#028 Why is Self-Concept so crucial for gifted 2E students in the early years?

[00:01:19] And those outlier students. Yeah, most teachers are kind of go to a class and they’re hoping that if there are students with disabilities that impact their learning, that somehow the special needs educator in the school is going to parachute in and save them. And then they’re hoping that those higher ability at gifted students are going to kind of make it on their own.

[00:01:42] And this is very typical and very understandable in what’s becoming an extremely busy 21st century classroom. And so, , I did a big research around early career teachers and it was about 50% of them felt they were under-prepared for diversity within the classroom. That’s talking about both ends.

[00:02:07] So when without looking at twice exceptional GLD stuff, Well, it’s, it’s kind of that double-edged sword that we often hear about being talked about in the field. And so my, my interest is finding out more about these students. How can we find them and how can we support teachers and parents to support these students?

[00:02:28] , probably my drive it very often with education. My driving passion is social justice. I believe that everybody has the right to develop their full potential, and everybody has the right to know that they have a place in this world and a very valuable contributions to make. And it worries me about so many of our overlooked students, particularly GLD twice exceptional students.

[00:02:53] How many of those could have made a big difference? How many, when we’re talking about entrepreneurs and innovators and inventors, how many of those lost that self-concept, that self-confidence and decided to fly into the radar and just get through until they could get out of school and get, you know, do whatever is that they ended up choosing to do.

[00:03:15] And I always, , feel that for me, the thought of a state, anybody being at the end of their life and thinking, I know I could have done better. I could’ve done more. If I’d only had the chance, I wouldn’t want any of the students or the children I’d worked with ever say that. And so this is so, and generally teachers, , that I work.

[00:03:38] Without exception all believe the same. And so this is where I’m able to go in from a social justice issue to really support these educators to upskill. And they have to do it off their own back with their own money in their own time. They’re not trained through the main system. There are a couple of universities, UNSW as one of them in Australia that makes a gifted course mandated in pre-service training.

[00:04:04] But that sets, I think, two universities out of every university in Australia. , and this isn’t typical of Australia, it’s typical globally, unfortunately. So, you know, there’s change to be done, but without the advocacy role that I feel is also part in mine, it won’t happen. So, you know, onwards.

[00:04:22] Sophia Elliott: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:04:23] I couldn’t agree more. We, it’s definitely a cohort of students that we need to have a much better understanding of so that we can support them. But we have to start by supporting our teachers, , like you say, with that professional education and development in that area and preparing them better, , because are we talking about outliers, but.

[00:04:47] It’s a lot of kids, right. She talking about a lot of kids, you know,

[00:04:51] Geraldine Townend: like thousands.

[00:04:54] Sophia Elliott: Yeah. You bet. Tens of thousands. You say they deserve that opportunity to thrive and they’ll only get that through being understood. , so yeah. Research, , that we were going to talk about today in particular, , is about self-concept and self-concept in twice exceptional learners or children.

[00:05:14] So first of all, what is self-concept

[00:05:18] Geraldine Townend: self-concept is the way that we view ourselves within our world. And so it can be positive. It can be negative too generally with pack animals and we place ourselves. , in the pack with, , social support, social comparison. And this starts at a very young age and it, and it’s informed by and informed identity.

[00:05:40] And your identity is pretty much built during these formative years. By the time you were in year 12. Your identity is pretty much set. Not, not completely, but, you know, but at the time, even adult would be pretty much set. And so this is an important time. , self-concept is important to recognize and be understood.

[00:06:00] The get, go from a very young age because it has such a long and far reaching impact on, , not only our, , successes and, , but our, our life happiness relevancy and, and all the things that we associate with a good life. And for a long time after we leave school as well for fairly important parts of our career, our social economic status.

[00:06:26] The families, partnerships, children, and so on. And so it’s, it’s very, , very profoundly part of identity and, and how we see ourselves in the world.

[00:06:39] Sophia Elliott: So, correct me if I’m wrong. For me, that sort of, so it’s like a belief system that we have that is very much a platform That will launch us one direction or another, depending on what that belief system is about, our kind of sense of value.

[00:06:55] So huge impact in terms of what careers you might choose, what study you might choose partners, you might choose just your sense of who you are and your self worth and self value. So hugely important stuff. So what is your research showing you about twice exceptional children? And their self-concept.

