Twice Exceptional Girls

Cindy Lopez:
Welcome. My name is Cindy Lopez, the host of this CHC podcast, Voices of Compassion. We hope you find a little courage, feel connected and experience compassion every time you listen. Being an adolescent girl can be hard and then you add learning challenges and giftedness, and everything seems to be amplified. In this podcast episode, we welcome guest Dr. Lisa White, psychologist at the Summit Center who works with twice exceptional girls, as we discuss how these remarkable individuals perceive themselves and navigate school and life. You’ll gain valuable insights about twice exceptional girls and hear some strategies for nurturing their strengths and addressing their specific needs. Dr. Lisa sheds light on the unique experiences of twice exceptional girls with practical tips for parents looking for ways to provide support to them.

So Dr. White, so glad to chat with you today on our podcast. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and why you think this topic is an important one to discuss?

Dr. Lisa White:
Thank you so much for having me on. I’m Dr. Lisa White. I’m a licensed clinical psychologist at Summit Center in Walnut Creek. Our expertise there is working with gifted and twice exceptional people. I have a special interest in twice exceptional girls, and I often consult with parents raising their 2e daughters. I’m also a mom of teenage 2e twins, and I think it’s so important to talk about 2e because so many people don’t know about it or have misconceptions about what it means. I’ve blown like adults minds by introducing the idea of 2e to them, and they say it just puts their whole life in perspective and girls and women particularly need support in the areas of mental health and understanding who they are and how they operate in the world.

Cindy Lopez:
Yeah. So you have both like that professional experience and the lived experience as a mom. So, probably really good for our listeners to keep that in mind too as you talk and tell us a little bit about girls who are twice exceptional and what their experience is like. First of all, though, we should probably just get everyone on the same page and say, what does it mean to be twice exceptional?

Dr. Lisa White:
So, twice exceptional, or 2e, interchangeable, means that someone is both gifted and has another exceptionality, like another diagnosis or like I call it a bonus track. So this could be ADHD, it could be dyslexia, anxiety, autism. Something else it’s going to make them have an asynchronous profile with a lot of highs and lows in their abilities. And you can have more than two exceptionalities. We see a lot of people who are gifted and have ADHD and autism, for example. So it’s being gifted and having something else going on.

Cindy Lopez:
So I like how you called that a bonus track. It just, you know, spins it a little differently and in a positive way. So twice exceptional, specifically girls and twice exceptionality, what is it like to be an adolescent girl today? What’s the playing field like for all girls and then talk about how these 2e girls kind of fit into that picture.

Dr. Lisa White:
So I think it’s always been challenging to grow up female, I think since the history of the universe like I think it’s always been challenging to grow up female, and I think it can still be hard to be a girl in today’s world, you know, there’s a lot of pressure to achieve and to look and act a certain way and to have a lot of friends and to present a certain way on social media. And I think for 2e girls, it’s even more challenging because they don’t fit in, in a lot of ways. So you know, I think for 2e girls, they have these highs and lows. They have a lot of strengths, and they have a lot of challenges. And a lot of times having ADHD or autism or dyslexia or whatever it is, doesn’t fit that mold of a typical girl.

Cindy Lopez:
So thinking about twice exceptional girls typically like at what age are kids diagnosed as 2e? Is it different being diagnosed younger versus adolescence? What does that look like?

Dr. Lisa White:
People can be diagnosed at all different ages. So some kids can be diagnosed with autism at age three and some people aren’t diagnosed until adulthood. There are plenty of women out there who are getting ADHD diagnosis in midlife. I think that’s a thing that’s going on right now a lot, and I think it really impacts life outcome. You know, an earlier diagnosis means that these people, women, girls have a lifetime of support, whether it’s reading intervention for dyslexia or social skills training, or even just parents who know how to best parent a sensitive 2e child and find true peers for them.

So I think it really does depend when you get diagnosed and, , you know, knowing about yourself as you grow up is super empowering. And when kids aren’t diagnosed until later, they spend a lot of years thinking they’re dumb or people tell them they’re lazy or they haven’t them put in enough effort or you know, when in fact they might be intellectually gifted and 2e. And so you know, I think kids learning earlier on about how their brains work, about whether they have a diagnosis can be really empowering.

Cindy Lopez:
I was just talking with another guest that we had on talking about his experience with ADHD and being diagnosed young versus the adults he’s meeting now, diagnosed as adults. And what you just said, like there’s such an advantage to being diagnosed younger because you have this kind of I’m going to say slew of services, but these strategies and things that you can work through and to help you. I also come across parents who are thinking there might be something going on with their child, no matter what it is, but knowing their child is gifted, they like the gifted part, they don’t really want the other part, right? And they’re afraid they’re going to label their child by getting them evaluated and kind of fear this diagnosis. What do you have to say about that?

