Video: Strength-based Learning Discussion with Dr. Melanie Hayes

Listen into this discussion about strength-based learning with Dr. Melanie Hayes, founder of Big Minds School for 2e students in Pinole, CA. When kids are far from the bell curve in both directions, parents and educators tend to focus on shoring up weaknesses at the expense of bolstering strengths. However, strengths are where 2e kids build energy to face their challenges, boost their self-esteem, and their likely future careers will lie. Focusing on strengths should be a cornerstone of any 2e student’s educational plan. Melanie shared the strength-based methods of Big Minds Unschool, as well as how strength-based learning can be incorporated into any learning environment. What can parents do to bolster strengths at home and advocate for them in the classroom? How can we use strength-based learning to increase student motivation and tackle challenge areas? How does focusing on strengths help heal school trauma?

See the transcript here:

Callie Turk:

Got it. Okay, so hi everyone! I want to welcome you to our fireside chat tonight with Dr. Melanie Hayes. I'm Callie Turk, and I, along with Yael Valek—a co-founder of the group REEL, which stands for Resilience and Engagement for Every Learner—we started several years ago as a small group of parents that felt like our kids needed more engagement in school and weren't being given enough opportunities to develop resilience. And over time, we really learned that most of our kids were actually twice-exceptional.

And I imagine most of you know what twice-exceptional is, but just in case, in shorthand version, it—you know, these are kids who are very bright or very creative but also have learning differences such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, OCD, anxiety. And that makes them very interesting and complex learners. And we have a lot of different events for parents. We also work with our local school district. We're doing everything we can to help build bridges between parents and teachers of twice-exceptional kids so that they can be more successful in the school environment.

So we are just so pleased that you've joined us tonight, and I am going to turn this over to Yael, who's going to introduce our speaker. So, Dr. Melanie Hayes is the founder and executive director of Big Minds Unschool. She holds a doctorate in educational leadership with a focus on twice-exceptionality, a Master of Arts in gifted education, a Master of Arts in marriage and family therapy, a California teaching credential, and is currently working toward the LMFT/LPCC licensure in California. So she doesn't do that much.

Melanie has 20 years' experience teaching, mentoring, coaching, and advocating for 2e persons. She won the Innovations for Entrepreneurs National Award for her work using adaptive technology for twice-exceptional students and the Jefferson Award in recognition of her contributions to the 2e community. She also received SENG's Educator of the Year Award for her groundbreaking work in educating gifted and twice-exceptional children. Melanie is a certified SENG Model Parent Group Facilitator and supports parents to help them develop their parenting skills. She also works with various other professional associations, such as the IECA, where she serves as the affinity group co-chair for talented, gifted, and twice-exceptional.

So welcome, Melanie! Thank you so much. No wonder I feel tired now that we put it all out there. I'm like, wow, I've done a lot of stuff. And she also just wrote a book!

Melanie Hayes:

Yes, I just wrote a book. That was the big push. I finished that in March. So it's being looked at by the editor, so hopefully it'll be out in the next year. It's on being a gifted 2e person who is also on the spectrum, geared specifically towards helping adults learn to be, you know, successful in some of these harder areas.

So thank you for that nice introduction. Thank you, Cali and Yael, for inviting me here, and thanks all of you guys for coming to bounce some ideas with me. I think this is a really fun way to meet parents with 2e kids and talk about some of the common issues we all share.

My kids are now 20, but I have 2e twins, so I've also walked the walk that you're all walking, and I think that helps too. So Yael and Kelly asked me to talk about strengths-based education and why that's important. So I thought it'd be fun just for a minute to think about a time when you were going to learn something you were really excited about mastering and just think about what that process felt like. Then think about when you learned something that came really easily to you, and you maybe even were surprised how easy it was to learn something that you've mastered.

Think about something that was assigned to you, like maybe a work seminar—what that process was like. And then think about a high-stakes, high-pressure learning experience. And I think, you know, we consider all those—those are all valid learning models but very different outcomes. And for 2e kids, I think that retaining and learning information relies on a lot of factors that many people don't take into consideration.

And I know you guys at REEL do this work where you help people understand what's going on, but I'm going to go over a couple of quick things just in case there's something maybe that hasn't been talked about before.

So two things to consider about learning: To learn, you have to be open and vulnerable, and it's also often a highly social act. So think about this from a 2e perspective. Oftentimes, 2e kids, the social piece has been hard. They may have not had the same positive experiences with socializing and developing pro-social skills, and so that can impact learning.

And also, they may have learned over time that they can't be themselves. To be your authentic self, to be that open and vulnerable, you'll get hurt. And so they've learned to mask, to compensate, to not bring their authentic self to the learning environment.

I'm sure most of you have heard of Dr. Stephen Porges's work on polyvagal theory—that's the fight, flight, or freeze response. And when you're in fight, flight, or freeze, you're not going to remember much of what you learned because your autonomic nervous system has shut down the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the social engagement, relational piece. And that can't happen unless you're feeling safe.

So for a lot of our kids, school is an anxiety-producing experience. They have these daily chronic stressors that can lead to trauma over time. But even if it doesn't lead to trauma, just that not feeling able to be vulnerable or safe can really impact learning and remembering what they learn.

And then the other piece I want to bring up that maybe hasn't been talked about so much is the self-efficacy piece. Dr. Albert Bandura did this work in the 1960s—he's kind of the father of self-efficacy—but what he said is that we learn several ways. One of them is through our past successes—things that we've tried, particularly like babies that try things and then learn to walk through trying and failing.

We learn through vicarious experiences—so that's watching someone who's like you learn something and master it and end up doing it well. We get positive feedback and social persuasion—so, you know, encouragement, feedback when you do things well. That sort of thing is one of the self-efficacy learning models.

And then the last part is: What is your emotional and psychological state? So if you're able to manage anxiety and you can accurately view your abilities and you feel like you're resilient, you're going to be able to work through stuff and develop this positive self-efficacy.

And it's a little bit more than like self-esteem or self-image because self-efficacy is: When something is hard, are you able to approach it? If you fail, are you able to evaluate why you failed and look at how to approach it differently? That's positive self-efficacy. Negative self-efficacy is: You're going to avoid the hard things. If you fail, you're going to blame yourself.

So that's basically the difference there. And so positive learning experiences happen and build self-efficacy, and negative ones tear it down. So if you're a kid who has not had good positive learning experiences, you're going to have pretty low self-efficacy.

And we often wonder why our kids refuse to do hard things, refuse to try stuff, blame themselves when they fail. These are the reasons why. And I think also because they're differently wired, there's the added layer of this masking. Oftentimes, they'll learn how to compensate through their giftedness, so they mask their disability as well.

And so people will think, "Gosh, you're just being lazy," or "If you tried harder," or "You're not applying yourself." All those kinds of things come because our kids can be very good at not showing that they're really struggling, and there's a valid reason for their struggling.

And then if you've got heightened sensitivities—it could be either sensory processing or maybe you're a highly sensitive person and very empathetic—those experiences are also going to really impact how much you're able to take in, how much you're able to bring to the table as far as your authentic strengths and abilities.

And then—let's see—the last thing I want to talk about before we go directly to questions and answers because I feel like that's probably what most of you want is specific answers to your specific questions—but I just want to give you another thing to think about.

We all, when our kids were babies and toddlers, we took care of their needs, and because they trusted us, they were able to feel secure, and they pretty bravely went about their learning. You know, they're curious, they're creative in their problem-solving. Babies pretty fearlessly explore and try to figure things out.

