Understanding, Supporting, and Advocating for Your 2e Twice Exceptional Child
How can we reframe our understanding of giftedness so we can give 2e (twice-exceptional) children the support they’re silently craving?
There’s so much gold from my conversation about giftedness this week with Julie Skolnick. She’s the founder of With Understanding Comes Calm, the mother of 2e children herself, and the author of the newly released book, Gifted and Distractible.
I love how Julie is so passionate about supporting parents of gifted and distractible children and training educators and professionals on how to bring out the best in 2e students and adults.
What is giftedness?
To understand 2e, or twice-exceptional, you have to first have an understanding of giftedness.
While there tend to be misconceptions about being gifted, like confusing giftedness with high achievers, which are two very different things, gifted kids can and do sometimes struggle in school. Julie describes giftedness as “This way of coming to the world with a deeper thought process and critical thinking.” Because of this deeper understanding, processing speed and executive functions can be challenged because so much data is being taken in.
Giftedness includes high intellect in one or more areas (not necessarily all areas, which is another common misunderstanding). Because of this high intelligence, these learners might seem easy to parent and educate, but in reality, everything is more complicated and intense. These learners are deep thinkers, paying attention to everything going on around them - environmentally, politically, and humanistically when most are not doing this, so these kids often feel different than others.
“Gifted learners approach the world differently. It’s a special need because they need something very different than the norm. ”
Reframing 2e:
From Slow Processing Speed to Deep Processing Speed
One big takeaway I took from Julie’s book is how she reframes slow processing speed to deeper processing speed. Oftentimes, we think taking more time has something to do with intelligence, or being quick, and doing things quickly makes us smarter. An accurate reflection of what’s going on with 2e, twice-exceptional, or gifted learners is they aren’t slow processors - they are deep processors.
If we reframe processing speed, it gives us more insight into what is happening in their brain, and why executive function might be weak - there’s just more for these learners to process.
If this child was exhibiting this behavior as an adult, would we then value this behavior?
One of the questions Julie asks when she’s speaking about giftedness and ADHD is: If this child was exhibiting this behavior as an adult, would we then value this behavior?
Of course, we want and need people who are going to think deeply and critically about their work and contribute to the world. So recognizing that as a strength instead of a weakness in these types of learners is a necessary shift in perspective.
Why is a strength-based approach so critical with 2e kids?
This is probably one of the most important questions because they are misunderstood. There are assumptions made about them like:
If they're intellectually overexcitable and have a rage to learn, people think they want to show off everything they know.
If they're emotionally overexcitable, people think that they are too sensitive.
If they are sensory or sensually overexcitable, people think they're making a big deal and the parent is coddling them.
All these misunderstandings happen and then assumptions happen, which are worse than just not understanding. When you misunderstand and say somebody is trying to be the center of attention when instead they're just super curious, what's going to happen to the learner? They're going to learn real quickly: I better not be super curious anymore because it only gets me negative feedback. Then the masking begins.
Five questions to ask your 2e twice-exceptional child beyond “How was your day?”
Julie suggests that a better way to support 2e children emotionally and mentally is instead of asking them, “How was your day?” ask:
“Do you want a snack?”
“Was anything interesting today?”
“What did you observe today?”
“What piqued your interest today?”
“What did you notice today?”
Ask questions that have neither a positive or negative connotation. Julie mentions in her book, Gifted and Distractable, spotlighting and observing their behaviors is this form of validation.
This is why it’s so important to use a strength-based lens and say to this kid, “Wow, you're so curious.”
Julie offers ways to teach parents and teachers to address challenging behaviors. It starts with building the child up and finding the positive thing. She shares that her favorite thing to do in the world is to positively reframe challenging behavior. We have to help the kid become a leader and help us solve the problem.
Julie likes to call this the parent pivot or the teacher twist, where we ask questions instead of telling them all the time to sit down, face forward, and do this and that. Kids are asked so many times, “Why won't you” “Why can't you” “When will you” and “why don't you.”
