#050 The Gift of Community

[00:02:24] Support and my community. This podcast is about sharing that journey, actually parenting gifted kids and connecting with advice and support. So we have everything we need for every member of our family to thrive. This is the, our gifted kid podcast. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I think interestingly, we talk about gifts a lot within the gifted community.

[00:02:51] But if I was going to think of the one gift that we actually need as parents to help us on this journey of parenting our complex and quirky and amazing and challenging, awesome gifted kids is actually the gift of community. I remember starting out on this journey and like so many people. Just in that period of crisis.

[00:03:22] And like my child is desperately unhappy, depressed, even looking back now, actually I think probably experiencing that gifted burnout that we’ve talked about earlier in the year and looking for answers and finding some answers, but ultimately feeling kind of gaslighting. About my gut instincts, , you know, doing their best, although falling short, the school that we were at at the time, kind of gaslighting me in terms of telling me that.

[00:04:00] There wasn’t a problem, you know, at school they’re fine. There’s no problem. And have we looked at sleep, we looked at food and it’s like, you’ve got no idea how much I have looked at sleep and food. And every other thing that I can possibly control from home to try and meet this clearly unmet need in my child and, and being in that situation.

[00:04:27] It’s so easy to feel isolated and alone. And like, you’re going a little bit bonkers. It’s kinda like you have this gut feeling. It’s not all right, but you can’t make sense of it either. It’s, it’s such a tricky, stressful situation to be in it’s so flipping hard. And I hear that all the time from parents who are in our community and sharing the experience.

[00:04:58] And what shifted everything for me was finding community, was finding a school who understood my children, but also a community of parents who were on the same journey and, and understood because they too had felt like they were going a bit crazy, like though hitting the brick wall, like though completely isolated and making stuff up and just that awful stressful journey of your child.

[00:05:25] Hurting, but you can’t help them.

[00:05:29] Yeah. And that still upsets me now, just thinking about that.

[00:05:37] And so when I found this community, It shifted everything, but I also recognized how incredibly lucky I was and how rare that was like, you know, I have this, just this amazing bubble here in Adelaide and was so flipping lucky. And as the years went by. That sense of internal justice that I have just kind of said, this is not okay.

[00:06:08] We need to do better. What about everyone out there who does not have this? It’s not good enough. And so I was like, someone needs to do something about this. Someone needs to create this and help bring people together. And that someone ended up being.

[00:06:25] Because, you know, I just can’t let injustice go. Do you know, like who would have thought?

[00:06:31] So I thought I want to make a podcast because. Because we need to talk about this issue. We need to just get it out there, own it. We need to get rid of the taboo and we need to expand that understanding within our community, within the education sector, within the health sector, just everywhere. Right. And I’m like, that needs to be a conversation.

[00:06:57] So let’s literally make that a conversation. And I had no idea where that would end up. Like I was really just taking a leap and trusting that there were a lot of people out there like me and there is. And I have to say that the podcast has been amazing. It’s exceeded all of my expectations. I always feel very humble and grateful for the response.

[00:07:27] Not just people listening, you know, and I get messages regularly, which I love, like, please let me know that this is meeting your needs in some way, because it really helps me to keep going and to know that where. That we’re on the right track. And inevitably people say, I’ve just heard your podcast.

[00:07:49] I’ve listened to. You know, so many episodes I’m like crying. I’ve always felt so alone and I’m like, oh, I just want to reach out and give you a hug. And I’m so grateful that you have found this community, but also all the guests that have been on the podcast, like have been amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever reached out.

[00:08:10] And someone said, no sometimes it can be hard to schedule and you know, that. A little while, which is totally cool. It’ll come together. But people in the gifted community are so incredibly generous with their time and then knowledge. And I think that’s because everyone comes from this place of really knowing that.