Dr. Lisa White:
I think labeling your child is fantastic actually because when you give a child a diagnosis, you’re giving them information about themselves and how their brains work, what their strengths and challenges are and, you know, parents sometimes don’t want to know what’s wrong with their child. I think they feel like it reflects poorly on them. Was it their fault? Did they do something wrong? But it’s usually not the case, right? It usually has nothing to do with what the parent did or didn’t do. These things are, you know, genetic, they’re inborn, a nd I think it’s so much better for kids to know the reasons why things are hard for them and the reasons why they are who they are and learn ways to manage that from as young an age as possible instead of going through life just thinking they’re weird or dumb or just different and not knowing how to find resources and find their people.

Cindy Lopez:
Totally agree. I like how you just said that labeling is fantastic. It gives both the parents and the children more information. Thinking about this twice exceptionality with some gifted intelligence and that could look different in different kids. I’m thinking about girls in social situations. What happens when girls have this kind of easy ability to learn academics and have such a hard time socially or even the opposite, intelligence is high, but academics are still difficult, like what does that all look like? And I’m wondering if you could even maybe give some examples.

Dr. Lisa White:
I think socially girls have a harder time potentially. I mean those middle school years are rough to be a girl. I think with boys, they don’t have those really subtle social interactions, you know, the blink of an eye or the turn of a lip, you know, that means so much for girls. Boys don’t just have that in the same way, and I think that means for girls who don’t pick up on subtle social interactions, it’s even harder, but I like to say overall that when you’re 2e, everything’s either too easy or too hard. So you know, it makes you feel very unbalanced and hard to find your place.

When you’re 2e, you have what’s called a spiky profile, like highs and lows. This is also called asynchronous development and, whether it’s that you’re intellectually gifted, but have trouble reading or academics are hard, but you’re good socially or whether, you know, academics are easy, but you have a hard time socially, you know, you’re not typical. You’re not even across the board. For example, this might mean an eight year old who’s doing seventh grade math, but have the social skills of a five year old, you know, or a five year old who knows everything there is to know about dinosaurs, but, you know, when it comes to going to sleep at night, they’re still scared and need, you know, a lovey or whatever it is because they’re still a little kid. So 2e kids are really asynchronous, and it can just make them feel very unbalanced.

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Cindy Lopez:
So I hear you saying that girls might look different than boys in terms of 2e and girls they may mask a lot, they can look more socially adept because they work really hard at it, and then they go home and they just are exhausted and fall apart. Is that a typical type of scenario?

Dr. Lisa White:
Absolutely. So for example, girls with ADHD or girls on the autism spectrum look different from boys, especially socially. So you know, they aren’t sure of the rules, but they want to be part of the game. Their behaviors tend to be more socially appropriate than boys. You know, a boy with autism, his like perseverative, obsessive interest might be vacuum cleaners, but for a girl, it might be horses or Taylor Swift or something more under the radar and so it can be harder for a girl to get a diagnosis. You know, it can help her sort of fit in a little bit more, which is masking, and she may imitate others. She follows along, she can look more socially adept than she really is and then she goes home and like falls apart because she’s exhausted, you know, from trying to keep up this face all day and this sort of act all day that she has to work so hard to do. And it’s the same thing with learning disabilities with girls, you know, their high intellect helps them compensate for so many years. And then they get to a point where they just can’t compensate anymore, whether that’s in high school or college or wherever it is. And by that time, a lot of times teachers and parents aren’t even looking to see if there’s a problem anymore. You know, they’re sort of past the point where they’re looking to see if there’s dyslexia or dyscalculia. You know, girls will work extremely hard to cover up their challenges. Right now I’m working with a young woman who I just diagnosed with dyslexia and dyscalculia as she’s leaving for college, and all her life she just worked incredibly hard, and she was a good kid and she just slipped through all these years. And just now she’s learning about how her brain works. And, you know, she even asked me, she said, “is this really something or did I just not work hard enough?” And I was like, oh my gosh, you worked harder than like anyone, you know, and it’s exhausting. It’s really exhausting.

Cindy Lopez:
Yeah. So interesting that particularly the challenge with learning differences, learning disabilities, that combination of LD and giftedness just keeps kids going for a longer period of time. So by the time that they’re struggling with it, nobody’s looking for it. And you probably could kind of mistake it for something else. Is this just anxiety? Is this just going through a phase? So I think it’s really important for our listeners to also recognize that. If your child’s been diagnosed as gifted and they’re kind of starting to have challenges, you might look at a bigger picture. As we think about twice exceptionality, is the challenge more prominent than the giftedness? Is it the other way around? How does that work?

Dr. Lisa White:
So I would say that neither is more prominent all the time, the strengths can cancel out the weaknesses, the weaknesses can cancel out the strengths, depending on what environment they’re in, you know, if they’re working in an area of high interest or high capability, their challenges might be masked, or if they’re working in an area of real challenge, you may not even know they’re gifted.