Susan Baum at Bridges Academy says neurodivergent kids are redirected 40 times more in the classroom than neurotypical kids. Looking at this stat, it makes so much sense why these kids often struggle with emotional and mental health. They’re constantly being told something's wrong with them all day long so being redirected impacts how they feel on the inside. And, if they are emotionally attuned and have more sensitive nervous systems, then it can be tough on these kids.
Tips for connecting with your 2e twice-exceptional child
Julie shares tips she uses to help parents support 2e kids at home and school. One of the number one strategies for parents is the personal connection we have with our kids. How we have to establish the foundation for connection by seeing them, validating them, and holding space to be present with them.
1. Establish personal connection
Personal connection is the first thing to do. You could have the greatest strategies, and read all the books, but if you don't have a personal connection, it's not going to work. And the other flip side is true as well.
2. Shine a spotlight
Shining a spotlight as Julie speaks about spending time with your kids. Plan an established amount of time with one kid at a time with no screens. Do something they want to do and just play the role of a newscaster or a narrator and narrate what they're doing. For example, if they're building with Legos, you're going to notice that they're building with a certain color, “Oh, you're building with all the blue Legos.” Or say something like “I see you're only using blue Legos” instead of saying, “Hey, why don't you do a pattern like blue, white, blue, white.”
You're not going to teach or judge or redirect or help or solve like we usually do instead, you're just going to notice stuff and let them figure it out on their own.
3. W. I. N. Time
Establish a W I N time. W I N stands for what I need. Discuss during a calm time with a child a time they needed more support. For example, “Hey, I noticed sometimes when you come home from school, it seems like you're not feeling great.” Use language like notice to avoid any judgment.
During W I N time, talk about with your child a time when maybe they need some support and together write down and brainstorm everything your child wished they had in that moment or help them think about what could have helped. And if the kid says, “A banana split the size of Texas,” write it down. They're brainstorming and guess what? That's an executive function- thinking about these things and organizing and prioritizing them.
Start listing all the things. Whether they need water, or noise-canceling headphones, or something sensory to touch. Then, you can place some of these items in a W I N box in your home to have in the future.
When you do these types of exercises and have these conversations with your child, the reason why it's under the heading of personal connection is they feel seen, heard, validated, and acknowledged, and you're helping them to feel better.
4. Pillow Talk Time
It’s important to give your child space like “pillow talk time” reserved for them to talk to you about anything that is on their mind and not for you to solve their problem - which as a parent is hard.
“Our kids have buckets of resilience and they’re either full or they’re empty. And they also have huge amounts of feelings. And, in order to fill the bucket of resilience, you have to empty all those big feelings in some way.”
“Our kids have buckets of resilience and they're either full or they're empty. And they also have huge amounts of feelings. And, in order to fill the bucket of resilience, you have to empty all those big feelings in some way.”
When you consistently offer pillow talk time and they experience something they need to process during the day, they feel relief knowing they have the space to handle the situation later because Mom and Dad are going to listen.
This works for kids of all ages - a phone call to a college kid or even for adults. Imagine if you had a tough moment, and you knew you had that support person at the end of the day whom you could share and vent to and simply feel seen.
This is really a self-regulation strategy.
So often as parents, we come in with the best intentions thinking we're helping by trying to fix or provide solutions when so often what they need is just to have that space to feel seen, and their experience validated as real. These connection points allow us to then step in and support them and do all these other things.
A unique goal to have with your 2e kids before school (instead of asking if they're prepared)
Timing is important when it comes to building resilience in a 2e child. Barking at them before school with “Did you remember?” and “Don't forget…” Julie shares that her goal is “to make [her son] laugh so hard that he’ll tell me to stop or he'll pee in his pants because that means he's got great endorphins in his body as he's on his way to school.”
Building resilience and confidence in kids is a long game. Especially because it can feel easier in that moment to just do the thing yourself.
Instead it takes a little bit here and there, reading the room, knowing when they’re flooded, and picking it back up later. For each conversation, you have to set up the structure, and realize it's not going to be a one and done ever.
