Meeting the Needs of Intense Adults, Online and Off

Meeting the Needs of Intense Adults, Online and Off.

As published on “An Intense Life” by Lisa Rivera

What are your social-emotional needs? Intellectual needs? Creative needs? Physical needs? Twice-exceptional needs?

Not your children’s.

Yours.

Are you meeting them?

And does the very idea make you squirm with discomfort? (Sure, my kids are gifted, but me??)

Many of the posts in [An Intense Life], have been a fascinating discussion of questions such as these, forming a virtual support group for gifted adults, regardless of whether they think of themselves as gifted, whether they are posters, commenters, or lurkers. I learn something from every post and comment, even though I haven’t been nearly as active a participant on this blog (or any other blogs, including my own!) as I’d like to be recently. My excuse is that I have been busy co-chairing SENG’s (Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted) 2012 Annual Conference, Shining Light on Giftedness: Empowering Families and Communities, to be held July 13-14, 2012 in Brookfield, Wisconsin (just west of Milwaukee).

One aspect of the conference this year that I am most excited about is a new breakout strand on gifted adults, where you can continue this online support offline and in person. Parents, teachers, and other adults usually come to gifted conferences such as SENG’s to understand their children better, but they go home realizing that there is much to understand and celebrate about themselves, as well. I love to see the spark (sometimes an anxious spark, but a spark nonetheless) in their eyes that is the beginning of a new road of self-understanding.

Here is a peek at some of the gifted adult breakout sessions we are offering this summer in Milwaukee:

• Disorganized Adults:  Is It Too Late to Learn New Skills? (by Kathleen Crombie)
• Enjoying the Gift of Being Uncommon Together (by Willem Kiupers)
• Finding and Claiming Your Adult Giftedness (by Lisa Erickson)
• Gifted Comes of Age: Generativity, Integrity, Entelechy (by Joy Navan)
• Giftedness Beyond the Classroom:  How to Survive and Thrive in Adulthood (by E. S. Vorm)
• Grappling with Giftedness: A Lifelong Challenge (by Ellen Fiedler)
• “My Child Is Gifted, Not Me!” Parents Coming to Terms With Their Own Giftedness (by Dan Peters)
• Staying Close to Your Profoundly Gifted Spouse (by Suzanne James)

You can learn more about the conference at the SENG website. I hope to see some of you in my home town of Milwaukee this July!