And then something sort of goes awry when we get into school because their learning approach and their specific way of learning is often not validated. And they're often also told to do things in a specific way that doesn't resonate with them, doesn't inspire them, feels like it's going against the grain for them.

And so they often stop being curious and creative because they're being told the way they're doing it is wrong or they need to learn a different way to do it. And I feel like for twice-gifted kids, this is particularly damaging because they do have divergent minds, and their learning patterns are around this big-picture learning, creating a systems way of thinking, bringing their unique strengths to the table.

And when those are thwarted by well-meaning teachers, well-meaning educators, our kids feel broken. If they see there's something wrong with them—"Why can't I do this the way the other kids are doing it?"—particularly if they have been told that they're gifted, then they don't believe it. They think that, you know, somebody's convinced them that they have these skills that they don't.

And I think if we—you know, babies don't need a curriculum or a lesson plan from the parents. They just go do their thing. And I think if we can think about how babies learn and how our toddlers—and what we want for them—so think about when your children were younger, what you want is you want to allow them the freedom and to be able to focus on this thing they want to learn, whatever they're interested in learning.

We, as parents, model all these wonderful things—that you're going to be able to walk and talk and, you know, all these things that we know that they need to learn to do. We provide appropriate help when they need it. We create an enriched environment full of all kinds of cool things that make them want to interact with them.

We provide lots of happy interaction with people who care about them and reflect back this positive experience. We ensure they have a safe place to play and to learn. And we give positive, ongoing feedback and encouragement. So if you think about that, that's actually a strengths-based learning environment.

And somehow, we get away from that when we move into formal education because we start to put this adult agenda of what we believe children need to learn on top of every aspect of their day. So, you know, we're talking about the standardized curriculum, and for a lot of our kids, that makes no sense.

For gifted kids, they may have already mastered it years above what they're doing in asynchronous areas—I'm not saying in all areas, but in some areas, they may be far above. And there's no reason for them to do this curriculum.

And I think when faced with that, they often give up. And then we wonder why they don't have this self-efficacy, which is kind of grit, resilience, sticking with it. And that comes from a complete mismatch from the kind of environment that actually promotes strengths-based learning to the kind of environment that's been codified and fossilized into what we think kids need to learn.

So yes, there are different schools, both public and private, that are approaching things in different ways. Some really gifted and amazing teachers do this naturally and keep the strengths-based learning going naturally. But I think, for the main, it doesn't happen once our kids get into school.

And that's a tragedy because our kids have this potential to—a lot of them are very self-directed, autodidactic learners. And just sort of given support and time and space and materials, they would probably thrive much better than when they're being so directed in a school environment.

So I want to address those things that are on the questions. I know a lot of you are thinking about: How do they develop that resiliency and grit? How do you make them do things they don't want to do? How do we help them overcome their fear and build confidence?

Everybody has to learn how to do boring things. Like, I know, I understand all of that. And all of those things are also correct. But I think they can be taught through a strengths-based model, just like we have when they were babies.

So with all of those things in mind, there's four things that I think parents can keep in mind. One is to be a curious parent—to really, truly try to understand your child's world, where they're coming from, why they're doing what they're doing.

Think about building intrinsic motivation through that understanding: Why do they do what they love to do, and why? And how can you weave that into other things? Think about your timing—like, our kids need incremental growth opportunities, and the timing needs to be right for it to be intrinsic motivation. So that's, again, really looking at where they're coming from based on both their developmental place—where are they developmentally in their growth? What's appropriate for them to learn? And also, what are they motivated to do?

And then the last thing is really evaluate your own perspective and your own desires versus what does your child really need? Because I think we, as adults, sometimes feel like they've got to do this, they've got to do this. I can see all these things they've got to do. And it creates a lot of anxiety for you and puts you in a pretty difficult position to be an effective parent.

And we don't really know what our kids are going to be facing. And so, you know, as we get through the questions, I think I'll answer this a little more. But there's some specific things that aren't necessarily academic that I would, as a parent, be more focused on to make sure that my kid would be functional in whatever the future looks like for them.

Yael Valek:That was already so amazing right out the gate. It definitely makes me think about, you know, my kids and their lives in public school right now. So I would love to hear more about how Big Minds approaches strengths-based learning. And then, how can we get other schools—because I know that's a very unique environment—how do we get other schools, especially schools that don't have this mindset at all, public schools, to also adapt some of these philosophies?

And thank you. And I'm the first to acknowledge that there are many, many people who need to be in public school and that doing something else is not an option. So I know, you know, I come from a place of privilege where I was able to homeschool my kids and then I was able to create Big Minds. And, you know, that's not always possible.

So what I'll try to really give you guys today is sort of: Do what you can based on what your circumstances are. So I will give you the magical unicorn of Big Minds first because it's like the best of all worlds. And I can say that because I've had many 2e kids tell me that. They have vetted Big Minds over and over again, and I think they're the real experts.

In fact, it was funny—we had a kid come through to do our shadow week, and he's like, "This is exactly the school I designed." So that made me feel really good.

So let me tell you a little bit about that. It is a strengths-based school. That's our number one thing—is that the kids get to spend their time doing the things that they're good at. In fact, we do that so much that at the start, before each semester, we send out a survey to the kids and say, "What do you want to learn this semester?"

Then we compile that information, and we put together the classes that the majority of the kids want to do. And there's ones that are repeating oftentimes—like, we have a lot of kids that want to learn foreign languages. That comes up a lot. Physics comes up a lot. Chemistry comes up a lot. Game design comes up a lot. Coding and programming comes up a lot. Various art classes.

We actually—a life skills class comes up a lot. I was just talking with Callie about this. Our kids are pretty aware that they need to learn how to do things, especially as they get into the upper elementary and middle school grades.

And then we also provide what we call passion project coaching. So those kids who have this outlier interest that nobody else seems to be interested in, they get to sign up for coaches to do specific work around that project with them. Because learning is a social activity, and to have someone who's interested in what you're doing, who can bring expert perspective, who can help you, you know, do a timeline for the project or help with the executive functioning or give you ideas about how this might be applicable—can bring their life experience. That's huge for our kids, and it's very validating and self-efficacy-building.

So that is a part of the curriculum as well. And then I will say—mostly for the parents, but also because we recognize that our kids are going to have to have a certain level of math and reading and writing skills, and not everybody comes to us with giftedness or high ability in those areas—so we do have one-on-one math and literacy coaching.

It's only required for 30 minutes per subject per week. Kids who love math can sign up for much more. Kids who love writing and reading can sign up for much more. There's also a lot of really—you know, we talk about the enriched environment—there's a lot of enriched environment things that go on too.

Like, we have book clubs, and we have a movie club. There's all kinds of math and puzzle-solving and coding and things like that in different activities and games and things that are going on throughout the day.

The way that Big Minds is—in person, and we tried to replicate this the best we could online—but basically, in person, the kids can walk throughout the campus however they want throughout the day. So let's say, you know, the classes are running concurrently. A child can go in and spend half of a class in the art class, and then they're moving into something that the child's not that interested in.

So they're going to go in and catch what's going on for the last part of the physics class. That's totally okay with us as long as they're not disrupting and interrupting other kids' learning. They can come and go as they like.

If they're sitting on the couch in the main communal space and they're on their iPad making a stop-motion animation or they're writing lyrics for their rap song or they're writing a book or they're reading or napping—we're okay with all of that too. So there's a great respect for the child's inherent knowledge of what they need.

One of the things we know that most schools don't understand is that our kids spend so much energy into dealing with the sensory, the anxiety, the empathetic—the empath sort of things, the environmental stressors—that we respect that they know when they need to go in the Lego room and just build Legos for a while or go into the zen room and sit there quietly with the lights turned off and the sound of the fountain.

