric cake, and my daughter’s cousin sent her a postcard. All of these little offerings helped to spread peace because they got me thinking how we could spread some love too. And if this trajectory continues, peace ought to spread even as the coronavirus continues to disrupt our lives and harm people we love. These are tangible tools we can offer our children, who might be feeling especially powerless and uncertain: 1. Let’s find a need and meet it. 2. Let’s send someone something that will make them feel special. 3. Let’s offer each other our complete attention. 4. Let’s find beauty in every corner of our lives. 5. Let’s provide comfort for someone who is hurting.

“Sing a quiet song. Catch a falling star. May peace walk beside you wherever you are.”

We hope that you will share this blog with others who may find it helpful. If you are able, please consider contributing to the Institute for Educational Advancement to help our organization continue to provide exceptional programming during this difficult time. 

When I summarize IEA’s work to people outside our network: “…we are an educational nonprofit that works with gifted kids,” I am often met with skepticism and confusion. The most common response I have received is, “I believe all kids are gifted.” I do too! All kids have special giftings. As a mother of a four-year-old and one-year-old, I exist in a state of perpetual awe as I watch the personalities of my own children and the children in my community unfold. My preschooler has a remarkable propensity for language; she has been holding elaborate conversations since before turning two, and through language, she has been able to reveal a deep understanding of her own emotion and the emotions of others. One of her best friends, who wasn’t interested in speaking as early, has LEGO architecture skills that could land him a job designing hoverboards and intricate skyscrapers and giant ships right now, at age four. A three-year-old I know can draw a Mr. Potato Head picture that he could easily slip into a book of 1920s surrealist art and no one would know the difference. And every child I meet astounds me with either a wild and creative imagination, a surprisingly sharp sense of humor, a well of empathy, or all of the above.

Yes, of course all kids are gifted, in that all kids have creativity, beauty, love, special talents, and unique modes of intelligence comprising their very being.

But this is not what we mean by “gifted.” As a society, we needed a word to describe people whose experience of life is measurably different than their peers. I like the definition created by the Columbus Group in 1991: “Giftedness is asynchronous development in which advanced cognitive abilities and heightened intensity combine to create inner experiences and awareness that are qualitatively different from the norm.” When we dismiss the term “gifted” because we have disdain for labeling children, or because all children are gifted, we are denying the existence of an entire body of people, whose inner workings are remarkably different than most.

A few years ago, Dr. Patty Gatto Walden, Yunasa Senior Fellow and psychologist, presented at the Beyond Giftedness Conference in Colorado. I had the privilege of listening to her speak. One idea from her discussion especially stood out to me: she talked about the incoming “channels” that each person experiences. In a classroom, a child might take in several channels at once – the message of her teacher, the mutterings of her classmates, the sound of the shifting leaves on the pavement outside, the feeling that her desk-mate is melancholy, the way the new piece of art on the left wall of the classroom makes her want to paint. A person whom we have deemed “gifted,” whose “inner experience and awareness is qualitatively different from the norm,” takes in hundreds of channels. Hundreds. Not several. She might be absorbing the message of the teacher while feeling that something is happening in the teacher’s life that is new and exciting; she feels her desk-mate’s melancholy, and her skin starts to tingle and her tummy begins to sink; she listens to the mutterings of her classmates and feels their emotions, too; she hears every sound in the classroom and outside, and each sound makes her body feel something different. For the sake of time, I won’t describe all 200 or 400 channels that our gifted child might be taking in. Dr. Patty took it further and said that a highly gifted person takes in thousands of channels.  That is a lot for anyone. It is a lot for a child who is still learning who she is.

When we say someone is “gifted,” we are not inferring that he is “better” or “more special” than other children. We need a label, though. We need a label because we need special programs. We need different types of classes, camps, workshops, counseling sessions, support groups, books, retreats, scholarship options, learning centers, and more, so we can help these children understand themselves and flourish. And at IEA, we want to provide gifted kids and their families with a community of people who deeply connect with them, so they don’t feel alone.

