Review! Gifted, Bullied, Resilient: A Brief Guide for Smart Families by Pamela Price

The first thing to say is that I did receive a copy of this book for review purposes. However, given that the author is on my auto-buy list (which means I'd have been buying it as soon as I heard of its release), and the subject matter, it was going to end up in my hands sooner rather than later anyway.

Now. Given Skeeve's, my, and Mad Natter's struggles with bullying, this was a huge book for me. I've been anxiously awaiting its release for at least the last six to eight months, and that's all I can reasonably remember - it might have been a lot longer. The digital copy arrived in my
inbox this afternoon, and I promptly dropped everything, picked up paper and a pen, and immersed myself in the book.  Mad Natter was out playing with the neighborhood kids, I had some time...  I'm sad that I finished reading before I started dinner, and only partly because dinner's about half an hour late. Mostly because I want more.

Learning About Giftedness

This post contains affiliate links to materials discussed. Purchases via these links help support our family at no additional cost to you. Thank you for choosing to support my little blog. Read my full disclosure statement here. 

I wish I had started blogging long ago, keeping better track of the things I thought were odd. I wish I'd kept tabs on that moment I had the OMG, GIFTED epiphany. It seemed at the time like something I'd remember forever, but now we're three years down the road, and it's all so blurry looking back.

It's Parenting The Gifted Week!

Congratulations, all you wonderful folks raising gifted children, this is Your Week!  Jen, from Laughing at Chaos, is looking for suggestions on what kinds of things parents need - swing by and let her know what would make your life easier.  As for me, I have my own take on these things. What would make life easier? Recognition of the gifted poor.

I'm not allowed to watch TV anymore...

So, I learned something about myself while we were visiting Hammie and Buppa for the 4th of July. I, apparently, am no longer allowed to watch network television. Of all the things! Here at our Mooselandia home, we only have Netflix and YouTube for television viewing - and, of course, DVDs/Blu-Rays - so I've long since fallen out of touch on what is present in standard media anymore.

Movie Night!

Once a week, on Tuesdays, our Mooselandia home is turned into Gaming Central. We have between three and five guests, plus at least one person Skyping in. However, the game tends to run well into the night, which leaves Mad Natter out from playing. And so, in an effort to make sure he doesn't feel unwelcome or left out, I instituted Movie Night.  Every Tuesday night, we retire to The Big Bedroom, turn on a movie, eat popcorn in the bed, and hang out together.

It just keeps turning up.

Oh, the "All kids are gifted" meme. It's like a bad penny. It just keeps coming back. I'm not sure who thought this was a good idea, or when it became appropriate to co-opt medical diagnoses for feel-good purposes, but there it is. This week has been worse for it than most. This week, I got an emailed notification of a new comment on a blog. I'd been back-of-mind dealing with the "all kids are gifted" trope to begin with, and one specific comment threw me for a loop.

Resource Review: All About Spelling!

This post contains affiliate links to materials discussed. Purchases via these links help support our family at no additional cost to you. Thank you for choosing to support my little blog. Read my full disclosure statement here. 

Something I realize I haven't talked much about has been Spelling.  We all talk about language arts, but somehow spelling gets forgotten in that.  At our house, that's less because spelling is a non-starter, but because it, like science, is one of the few subjects that gets done with very little fuss.  And for that?  I completely credit All About Spelling. Mad Natter, who absolutely hates review, will ask me if we can do spelling work. Mad Natter, whose handwriting is years behind his mind, will ask me to do spelling.  This is astounding to me.

Inside Out!

So, I'm late to jump on the Inside Out train. However, Mad Natter and I went to see the movie with Hammie this week, and it honestly deserves a post of its own.  You see, it's a Pixar film, which means it's going to be amazing, that's just because it's Pixar. But, it was more than that.  Even though the Vat O' Fruit Punch Mad Natter got before the movie meant we had to leave to pee three times between the middle and the end, the film was still so astounding as to absolutely merit talking about it. And honestly, the number one reason is because of Mad Natter's first comment after it was over: "You know, Mama, I think I have all those characters from the movie inside ME!"  SOLD.

No, it really *is* what you do with it.

I've had a bit of a thought recently, and I haven't really had time to follow it all the way to its conclusion. However, I've been guilty of skimming the comments of Facebook posts. What do you want, I've been stuck in the house trying to heal. Anyway, I learned something new, which is completely astonishing to anyone who has EVER read any comment section anywhere: being gifted?  It doesn't mean you're actually smart.

