February 10, 2021
Cindy Lopez:
Welcome to Voices of Compassion, CHC’s podcast series providing courage, connection and compassion, highlighting topics that matter to our community, our parents, families, educators, and other professionals. I’m Cindy Lopez, today we’re talking about twice exceptional students. With distance and hybrid learning, parents have front row seats like never before to their children’s strengths and challenges. Has your child memorized elaborate sequences of historical events, but can’t remember to turn in homework or are they doing advanced math for fun, but won’t fill out a simple worksheet? Or does your child talk about complex topics, but struggled to read at grade level? If so, you might have a twice exceptional child or 2e for short. We are honored to have two guests on our episode today, Callie Turk and Yael Valek, founders of Resilience and Engagement for Every Learner or REEL, REEL and they’re also parents of 2e kids so they speak from experience. Callie and Yael is there anything else that you’d like our listeners to know about yourselves?
Callie Turk:
REEL works here in Silicon Valley to support twice exceptional learners by building bridges between their parents and their teachers. And we actually started this work out of our own experience in our public elementary school and meeting other parents who were having similar challenges with their children who were both very bright, but also not thriving in the learning environment. So I am the mom of three high schoolers one of whom is actually twice exceptional.
Yael Valek:
And I have two boys who are in second grade and sixth grade who are also both twice exceptional.
Cindy Lopez:
I’m sure our listeners really appreciate knowing that you’re speaking from experience and your everyday life with your kids. So, we hear this phrase twice exceptional a lot, right, but what does it really mean to be twice exceptional? And what might parents be seeing in their kids?
Yael Valek:
So being twice exceptional or for short, we call it 2e means that you have strengths that stand out and you also have learning challenges at the same time, and those challenges may come from autism, ADHD, anxiety, dyslexia or other reasons. And so 2e learners are a challenging profile to teach because they can have wildly different abilities across different learning areas. So for example, a child can be four grade levels above in math and two grade levels below in writing and social skills. So the gifts that they have can sometimes mask their challenges, which makes them appear to be at or above grade level. And they’re using coping strategies, which can produce anxiety or the challenges they have can mask their talents. And that also can produce anxiety because they can’t really show the world what they know and so these anxieties can lead to loss of self-esteem, school burnout or depression. But if instead they’re properly nurtured, these minds that are different, they really come up with new solutions that other people can’t see, and they are the ones that you see changing the world.
Callie Turk:
And then parents are seeing a lot of this more at home now. Because we all shifted to online learning in March, it used to be you might hear some things back from a teacher, but now you can see a lot more for yourself: how does your child learn? What are the areas of struggle? What brings out the best in your children? What brings out the worst in your children? So, we hear a lot from 2e families that kids get their schoolwork done more quickly, they’re a little more relaxed because they don’t have the same social stressors or they don’t have the same sensory triggers that they might have when they’re going to school. And then on the other hand, some of our 2e kids are really suffering because they really need more structured environments or they really benefit from having more social interaction. So, you know we’re seeing definitely both sides among the twice exceptional, but what we also are noticing is that more and more, there are parents who are realizing for the first time that their child has different learning needs.
Cindy Lopez:
Thanks so much both Callie and Yael for sharing all that. In my experience as an educator, it’s really nice to have that partnership with parents as we think about how we can best meet all kids needs and all learners needs. And that idea that you expressed Yael about everyone’s different, right, our minds are all wired a little bit differently and so this is another way for teachers, educators to be able to understand their students. So speaking of that in this distance learning world, it can be really challenging for students to be successful no matter what the issues are, how can you build trust online between teachers and students and establish strong school home partnerships?
Yael Valek:
So our number one recommendation to teachers working with 2e students is to build trust because 2e kids really rely on that trusted bond with their teacher to get motivation, especially in the areas that challenge them. And of course that’s been much harder to do this year remotely. So my son for example has always had more success with teachers when he got to know them personally and they found out they had common interests. One of the ways he built trust in fifth grade, he was having a really hard time connecting with his teachers so they had a one-on-one session and she said, I noticed that you’re not on task and I ask you to get on task and you don’t listen, and his response was stop nagging and start helping. So maybe not worded in the ideal way, but luckily it was a very receptive teacher and it made all the difference from then on she would always ask him, how can I help you, and they built an amazing relationship. And so what’s really worked for us this year is to have those one-on-ones at least virtually either in office hours or to set times where he can talk to them and just so he can feel like they know him and understand him.