And like we said, you know, for girls with like perfectionism and overachieving, they really try hard to hide their challenges at great emotional and mental cost, but yeah, it really goes back and forth between whether you can see the giftedness or like the challenge, whatever that might be.

Cindy Lopez:
And, just even noting perfectionism, I was reading an article yesterday about perfectionism and teens and not even 2e, but just teens in general and how that can lead to mental health challenges. So that’s another piece of this puzzle like you have these challenges that you know about, these strengths that you know about, what might surprise you is we talked about the social, but the emotional or mental health kinds of a toll that it takes. So is it true that parents or caregivers might start seeing some mental health conditions as a result of the 2e-ness?

Dr. Lisa White:
Absolutely I mean, I think all girls, all teens, you know, all kids, but especially girls are really vulnerable. And I think, you know, post pandemic it’s even more so. I mean, there’s tons of research on this, but kids who are 2e and girls who are 2e are very high risk, and I think a lot of it has to do with not finding their place, and potentially not finding their people. It can be very lonely, and it can be very difficult to know who you are in the world. I think that’s a piece of it, and I think one of the things that parents can do to really help their 2e kids is help them find their people. I think that’s huge, and it can be very hard to do. Parents ask me this all the time, where do I find their peers? And I say, if I knew I would absolutely tell you, but it’s very hard to do, but sometimes it involves, switching schools or finding the right college or the right summer camp or, you know, someplace where they find kids where they can relate intellectually and where both the kids and, you know, if they’re adults there as well, are not turned off by their challenges. So for a lot of 2e kids, just being around their people can be a huge support, but I think in general, there are a lot of mental health risks for 2e kids, anxiety, depression, you know, girls, especially with this perfectionism, it really causes a lot of anxiety.

Cindy Lopez:
Finding your place and that sense of belonging is so important for our youth, no matter what the age, and I think that’s an important piece of the puzzle as we look at total mental health for kids, that sense of belonging, where do they belong and helping them find that sense of belonging, their peers, as you mentioned. So, I’m wondering if you have some strategies or tools that you can share to help them support their twice exceptional girls?

Dr. Lisa White:
So, I already said my number one, you know, help them find their people, like that’s my big one. I think, you know, if they are struggling with mental health issues and they do need to find a therapist, you want to find someone who understands 2e. I think when you’re searching out any sort of support person, it really benefits if they understand 2e and they understand that asynchronous profile, and a lot of 2e kids are very intense and sensitive, and I mean, just really understanding what a 2e kid is like and how they operate. I think that’s very important in a therapist, especially. So that’s a big one for supporting a 2e girl who’s struggling. I think also if you are suspecting that there is, you know, a learning disability, whatever it is, get that evaluation.

You know, if you already know your daughter is 2e, learn what that means and, you know, as a parent, seek out best ways to parent a 2e kid who is potentially intense. You know, don’t say, “oh, well, middle school girls, you know how they are,” but really figure out how this kid is feeling and how to best take care of her. You know, they always say like your kid is not giving you a hard time. Your kid is having a hard time. And I really believe that, you know, it’s not personal, like she’s not necessarily trying to hurt you. She’s just intense and having a hard time, and so I think really understanding developmentally what your 2e girl is going through, and then you layer the 2e intensity and sensitivity on top of that. So, I think really trying to kind of get inside her head and understand where she is developmentally, what she’s going through, what she’s struggling with. Get to know her interests, get to know her friends, get to know her world. And if that world doesn’t particularly interest you, sorry, get to know it anyway, you know, like you may learn a lot about Taylor Swift or Dungeons and Dragons or World War II or whatever it is like, guess what, this is your new interest now because that’s what you do when you have a 2e kid.

Cindy Lopez:
I really like what you said about giving you a hard time versus having a hard time. I think that’s good for all of us to hear. So as we think about girls, we’ve talked about mental health, specifically of twice exceptional girls and how they could possibly be more impacted than their peers. I also know we talked previously preparing for this about this myth of the gifted girl. Can you say something about that?

Dr. Lisa White:
So, you know, in the eighties and nineties there was this myth of the gifted girl. Gifted girls dumb themselves down. They dumb themselves down to fit in and this is what gifted girls did and it was the case. This happened a lot. Gifted girls dumb themselves down to be popular, to have boys like them to whatever, whatever. This seems to no longer be the case. Gifted girls now are super high achieving. All girls now are super high achieving. Girls feel like they have to be successful in all areas. They have to be successful academically, very high achieving, socially have a lot of friends, do a ton of extracurricular activities. You know, having to be the best at everything and everybody sees everything on social media. And this impossible standard is exhausting. And I think that, you know, people who are still thinking like girls are dumbing themselves down don’t see what’s going on today. I think a lot of it has to do with like the college admissions that it’s so hard to get into colleges now, and there are so many high achieving kids. And so, you know, it’s just a new way of looking at it that smart girls are in even more competitive situations and even more stressful situations than they used to be.