[00:07:15] Geraldine Townend: Well, their self-concepts yeah. Seems to be fairly standard, , fairly strong before they start school. But when they start school, they then have. They recalibrate to taking the, , the context, the, , the environmental inputs of school. So larger numbers of people, , classrooms, teachers input, or the parents input children and peers input and how they are compared to, if you’re on the soccer field, how many dojo points they get in the class, how good they are lighting compared to seven next door.

[00:07:46] And. And because our twice exceptional students do have very often things that get in the way of their ability to learn and build some of those core skills. Their self-concept starts to go down because they are seeing the world or seeing themselves as less than by comparison. And so they do start to build a negative self concept.

[00:08:13] Sophia Elliott: I imagine as well. And I know many young, twice exceptional children that they’re also getting a lot of potentially getting, , messages about potential behavior in the school setting. So that’s going to impact their self concept as well, and the way they’re going to see themselves, ,

[00:08:35] Geraldine Townend: Yeah.

[00:08:35] How about how the teachers, how the peers, how everybody responds to them and if they are, , if they’re having behavioral issues or being pulled up on behaviors. Maybe they can’t stop talking. Maybe they can’t sit still. Maybe they, , have impulse control issues. Maybe they just don’t understand. They can’t meet the social dynamic at the time.

[00:08:58] Then all of this imports back into them from their environment will affect their psychological view of themselves. And that’s the self. Yeah,

[00:09:07] Sophia Elliott: and the key here is that’s developing at this really young age. So as parents, as teachers, as a community, , we need to be more aware of the impact of those early years in terms of it’s far reaching into the future of an individual.

[00:09:25] So what advice might you have for parents, , or teachers, , I don’t know, around talking to their children about self-concept or tools or strategies or support.

[00:09:35] Geraldine Townend: Yeah. There, there are many things. And of course it does fairy a little bit with the age and the context in which the children are living, but, , just in general, , for example, the, so their frame of reference their comparison and how they compare themselves with everybody around them.

[00:09:50] , when I, when I talk to students, for example, that go into effective high schools and they have the issue of what we call the big fish and upon the fact. So try and get this idea across all age groups. They will top of their class, perhaps in certain subjects, maybe maths, maybe English, maybe whatever.

[00:10:10] And then some of them in an environment where they’re pretty much average Jones and they feel instantly less than I do not have the resilience and the, the tools in which to deal with it. So what, what I do with these students is consistently give them external frames of reference. Yes. You’re sitting in the middle, in this class, whereas this class sitting compared to your age peers, across the state, across Australia and across the world.

[00:10:40] And so they, then they, then, , we calculate, I guess, where they’re seeing themselves. So yes, they aren’t, they they’re fed some middling in their class, even the lower end in certain results. But they can compare themselves. So it’s really important to have those external frames of reference when, , when we talk about, so maybe that’s something that they aren’t particularly good at.

[00:11:04] So with twice exceptional students, maybe they have, they, they’re not very good with like on the soccer field. Okay. And so, , what can we do about that? Now, the minute students start going to school, the parents’ influence becomes less and they build their frame of reference on what. People beyond the family are saying, because by the time students, when they’re three, they know that mom and dad will always say the nice thing, or grandma always say the nice thing.

[00:11:32] And so they start relying more on the teachers and the parents and the other community members input. So as a parent and as a teacher, I’d recommend, okay. So, , I’m not feeling that I’m not strong on the soccer field. What can I do about it? Well, we talk about the growth mindset. You know, the more you practice, the better you are, but for some students, it’s a disability involved, no matter how much they practice, they don’t have the right supports.

[00:11:58] They probably are never going to feel they’re really across something. And so then we can focus on, okay, maybe this is my area of challenge, and everyone has an area of relative challenge. That’s my area of strength. And if we get to young enough, children’s still know that strengthened. It’s only after a few years where they start saying nothing.

[00:12:20] I have, I’m not good at anything. So, so the younger we can, we can get that. So I talk about growth mindset and grit, building resilience. I talk about, I run two scenarios was a parent. I would run through a scenario and saying, when you, in this scenario, How do you feel okay, what can you do to feel better about yourself?