Callie Turk:
And one of the things that we notice is a little different, there are differences between elementary grade and even early middle school and sort of those later middle and high school grades, and so building that trust is really different. My daughter started high school this Fall, and she’s not a real social person and she’s not going to jump into social settings, and she’s just exhausted by Zoom and now she was in a situation where no adults at the school really knew her. And we were really happy because her English teacher actually did this learning strategy to help establish rapport with the kids in that he has everyone do a quick write journal for just like five minutes at the beginning of every class, and I think that’s helped him connect very well with his new students and they know he’s interested in them as a person. And then a lot of kids just won’t come to office hours, especially older kids. Like they’re just not sure if they can ask for help, so parents can also ask the teacher to schedule that, like email the teacher and let them know that the child is feeling nervous, could you reach out to my child and set that up or ask the teachers if the teacher would put it on whatever the calendar is. If the teacher will do the outreach to kind of schedule that weekly check-in, and that could go a long way.
Cindy Lopez:
I think that’s really important especially as an educator to build that relationship. As an administrator in a school that was one of the things that I always emphasized with our staff was to build that relationship first because that trust is the most important thing in terms of making kids feel safe and comfortable, and then they feel like they can take risks.
Callie Turk:
What we found a lot of high schools doing that’s effective especially for there 2e learners is to establish who the contact is going to be, so who is the go-to adult on campus for each family, and so that opens the door for conversation because parents know who to go to, the student knows who to go to and they can help them navigate the rest.
Cindy Lopez:
Thank you for tuning in! Just a note, before we continue on with today’s episode, we hope you’re following us on social media, so you don’t need to wait a whole week between episodes to get engaging, inspiring and educational content from CHC. Our social handles are linked on our podcast webpage at podcasts.chconline.org.
Yael Valek:
One teacher reached out to me recently and let me know that my son wasn’t participating in the online group work. And so my child was having struggles every day after math and the teachers didn’t know this and so we all met, and it turned out because he loves math so much, he takes it really hard when he can’t figure out a new concept right away and so the teachers told him we’d be out of a job if everyone learns something the first time they saw it and that made him feel better. And so now we’re working on ways to get in touch with him before the meltdown happens, right. And so sharing information with each other really goes a long way this year.
Cindy Lopez:
Yeah that’s great, that relationship between the teachers and the parents is important. I mean, clearly the relationship with the student and the teacher is important, but the parent can help to get that going.
Callie Turk:
We actually launched a blog recently, the Living and Learning 2e, where we’ve asked teens who are 2e to write about their experiences. And they also emphasize how hard it is for teens to ask this and I just want to make sure parents and teachers know that sometimes these kids will seem super capable and a teacher doesn’t understand why they’re struggling and now maybe the parents don’t understand they’re struggling. And, you know I think, sometimes those kids that you don’t understand that are the trickiest that you need to actually reach out to the most because they can seem like they should be able to get by on their own, that they shouldn’t need a lot of support, but they actually do. A lot of the kids who are 2e and don’t really know until they’re in high school, they haven’t had to learn these self-advocacy skills that some of these younger 2e kids have learned in elementary school about how to communicate with their teachers. And so that’s why it’s important for teachers to reach out frequently and also for parents to be helping facilitate those connections, even for their older kids.
Cindy Lopez:
So as you have noted distance learning has provided a window for parents to be able to see into their child’s learning and more. So can you talk about what you see that’s working for 2e students in distance?
Callie Turk:
So we found this was really interesting over the summer last year we hosted a conversation with parents of twice exceptional learners, and we asked them about the things that had been working. And actually had a lot of things that they thought were actually better about distance learning and things that they’re hoping that our schools will keep, as we think about moving back into more normal times. But I think the number one thing, and this is maybe whether you have 2e learners or not, it’s just that kids get to sleep more. And with school starting later, they don’t have the commute time either. So that’s been great and when the learning was asynchronous, so less Zoom meetings, a lot of 2e parents found their children could complete their schoolwork in really little time, like they would go to school for five or six hours a day, but at home they could get the work done in an hour or two, which I think gave them a sense of what was really happening in school. And this really gave those kids time to either pursue a hobby or something they just wanted to learn more about.