A Review of Khan Academy: Math

Alright. As we all know, I've been off my game recently. As a result, many things slid, and the homeschool year ended abruptly on my surgery date. I'd spent a good amount of time looking for something for Mad Natter to do to keep his math from atrophying over the summer, and it seemed like The Time to start it up, especially since I had a recommendation from our next door neighbor as well.

Makin' It Work!

In the course of talking about gifted education, we often criticize pull-out programs, because you know, gifted children aren't only gifted one hour per day, or one day per week. But the thing that gets less attention is a continuation of that same fact – gifted people aren't only gifted when they're children, and they aren't only gifted when they're in an academic setting.  So, how do three gifted people with varying overexcitabilities, needs, and degrees of introversion manage to live in a house together – without killing each other?

Recovery!

Hiatus.  It is finally ending.  Entries might be a bit sporadic yet, but I'm hoping to be back with at least some regularity now. Almost three weeks ago, I had day surgery. My team was excellent, and I was home and in a very minimal amount of pain within about eight hours from when we left. But, the surgery was a surprise, so everything has been all out of whack because I wasn't able to prepare. Then add in coaching and general chauffeur duties, and it's been... chaotic would be understating.

On Hiatus

Sorry, folks. I'm out of commission for probably the next two weeks. I'll fill you in when I'm able, but until then, nothing life-threatening is happening, I'm just spinning so quickly I can't get anything coherent enough to post.  I'll be back soon!

The Value of Free Time

I never quite seem to appreciate what we have when we have it. I'm not sure why that is, but it's the case regardless.  Every fall Mad Natter goes into hockey, and I whine and complain about being out of the house at the crack of dawn (literally) on Saturdays and Sundays from September to March. Then the summer comes, and I revel in the not-early mornings. This year, though, I let a few voices get to me.

Intersections

The recent kerfuffle about bullying gifted children in the mainstream media has a lot of people talking. And some of what they're saying is reasonable and level-headed - things like

@TODAYshow highly gifted and profoundly gifted are not jokes they are actual psychological terms for people in the top 2% of IQ #Gifted

— Becky Lichucki (@rlichucki) May 24, 2015

and

There's no way to defend mocking #gifted kids. Mocking Parents of Gifted Kids Isn’t Funny http://t.co/qJv9hn2iHO @TODAYshow @SWilderTaylor

— Celi Trépanier (@CeliCeliC) May 24, 2015

When Mainstream Media is the Bully

Apparently, Al Roker, Natalie Morales, and Stefanie Wilder-Taylor think it's great fun to laugh at gifted children. Yeah, same old trope, all children are gifted, blah. But then, Ms Wilder-Taylor quotes out the oft-accepted 2%-5% of the population is gifted stat, followed by the mockery that parents then have to one-up each other claiming their child is "highly" gifted. Wow. Because "highly gifted" is completely different from "left handed." My question, though, is this: Would they all be so quick to point and laugh at the other side of the curve?

Making a Change

Several years ago, I was looking at math curricula, and stumbled into Beast Academy. I was upset at the time that it didn't start until grade 3, and even then was only grades three and four.  But, I was determined to wait it out. So, we started Right Start, and went with it, then moved over to Math Mammoth. Now, Mad Natter is at a place where he could easily manage Beast Academy, but there's a problem.

A Very Quirky Life

It's been hectic. No end of hectic here. We now have activities five days per week, and my being a moderately introverted homebody means I'm up to my eyeballs, and not particularly digging it. But, it's just for the summer. I can manage for the summer.  Anyway! Blogs may be a little sporadic as I try to keep my sanity as best as I can. One of these seasons I'll remember to not overschedule the blazes out of us, but it seems this is not the season. It does, however, bring me rather neatly to my point for today: the quirks of the gifted. How does this fit? Easy - one of my own quirks is the driving need to DO ALL THE THINGS!

Summer Plans

The school year is ending, summer is practically around the corner, and naturally this means that there is exactly NO relaxing going on in our Mooselandia home!  Between our general status as "year rounders" and the usual sort of summer activity, there is no end of craziness happening here.

Year-End Round Up

Well, this week went a little more pear-shaped than I expected. I found out I'm coaching a pee-wee baseball team, all our care practitioners called to make appointments for the week, and then we had the usual hustle of said baseball meet-and-greet / photo day, Taekwondo, and those appointments... It's been a little harried.  However, the end of the year is upon us!  Already!  Good grief, where does the time go?

And so, I wanted to leave the update for how the year progressed for us, versus how we had planned for it to go.