[00:12:43] What can you remind yourself? How can, what, , I wouldn’t say the word internal dialogue to one student, but what can you say to yourself? Oh, well, I’m not that devoted, handball, but I’m fantastic at whatever it is. Okay. Yeah. Maths or whatever it is. , and I do, I do recommend, you know, that time in the car with your children.

[00:13:05] They’re trapped. That’s a time to discuss that, discuss this now and the bigger picture. Yep. And the bigger picture is, , like they may not know what they want to do with the rest of their lives. I mean, I’ve talked to many adults that don’t know what to do for the rest of their lives, but, but, but what they, what we all do want to do is feel that we have options and we are able to develop in any way that we choose to utilize our strengths.

[00:13:33] And so having that strength based conversation, it doesn’t mean we ignore the, , the relative challenges. We cannot ignore if a student has dyslexia or ADHD or autism, we cannot ignore that. We have to support that. But by supporting that, we will support that, but we focus as well on their strengths so that they have this balance.

[00:13:58] We don’t leave them to fail because they’re focused on a strength. They still can’t achieve it because nothing’s been put in place to support whatever they need support.

[00:14:08] Sophia Elliott: Yeah. So with our, our twice exceptional students or children in particular, it’s coming back to that straight spaced model. It’s like, yes, we have challenges.

[00:14:19] However, acknowledging what the strengths are and using those strengths to, , pivot or. Getting that sort of frame of a broader frame of reference around what their challenges might be just to kind of give them a different perspective. So it’s not all focused on the, the challenge and this kind of.

[00:14:40] Sense of self that’s not achieving or very good at things, but kind of reframing that in the strengths kind of based model. And, , like, you know, where you’ve got these great strengths, everyone’s got challenges as well, and we’re going to work on those, but. Yeah. Focusing on those strengths a bit more.

[00:15:01] Geraldine Townend: Yeah, definitely focusing on strengths and that’s what I encourage teachers to, but it’s also really important to pivot on the challenges, the relative challenges. So w w what I do when I’m working with twice exceptional students try and rebuild their self so that they can. You at least thought to hope for a future that they can grow into.

[00:15:24] And so if they’ve, so I’ll, I’ll use examples of twice exceptional people who have been a success. And it’s not always that easy because on one of our twice, exceptional students have not been the success they want to be because they haven’t been recognized or identified or supported, but I’ll say I’ll find people who are, who have dyslexia.

[00:15:45] And I’ll say, so, you know, you’ve been diagnosed with dyslexia and look at these people who have dyslexia. The world is still your oyster. We will have to support the dyslexia, but it does. That does not define you. What defines these people is not their dyslexia. What defines them is the amazing ability in performing arts or science or, or whatever it is.

[00:16:08] And I’ll do that with all of them, ADHD, autism with everything. And so they actually have these role models that they didn’t realize were lonely. You have the, so I don’t ignore the challenge. That’s very much part of the identity. It’s part of who you are when you speak to people or you listen to podcasts by people like Richard Branson.

[00:16:30] He talks about his ADHD and it talks about, you know, a lot of it’s deficit things, but clearly he’s a gifted entrepreneur and he says, you know, I do have these relative deficits. What I do is I employ people to cover that stuff because I’m a big guy and I can get, and I can smash this if I’ve got people supporting that side of it, because I am so good at what I do.

[00:16:54] And so, , he’s a big picture. People with ADHD, with dyslexia, often a big picture thinkers. They’re great at running, , huge organizations, but they need somebody to be doing some of the detailed stuff for them. And that’s fine. Yeah. We don’t even warm it. We embrace it. Yeah.

[00:17:11] Sophia Elliott: And I know that there are, there are actually some good books out.

[00:17:15] I’m trying to think of the name of it. I will. Dig it up and put it in the, , in the show notes. But, uh, one in particular I’m thinking of is talking about different, , neurodivergency and for example, ADHD, autism, and dyslexia, and actually focuses on the strengths. That they have, , like you say, focusing on, , they’re, they’re obviously challenges, but actually they all have different strengths as well.

[00:17:47] And so that could be helpful information in terms of framing that sort of pivot, as you say, when talking about those areas of challenge. Okay.

[00:17:57] Geraldine Townend: And that’s still, and they’ve still got to get through that year 12 exams. Okay. Yep. So they might say, well, yeah, well, when I’m, you know, CEO of a big company, I can employ people to smell for me or whatever.