Click here to learn more about IEA’s definition of “giftedness”. You can also learn more about how to understand, spot and address Underachievement in Gifted Children

In today’s media and news, I feel like I hear more stories about the benefits of sharing emotions and discussing mental health than I ever did growing up. This is a wonderful thing and through popular media including television and movie portrayals and celebrity confessions, we are growing more accustomed to talking about historically taboo or just unknown topics surrounding emotions and mental health.

With great strides being made in these conversations, it seems important to discuss emotional intensity among our country’s brightest, and sometimes most vulnerable, youth.

The Davidson Institute has a great explanation for why gifted youth tend to experience more intense emotions, saying, “Intellectual complexity goes hand in hand with emotional depth. Just as gifted children’s thinking is more complex and has more depth than other children’s, so too are their emotions more complex and more intense.”

Gifted youth are often more aware of and affected by their surroundings. Children who feel things with great intensity experience the world in a different way than their non-gifted peers. Emotional or physical reactions to events can last longer for gifted children. These experiences of heightened stimulation observed in many gifted individuals are referred to as intensities or Overexcitabilities. Polish psychologist Kazimierz Dabrowski identified five overexcitabilities and their associated behaviors:

1. Psychomotor: Characterized primarily by high levels of energy
2. Sensual: Characterized by a heightened awareness of all five senses: sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing
3. Emotional: Characterized by extreme emotional sensitivity
4. Intellectual: Characterized by deep curiosity and thought
5. Imaginational: Characterized by vivid imagination and visualization

The first step in managing intense emotions is identifying and understanding them. If you think your child exhibits overexcitabilities, talk to your child about how they feel and react to certain situations. Healthy discussions around expressing emotions make everyone feel safer and more understood. Starting these discussions at a young age enforces good habits for the future.

How exactly do these overexcitabilities manifest themselves? It varies from child to child, but there are common behaviors associated with all five overexcitabilities.

• Psychomotor responses can include pacing, rapid talk or use of hand gestures
• Sensual responses can include sensitivities to clothing textures, food tastes or a need for physical displays of affection like cuddles or hugs
• Emotional responses can include intense feelings of empathy or compassion, depression, anxiety or loneliness
• Imaginational responses can include visualizations, use of metaphorical speech, dreaming or magical thinking
• Intellectual responses can include constant curiosity, deep thinking or a propensity towards solving puzzles and problems

Understanding what emotional intensities are and the behaviors associated with them can help with misdiagnosis or just plain misunderstanding. While some of the more extreme behaviors associated with overexcitabilities can be worrisome for a parent or educator, such as a child’s depression or anxiety, there can also be a wonderful bright side to overexcitabilities.

Some of the benefits of overexcitabilities can include:

• Empathy and compassion towards others
• A desire to solve major world problems
• Creativity
• A high sense of self-awareness
• Enthusiasm
• High energy

Intense emotions don’t always need to be feared or regulated. They are what make so many gifted children wonderfully unique. However, for the times that overintesities do need to be managed, here are some strategies:

• Meditation
• Yoga
• Outdoor physical activities such as going on walks, hikes or playing at a park
• Quiet reflection time
• Journaling or drawing
• Encourage discussions about how your child feels and why they feel the way they do

I hope this blog post helps with identifying and managing intense emotions in a gifted child. IEA’s Gifted Resource Center also hosts a list of books, articles, programs and professionals that can be used as additional sources of information about overexcitabilities.

Thank you so much to all of our blog’s readers. This year we had a record number of visitors and comments on our blog! Here were the Institute for Educational Advancement’s top blog posts in 2019:

Everything You Want to Know About the Inner Workings of the Caroline D. Bradley Scholarship: Bonnie Raskin, Scholarship Director, gives our community a glimpse of what it is like to at the helm of the Caroline D. Bradley (CDB) Scholarship program.

 Featured Schools for Gifted Learners: This post features 10 California schools who are also highlighted in IEA’s new Gifted Schools Guide highlighting schools for gifted and advanced students throughout the United States.