In some cases, the parents were actually able to provide more targeted attention at home than they could get. So like, if a child was really struggling with writing at school, but they didn’t have an IEP for that, they might not get any support at all, but now at home they could spend a little more extra time and actually move that writing skill along further. There are quite a few kids too in our world who have commented on just the joy of using chat instead of having to talk out loud in class and that it really gives them more time to process what they’re thinking. That’s one of the things about 2e learners is a lot of them have a slower processing speed and so just having that chance to reflect and think, and then not have to put it all into words so quickly and typing is a lot better for some of these kids. We also found that teachers were actually better at standardizing their communication. So for so many years you would hear kids, like 2e kids with ADHD you know complain that sometimes an assignment’s on the board, sometimes it’s in schoology, sometimes they just say it out loud, I have no idea. And now it was like everyone kind of got on board with whatever their school’s, you know, structure is for that, here’s the assignment, which has been great. One of our teen bloggers said he really believes the move to online learning helped people see that there can be more flexibility in education. So there have been a lot of silver linings.
Cindy Lopez:
I like that you were able to get some perspective from some of the students too, it’s nice.
Callie Turk:
It’s been great. I mean it’s, I think it’s the most powerful thing we can do is to really give all neurodivergent people a platform to talk about what their lived experience is really like and that includes our twice exceptional kids.
Cindy Lopez:
So, what are your top tips for parents as they support their 2e kids at home?
Yael Valek:
So we actually created a one pager with tips for distance learning with your 2e child that’s on our REEL website, and so we picked out the top four tips to share with you and the first one is leveraging strengths and interests. So 2e learners really tend to have very strong interests and passions, and they learn best when you use those passions and weave them into their schoolwork. And during distance learning, it’s a really unique opportunity for parents and teachers to find at home assignments that play into the children’s strengths. So for example, my sixth grader’s teachers, gave the class a wide array of choices to show how they learned the Earth’s layers, and my son, if you had told him you had to write an essay about that, that would have been a meltdown, but instead he got to make a 3D printed model of the Earth’s layers because his current passion is 3D printing. So that was something that inspired the whole class.
Callie Turk:
Our teen bloggers have really tried to give some good tips about this and so that you can ask for the opportunity to flexibly show what you’ve mastered and not have to jump through quite as many hoops, just like repetitive coursework and homework. They really want more choice in how they can display their knowledge and skills, like a creative project or a slideshow, and they really want to be able to infuse their personality into the learning experience.
Yael Valek:
So another one of our top tips is just to remember to adjust the level of work. And so my second grader struggles with writing, he needs a lot of support in it, but he’s a whiz at math and the math worksheets the class we’re doing were too easy for him. And if you were live in the classroom, it would be really challenging for the teacher to let him do something else, but she said, go ahead and turn off your Zoom and do your own math at that time. And then he could take his time on writing and do a little bit of writing each day because it wasn’t throwing the rest of the class off. So that’s been another silver lining of distance learning is letting kids do something a little different that matches their learning pace.
Callie Turk:
A lot of these kids, they develop all these hidden workarounds to meet those elementary school expectations, but when they get to really sometimes middle school and definitely high school and the schoolwork and the demands just really ramp up, they hit a wall. I mean we hear many stories about kids who have mental health crises in high school or as they’re entering college because their disabilities have not been identified. So I think it’s very important, you really need to be attuned to those signs of anxiety and depression, especially if you have children who seemed super capable in elementary school. And a lot of times people will look at these kids and then say like, oh they’re lazy or they’re unmotivated, or they’re not, you know, they’re not trying hard enough, and it’s because they actually have this hidden difference that no one’s ever noticed before. And anxiety is actually a sign of many learning differences like autism and ADHD and dyslexia and was really the number one reason we sought a very comprehensive evaluation for our daughter. It’s difficult for these kids to, to understand what’s going on. If you sense something is off, pursue an evaluation because the more you can know about your child the more you can help them to be all they can be and this is a tough time for everyone, a lot of kids are already anxious. So it’s important to understand what is behind that and make sure if there’s a hidden learning difference that that’s supported.