[00:18:07] , but I can’t do that for my year 12 exam. So you can’t, so let’s embrace it. Let’s acknowledge it. Let’s support it to give you the, every scaffolding opportunity you need to, , smash through year 12 and, and get on with what you got.

[00:18:23] Sophia Elliott: Yeah. Support providing that support, , where they need it as well.

[00:18:28] , so some great practical tips there in terms of different approaches. , if we’ve got a student or a child who are needing some help with this self-concept now I know that. You’ve already talked about your sense of social justice and advocacy and your passion for this area. And I want to just pivot a little in our conversation and you do do work with different organizations and associations, and you’ve noticed that parents of twice exceptional children.

[00:19:03] Go on quite a journey often to get that understanding and diagnosis, to figure out what’s going on. You know, we, we go on waiting lists. We have appointment six months and then we got to go somewhere else. I’ve certainly been there and it can take a really long time to figure out what is going on. You’ve noticed that routine and a lot of parents, but you’re actually working with some folks.

[00:19:30] Who were trying to do something about it. So please

[00:19:33] Geraldine Townend: tell us about that. Okay. So when we’re at the university, , , we work with outside organizations and we also have, we do a lot of work with communities. , it’s like a community service thing university provides. So for example, we’ll talk it.

[00:19:47] You know, so the, gifted associations and, and things like contribute, talk and, and so on and so forth. And I was at one of those meetings and I was talking with a parent, and this is such a difficult story of, how many years they’ve been on waiting lists, how they’ve been sort of like a ping pong machine pushed from pillar to post because, and then they finally get a diagnosis.

[00:20:10] Of something, they already have the gifted diagnosis and they get a diagnosis of something else. And they’re so relieved to have something because they know something’s going on and they kind of stop there because very often with thousands of dollars down in the whole post, that’s why this point as well, as years.

[00:20:26] And as I said earlier, the earlier we can diagnose and support and identify these students the better for their long-term outcomes. And so there was this lady there who’s. You had, had, she spent thousands and thousands on with her daughter who was in timely school and, , gifted, um, believe there was dyslexia.

[00:20:49] I believe there was always different things happening. And she said, , I’m, I’m a corporate lawyer and I can afford to do this. What about all those parents? Don’t have the time and certainly don’t have the resources because this is important work it’s identification work, but it is very expensive as well.

[00:21:09] And so what she did, and I talked that about my passion with, , it’d be great for everybody to be able to find out or at least get a head, start a direction. And then about a year later, she came back to me and she said, , , I’ve left corporate law and I’ve, , I want to make the world a different place kind of thing, which is essential justice people.

[00:21:29] It’s always a good story. And she said, I’m trying to develop, , a screener that is going to be available at a really affordable cost for all the parents and the teachers out there that is, , we’ll screen. All those things like autism, ADHD, all the subtypes of that, , dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, or the specific learning disorders and so on.

[00:21:52] So the parents know in a moment who they need to go to next, which waiting list they need to get on for formal diagnosis. And I said, well, I know that there are screeners and things like that out there. , and , you can Google them and she don’t know, but I want this to be research-based. I don’t want it to just.

[00:22:09] Something that, you know, that is research based and really powerful. And she said an Ivan I’ve got involved on a voluntary basis, a whole bunch of academics who are, and psychologists and people working in universities or research in all these areas. And they are actually giving advice. And I was like, please count me in.

[00:22:29] I really want to be involved and I can come in on the twice exceptional angle and if deal or whatever, what have you. And so, so w me together with a couple of other educator academics, what she said is for this particular screen, and not only do I want to give parents a quick affordable the turn on, okay.

[00:22:48] Go and see an OT to get this rolled out or rolled in and a psychologist to get this rolled out a little bit in a case, you know exactly where to go, which says we need as well. In the meantime, a bunch of strategies. But the teacher can work with them. We can work with at home while we’re waiting, because that lets me go down the medication route.

[00:23:05] And that is a pathway that’s open depending on the diagnosis. We still have to work with strategies anyway. So can you give us some help with that? I said, absolutely. I’ll definitely because teachers, they don’t have the training always in this. They have busy classes and , our medical colleagues and professionals, calc professionals, they do an amazing job and they do give great strategies to school after this long process has been through.