Announcing the 2024 Class of Caroline D. Bradley Scholars: This past September, IEA announced the 2024 class of award recipients of the Caroline D. Bradley Scholarship, a four-year high school scholarship for gifted learners to attend an optimally matched high school program to help them work toward meeting their unique intellectual and personal potential.

Summer Programs for Gifted Students: In this post IEA spotlighted a list of fantastic Summer programs that serve gifted youth.

Podcasts about Giftedness: A post full of amazing podcast recommendations about gifted learners. These are great resources for parents and educators supporting bright young minds.

Educational Holiday Gift Ideas: There is no shortage of games and puzzles that are intellectually stimulating; Pylos, Quoridor, and the classic Rubik’s Cube are all examples of mentally challenging and fun games. In this post you can find a variety of educational toys and games to consider giving to a gifted child any time of the year!

3 Ways Parents Can Engage Gifted Students During the Holiday Break: Gifted children tend to have a strong desire and need for intellectual stimulation, and that need doesn’t go away when schools are closed. In this post are three ways parents can help foster positive social and academic growth during a holiday break.

How IEA Evaluates Caroline D. Bradley Scholarship Applications: This blog post walks through every step of the evaluation process for the Caroline D. Bradley Scholarship.

Why Give to IEA on Giving Tuesday: Development Manager Mavis Bortey-fio shared her most inspiring moments spent with IEA students in honor of this year’s #GivingTuesday campaign.

National Book Month: Featured Gifted Books for Parents and Educators: This post featured great reads for parents and educators focused on best practices and strategies for raising and educating a gifted child. These books are also listed on IEA’s Gifted Resource Center (GRC), which serves as a free online tool created and curated by IEA for our community.

Like this post? Sign up for our email newsletter to receive more stories, information, and resources about gifted youth straight to your inbox.

As we near the end of the year, I have been thinking about New Year Resolutions.

I was recently reading an old journal of mine and saw a list of tasks I wanted to accomplish before year end. Because the page wasn’t dated, I didn’t know what year the list was from.  The tasks ranged from “groceries/laundry” to “redesign shelving in guest room.”  This list could have been from today, as many of the items on the list are my current “to-dos.”  It reiterated for me the cyclical nature of our lives, (wash, rinse, repeat) and how we can get mired in the minutiae, if we don’t stop to focus on the big picture.

Julia Cameron wrote in The Artist’s Way that the journey to the mountain top is a spiral.  She explained that, at any point you will see a similar view, but not the same view as you see on the spiral level below you.

Because progress has been made.

Even though the tasks, chores and goals seem like the same tasks, chores and goals as last year, WE are different WEs.

That list I initially mentioned turned out to be from 2017.  I only pieced it together because it said, “file 2017 taxes,” but the other goals were very similar to what I have charted out for myself for 2020. 

So this year, rather than creating a checklist of tasks to accomplish, I am choosing to focus on less quantifiable and more qualitative resolutions.

*I am compassionate

*I am brave

*I am healthy

I confess, this shift was partly inspired by Karamo Brown of “Queer Eye”, but also by the sense that ticking boxes in the “done” column doesn’t necessarily lead me to a sense of pride or self-fulfillment.  If the goals I’m achieving aren’t directly resulting in a sense of peace and accomplishment, then perhaps they are not the most useful goals.

Karamo was helping a guest create a vision board and he shared, “The only thing [the previous vision board] was doing every day was reminding you that you didn’t accomplish something.  The new vision board is going to include who you ARE.  When you work on BEING, all those other things are just going to work.”

Yes, laundry has to get done, but will I actually feel like I’ve grown as a person if my resolution of “I do laundry every Sunday in 2020” gets completed? Will it matter if I don’t do laundry every Sunday?  Personally, I don’t think so. Goals should help you move the needle from where you are to where you can be, with a sense of joy and purpose, not dread and duty.  Perhaps a stronger goal would be, “I am calm and clear-headed, and my home is a reflection of my inner peace.”

After setting resolutions that inspire you, then tasks can be created to help keep you on track, and in alignment with those resolutions, as we move farther up the spiral of experience.  This year, rather than creating a potential list of all the things we failed at or didn’t get done, let’s create goals that are fun to reach for and that will help us feel like better people at the end of the year.