You know, it's like—they have wisdom about that. And I think we, as adults, often forget that children do know themselves better probably than anybody else, and we tend to devalue and undermine that. And so we try really hard at Big Minds not to do that.

So they're in this strengths-based learning environment. They're in an enriched environment, meaning that there's all sorts of things going on at all times—like I was talking about earlier: all clubs, get-togethers, social conversations, discussions about the brain and how it works. Like, these things are happening all over the campus.

And so the kids walking around—you know, just if you're one of those kids who, when you first come, you need to sort of take it all in for a few months and you're not going to really participate in anything—we're fine with that too because we know they're learning as they're just floating around doing this stuff.

I say it's like—you know, when you're learning a language, you don't want to speak right away because you're embarrassed about your accent or you're going to get it wrong. But you can hear and sort of understand and participate just in the silent period of language learning. And that's what our kids often do.

We have kind of two kinds of kids. Like, the kids who are more introverted, sort of observers, will generally go into one classroom and stay there until they develop this sense of comfort and relationship with the teachers. And they get this social group they feel comfortable with, and then they'll slowly start to branch out.

And then the extrovert kind of "exploder" kids will go from thing to thing to thing to thing. They can just always be running around for the first few months until they start to settle and they really start to see what it is that they love.

And I think for a lot of our kids, this is the first time they've really been able to explore a variety of interests that resonate with them. And so we let them do that too because we know eventually they're going to find their place—both kinds of kids—and they're going to figure it out.

And we also respect that a lot of these kids haven't had good friends, and that the social aspect and wanting to be in the Lego room playing with their friends all day is the most important part of their learning right now.

And so if we've got kids that sit out on the tables on the porch and play games with their friends all day, we've got kids that sit and visit all day, we've got kids that play Legos all day—that's the important part of an environment where it is self-directed learning.

Is that we have respect for all levels. Like, there's no hierarchy around "academics are the most important thing you do here," and then the other stuff goes down until we finally get to maybe creative or social endeavors. To us, all of those are equally important based on what the child needs and what they inherently know they need.

And so, you know, our tagline is: "We fit the school to the child." And we really do. Like, we really allow them the freedom to discover what it is that they need.

But—you know, having said that—they're not left without any support. So if there are kids that say, "Would you please make a schedule for me? I feel really overwhelmed by all the choices today," we'll definitely do that. If there's kids who want support around developing social skills, we will definitely do that.

So there's this mentoring team who is there to provide whatever support they need—but not with that adult agenda. It's around helping them to connect authentically.

And then the last part of it is—the school itself is designed to be a sensory-soothing environment. You know, it's not classrooms with desks. Sure, we've got tables—like in the science room, in the computer room, and things like that—tabletops and chairs. But there's a lot of soft furniture.

The sound is designed to absorb sound so that it's not a lot of resonating, clattery sound like you get in a lot of classrooms. We don't hang a million things from the ceiling so that it's visually overstimulating. The colors are soft. The rooms are designed so that there could be just a few kids—a handful of kids—in each room at a time. And that's generally how it is.

I would say most rooms have five to seven kids in them at any one time. Our busiest time at the end of the day is when everybody's going home at the same time. We have a staggered drop-off, so kids come between 8:30 and 10. We call it a "soft start," which reduces all that morning stress but also is designed to give kids social interaction time.

And even at the end of the day, when it is loud and noisy and everybody's leaving at once, we've got kids that know that, so they'll go in the zen room or the music room and close the door and have that quiet space until their parents come to pick them up.

So it's really about understanding all the aspects of being twice-exceptional. I hire people who, number one, are kind, flexible, curious, and creative. I can train them how to be teachers. In fact, being a credentialed teacher is not even high on our priority list. We do have some, but mainly I'm looking for people who are gifted, talented, interested in one particular area where they bring their passion to the classroom.

Like, our history teacher—one of her most popular classes that everybody asked for over and over again is open discussion about history, where kids can just come in and talk about whatever. And she's so well-versed in history, she can just go to town with it. And if she doesn't know, they'll all look it up together and do research. And so it's this very fluid, flexible, supportive environment.

Do our kids learn how to do hard things? Yeah. Do they develop grit? Yes. Do they get good at doing boring, repetitive stuff? No. Because no 2e kid in the world is going to willingly do a boring, repetitive thing. But as they get older, they start to understand why that's necessary.

And that's the secret. So the magic secret for getting kids to do things is intrinsic motivation. And if you can help them learn—like, you know, in high school, you're going to be required to do some form of note-taking. Let's help you figure out which one works with your strengths. They'll stick with it.

You know, learning language can be boring. They'll stick with it. So it's around really looking at how to honor that child and support every aspect of their spiky, little asynchronous being.

Callie Turk:

I think just following up on that—because this sounds like such a magical setting, and I wish I could transport my kids back, you know, seven or eight years so they could experience all of the magic—but just sort of following up on Yael's original question, I think a lot of us are like, "Wow, that's amazing, and I wish we could have that, but my kids still need to go to the public school in the neighborhood."

And I'm trying to figure out, how could I get them to incorporate even just some of the things that you're doing? So if there's anything that you can offer advice about—how do we help get some of our local schools to adopt at least some of these things, since they may not have the training or the background that you have?

Melanie Hayes:

Of course. Yeah, I mean, and I recognize that. I feel like the key is to try to find ways that is not a lot of extra work for the teacher, that you know is not threatening in any way. You know, it's like we have to sort of bring it in a nice gift-wrap package so that they'll be willing to at least try it.

But I feel like there are things that we could do. Like, I know some kids—especially younger kids—you know, they're still willing to do the worksheets, and they'll burn through them in no time, and then they don't know what to do. So the teachers don't have the bandwidth to do individual—"Let's give them something else." And so they end up giving them more worksheets, which is then what leads to this burnout and disengagement.

So I know one of the things I've recommended is to create a workbox of all sorts of things that your child likes to do that the school agrees to—obviously, they're not going to probably let you put an iPad in there, but you could have different books, different puzzle books, different art supplies.

If they're working on a particular story or a series of drawings, or if they're making some kind of a paper construction—are they researching something? So can you have books about whatever that topic they're interested in at the time that they could pull out and quietly read?

I think that really helps with the younger children because the teacher's not going to be opposed to any of that because it keeps your child quietly occupied. They're doing learning activities. The only thing I could see that might be pushback is other kids will be really interested in what the kid's doing and want to do it. And like, "Hey, how come I can't do that?"

So there might be some negotiation that maybe the teacher creates a quiet workspace that the classroom rule is: When you're done with this project or worksheet, you can go back to the table and work on your own project. So you might be able to convince a teacher to set something up like that in the classroom that becomes part of the classroom protocol.

And really, I think you can argue for a teacher that that makes their job easier because if the kids can go and do quiet activities that keep them occupied that are self-choice activities, then the teacher has more time and bandwidth to help those kids who are still struggling and taking longer.

So that's one argument for the younger kids. I also think—for like middle school, it could be for elementary too—but for middle school and high school kids, is there an option for them to say, like, go to the library or the principal's office and do an online advanced or accelerated course during—say, if they're really great at math?

Can they do a really rapidly accelerated math curriculum in a different setting? Some—I know some people that have had a tutor come because their kid's doing calculus when they're in sixth grade. And so the tutor comes to the library, works with them during that math hour that the classroom is normally doing math.

Some enlightened teachers have been willing to let kids use the computers or whatever device the school uses to sign on to things like Brilliant or Khan Academy or Beast Academy math—you know, things that the kids can do self-paced.

