By Qiao Li
Happy belated Mother’s Day to all the moms. I hope you have found a special moment just for yourself,
and a lovely day with family. This time last year, we were all still trying to understand and adopt to the realities of lives in pandemic. Schools cancelled, working from home, senior shopping hours, and predicting the peak (over and over again). So much have changed since then, yet some important changes remained.
Moms are now working more jobs, their personal and professional boundary lines have been blurred to none, and they have less time for themselves. In addition to the roles prior to the pandemic – working, parenting and domestic duties, most moms are also taking on some versions of homeschooling for their children. For parents of gifted and profoundly gifted children, it has become more challenging to “keep up” with their unmet needs from their virtual classroom.
We know there are a lot of parenting resources in gifted education, from programs to services, assessments to advocacy. This blog post, however, primarily focuses on the self-care for parents of gifted and highly gifted children, how you can take care of you while taking care of the family.
If you haven’t already, please check out IEA’s monthly Gifted Support Group. It’s a great place to start. Our monthly Gifted Support Group meetings feature experts on various aspects of
gifted education. The goals are to support parents, build community, it’s a venue for shared discovery, and a space to exchange resources and ideas. Sharing experiences with other parents and educators who interact with gifted children has proven to be enormously helpful.
In this open letter titled “Dear Tired Mom of Gifted Kids,” Gifted Specialist Colleen Kessler from Raising Lifelong Learners reaffirmed that sharing experiences with other parents and building community is critical to bringing calm to everyday parenting life.
In this podcast by Debbie Reber, who is the founder of TiLT, a parenting community for raising unconventionally wired children, Debbie shared twelve strategies and ideas for creating a sustainable, doable self-care practice.
Taking care of you paves a strong foundation for the wellbeing of the whole family. The journey of raising gifted and highly gifted children is long, joyous, tenuous and amazing all at the same time. Know that you have a community and are never alone! Best wishes and keep in touch![vc_single_image image=”10489″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center” qode_css_animation=””]