I can’t wait to see who we become in 2020.

This past weekend, Bridges 2e Center for Research and Professional Development hosted the 2019 Vision & Leadership 2e Symposium. I had the honor and privilege of attending its Super Sunday program, which offered a diverse range of presentations by leading experts in the field of Gifted and Twice-Exceptional research, advocacy, talent development and education. While not the full picture of the many wonderful conversations I had with new and familiar faces, here are a few highlights of the people, places and presentations that I learned from at this special event.

Susan G. Assouline, Ph.D. is a research, scholar and director of the Belin-Blank Center at the University of Iowa, as well as 2019 2e Hall of Fame inductee. Her presentation, The Paradox of Twice Exceptionality: Unlocking the Door to Talent Development, introduced psychoeducational implications of clinically-based research with twice-exceptional individuals, as well as interdisciplinary research aims of neuroscientists, educators, computational geneticists and clinicians to help unlock and celebrate talent development.

Rick Olenchak currently serves as Head of the Educational Studies Department, Professor of Educational Psychology & Research Methodology, and Professor in the Gifted Education Research & Resource Institute at Purdue University. His presentation, Twice-Exceptional Persons, the 21st Century, and Lifespan Development as Viewed through an Affective Lens, emphasized the importance of socio-emotional development on all other development, and as it relates to Affect Development areas of need on the Bull’s Eye Model, including Natural Affect, World Context, Meta-Affect and Personal Affect.

Dr. Joseph S. Renzulli established the University of Connecticut’s annual Confratute Program with Professor Sally Reis, with whom he is also a co-founder of the Joseph S. Renzulli Gifted and Talented Academy in Hartford, Connecticut. He received the Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Award for Innovation in Education, considered by many to be “the Nobel” for educators and was a consultant to the White House Task Force on Education of the Gifted and Talented. His presentation, A Curriculum Enrichment Infusion Process for Jazzing Up The Standards Driven Curriculum, introduced guiding steps to incorporate higher-level thinking skills, creativity training activities and application of skills into curricular content.

Sally M. Reis, Ph.D. holds the Letitia Neag Morgan Chair in Educational Psychology at the Neag School of Education and is past-president of NAGC, co-director of Confratute, and former Vice Provost of Academic Affairs at University of Connecticut. Honored as a 2019 2e Hall of Fame inductee, her presentation, From Deficits to Strengths: Past and Present Turning Points on 2E Students and the Education They Deserve emphasized the need for presenting each individual with challenging learning that is strength-based, that enhances interests and task development, and that results in a positive reaction to challenges

Ann Smith is Executive Director of Gifted Support Center and serves as Past-President for the California Association for the Gifted, on the advisory board for the Belin-Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development, on the Editorial Board for the Gifted Education Communicator, on the Blue Ribbon Advisory Committee for the USC/US Department of Education Jacob Javits Grant, Project CHANGE, and on a Public Policy Committee for the Institute for Educational Advancement. Leave Your Sleep for Education is an interdisciplinary language arts curriculum created by Gifted Support Center that uses poetry and music to engage across disciplines for PreK through 8th-grade students. The Leave Your Sleep for Educational Project: How an interdisciplinary curriculum can help 2e learners be recognized for their gifts, introduced non-negotiable elements of an interdisciplinary language arts curriculum that is designed to provide opportunities for sustained engagement and talent development.

We look forward to incorporating many of the takeaways from these fantastic presentations into the programs at IEA. 

For more resources for 2e students, click here to visit IEA’s Gifted Resource Center. 

IEA’s annual Yunasa camp concluded powerfully at Camp Copneconic in Fenton, Michigan! Throughout the week, we watched all 79 campers – including 23 leadership campers – get to know themselves and each other in gentle yet profound ways. As ever, our leadership campers demonstrated incredible talents to connect with younger campers, support one another and be positive role models to all. All campers were empathetic, compassionate, sensitive and full of personality. It was an honor for the entire staff to watch the growth that transpired in each child.