If your teacher is willing to do that, that can be extremely helpful to have your child—in those areas where they're very advanced—to be able to work at their actual level so that they're learning things. Because a lot of our kids get really turned off by the repetition and having to keep going over and over something they've already mastered a long time ago.

The other thing that turns them off is having to do something that they can't do. So, you know, maybe there's a writing assignment, and they've got dysgraphia or fine motor skills, and the writing is torturous. And so in the hour, they write one sentence when, in their mind during that time, there was a whole novel composed.

And so, you know, it's thinking about: How can they use technology? Can they use speech-to-text? Could they find another way to do the assignment? I've had some teachers be willing to let kids do—you know, like younger kids—stop-motion animation or a collage or a comic book.

Older kids, they may be able to do like a mock YouTube video where they're describing and telling everything they know. Some kids have been able to just record having a mock conversation with the teacher where they answer the questions that the teacher has given them—the assignment is supposed to show.

So one of the things you can do is ask the teacher: Is it possible, when there's an assignment, to give us a list of the things that you want the child to demonstrate that they've learned from this lesson? And most teachers do that anyway. You know, there's like, "Here's what you're going to have to be able to take a test that covers these things," or "You have to write a paper that covers these things."

So then you say, "Is there an alternative way for my child to demonstrate that knowledge?" And I think—I mean, I guess I have to acknowledge that teachers—there's time constraints. If they're going to watch a YouTube video, but I can't imagine that would be much longer than reading a paper or correcting a test. So hopefully, they will be open to letting you bring a little bit more creative way to demonstrate the kid's mastery into the classroom.

I think by high school, it gets a little easier because they can take AP classes in those areas where they're advanced already. And oftentimes, they have pretty good resources for—you know, that the kids sometime during the day can get a release period where they go work with a resource teacher in those areas where they're struggling.

Certainly, if you have IEPs or 504s, you can try to get accommodations written in for that—for either different ways to demonstrate knowledge or reduced homework loads. That's probably not going to fly in middle school or high school, but certainly in elementary school, you can advocate for reduced homework loads.

You can get it in middle school and high school, but they'll start to say, "Well, then that's a modified curriculum, and they're not going to get the A-G diploma." So it's a little trickier there. But what you can advocate for is: Is there another way for them to demonstrate what they know?

And then, obviously, if they have special ed support for those areas where they're struggling—again, that's tricky. A lot of people don't want their kids to do special ed for high school because they don't want the modified diploma. But you can still advocate for resources, even if it's like they get to spend time in the counselor's office, the principal's office, the library.

Like, if your child is a child who gets sensory overwhelm or the anxiety—they, you know, you can get them to agree to: The child has some kind of a pass that when they're feeling overwhelmed, they can go to the counselor's office. Things like that.

So our kids need an escape hatch for those kinds of sensory and anxiety—when they're really feeling overwhelmed, they just need to know there's somewhere they can go where they feel safe, where they can catch their breath, they can re-energize, be ready to go on to the next thing.

And you know, for middle school, it might be during the lunch hour when there's so much chaos and full of potential bullying and things like that that are so overwhelming for our kids. You can create things like that.

So I would say: Look at your child's biggest challenges, look at their strengths, and see if there's some way you can partner with the school to provide creative solutions for that. And unless they're draconian, I would think most people would be like, "Yeah, okay, this doesn't require me to do that much, and I can see where it would really help your child to be engaged and to learn and to, you know, be more well-behaved in class."

I mean, that's always a good argument: "My child will be much less disruptive if you will let them do this thing." So I think those are all the sort of main things that you could bring that sort of Big Minds-ish joy into their regular school day.

Callie Turk:

Thank you. Those are so helpful. And yes, we have found that "your classroom will have less disruptions and behavior challenges" has been a big seller for the teacher. And I would say—to all of you parents—don't underutilize REAL. They have some amazing resources to give to your teachers.

Thank you. So the next question we had—we're curious about is: What should parents do at home to bolster the kids' strengths at home? And also, any specific tips for over the summer?

Melanie Hayes:

Yeah, I think, you know, we—especially because of the pandemic—you know, we've watched our kids just become screen junkies and spend all their time on the screen, either for school or just they're so exhausted they don't want to do anything else, they can't do anything else, they're restricted from doing anything else.

So I think this summer—fingers crossed—most children should be able to be vaccinated, most adults should be able to be vaccinated. So I feel like things are opening up. I know we were saying that children's sports are picking back up again.

So a lot of the things that they used to do—whether it be dance or art or, you know, being out in nature, sports classes, science lab experiences, things like that that tend to really motivate our kids to stay in that learning environment, to want to continue to develop their skills—those things should start opening up again.

But I also want to caution against over-scheduling. And I know this is a weird balancing act for 2e kids because they have this rage to learn, and they want to do five million things over the summer. And they're going to give you this whole list of things to do.

And that can be great, and I'm not saying don't do it if that's what your child really wants to do. But I also think it's important to teach your kids that boredom is a critical part of learning too. I mean, it's sort of the wellspring of all creative endeavors.

And I think our children—like, well, all of us—I'm not going to tag the kids because all of us are so conditioned now. When we're in any sort of situation where we're standing in line or there's a—whoop, out comes the phone. We're doing our work, we're playing a game, or, you know, whatever.

Our kids are the same. But I think it helps them to have those conversations. And there's some really great stuff online that you could watch with them or books that you could read with them about the importance of having downtime—like, just mental downtime.

I know, you know, mindfulness and all that is the buzzwords, and the kids will be like, "I have mindfulness." But I think telling them, "Boredom is good, and boredom is important, and they should welcome boredom and see where it takes them"—I think that can be an important thing for the summer too.

In general, if you have a kid who doesn't—they haven't given you the big list of things they want to do, if you don't already know what their strengths and passions are, start having those curious parent questions. You know, like, "What would your perfect summer look like?"

They'd be like, "I'd be on the iPad all summer doing nothing but playing—what's that latest one? I can't remember. There's—it's like Minecraft, but it's really beautiful graphics." And frankly, I can't blame them for wanting to get lost in it.

I think it's okay this summer for a couple reasons. One, I think our kids have been through an extremely traumatic year, and we tend to, I think, forget how traumatic this has been for them. And a lot of them are really dealing with the trauma through escape.

And, you know, for most of our kids, the screen—doing Roblox or Minecraft or, you know—what's the other one? I'm not a gamer, but you guys know the ones I'm talking about—all the popular ones. That's their escape hatch.

And then for a little bit older kids, it's, you know, that's how they're socializing. So I'm not saying that I'm against screens because I think that they're going to continue to want to do them, and they may still need to do them because the switching back to being in person is going to be—I'm not going to say traumatic, but it's going to be hard.

Like, there's wonderful things—they'll be super excited about it, but there's going to be things that are really emotionally difficult about getting back to seeing friends in person. So I think incremental—let them take it at their own pace. If they need a little downtime with an iPad or a device.

And then the other thing is: What do they love to do, and how can you foster that? How can you facilitate that that falls within your time constraints, falls within your means? You know, you as a parent have a right to not be running non-stop all summer too. You need time to reacclimate from the pandemic and deal with your own trauma.

So this is that kind of boredom argument—is like, give the kids time and space to figure it out. You know, and if they're bored, tell them that's okay. You'll figure it out. It's okay to be bored.

Then the last thing I would do is: What can you do that you really enjoy? Like, what can you do together as a family, as one parent with one kid or, you know, a couple kids at a time, depending on how big your family is? What sort of things can you do that everybody really loves to do?