Cindy Lopez:
Yeah, I think that’s a really good point to make. If you’re a parent listening, a caregiver listening, an educator listening, how can they support the 2e students, the 2e kids to maximize their potential?

Dr. Lisa White:
I think taking a step back, right? If you see a kid and you think this kid is really smart, but their grades are surprisingly low, considering they’re really smart or homework is taking them way longer than it seems like it should be or they’ve had a lot of social challenges that are pervasive over many years or, you know, I think my kid might be anxious or might be depressed. You want to get an evaluation. And you want to get an evaluation with somebody who understands gifted and 2e because administering and interpreting the tests are different when you are working with a 2e kid. 2e kids give answers that are not in the book.  And I do assessments as well and working with a 2e kid, you need to be a little more creative sometimes in how you’re interpreting the tests and really understanding these kids and their testing behavior. So I think getting an evaluation, you know, I always say it’s only a problem when it’s a problem. So, if everything’s going fine, you’re fine, no problem, but if there’s a problem, if school is becoming a challenge, if social things are a challenge do something about it, you know, look into it, see what’s going on. So I think that’s a really big way to support your child is to seek out information about what’s going on. In terms of, you know, maximizing potential I think there’s this sort of thing that you have to maximize your child’s potential every minute of every day. And I see these parents looking for soccer coaches for their four year olds and like, no, you don’t have to do that. You know, I think kids can explore a lot of different things without being the very best at all of them. I think growing up is about trying and about learning and not everything is a competition. So I think there’s that piece. You don’t have to maximize potential every second of every day and you know, the thing I really think about most is that a parent or a caregiver or guardians relationship with the child in their care should trump everything else. It’s more important than where they go to college. It’s more important than their academic performance. It’s more important than whether they’re a ice skating star, whatever it is, that is the most important thing is the relationship between the parent or caregiver and the child.

And, you know, some things that can be you know, making sure that you as the parent with your 2e child, that you’re not always the bad guy, right? Outsource as much help as you can. So whether that means, you know, getting someone to help with homework and that can be as simple as like hiring a high schooler to sit with your middle school kid to help them stay on track, right? This is not necessarily a hugely expensive tutor kind of person, but, you know, outsourcing as much as you can so that you’re not always the bad guy. Help your child logistically, drive them where they need to be driven and make sure they have the art supplies that they like to have and all that kind of stuff so that they can follow their interests and sort of be in the world the best way they can, follow the lead on your child’s interests. You know, if they find a friend, you might drive half an hour to see that friend, but if they found another 2e friend, you want to go after that. So, you know, the things that you can do as a parent to support them and be the good guy and say yes and show your child that you are on their side and supporting their interests, supporting their desires, just supporting them in every way possible.

Cindy Lopez:
I’m wondering if you have any final words for our listeners, any takeaways you want to make sure that they hear from you today?

Dr. Lisa White:
So there’s a quote that I love about how parenthood is about understanding that your child is exactly the person they’re supposed to be. And if you’re lucky, they might be the teacher who turns you into the person you’re supposed to be. And 2e girls, 2e kids in general can be super frustrating to parent. They’re intense. It’s hard to know what’s best for them. Sometimes it’s really hard to see their strengths, but when they’re in the right environment and they can shine they can be so rewarding, so incredibly interesting to spend time with, you’ll have the best conversations with them, and they’re the kids who really change you, and it’s worth it. You know, it’s worth the hard times for the rewards that 2e girls and 2e kids in general can really give you.

Cindy Lopez:
I love that kind of turning it around and saying, you know, as a parent, as caregiver, what can I learn? That’s an important perspective I think for all of us to keep as we work with kids. So Dr. White, thank you so much for joining us today and having this conversation with us specifically about girls who are twice exceptional.

Cindy Lopez:
So, to our listeners, if you’d like to reach out to Dr. White, you can at the Summit Center, the URL will be in the show notes. Additionally, if you need help with your child, we have free consultations for parents, whether it’s children, teens, or young adults, please reach out, please contact us, and we can help. You can phone us at 650-688-3625, or you can email us at careteam@chconline.org. We so appreciate you listening, and we hope you listen again. Thank you so much, Dr. White.

Dr. Lisa White:
Thank you for having me.

Cindy Lopez:
Visit us online at podcasts.chconline.org. Make sure to subscribe to Voices of Compassion so you never miss an episode, and we’d love it if you’d leave us a rating and review. Have a question? Send us an email or a voice memo at podcasts@chconline.org. We’re here for you when you need us.