[00:23:34] Yeah. But what I was hoping to do was give strategies in educator speak, which I know will work for that busy teacher in a classroom with 30, but isn’t one-on-one with a student is one on 30 with students. And to just try them out and see what happens, something that’s really easy, not a big tone to lead because teachers, they barely have time for that.

[00:23:56] Initially, this is just an initial, we think something’s going on, but then to get it rolled out, can you try these strategies? Here’s all the information. You need, everything that you need to put this in place in the classroom. Can you give us feedback so that we can take back to the professional when we go for a diagnosis or whatever, and that is what they’re working on.

[00:24:17] I just, I like the fact that it’s, it’s, it’s not a thing of silly. Necessarily widgets and gimmicks to, you know, that quick fix parents don’t want a quick fix. They want to take the long-term view and have things staged for them so they can actually get results. And, , from the get, go get an incident report that that might, they do it for very cheap vies.

[00:24:39] They print off a report, they give a little bit to the teacher, they keep one for themselves and go, right, we’re going to put this, this and this person, and I’m going to do this. I got to say.

[00:24:52] Sophia Elliott: Absolutely. Yeah. So going through that process, so everything you’re saying resonates with me, like the years, the money, the, who do we see to get what diagnosis, it’s a huge journey.

[00:25:06] And, and you’re lucky if you’ve got the time and energy and the money to actually do that. Like you say. Yeah. And it shouldn’t be down to the luck of having resources to get the help that you need. And the fact that I did not know the backstory and the fact that it, a mum with a twice exceptional child has kind of driven this to solve this problem.

[00:25:29] I’m absolutely in love, totally on board. It’s

[00:25:34] Geraldine Townend: amazing. I’m such a good human being and that’s what we’re trying to do. Positive change. And as a parent, myself I know that we need all of the support we can.

[00:25:46] And if I had been a parent who couldn’t afford to go through that whole long process, but I could afford this small amount of money to get an instant, even if I couldn’t still afford to go through the process, I’ve got some strategies to work with and Hey, they may or may never get the diagnosis. Cause I don’t have that thousand or 2000.

[00:26:05] But I’ve got something I can work with better still the teacher, something and the teacher’s getting positive results from this child. And so there’s a better connection, a better relationship. So that instantly feeds into self-concept. I just feel it’s win-win

[00:26:19] Sophia Elliott: oh, it’s absolutely amazing. And so needed. I absolutely love it as well.

[00:26:24] So you were saying that this is in the kind of early stages and your pilot pilot stage, and we’re needing some parents too. Fill out the survey to do the research.

[00:26:39] Geraldine Townend: So that would be yeah. To get the research in place so that it’s a research basis. I think that, , they, , the team that working on this ad screening would absolutely love that they need to get research figures and to do the right sort of stats on it.

[00:26:52] You need, you need big numbers. And the, the questionnaire takes around about, I think it took me about 20 minutes to fill out. , I’m sure it’ll vary. We pay people, but generally it’s about 20 minutes, but the, okay, so the benefit of doing the pilot is the downside is you won’t get a report straight away because until the research is done, it doesn’t have enough information to generate report, but the minute it goes live, you get access to it.

[00:27:19] Yeah. The whole lot. Yep. And it would be fantastic. We’re looking for another couple of hundred parents to do. This would be all one parent with five children do a five times. Fantastic.

[00:27:31] Sophia Elliott: Absolutely. Okay. So what it is is, , it’s a pilot. It’s screener it’s screened is that what’s called it’s screening.

[00:27:40] And it’s an opportunity to spend 20 minutes filling out this survey. As you say, you won’t get the information feedback straight away. That is actually going to be part of the pilot part of the research, part of the information that they use to refine it. But when it does go live, you will actually get that report for free.

[00:28:03] And then the aim is, , when they’ve done this research in this pilot, they’re actually able to produce this tool. The survey that parents can pay for at a reasonable cost and get that kind of instant feedback and strategies. I love it a hundred percent behind it. So we need a couple of hundred parents to fill that out.

[00:28:24] Now, what kind of parents are we looking for? Are we looking. Parents of suspected gifted and twice exceptional or just

[00:28:31] Geraldine Townend: any parents or any parents. , if I think what they’re, they also screening for giftedness. So, you know, if you know that your or suspect your child has gifted or twice, et cetera, Well, if you suspect that that would be fantastic because that gives us really good quality data, then good point to doctors that they can work with it.