And, you know, if you've got more than one kid, not everybody's going to love to do it, so that's why you sort of divide and conquer. If you really love to go out for tea and you've got a kid who loves chai tea, do that. If you've got another kid that likes to hike in the woods, go do that. If you've got a kid that wants you to sit there and watch them play Minecraft for half an hour, do that.

You know, it's like—you're going to figure out ways to really validate who they are, what they're passionate about, what they love, you know, what they want you to admire in them. That's all the important stuff that builds the self-efficacy in your kids and reconnects them if they've sort of been disconnected from their passions.

It could even be something as simple as like listening to podcasts that you're both interested in, going to a speaker series—like, just it's endless. I mean, you know, these kids—they come up with stuff that none of us have ever even imagined. And if you can find a way to do that with them and join them in their world, it's the most validating, self-esteem, self-efficacy-building thing you can do.

Callie Turk:

There's so many things that you said in there that I jotted down and wrote to myself—like, I really definitely want to ask my daughter now, "What would your perfect summer look like?" I think that's such a nice open-ended question, a nice open-ended way to be curious about what she'd like.

And then, when you were talking about boredom, it really resonated with me in terms of the four things you sort of asked us to think about as parents. The fourth one was evaluating your own perspective and desires versus what your child needs.

And how I think we, as parents, can get so anxious about our kids being bored—or maybe we have our own work to do, our own things we need to do, and so we want our kids to be busy all the time. And I think it was just really important to note the importance of boredom and how that could trigger our anxiety, but it's a really important thing to make time for.

And it's hard at first because our kids aren't used to being bored because we have filled—especially if you've been one of those families where, you know, you're very proactive parent, and you're going to make sure your kid has activities. Nothing wrong with that. But it can put you on this dog-and-pony show that's exhausting.

You know, so if you can kind of turn it back to your kid and say, "Okay, what do you want to do today?" And, you know, Callie, when you're having that conversation, it's fun to join in and do, "Okay, here's my perfect summer," because sometimes our kids forget that we're human too. And it can help them understand that, "Gosh, my parents actually have some needs too."

So we've been starting to get questions from everyone who's here tonight, and we're happy to read your questions for you, or if you want to ask your own question. I was going to start with Lindsay's question. Lindsay, I'll read it unless you tell me you'd like to ask it yourself.

Sounds like Lindsay has an 11-year-old that's a rising sixth grader, and Lindsay was wondering: How do you help a 2e child rediscover a love of learning? Her son is highly gifted but does not believe he is intelligent, given the significant struggles to perform in traditional school. So her son is doing a lot of school refusal and resistance to anything school-related but can't go to a private school right now.

And this relates to a question Yael and I had thought of before, which is: You know, how do you help these kids that are just so hard on themselves and focus on what they're getting wrong or how slow they may be or how they don't fit in a traditional environment?

Melanie Hayes:

Yeah, well, you think about it—in a traditional school environment, that's the message they're getting every day, whether it's overt or inadvertent. They're hearing that you're not cutting it, there's something wrong with how you're doing this.

So I really think knowledge about how their brain works, why things are hard for them, what their strengths are—like, especially if you've been able to get some kind of evaluation for your child to share—you know, maybe not the numbers per se, but share with them—older kids for sure, I think they should see the whole report—but younger kids, you could say, "You know, we found out that in this area, you're like way better than average people on puzzle-solving. But where in school do you get to demonstrate that?"

You know, oftentimes, school doesn't have subjects that allow you to show these things you're really smart at. I would also—there's lots of wonderful stuff about adults talking about how they failed as children, how they were seen as incapable, and then, you know, everything from—there's a martial arts guy that was told he was mentally deficient his whole life, and now he's like the world martial arts champion.

There's people that—you know, I know the guy Jonathan Mooney, who wrote The Short Bus, talks about being told how stupid he was because he couldn't read or write because he's dyslexic and dysgraphic. And his journey of discovery that he's actually really a good writer.

I think things like that—like, if they can see—it's almost like that "It Gets Better" campaign—where you want them to see older people, maybe even a little bit older—high school, college-age students—that are like them, how they've figured it out.

People who the world has seen as failures that have gone on to show them that they're talented in many areas. And I would particularly look for ones that have this skill set of your child. So, you know, don't talk about Einstein if your kid sucks at math and science.

So, you know, so—and then the other thing I think is to show them ways to approach learning. We talked about that a little bit—like, if you're an artist, you might be able to draw this amazing collage or do a comic strip or, you know, a painting or something like that that demonstrates knowledge.

And then just talk about what's in there. So I'm thinking about—you know, we've had quite a bit of social and ethical issues that have come up that a lot of teachers are having kids write about. And the traditional thing is they're going to write a paper on, you know, Black Lives Matter.

Well, for a kid who writing is a disaster, can they demonstrate that some other way? And I think—to answer your question—what makes kids burnt out, disengaged, drop out, school refusal is because they never get a chance to figure out how they can approach something in a way that is strength-based.

They don't get an opportunity to learn the things that they're really passionate about. It's just this—here's the four main core subjects, and then maybe we get in some art and PE and science once a week. You know, so it's the same kind of thing we talked about for summer—is like, well, what would your perfect learning environment look like?

Would you be out in the woods studying frogs in a pond? Would you be doing building things on a 3D printer? Would you be making Lego constructions all day? Would you be writing your own video games? Would you be making character designs and world-building? Would you be playing RPG games?

Like, there's so many things that we don't look at as learning. And that's the tragedy for 2e kids because our kids have a rage to learn whatever that topic is. They're going to bring stuff into it that you never expected.

So I'll just use this as a quick example. My daughter is dyslexic—she's stealth dyslexia—so dyslexia, severe dyscalculia, minor dysgraphia, panic attacks when it comes to math, failed every math thing she ever did, felt like a complete loser around math.

We started homeschooling before I started Big Minds, and she was always really interested in Dungeons & Dragons. And she is a storyteller naturally—like, one of those acted-out storytellers. So for her, role-playing games are just the perfect medium for her to tell these stories and act it out.

So she learned how to become a dungeon master. Well, lo and behold, there is an aspect of math to Dungeons & Dragons. And guess who learned how to do math and actually stuck with it because it was in a low-stress environment, doing something she loved?

There's no high stakes around it. She can take it at her own pace. She can learn incrementally. And she can bring it in in this natural, authentic way.

So I say to parents: Whatever your child's strengths are, you can be creative and figure out how to bring in those skills they're going to need. And I'm not going to say that every kid's going to be able to do algebra and graduate from high school with maybe up to beginning trig or geometry.

If your kid is an artist, they're never going to probably master that stuff. And so that's where you have to reevaluate and say, "What really matters here for my child? What are they going to need to be great at to do this thing that they're passionate about?"

If they're an artist, maybe all the math they need is life skills math—how do you get on and, you know, do QuickBooks, how do you balance your checkbook? You know, those kinds of things—that's maybe all that's going to matter to them in the math world.

And maybe you can bring math in through art—like the golden rectangle or, you know, Da Vinci's work. You know, maybe there's ways you can weave a little bit of math into the thing that they're passionate about.

But they're not—you know, don't jump right in with that if there's a kid that hates math. You're going to be like, "Hey, I've got this great way to do math through art that you love," because then they're going to stop doing art.

So let them just do the thing that they love the most until they start to recover that self-efficacy. Then, as they get a little older, you can help them see where they might need these written communication skills, these life skills, things like that.

So once they see where they're going to need these things, then the intrinsic motivation will kick in. So that's what I'm talking about—timing, incremental, step by step. Rome wasn't built in a day. So you don't have to panic if your kid's a sixth grader and can't do math. When and if they need to do math, they still got their whole lifetime ahead of them to figure it out.