[00:08:31] Like, it’s not okay. What’s going on. Kids are paying that cost and everyone wants to do everything. They can to really change that. And they want to be a part of this conversation. They want to connect and they want to share what they’ve learnt. And it’s so beautiful. It’s so incredibly beautiful. And we’ve just had some amazing guests and conversations and I feel so incredibly grateful for that.

[00:08:56] And this week we’ve had five podcasts. Three people I had never even met before. We often do a pre kind of meeting before we record, but we actually just jumped right in and recorded these podcasts. And everyone’s been so amazing. We’ve had Jennifer from, into gifted. And they’ve kind of helped partner the week and Jen support, right from the beginning of this idea of doing this week has been awesome.

[00:09:25] And Nadja from unleash Monday, we, we sort of started our journey at a similar time and pull a pro barf author of rainforest mind as a first time I’ve met polar and she’s like every bit is awesome as she comes across, like seriously, follow her on Instagram. She just does these lovely meet. She’s so supportive and Emma Nicholson and Christian Wells, who were like the hosts of the positive disintegration podcast and like so much knowledge in those two ladies, just incredible, such a complex, incredible credibly complex issues.

[00:10:02] Dubroski is amazing to dive into. And so we have this awesome community. Plus the four women that I interweaved into Friday’s episode, Kate Donahue from dynamic parenting and Amanda Drury who have been previous guests. And that’s actually an excerpt from a podcast have not released yet. And then Kathleen humble and Rebecca folly from a podcast that we did recently like just.

[00:10:30] It was still a lineup of people within the gifted community, just completely amazing. And so far like the month is not over so far, we’ve had over 6,000 downloads of podcasts just in March. And so that says to me, like, first of all, thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing with the people.

[00:10:54] But it really. Says to me that this is needed. We need this conversation. We need this connection. And so, yeah, like I just want to say a massive thank you for not saying that already. This was what the idea was all about. It was creating like our gifted kids in the middle, but connecting to this web of people all around the world who are engaged in this gifted community and neurodivergent community and finding these people, talking to them about, you know, their zone of genius and what they do and how they support our community to make it easier for us to all connect.

[00:11:36] I want it to make easier for a parent just to find, find out gifted kids, but it’s like a door opening to the rest of the world and what’s going on out there, you know, either directly through a guest, listening in a podcast or through links and information and resources and just, just that world of other parents as well.

[00:11:59] That was the vision it’s being like that hub in the middle that, that links everything. And that’s. Like 150% behind anyone out there doing things in this community. It’s been an absolute, like privileged to share. Last year we shared, the ed screening developing something for, for, helping to assess gifted kids.

[00:12:24] And we put the call out for people to participate in the research phase, which was like, Just so incredibly excited too, to help where I could, in that journey. And we’re all also always sharing what different people are doing out there. I feel like .

[00:12:40] , everyone, we all have our little niche, our little service to feel our little way of contributing to this community. And I see our gifted kids as this hub in the middle. We have the web connecting that was kind of the vision behind it. Interestingly, I think that’s kind of how my brain works, so I’m just kind of realized that I’m like, okay, I’ve tried to create my brain in an organization.

[00:13:06] That’s cool. Anyway So a part of that obviously is the podcast and the online community and the social media. And we do lots of lives and videos throughout the year, different times, which are always a lot of fun. But part of that, it was creating the, our gifted kids hub. And so the hub itself is actually a literal thing as well as a conceptual thing.

[00:13:32] And what we’ve created in this. Is is trying to be that center to create those connections. And we do that by. Monthly live online information sessions, which actually is often more than monthly. We do online gatherings monthly, so we get together on zoom and there’s like people from all over the world and we get to meet and share our stories.

[00:13:57] And sometimes that involves, someone’s got. I’ve got this thing happening and we’ll all get involved in actually kind of brainstorming and supporting each other. And so that’s like, it’s just been such a privilege to get to know all of those parents and be a part of that journey with them. It’s so beautiful.

