Next week (July 21-27, 2013) marks National Parenting Gifted Children Week, a time of focused awareness and advocacy regarding the needs of gifted children. The week, which is listed on the National Special Events Registry, is sponsored by SENG (Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted) and coincides with SENG’s annual conference, taking place this year July 19-21 in Orlando, Florida.
One feature of this year’s celebration is an offering of four free webinars about parenting gifted children. (Each of the offered webinars certainly has helpful insights for teachers, administrators, counselors, and other education and mental health professionals, too.) Anyone parenting a gifted child knows all too well that it is often not the cakewalk the rest of the world assumes it to be. Whether it’s the anxiety of watching a bright child shut down from lack of challenge, or the exhaustion of trying to keep up with a child whose intense thirst for learning never ceases, or the worry when one’s ten-year-old is having a mid-life crisis, parents of gifted children can find themselves facing paradoxical conundrums that no one else seems to understand or take seriously.
With that in mind, SENG’s webinars are intended to offer support, guidance, information, insights, and relief. Here are the free webinars for this year’s National Parenting Gifted Children Week:
Monday, July 22: Bootcamp for Determined Advocates, presented by Wenda Sheard, an attorney, teacher, and mother of three grown gifted children. This webinar will focus on legal, political, and educational aspects of advocacy.
Tuesday, July 23: Forging Partnerships with Teachers and Why They Often Don’t Work, presented by Nancy Robinson, professor emerita of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington and former director of what is now known as the Halbert and Nancy Robinson Center for Young Scholars. This webinar will feature reasons parents and teachers can be on different pages, plus strategies for coming together and working together on behalf of the child.
Wednesday, July 24: Parent Engagement in Promoting a STEM Identity Among Gifted Black Students, presented by Tarek Grantham, associate professor in the Department of Educational Psychology and Instructional Technology (EPIT) at the University of Georgia, and Kristina Collins, a doctoral student in the EPIT department whose research focuses on parent engagement, STEM identity, and under-represented gifted students. This webinar details strategies parents can utilize to encourage and support a positive STEM identity in underrepresented gifted youth.
Thursday, July 25: This Isn’t the Child I Dreamed of Raising, presented by Barbara Probst, social worker and author of When the Labels Don’t Fit. This webinar will assist parents in deconstructing their child’s challenging emotional and behavioral issues, followed by focused strategies to empower parent and child alike to overcome them and thrive.
More details about each webinar and each presenter are available at the webinar’s link.
PLEASE NOTE! Each webinar is only free to download on the date listed and for a one-time (“single use”) viewing. So wait until the day of to click the link and “order” the one(s) you want. (You can *watch* it anytime, but to get it free it has to be “ordered” on the date above.)
Still searching for more parenting-the-gifted resources? Try these options:
* Download a free copy of SENG’s ebook, The Joy and the Challenge: Parenting Gifted Children
* Check out the “Parents” tab at Hoagies’ Gifted Education Page
* Visit the “Parents” tab on the National Association for Gifted Children website
* Subscribe to Parenting for High Potential
What are some of your favorite parenting-the-gifted resources?