On 10/16 MVGATE helped bring the celebrated Dr. James Webb to Mill Valley to give a remarkable talk on parenting gifted children. You can watch his entire workshop in our home-shot video (94 minutes), or use the annotated Index below to jump straight to your most urgent questions. We’ll post Jim’s slides soon. Please tell us your favorite parts in Comments, below.

Index

Part I: Resources & Background on Dr. Webb

Email questions to Dr. Webb. Definition of “gifted.” (5:25)
Publishers that focus on resources for gifted children (7:45)
SENG (Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted) organization (8:30)
Gifted kids and suicide (not more common except in some cases) (9:30)

Part II: Parenting a Gifted Child

The parenting experience (11:57)
A Universal trait of gifted kids: intensity (12:30)
The most frequent concerns of Parents. (13:38 to 30:00). [Is my child gifted? Matching school-curriculum to the gifted child. Intensity. Perfectionism. Idealism, unhappiness and depression. Motivation and underachievement. Sibling issues. Peer relation issues. Asynchronous development/curriculum challenges, and judgment vs. intellect. Communication issues & two biggest takeaways (24:45). Discipline and self-discipline (dealing with strong wills, power struggles). Values and traditions.]

Part III: Useful Web Sites (30:04). Define “gifted” (30:45)

Part IV. Frequent problems with gifted kids (34:00)
Characteristic health problems, including “One of the best-kept secrets in the gifted literature” (38:30)

Part V: Characteristics of gifted kids (45:35)

Part VI: Four key factors (54:28): level of giftedness, asynchronous development, over-excitability, thinking style (60:06)
Question re dyslexia & 2E (72:32)

Part VII: Five over-excitabilities – intellectual, imaginational, emotional, psychomotor (and ADHD misdiagnosis), sensual. (73:30) Manage them so they work for you, not against you.

Part VIII:Audience questions

Siblings of gifted kids (79:46)
How to have productive dialog with school or teacher (83:02); parents must become leaders (87:46)
Emotional needs (self-esteem, self-confidence) in 2E (88:09)
Enrichment vs. acceleration, grade-skipping, home-schooling, etc. (90:17)