Does that all make sense?

Callie Turk:

Yes, makes sense. And super helpful. It reminds me—we had someone tell us that they had a teacher who made everyone an expert on something in the classroom. And you had a little card that you were the expert on. So my son—it would be sharks. And they typically don't get to do much about that in class, but you got to go up in front of the class and talk about the thing you were an expert in.

And just that little tiny thing just gave them something to look forward to when the rest of the day was, you know—

Melanie Hayes:

It's huge. Because if that's off, all you've got is, you know, here's what you can't do well. That reminds me—when I was a public school teacher in Orinda, we—I was teaching third grade, and we had to build this big town. You know, the curriculum is you build your town.

And so we actually really built a little town, and kids got to—whatever—they got to build a business based on whatever their passion was. And then they got paid to be able to demonstrate that. So we had artists, we had story writers, we had dancers, we had, you know, like, we had scientists.

So whatever you needed, you could go purchase it from those people. And that was the most engaged my kids ever were for the whole third-grade year.

Callie Turk:

It actually reminds me of a book I read recently—I'm going to—I don't know if I'm going to say this name right—by Yong Zhao. And I don't know if you follow his work, but the book is called Reach for Greatness, and it is about how can we help every child find their greatness. Right? And I think that's such an important and valuable philosophy to have.

Melanie Hayes:

Yeah, yeah, I agree.

Callie Turk:So we have a question from Amy. Amy, would you like to unmute and ask your own, or if not, then I'll ask it?

Amy:

Where and how can 2e young people connect with their mind peers?

Melanie Hayes:

Yeah, yeah, that's—there's more of them out there than you think. So, you know, we are still sort of rare birds, but I—this same thing happened at the professional level. You know, for all these years, I've been in this field of research for over 20 years, and we were all in our own little silos.

And then, thanks to the internet, suddenly we're all starting to connect. And I feel like it's this groundswell movement, and that is beginning to roll out to kids. So I know, like, Davidson Young Scholars has local events and summer camps. Profoundly Gifted Retreat—PG Retreat—has camps, things like that.

So if those are in your budget and you live somewhere where that kind of thing is going on, definitely can do it that way. I know there are other—like, here in the Bay Area, we have Gifted Bay Area Gifted Homeschoolers—SFBAGS. So families get together through that.

I know people have used Meetup to find other people. Some people have—like, through things like Bright & Quirky—they ask in the chat, "Hey, my kid's your age. Are you anywhere nearby? Can our kids—if not, can our kids have video dates?" You know, so—

I know if you live near a college, oftentimes there are like gifted summer camps and things like that through a college. Or even just a gifted support group—you can find them that way.

You can also look through interest-based groups. So not all 2e kids—it's around sort of the math, writing, science, you know, high-level functioning. Sometimes it's around they love to garden, or they love to cook, or they're a horseback rider and would love to work in a stable.

So it's trying to find—again—what are their strengths? What are their passions? What are their interests? If you can find those—you know, say your child loves to work in a stable. They may not find necessarily a gifted peer where it's an intellectual troop here, but they might resonate at this other level where they share a love of animals. They're both highly empathetic.

You know, so they're—you don't always have to look just in the intellectual realm. But having said that, I think it is important for kids to try to meet up with true intellectual peers because it's very normalizing to suddenly be at, you know, PG Retreat, and all the kids are like you. And you're like, "Oh my God, these are my people."

You know, then it helps our kids when they're out in the world to say, "Yeah, dang it, I am part of a real culture." So, you know, it's like deaf kids and deaf culture—2e kids, gifted kids, this is a real culture. And we want our kids to be proud of it and to be activists and to advocate and to say, "This is who I am. These are my people. And I'm bringing my true self to the world."

Callie Turk:

I love that. And I think—I think a lot of the suggestions you've given work really well, especially when you have a receptive, potentially slightly younger child. But as a parent of a teen—I know one of the questions that had come in that I was really interested in is: What are ways to lead a teen toward their strengths into some of these activities?

It could be they've just received their diagnosis, or it could just be that they're a teen, and so they're really not open to any adult interference in their lives. So yeah, if you have any suggestions for how do we do this once they reach their teenage years?

Melanie Hayes:

Yeah, I think with teens, the more autonomy, the better, right? So let them read their report. Let them digest it. Let them think about it. Offer support around anything they might be interested in pursuing.

The more they can learn about their brain and how it works, the more empowered they're likely to be. But it's not necessarily going to come maybe in their teen years or, you know, right after they get the report.

I think, you know, our culture tends to infantilize kids. You know, many other cultures—by teens, they're out working in the family business or, you know, going to college. A lot of countries start college in their teen years.

And I think our kids push back. I think a lot of that—"Leave me alone, I want to figure this out, I want to be autonomous"—is because, you know, we're not intending to, but maybe we are hovering a little bit too much. Maybe we are trying to direct them too much.

They, by the time you're a teen, you kind of have already started down that adult path that you're going to have to figure out on your own. And so I think, as a parent of teens, part of that is honoring that.

And I know this can be hard, especially if your kid just disconnects, and they just want to stay home. Now, mental health things aside—if there's severe anxiety or depression or, you know, phobias or social anxiety things like that that are keeping them from being able to interact, then that's a different thing that requires support, professional support.

But if your child may be just introverted, and they really just kind of want to spend their summer in their room drawing or reading or, you know, researching or, you know, going for solitary walks in the woods—whatever it is—I think it's good to honor that.

Because what we're doing by supporting them as they're developing this autonomy is we're saying to them, "We believe that you can figure this out. We trust that you're going to make an adult path."

And for a lot of anxious kids, we inadvertently reinforce that anxiety by always trying to direct them because they don't learn to trust themselves. And so if we can say, "You know what? This is hard. You're going to run up a lot of roadblocks. You're going to hit some brick walls. You're going to fail a bunch of times. But that's part of learning to be an adult. And you're also going to do some amazing things that I couldn't even think of because I'm not in your world."

You know, I think of Khalil Gibran's poem about the arrow in the future—we don't even know where it's going to go. So, you know, trusting that you've given them that base that they need to launch from, and whatever support they need from you, you're there for them, that you believe in them—go do it.

Callie Turk:

I mean, I love—I keep saying this, but it's so true—I love so many things you said. Like, my oldest child came out recently as gender non-binary, and I think part of that journey for us has been this going from being anxious on their behalf to being—trying to have that attitude more of, "We believe in you and trust in you. You're going to go through hard things, but you will figure it out."

And kind of trying to parent more from that place because the first—the first few weeks was more of a parenting from a fear place of all the bad things that could possibly happen and wanting to protect our child. And then realizing our child is actually very capable, but if we don't let them know that, then they can't do that and develop that strength in themselves.

And one other follow-up question I had on this topic was—a couple of times tonight, you've mentioned, like, helping the kids read about their brain and so they know how their brain works. And I wondered if you had any specific resources for that, maybe for different age ranges.

Melanie Hayes:

Yeah, um, there's some great stuff on YouTube for younger kids. There's a channel called Happify that has—like, I can't remember the name—it's these two little owls, and it talks all about emotional regulation and feelings. It's from Norway, but it's just beautifully done.

There's another one—and I'm blanking on the name of this too—but it's this little brain on two legs, and it's particularly for ADHD, and it talks about the wall of awful. So if you just went on YouTube and typed in "wall of awful," it will come up.

I have name retrieval issues, if you can't tell. So yeah, you know, it's hard for me to remember who the authors and things are, but I have a visual memory, so I can tell you what it looks like.