Cindy Lopez:
CHC does those types of evaluations so if that’s something that you’re thinking you might look at please contact us, chconline.org. We also do 30-minute free parent consultations, it’s not as big a commitment, you can bring any evaluations or information you have to that meeting and then our clinician will work with you to give you some guidance as to next steps.
Callie Turk:
Well, absolutely, absolutely. Because CHC was life-changing for us.
Cindy Lopez:
Thanks.
Yael Valek:
Thank you, I’m so glad that we have this amazing resource in our community. So our third tip is to provide social support, a lot of 2e kids struggle with social interactions. So what we found works best is when adults create facilitated group interactions. My kids teachers have put them in breakout rooms where they had to get to know certain things about each other, or they had a game to play because if you just throw them in and say talk, right they clam up. And then one really creative teacher when it was allowed had kids meet off campus in small groups to take pictures of artifacts of our time that people might find in the future learn about our civilization and that let them have something to talk about.
Callie Turk:
And you know, for high schoolers it is important to provide this social support as well, but it’s harder because they really don’t want the adults interfering in their lives. We’ve had to probably loosen a lot of our rules around screen time, and kids are using tools like discord to find people who have common interests. So I think it’s important for parents to know that these tools can be very useful in terms of their teen’s social development in a very strange and unusual time.
A lot of 2e kids gravitate toward games like Dungeons and Dragons. If they’re lacking in some of the social skills especially let’s say if they’re autistic is around social interaction, these games actually have very structured rules and roles, and so many things in adolescence don’t and that’s one of the anxiety provoking triggers. And so things like Dungeons and Dragons and other role playing games actually take away some of that ambiguity and still give them a chance to connect with people and still learn some of those social rules. And it really addresses that asynchronous development and so parents should keep looking for those kinds of opportunities for their kids.
What we’re also finding is that because 2e students learn through a range of modalities, parents actually are more open to non-traditional school pathways, like maybe considering continuing homeschooling or unschooling or looking at some of the one-on-one private schools. So if your child does better, without all the trappings of a traditional experience, it might be possible if you can figure out how to make it work with your own schedule and resources to keep going down that path.
Cindy Lopez:
So Callie and Yael, if there was one thing that you hope our listeners would take away from this episode, what would that be?
Callie Turk: You know, I think there’s a common myth among educators and parents alike that if a child is very bright, they can’t have learning differences, or if a child has learning differences that we have to focus only on those differences and not on the child’s strengths. So I would take away that, just know that this is possible, that there are kids who fall into those categories and these kids who are living at the intersection of this extreme capability, but also having a learning difference, if we can help them focus on their strengths and really find ways to navigate the world, then the happier and healthier they’re going to be. They can really thrive if we help them understand their learning profile and nurture their strengths and believe in them and work with them as individuals and not try to force them into some sort of predefined mold of what they should be.
Yael Valek:
If you see that your child is having very high anxiety, especially at a young age and you know they’re bright, but they’re having trouble showing it at school that you may have a 2e child and believe them when they tell you they’re struggling, even if they appear to be at or above grade level.We try to change the mindsets of parents and teachers from my child won’t do something, to my child can’t do it yet. They are not trying to give you a hard time, they are having a hard time. And so when we approach 2e learners with curiosity, when we involve them in solutions and remove their barriers, we give them a chance to shine.
Cindy Lopez:
Thank you both Callie and Yael for sharing your experience and your expertise with us today and all that you’ve learned about living in supporting your 2e kids. And to our listeners, thank you for joining us for another episode of Voices of Compassion and we hope you’ll listen in again next week. Thanks Callie and Yael.
Callie Turk:
Thank you so much Cindy.
Yael Valek:
Thanks for having us.
Cindy Lopez:
Find us online at podcasts.chconline.org. Also, please follow us on our socials. Find us on Facebook at chc.paloalto and Twitter and Instagram at CHC_paloalto. You can also visit our YouTube channel at chconlinepaloalto. And we are on LinkedIn. Subscribe to Voices of Compassion on Apple podcasts, Spotify and other podcast apps, and sign up for a virtual village email list so you never miss an update or an episode. I always love to hear from you so send me an email or a voice memo at podcasts@chconline.org or leave us a rating and review. We look forward to you tuning in each week. After all we are in this together. See you next week.