[00:14:18] And we always leave that session feeling very buzzy and seen and heard and reassured that , There’s folk out there going through a similar journey. It’s not just us, which is nice. It’s nice to be feeling seen and heard. We also have a private Facebook group. And in that I do lots of lives.

[00:14:40] We share information, we share videos and people can ask questions. And sometimes if someone’s asked a question, if it’s easier, I’ll just jump on and do a video in response. Cause sometimes it’s easier. Yeah. Writing heaps. So that’s kind of a, interactive space for us to use as, as we need it.

[00:14:58] You also get as part of the hub exclusive like video footage of the podcast because they’re actually videoed. So you get to watch them as video or listen to them. But also I do extra snippets of videos with most guests and I’ll do like 15, 20 minutes on a hot topic. And, those kinds of things that come up a lot and that’s available in the.

[00:15:24] Which is really exciting because , guests are always full of just such a wealth of knowledge. You could sit and talk to them all day. But there’s also bonuses included in that there is a course called understanding, gifted with. Like literally walked through or every single aspect and explains all the different terms and like, everything I could think of, it was like, if you want to know what that means, how that works is in there as well as resources just to kind of help because I think we always start that journey with, right.

[00:15:59] What is this gifted thing? Or. It’s like the first step is understanding what we’re dealing with. Understanding that we’re not just talking about a bright kid, we’re actually talking about a child and usually the adults, the parents with like literally a different brain. And so that manifests in different ways.

[00:16:22] And. It’s really that shift in mindset from going okay. It’s not just about having a smart kid. It’s about actually this bigger clump complex brain and, and, and all the different needs and expressions of that. And then I think the next step is, is often dealing with the immediate educational crisis and kind of knowing how to.

[00:16:46] How to advocate, what is it okay to ask for? What is it my child actually is needing. And so I’ve actually put this together in a journey and it’s called the journey to a new normal, the five steps that take you from survive to thrive. And it’s like a pathway through this parenting, gifted kids. And it starts with like, what is.

[00:17:08] Gifted understanding what we’re dealing with and it goes on to education is power. So kind of understanding, you know, like I said, the advocacy, what, what your child might need, those kinds of things around education, then it’s finding their happy place. So often. When you’re at the beginning of this journey, there, there are wellbeing issues around our kids.

[00:17:33] It’s kind of like, how do we make sure everything else is in place? What else do we need to consider? But then it’s kind of like a new family blueprint because, well, actually, you know, our children are not an island or a part of a. Generally a complicated family. And so this year is a part of that. We’ve been talking a lot about burnout and parent burnout, but and as a subsidy of that gifted van out, but we’ve spent a lot of time acknowledging.

[00:18:01] First of all parenting gifted kids is really hard on the research shows is it’s as stressful as parenting a child with a physical disability. So we actually, we have that validation that this, this job we’re doing is, is a hard job and it’s a stressful job. And. And because we’re, co-regulating with our kids for so much longer that wears us out.

[00:18:26] And so burnout is a huge thing. And that new family blueprint is really important because it’s, we need to make sure we’re meeting our needs. So we don’t completely fall apart. Eventually, you know, if it could be, if you give, give, give, give, give, you will eventually hit the wall. So how do we balance that?

[00:18:42] How do we make sure other members of our family are also thriving? And then the final part of that step is looking forward. It’s like, I’m looking towards the future and it’s kind of like, what do we do need to do now to make sure that the future is a future that we’re, that we’re striving towards. So it’s mapping out a bit of a journey.

[00:19:08] So, as I said, the, the mission of all that is to connect parents of gifted kids, to our parenting peers, other parents on the journey, information, resources that are out there doing the hard work of finding this stuff like in this people that have found guests that I didn’t find for years. And I want to be like, I don’t want other people to spend years finding these people who might be of service to them.