Yunasa’s theme this year is passion. In a Fellow’s Workshop named Found Poetry, campers created a poem using reading materials focused on passion. It was a collaborative effort that culminated in a beautiful and powerful passage:

“This close relationship, it felt very natural,

An absolute thunderbolt merged with part of your being

My life had changed

Practice; how to play anew

Grand devotion, imported in my life

Such a devastating event, a slow burn, a sensitivity that resonates

Obsessively thought about

Devoted to this love story.

Fire, that’s me!”

In addition to Fellows Workshops, campers also spent time each day practicing psychosynthesis – a guided imagery meditation followed by in-depth discussion. Psychosynthesis helps one to focus, concentrate, be in tune with their senses, and be more aware of the present moment.

Yunasa also integrates specialized learning with traditional camp activities, so campers get a full experience of a weeklong sleep-away camp. Throughout the week, campers balance their day by participating in waterfront activities such as kayaking, sailing, tubing, fishing and riding in pontoons. Some land-based activities are also hugely popular such as archery, horseback riding, zip-lining and other rope courses.

Yunasa was a fun-filled week packed with exploration, friendships, growth and passion. Thank you to all campers, counselors, Fellows and staff for making it yet another amazing and memorable week. Have a great year ahead! We look forward to more summer fun in 2020!

Click here to view the entire Yunasa Michigan photo album. Sign up for e-newsletter to be the first to know when Yunasa 2020 dates and application information.

The nation’s children are headed back into the classroom as the 2019-2020 school year gets underway! New beginnings can be a grab bag of emotions. Excitement, fear, anticipation – going back to school is not for the faint of heart. Here are some ideas to help ease the way into new beginnings.

Setting the Scene

An early visit to a new classroom can help relieve anxiety.  If your child’s school is hosting an Open House or back to school event, attending can create a sense of comfort and familiarity.  If this is not possible, discuss with your child what they can expect. Compare the new experience to something familiar: “Your classroom might be like the one we went to last year at your brother’s report card night.”

Building Confidence

Even if your child is excited about the beginning of school, they may also have concerns.  Speaking positively about the transition can go a long way to reducing fear.  Remind your child of a successful time they were in a new environment: “I remember how you made friends with Amy at the picnic when you did not know her.”

Establishing Routine

In the morning rush of everyone getting ready for school or work, small things may get overlooked. An established morning routine is helpful: backpack, lunch (don’t forget utensils), review of afternoon plans and most importantly, goodbyes. Goodbyes can serve as a punctuation to the morning routine and help transitions.

Transitions Take Time

New activities are stressful. At the beginning of the year, teachers work hard to establish a routine and provide students with guidelines and expectations.  The structure of predictable routines both at home and school reduce anxiety. Just a few minutes with your child at the end of the day to let them tell you how things went will go a long way in back-to-school adjustment. If your child reports “problems,” try to refrain from giving solutions, but let your child tell you what they think and what they would like to see happen before discussing actions. Sometimes, like adults, a child just wants to be heard.

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Each year during the month of May, organizations like National Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health America, raise awareness and highlight the importance of mental health through local events, media, and health screenings. The unfortunate reality is there is a growing number of Americans who are living with mental illness or have been impacted by trauma. This, in turn, can significantly affect their physical, emotional, and mental well-being. Mental health organizations, like NAMI, work to support, educate, and advocate for policies that assist children, families, and communities.

As an organization, IEA is also dedicated to serving the holistic development and needs of gifted youth by recognizing that they have important aspects of themselves, including intellectual, emotional, social, spiritual, and physical. These unique facets of gifted youth must be met for them to find balance in their lives and actualize their full potential. We know that some of these young people are more vulnerable to facing social and emotional challenges that stem from being gifted and trying to navigate a world that doesn’t readily accept or understand them.

In support of National Mental Health Month and to acknowledge the importance of mental well-being among our gifted youth, we’ve compiled a list of mental health professionals and organizations who understand and have experience working with gifted families and communities.

Dr. Vula Baliotis

Licensed and SENG-certified psychologist, Dr. Vula Baliotis, is based out of the Los Angeles area and specializes in working with gifted, creative, and highly sensitive youth and their parents. She offers psychotherapy and consultation for children and parents and assessment for twice exceptionality, learning disabilities, and emotional, social, or behavioral difficulties.