So that has a lot of resources around that. I know there's quite a few programs—like, I don't know, remember there was Netflix or Amazon, but they had one called Mindscape that just talked all about how the mind works.

There's lots of great YouTube channels by people who are on the spectrum. I know there's one—she's clearly gifted, but she doesn't talk about being gifted. She just talks about her experience as an adult on the autism spectrum. There's quite a few of those that are really good.

I'm hoping some 2e people who are, you know, gifted and on the spectrum or gifted ADHD, gifted and dyslexic—there's a few of them out there, but I'm hoping there's more of that that comes forward.

I think things like Seth Perler's website has a lot about executive functioning. Tilt Parenting podcast, Bright & Quirky, Embracing Intensity—um, those are all really good podcasts to listen to about the divergent mind.

And Embracing Intensity talks a lot about being sort of this empath and highly sensitive person. There's lots of good books. A woman—I do remember her name—Elaine Aron—she did the seminal research on highly sensitive people. And they actually have found that the brain is different in a person who's highly sensitive.

So her website is just hsperson.com, I believe. Lots of resources on there. You can purchase her movies, but I know there's one called Sensitive, and in the title, the "sense" and the "eye" is big, and it has some famous singer in there that she talks about her experiences.

But you can get that free on YouTube—the full movie. And I think that's a really good one to watch about being a highly sensitive person, an empath, how that can impact you.

So do I have a list? I probably should make one. You know what I will do, Callie—you know, I will send you a draft of my book. Just don't circulate it anywhere because it has—at the end of each chapter, it has a whole bunch of these kinds of resources. And you guys can just feel free to pull from it.

I should myself go through and make a list of, "Here's resources for this and this and this." But having just finished writing a book, that's kind of what I was doing. So I'm just going to send it to you, and you can, you know, keep it under wraps, utilize the information as you see fit.

Callie Turk:

Before I turn this back over to Yael for the next question, I'll just continue to monopolize. I will say—the book that you wrote, you know, that focuses on, like, what are the life skills that you need if you are an autistic adult—it's like, I think you're going to be the next Julie Lythcott-Haims, who's written all the books about being an adult.

But I've always wanted there to be a version that, like, took into account the fact that there is neurodivergence in the world. Yeah, you know, like, because we can't—we can all become adults, but maybe not on the same timeline or exactly in the same way. And I am really looking forward to your book.

Melanie Hayes:

Yeah, I'm pretty sure my publisher hopes I become that too.

Callie Turk:

We'll help. We'll do whatever we can. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm so excited to see it.

For the audience, feel free to ask her questions at any time. Otherwise, Kelly and I can go all night.

So one other question that comes up a lot is: How much to support your child? So one of the questions we got was: How do you determine what are necessary skills for your child to develop and which ones can be left by the wayside—for example, handwriting?

And then someone else asked: How much academic and life skills support is it okay to provide, and until when?

Melanie Hayes:

Yeah, those are both really, really good questions. So the first one is: I would think about how much trauma—how much, you know, fighting, antagonistic behavior, anti-love-and-connection is happening over whatever that—handwriting, math homework, getting dressed by yourself, bathing yourself—you know, whatever age your kid is.

How much of that is really tearing apart your relationship? And then think about what you can do to support that. And some of it is just finding out—like, I'll say my son—teeth brushing was a complete nightmare.

We figured, okay, he doesn't like the electric toothbrush. We'll get him a regular toothbrush. For probably three months, it never dawned on me that the toothpaste might be too spicy. And so finally, in exasperation one day, I was like, "Why won't you brush your teeth?" And he's like, "It's too spicy."

I think he was about six. So voila, we got bubblegum-flavor toothpaste. He went through, and we bought all the different kinds of flavored toothpaste. He tasted them all. He picked the one he wanted. We never had a problem again.

So some of it is that curious parenting. Some of it is, you know, they're just not developmentally ready. You know, like, maybe getting ready for bed each night is really difficult for them because they have executive functioning, and the minute they're brushing their teeth, their mind is la-la-la thinking about this, and they've forgotten all the rest of the steps they're supposed to do for the night.

Older kids—like, maybe they need help with making sure everything's in the backpack the night before. You know, um, it's kind of like attachment parenting. You know, you think about all those experts—like, "No, you must do the Ferber sleep method," or whatever it was, where you leave your kids.

And for some people, that worked fine. For other kids, their kids were traumatized by being left alone. So, you know, your kid better than anybody else. So think about those things that they definitely—their part of being attached to you is knowing when they desperately need you, you will be there.

And that goes all the way through into their 20s. My kids are both 20, and there's times I still have to help them with things. So think about: Is it an attachment issue? Does my child really have anxiety and insecurity around this? And can I provide support to them in a way that doesn't reiterate the anxiety?

So I don't want to be stuck in this anxiety loop that "I can't do it," but in a way that says, "Okay, what parts of this are hard for you? Let's brainstorm together. Let me see how I can help you with this."

So it's this independence-building. It's that incremental steps towards independence. And every kid is different. Like, my child—my son didn't really be able to fully dress himself properly until he was about nine.

My daughter still can't drive and still has panic attacks thinking about driving. So for her, it's going to be this slow, incremental process. We finally figured out we need to go to some like abandoned fairground with just her and I in the car and let her like creep along at two miles an hour with me sitting beside her because I'm her comfort person.

Everybody in the family has, you know, who's the person you feel like is going to make you the least anxious? That's the person who should be helping you do this thing that's hard.

And go through that—like, for the things that they're really struggling with doing, go through: How can I support them in a way that eventually builds independence?

And the second thing is—like, is there—I think you ask when should you stop? Um, when they say, "Thanks, I got it," that's when you should stop offering support. Yeah, you know.

I think—something I'm learning because my 2e daughter is 15, so she's just finishing her freshman year—is I'm trying to be like that—have a curious mind more frequently. And I don't catch it all the time. I rarely catch it immediately. It takes some time.

But, you know, she's—I can tell when she's trying to be a little more independent with her work. Like, at the beginning of the year, I had to make sure she really knew what she was doing. But as time has gone by, like, she's starting to push back on how involved I am.

Right? And as she is pushing back, then I'm like, "Oh, wait, now might be a time for me to step back." And so I kind of go with that Bright & Quirky idea around experimenting—okay, I'll step back for a week, and we'll see how things go. You know? And I don't always even tell her I'm stepping back.

That's one way that I try to kind of figure it out.

Melanie Hayes:

Yeah, and the other flip side of that is not stepping in if they don't ask for it. Like, we need to let our kids struggle a little bit. You know, let them try and fail and try and fail because that's how they build self-efficacy.

But it's that razor's edge, right? You don't want to leave them so long that then they give up and feel like there's no way. But you want to let them try a little bit. And sometimes those encouraging comments—like, "Hey, that part of it you did really well. Do you need help with this part?" Or, you know, "Wow, I know she did that all on your own this time. Way to go."

Like, you can't be too authentically positive. You know, we don't want to pump sunshine all the time. But I think when they do something well—as parents, our job is to correct and discipline and teach. And so we tend to naturally—we're going to say more about the things that they're not doing or the things they're doing wrong or the things they've got to do better.

So if you really consciously try to say as many positive, you know, "You did well," self-efficacy-building kind of comments—that is also the other piece to stepping back when they're giving you the message, not stepping in too soon, you know, giving them a chance—that's an important part of it too.

Callie Turk:

Well, um, I'm still getting this parenting thing down, that's for sure.

So Jane asked—Jane, and I assume you want me to ask this since you put in the chat—"Where do students go after they are too old for Big Minds?"