[00:28:55] , if you don’t suspect anything, , you could still do it and the chances are, it will come back. We know when you get the free report, when it’s all live, the chances are it’ll come back with those. There’s nothing to investigate and just some general, some general advice. So even if there’s, I think that their intention is that even if it comes back.

[00:29:18] , no, no identifiers that there is some general advice that say, okay, this is general advice to help keep your child’s faith or help keep them on task with all of their stuff. This is some good ideas of what,

[00:29:31] Sophia Elliott: so any parent can do it, but ideally if you. Have suspicions, uh, if your child is gifted or twice exceptional, that’s going to be amazing because that really gets, gives them the opportunity to crunch that data.

[00:29:45] And because it’s a pilot and because it’s in that development stage, I suspect and correct me if I’m wrong here. If you already know that your child is gifted, but maybe you you’re interested just to, to help, you know, bring this thing to fruition, or maybe you would like to see if there’s any, twice exceptionalities, you can still do it because you’re still going to kind of get that information back.

[00:30:08] So even if you’ve got some answers, but not all of them, you can still get involved now. Important question. Are you just looking for Australian parents or does it not matter?

[00:30:21] Geraldine Townend: Does not matter, does not matter? Well, we have, I think that they have reached out to Spain and UK and America. They’re trying to get global even better.

[00:30:33] Sophia Elliott: So wherever you are, that’s, that’s super because our audience is global and we have people from all over the place listening and sending in messages. So, excellent. No matter where you are jump online, we will put the link in the show notes and there will also be posts on the, our gifted kids, social media on Instagram and Facebook, just so we can get the message out there.

[00:30:59] Uh, so you can find that link. Participate in that pilot. And so just to reiterate, you won’t get that feedback back immediately because they need to crunch that data. But when it goes live, you will, but you’re contributing to this ed screener becoming a reality and , an accessible resource for, for parents.

[00:31:21] So in the future, it will be this kind of instant feedback. . That just sounds like something we all need to get behind and I’m super excited. , first of all, Geraldine to have had you on the podcast, uh, with this wonderful conversation around self-concept and twice exceptional students, and that you’re able to share that and we could kind of mobilize and get behind it.

[00:31:42] So thank you so much for spending this time with us.

[00:31:47] Geraldine Townend: Thank you too. And, and also another thing just for your parents, get behind the organizations, they can be really supportive. And if you have a twice exceptional child gifted learners, gifted learners with disability, JLD Australia is an online forum, which can also be very supportive.

[00:32:05] Anything people can do to support this, this organization with this pilot. , I just see always paying it forward, even though my children are now grown up and they’ve had all of their diagnoses and everything else, , w we’re paving the way for the future, children will try to make it easier. So that future parents, our children won’t have to go through what we’re going through with their children.

[00:32:27] Sophia Elliott: I couldn’t agree more. We need to make it easier for parents. , and so that our kids. Can get that support and understanding as soon as possible in their lives. It’s like you say, so that we’re when we can help them with that really positive self-concept from an early age, because they’re getting that support and they understand themselves.

[00:32:47] So I couldn’t agree more. It’s definitely about paying it forward. And, , please have a look in the show notes for all of those links, , and on our social media. Do you know how long it was open for, or.

[00:33:00] Geraldine Townend: I think they need a number, a minimum.

[00:33:02] Sophia Elliott: It’s a minimum. Yep. So no doubt once the pilot’s over, , the link will still lead you to that organization.

[00:33:11] So, yeah. So even if you’re listening to. Uh, kind of later in the year, , still check out that organization and see where it’s up to, because it sounds like it’s going to be an absolutely amazing future resource and, , and something I’ll definitely would love to keep tabs on and, , and see where it goes and let everyone know when yeah.

[00:33:33] , live and doing its thing. Cause it sounds like just what we need. I’ll definitely be filling in that survey. Definitely use some help. So thank you so much for sharing. It was just wonderful serendipity that we have that conversation and then can kind of share it with other parents. Thank you.

[00:33:52] Geraldine Townend: Thank you. Thank you for your time. I really enjoyed

[00:33:54] Sophia Elliott: it.

[00:33:55] That’s great. I’m glad. And, uh, yeah, I really appreciate it.