We think if we remind them 75 times to not forget [fill-in-the-blank,] we’re going to make their life better, but that stuff has to be figured out between teacher and kid.
Parents are the ones who are going to make their kid feel good in his, her, or their skin.
That's what's most important. Because, if we’re honest about it, the stuff we're anxious about is within ourselves, right? If we step back, we can ask: are we really supporting them in the situation if we’re reminding them 10 times to do something? Or are we asking them how their day was so we can hear it was good?
The Three Parenting Styles of 2e Kids
In Julie’s book, she talks about the three parenting styles she sees around 2e kids.
First, there’s the talker parent because gifted kids come from gifted adults. They think, “I'm just going to talk the heck out of this kid because somewhere in my thesis here, they're going to click in and get it.” When in actuality, basically after word five, they're checked out.
Second, we have the anxiety parent. They think, “Oh my God, my parents never would have let me talk to them this way.” And “Oh my God, I see the train coming down the track. It's about to crash. I'm going to jump in front of it.”
The problem with solving your kid's problems for them is that it sends a message to your kid - I don't think you can do this.
If we offer more responsibility to kids, the more they feel like they are capable. If we give them more agency, then that will help build them up.
Then there’s the doer or solver parent who's going to just solve the problem and make it go away.
Because so many of these parenting styles stem from what our parents did with us, we need to break those cycles. We need to be able to look at the kid in front of us and get curious about the individual because our 2e kids are unique with unique needs.
Top Game-Changing Tips for Supporting Your 2e Child
One of Julie’s go-to tips for 2e parents: visualize an enormous red pause button.
Very little has to be addressed immediately. So let's press the pause button. Even if your kid is 100% percent wrong in something they're saying, getting into a power struggle with your kid is a fabulous, fast-track way to kill your relationship. So there's really no reason to prove them wrong or not let them get away with it. We pause, and we let go of the rope. Maybe we do something that's a distraction, but we're not going to get into a power struggle.
Julie shares the secret sauce is her strategy called noticing verbs:
Identify the behavior you want to encourage by distinguishing between responsibility and set expectations.
For example, when it’s time to brush your teeth (something Julie identifies as a common challenge for 2e kids), knowing why they are being told to brush their teeth is super important.
Set expectations around that responsibility that are clear, concise, consistent, and appropriate.
When our kids successfully do the desired behavior (here's the magic piece) - you notice all the verbs.
Not just, “Thanks for brushing your teeth” or “I'm proud of you because then they're doing it for you.” Julie suggests saying something like, “Hey, when it was time to brush your teeth, I saw that you, [verb number one] went upstairs. [Verb number two] Went into the bathroom. [Verb number three] took the toothpaste out. [Verb number four], Opened the toothpaste. You put the toothpaste on your toothbrush. You put the toothbrush in your mouth. I saw you brushing all your teeth in the front, on the sides, in the back. You brushed your tongue and I saw you had a timer.
Notice I'm not saying thank you. Or I'm proud of you. I'm noticing effort. Talk about shining a spotlight and feeling seen. Noticing effort validates you from the inside and because, like we mentioned, 2e kids are redirected 40 more times than neurotypical peers, noticing efforts feels really good. Your kid might actually thank you. (And by the way, this works with your partner or spouse too.)
All of those feelings make us want to engage in those positive behaviors more. You're filling their bucket of resilience up, which means when a hard thing comes up, they actually might be able to handle it better.
This is the meat of the strength-based approach and how we, by building kids confidence, by giving them the opportunity to engage in things they're good at, things they're passionate about, more often, when things inevitably come up that are stickier and harder, we can move through them with a bit more ease.
More Resources Mentioned in the Episode
Connect with Julie! She’s @julieskolnick on Instagram and her website is With Understanding Comes Calm.
Her book that we mentioned a number of times is called Gifted and Distractable.
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Still curious about anything we mentioned today? I'd love to hear what's on your mind.
It's really a dream come true to have a platform to discuss these issues that are so near and dear to my heart with you. And I'm just so grateful that you're here with me today and ready to support each other on our journeys.