Melanie Hayes:

That's a good question. Um, a variety of places. So we were talking earlier—one of the schools that's a high school in San Francisco, it's a private high school, um, it's similar in its model—it's called Academy of Thought and Industry.

So some of our kids go there. But for some, it's too expensive or too long of a distance. But the kids who've gone there tend to do really well there because it's a similar self-directed kind of model.

There's a place in Orinda called Holden High School that's counseling-enriched. So some of our kids that need that—you know, sort of emotional support, lots of hands-on, teachers and counselors have your back, lots of group work, social-emotional building that happens there—some of our kids have done really well there.

Fusion and Tilden tend to be good for the kids who just want to go to the high school, do the class, get it out of the way, graduate with their diploma. Um, we've found like Lydian Academy is for some people is good because they're really hand-holding. They'll, you know, really work hard to get the kid through.

A lot of our kids do things like concurrent enrollment at a community college. And in California, if you do that as a ninth grader and your high school signs off on it, for every college class you take, you get two high school semester credits.

So it's like, if you take all of the high school curriculum as a college student, you can pretty much get all of your high school done in two years. And so in two years, you get a high school diploma and your first two years of college out of the way.

Some of our kids take the California High School Proficiency Exam. So if you know what that is—it's not the GED. It's an actual proficiency exam proctored by the State Board of Education. It's about a four-hour test. They test them only on English and math, but they're pretty in-depth.

It goes up through beginning trigonometry for math, and then all aspects of mechanics, grammar, vocabulary, all that sort of stuff for English. And then there's also an essay-writing section. So some kids are not going to be able to do that because test-taking is impossible.

But some kids have done it and taken it and left Big Minds at the end of eighth grade as a high school graduate. The—the proficiency—they don't call it a diploma, but basically your proof of passing the CHSPE exam is the equivalent of and can be used at any A-G college.

So that's a good out for some of our kids. And a lot of the Big Minds kids that want to do that, we spend their eighth—maybe even seventh and eighth grade years—preparing them to take the CHSPE. So we teach them all sorts of test-taking skills. We go through the CHSP manual with them, all that sort of stuff.

Some do homeschooling. Some do online high schools. Some do charter schools like Mentoring Academy or Oakland School for the Arts. A few have gone back to public high school for different reasons and done fine—because they were intrinsically motivated to do so.

But I would say public traditional model is probably the least preferred of 2e kids. But it really depends on the child.

Callie Turk:

Thank you so much. That was an awesome list of schools.

Jane is following up with: "Do none high schools that don't use grades?"

Melanie Hayes:

Hmm. Let me think about that. I am not sure if Academy of Thought and Industry does. If they do, it's more of a rubric because they're very much—the students design their projects. They integrate the subjects into that. They have Socratic circles.

That's a good question. You know, that's one question I haven't necessarily asked schools when I've talked to them. So I'll have to add that to my—I have a list of questions to ask potential schools that I give out to people. I'll have to add that to that list. Thank you. That's a good idea.

Callie Turk:

So I'm going to squeeze in one last question, and then I know it's almost time to wrap up. So we want to leave you time for any final thoughts.

But one question that I love that someone sent in was: "Can an interest in trivia, general knowledge, and video games be considered strengths in a 2e child?"

Melanie Hayes:

So absolutely. We've had a lot of people say, "My kid doesn't have like a math strength. So what is their strength, and how do I use it?"

Well, let me have you think about it this way: Do you know how many super-wealthy people who have designed tech industry stuff started out as being major gamers? So is there a path to financial success through gaming? Through trivia? Through code-breaking? Through puzzle boxes?

Like, all that kind of stuff—absolutely. I'm thinking—we had a kid at Big Minds who spent all of his time in the Lego room, and he built these intricate things with moving parts. Like, the last year he was with us, he made all of these little secret boxes where you had to figure out how to open them up, and they had all these really cool, intricate moving parts.

And he's interested in becoming an architect. And I think he's going to be fantastic. You know, now that he's in eighth—end of eighth grade, and he's in high school now—he's going to be great at it.

And did he learn how to do that through playing with Legos? Through messing around on different graphic design programs? Yeah.

So I think that's that thing—if you could see inside of a 2e kid's mind, it looks like they're just playing video games or, you know, doing puzzles. But there's so much interconnected stuff. Like, our kids are great at making these systemic thought webs where they bring in all this disparate knowledge, and then they come up with something really unique.

You know, I always use George Lucas as the example. He wrote books full of lists of what things would look like on another planet. What's this? You know, and look at him.

I'm sure his parents despaired that he would ever get a job when all he did was spend his days writing these lists in notebooks. So you just don't know how they're going to bring these passions and skills and interests and strengths together.

So I don't think you can go wrong supporting them in whatever it is their passion is. You know, there's Jane Goodall. There's, you know, dancers. There's artists. There's—whatever it is, they're out there.

Callie Turk:

I love that. I love—I love the thought of George Lucas writing lists of aliens and what his parents must have thought of that.

Is there any final thoughts you'd like to leave our parents with about bolstering kids' strengths and supporting 2e kids?

Melanie Hayes:

I think, you know, recognizing that our kids—one of their biggest strengths is the entrepreneurial mind. So anything you can do to support, foster, approve of, you know, help them recognize that that's a strength—that critical thinking, creative thinking, entrepreneurial—because they can look at problems that there aren't solutions to, and they love it.

You know, one of the most successful classes we ever did at Big Minds was—there used to be a site called "This Is Broken," where people would put in things that didn't work right and how frustrating it was. And the kids would take that and try to figure out a better way. So almost like an industrial design class.

But I think really anything you can do to foster that creative, entrepreneurial spirit.

And the second thing is—I think really start to be aware of your own strengths and think back when you were a child, what you were great at that maybe the world took away from you or told you wasn't viable or, you know, that you can't make a living doing that.

Because I think sometimes our own frustrations and anxieties come from that lost opportunity that we had as children. And so, you know, there's a trauma in there, and it's locked in our history. And so anxiety and fear is our knee-jerk reaction when really it's more about us.

So if you can look into your own frustrated ambitions and strengths and passions and try to find a way to bring them back into your own life so that you're modeling for your children how to do the thing that you're telling them will make them the happiest, most successful—the kind of thing you picture for them.

You know, as parents, we want our children to be engaged in a passionate vocation, to find people who love them for who they are, to have wonderful experiences, to, you know, take in the beauty of everything around them.

And the way that they do that is to feel that they can be their authentic selves from a very young age. And I want that for us as parents too—to feel like we can be our authentic selves because that's how we change the world.

Callie Turk:

It's just so beautiful. And I've taken pages of notes with all of your wisdom and things that I'm going to carry with me. I know. So I just thank you so much, Melanie, for being with us tonight and for being just so gracious and sharing all of your knowledge and wisdom with our community and for being a champion for different minds.

They need all the champions they can get, and you're amazing. Thank you.

Melanie Hayes:Well, thanks to you guys for being champions too. I know your work is important, and I'm happy to support REEL however I can. You know, if it's helpful to do more of these where parents can get specific questions answered—however I can be of use to our community because we are a culture.

And I want people to be proud of being 2e and to shout out from the rooftops. So the more we can do to help us feel great about ourselves, the better.

Callie Turk:Wow. Thank you. You're just—you've got such a generous spirit that I think we're all feeling and is percolating everywhere, even on this remote environment. Thank you so much. We look forward to doing another one of these with you soon.

Melanie Hayes:

Yeah, it'd be my pleasure.

Callie Turk:Thank you, everyone, for coming. We will post the recording in the next few days and send out information on some of our upcoming events. So we really hope to keep seeing you and keep building our community and supporting each other with these awesome kids. Good night!