[00:19:38] I want them to like, just jump into the hub and go, like, what do I need? Who are the people out there doing things. And then. And being able to connect with them or reading that information or finding what they need, that’s the whole point of it. And that’s also why the hub is like it’s a low cost monthly membership.

[00:19:57] There’s really important to me that it’s inclusive and accessible. And, you know, if you’re a single parent and you’re going through this journey of parenting, your gifted kid, you need support and you need something affordable. So that’s why it will always be as affordable as possible. Yeah. Not because it isn’t worth more and great value.

[00:20:20] Like it’s actually tons in there, but I, it’s just a huge personal value set around making this something that everyone can access. That kind of thing that you can. Access easily. The, how gifted kids hub is all about providing parents with confidence. So you’re understanding what gift is all about and you, you feel like you can go into those conversations and feel like, you know, where you’re talking about. Just that support in parenting your gifted kid.

[00:20:52] Like it’s so hard to find people who get it and, and feel supported. And, and everyone just wants that peace of mind that we’re doing the right thing for our kid, because we all want them to thrive. And we need to know that we’re going to get through this to the other end. Cause sometimes it feels really fricking hard and we just need that peace of mind.

[00:21:15] I think it’s the biggest thing parents. As well as that connection with other parents so that we can share our stories. We get that opportunity to see ourselves in others, but also the incredible wealth of knowledge in the lived experience of parenting and gifted kid. Do you know that opportunity to connect with someone who has been through the exact same thing as you, but maybe they’re a year or two ahead in the journey and you can talk about that and share tips and strategies.

[00:21:46] We all need just to have that sense of relief from having a direction, knowing where we go on. Knowing we’ve got that support and that connection around us and having that safe place that we can share both the celebrations and the challenges. And it’s like in the gifted community, both are equally as important.

[00:22:08] We need to be able to talk openly about what is hard, but also what is amazing because our kids, you know, we, we focus a lot on, on it being hard because it fricking is. Dan they’re amazing. Like aren’t, they, they just, the stuff they come out with, the things that, where they have their strengths, like, oh, they just have these amazing strengths and we should be able to share that and build them up and kind of celebrate con you know, that moment of feeling as a parents, like, okay, we’re doing something wrong, even if it’s got nothing to do with us, but you know what I mean?

[00:22:46] We need to be able to share those celebrations. And we just, we just all want to be belonged. You know, we don’t want to have to fit in somewhere change who we are to fit. We just want to show up as we are in our. Jammies. Sometimes it doesn’t matter just a place to belong, a place to be seen a place to connect with other people.

[00:23:09] And so that’s what we’re, we’re creating here and we have created and, and that’s the invitation. So the doors are open to the gifted kids hub at the moment. And. Like it’s a, we don’t have it so you can join at any time. And we do that because there’s a lot of energy and focus involved in kind of having that constant open.

[00:23:31] And so what we do instead is we have these periods where the doors are open. We invite people to join us. Then we close the doors because then we kind of get on. Now, focuses on the journey, focuses on the members of the hub. And many are needs and making impact and connecting and, and it just allows us to be kind of all in.

[00:23:53] And then we, you know, we opened the doors again, down the track in the future. So that’s kind of why we do it that way. So midnight, Sunday wherever you are is the, when the doors close and. There is opportunity on Facebook sharing some videos about what you can see inside that online portal.

[00:24:14] Because the online portal is my baby. I’m really excited. It’s it’s like, it’s a website and you log on and it’s where all the information collects and. It’s fully searchable. Like you literally pop in a couple of words and it will search through all the video content and all the content and show you the exact moment in the video where that’s being talked about.

[00:24:41] So you don’t have to listen to a whole heap of stuff just to find what you need. And that, that was the big reason for me going with this particular platform. It was just that ability to make that information so accessible. And within that we have. So much already and it’s growing all the time is always being added to.