Center for Connection

CFC utilizes a connection-based model that provides more comprehensive services for families, with independent professionals ranging from psychotherapy to parent education to neuropsychological assessments, from physical health and educational therapy to occupational therapy, and more.

Center for the Gifted

The Center for the Gifted, located in Philadelphia and led by Dr. Suzanne Schneider, was established in 1983 to meet the needs of gifted people of all ages. Services include counseling and psychotherapy, gifted identification, vocational interest testing and guidance, and workshops and publications focusing on the needs of the gifted population.

Child Mind Institute

The Child Mind Institute is an independent, national nonprofit dedicated to transforming the lives of children and families struggling with mental health and learning disorders. They work to deliver the highest standard of care, advance the science of the developing brain, and empower parents, professionals, and policymakers to support children when and where they need it most.

Creative Recovery Solutions

Gloria Sandford MA, LMHC specializes in Marriage and Family Therapy and has worked with a variety of issues concerning adults, children, marital issues, families, and support groups. She is a professional member and trained Parent Facilitator of and a Certified Lifespan Integration therapist.

Daimon Institute

The Daimon Institute for the Highly Gifted provides psychotherapy and educational consulting to support the overall development of exceptionally and profoundly gifted people. Located in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, their practice implements the Integral Practice for the Gifted model which addresses all aspects of the gifted individual: intellectual, emotional, moral, spiritual, social and physical.

Gunn Psychological Services

Gunn Psychological Services is a group of professionals dedicated to providing the highest quality psychological services and referrals, including developmental, psychoeducational, and intellectual giftedness assessments, as well as individual, family, couples and group therapy.

Linda Powers-Leviton, MFT

Linda Powers-Leviton is a licensed Marriage, Family and Child therapist who specializes in counseling for the gifted. Since 1974, she has developed and taught programs to help parents and educators best reach children with learning and emotional challenges. Her expertise with the gifted population, particularly twice-exceptional youth, has prepared her to offer a unique specialized program to address the needs of this community.

Dr. Gail Post, Ph.D

As a clinical psychologist in practice for over 30 years, Dr. Post specializes in gifted adults and adolescents. Through private practice, she offers individual, couples, family and group therapy for adults and adolescents; consultation and supervision for treatment professionals; and educational consultation services for gifted children and adolescents.

Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted (SENG)

SENG is a national organization which seeks to inform gifted individuals, their families, and the professionals who work with them, about the unique social and emotional needs of gifted persons. SENG supports programs that foster in gifted individuals the mental health and social competence necessary for them to be free to choose ways to develop and express their abilities and talents fully.

Summit Center

Summit Center provides educational and psychological assessments, consultation, and treatment for children, their parents, and families. Summit works with all kids – including those who are gifted, those with learning challenges, and those who are twice-exceptional.

Terry Bradley

Terry Bradley is a gifted education consultant specializing in the social and emotional aspects of giftedness. Her services include a full-day workshop training for school personnel and mental health professionals on facilitating discussion groups for gifted K-12 students; a professional development training on the affective needs of the gifted; and a presentation for parents on what to know when raising gifted youth.

Tyler Institute

Tyler Institute provides high-quality mental health services by qualified professionals to children, adolescents, adults and families. Anne Tyler, its founder, is devoted to helping children, adolescents, families and adults work through mental health challenges in order to live up to their potential and manifest their talents and strengths in a more vibrant way in everyday life.

Dr. Patricia Gatto-Walden, Ph.D

Over the past 30 years, Dr. Patty has provided individual, couple, family, and group counseling to gifted and profoundly gifted individuals across the life span, from very young children to people in their elder years. Her therapeutic orientation is holistic with a relationship focus.

For additional resources, visit our online Gifted Resource Center (GRC) which contains an ever-growing and robust listing of over 800 resources appropriate for gifted learners from pre-k through high school.

Want to share a resource? Email GRC@educationaladvancement.org or comment below!