[00:25:00] So, first of all, yeah, you can get all of the podcasts. You can get all of them on video extra videos with our guests, but also we’ve got a focus on play and looking at the different neurodivergency is, and, and how do you kind of use play to. You know, as a strengths based approach we have some tips on no Yang’s screen time and we talk about perfectionism.

[00:25:23] There’s a whole resource there about burnout. All of those topics that come up again and again challenges of parents, of gifted kids. We’ve, we’re, we’re getting in there and we’ve got in there as this online resource to, to go through. So, and it’s. And it’s really easy to navigate and really pretty.

[00:25:44] I mean, pretty important. Right. So yeah, so it’s just amazing. And I will do a couple of little videos in Facebook, you know, prior to Sunday, just kind of showing what that looks like and in there, because yeah, because I’m really proud of that. And I think it’s a really great resource and it’s, you know what, it’s what I want to do.

[00:26:04] When I started, this is, this is kind of like I’m creating exactly what I wanted as a parent. When I started this journey somewhere I could go into and it’s kind of a collation of everything I could want to know. And that’s what we’re creating in there and where we’re pretty well on that journey of creating that.

[00:26:23] Well, obviously we’ve got tons, more plans for that, but, but we will and truly on that road. So. That’s about the hub. And look joining these things online can be scary. But just want to assure you that we use a very secure online payment process. It’s, it’s a low cost. It’s like 24 99. We’ve discounted that for this launch per month and that’s in Australian dollar.

[00:26:49] And as long as you remain a financial member, that price will never go up. You can choose to pay monthly or annually. You can update your details at any time through like the customer portal. And importantly, you can cancel it anytime and you’ll not be charged any further fees. So. You are in the driver’s seat, you have control.

[00:27:10] And that’s obviously deliberate because like I said, I’ve created something I wanted. And when I do, you know, do these things online, these are the kinds of things that I want. I want to know that I’m always going to pay the same thing, but it’s secure. I can cancel anytime. I’m not going to pay anything else.

[00:27:27] And that I can get in there and update my details and have choices around that. So that’s kind of why, you know, why we have those things in place. So if you have any questions, jump online, we’ve got Facebook or Instagram and ask me, I’m delighted to answer them about the hub. And I’m, I’m excited to, you know, go on this journey with you and, and welcome more into that family, the, our gifted kids, hub family, and, and.

[00:28:02] Meet you and provide that support and impact because I tell ya our community’s freaking awesome. Like we’ve got the most interesting. Complex. Fascinating, wonderful, funny, just awesome individuals in this community. And we should totally celebrate that. And it’s been an absolute joy celebrating that this week in neurodiversity celebration week, I hope that you have loved all the podcasts.

[00:28:32] We’ll of course continue to be doing our fortnightly podcasts all year. And it’s an absolute privilege to bring that to, to everyone so that everyone can access that. And, and thank you so much for tuning in and contributing to more than 6,000 downloads this month. Like, I dunno, what’s the word? I’m just like, ah, I was like, really, I looked at those numbers several times, like, wow, that’s incredible.

[00:29:03] A huge, thank you for, for sharing it out there and listening and like, please do please share because I, you know, the more we have in this community and connection, the more impact we can make and, and, and that at the heart of. You know, is my kind of time working in politics. And it’s kind of like, I want to make an impact.

[00:29:26] I want to change this for our kids. And the way that we do that is we do that together. We do that together by connecting and that’s what the podcast is about. It’s also what the hub is about this like, We can change things. I fundamentally believe that. And so that’s an underwriting desire of the hub and our gifted kids as well.

[00:29:47] So thank you so much. I’m going to head off now Saturday morning. I’m going to go jump out there and have some pancakes. So take care and I hope you have an awesome weekend. Bye. If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, I’d love to hear about your biggest takeaway in the comments.

[00:30:07] For more episodes, you can subscribe and to help others find our podcast. Please leave a review. You can find show notes and more resources@ourgiftedkids.com and connect with us on Facebook and Instagram. See you in the same place next week.