Supporting and Understanding Levels of Giftedness in Homeschooled Children
Supporting and Understanding Levels of Giftedness in Homeschooled Children
A podcast interview of Deborah Ruf by Colleen Kessler
In this post, I share a tremendous resource, Colleen Kessler, for those of you who want to know more about giftedness. I’ve placed the link for her access to her podcasts at the end of the post.
Colleen Kessler is a homeschooling parent, a podcaster, and she kindly invited me to be part of one of her podcasts. Our ~50 minute podcast is about the 5 Levels of Gifted longitudinal study. Sort of. Home schooling, emanating from the home schooling. And so much more.
Colleen starts with the ads that support her being able to create and share her podcasts, plus she only accepts advertisers whose products she uses for her family. So that portion is short and you may find what she recommends fits your own needs!
In the first 10 minutes or so, Colleen and I talk about discovering our own giftedness (we didn’t understand that we were unusual!) through learning more about our children and their social, emotional, and academic needs.
Starting at 12m16s, we delve into the nature vs. nurture topic. By 13m32s, we weave in the affects of personality on meeting the needs – creating the best environment for – our gifted children. And, I might add, any of us, even adults.
At about 16m30s, Colleen graciously and deftly swoops in to keep me on track. She uses my story to explain how my 2023 book got so big and why I am updating, reformatting, and adding Questions for discuss at the end of each chapter for three books, the series from the 2023 tome (it really is big) called The Five Levels of Gifted Children Grown Up: What They Tell Us (2023), linked at the end of the post.
At 18 minutes, we get back to personalities.
At 26 minutes, I start to talk about “emanating from the home” schooling.
At 27 minutes, Colleen ask me to discuss the levels of gifted, and honestly, fitting the levels is so not set in stone that I have trouble “winging it” to people because, well, it depends. So, this is a good part to listen to.
The section in the part about the Levels is my personal favorite and starts at about 33 minutes.
At 39 minutes, I talk about how scores are only part of the story and how fixating on scores can be a problem. Shortly into that, Colleen has a great story about her eldest son and a group of fellow exceptionally and profoundly gifted buddies he’s found during his life. He met most of them through online gaming. As an aside, one of my sons has the same story! And lots of the guys in my 2023 and 2024 recent books have that same story, as well. They found each other!
Our last topic is about learning to write well (this is not about the physical part of writing) is high on the list for ways to communicate what our gifted learners know. Listen. It’s explained there.
Here is Colleen’s summary of our talk
Key Takeaways:
• Evolving Homeschooling Landscape: With more resources available, being intentional in selecting activities and groups is crucial.
• Giftedness Beyond Scores: Giftedness is multifaceted, with variations beyond high IQ scores, requiring tailored support.
• Understanding Personality and Interests: Recognizing personality types and allowing children to explore their interests can significantly impact their educational journey.
• Parental Roles: Parents should support their children’s true selves and sometimes ‘get out of the way’ to let them pursue their passions effectively.
Ultimately, this episode reinforced the importance of appreciating and nurturing the unique traits and strengths of gifted children, creating an environment where they can thrive intellectually and emotionally. Recognizing and supporting these unique needs is integral to Raising Lifelong Learners.
To see all of Colleen Kessler’s Raising Lifelong Learners’ podcasts, click the link here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYAcAUx8gPS7TVj5riDnSOFRvnHSvyIcS
https://raisinglifelonglearners.com/podcast/
My current published and coming books about the gifted:
The Five Levels of Gifted Children Grown Up: What They Tell Us (2023). https://www.amazon.com/Levels-Gifted-Children-Grown-Up/dp/B0C9SHFRLH or https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-5-levels-of-gifted-children-grown-up-phd-deborah-l-ruf/1143719859?ean=9798988323709. This is an 18 year longitudinal study follow-up about the original gifted child subjects in 5 Levels of Gifted: School Issues and Educational Options (2005, 2009).
Keys to Successfully Parenting the Gifted Child (2023). Keys to Successfully Parenting Gifted Children (2022, 2023)
Losing Our Minds: Too Many Gifted Children Left Behind (Oct. 2024). Available for pre-order now. Follow this link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DHV6QT6F
5 Levels of Gifted: School Issues and Educational Options in 2009. Here are links to the 5 Levels of Gifted book on Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/5-levels-of-gifted-deborah-ruf/1126358834 and Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Levels-Gifted-School-Educational-Options/dp/0910707987 or directly from the publisher: https://www.giftedunlimitedllc.com/store/p12/5_Levels_of_Gifted.html
Environmental, Familial, and Personal Factors That Affect the Self-Actualization of Highly Gifted Adults: Case Studies (D. Ruf, 1998) doctoral dissertation. Free PDF https://dabrowskicenter.org/ruf
Dr. Ruf is available for the following services.
Click for details and to schedule:
One-Hour Test Interpretation
Gifted Child Test Interpretation & Guidance
20-Minute Consultation
45-Minute Consultation
One-Hour Consultation
Podcast Interview
Thanks for your sharing your discussion with Colleen, Deborah. I really appreciated you mentioning the problem of fixating on scores. Like the experience of your profoundly gifted son, IMO, someone can really be profoundly gifted (level five), but for whatever reason (e.g., unclear directions, emotionally distracted, unmotivated to take the test, lack of sleep, anxiety, hunger, etc.) he or she may miss the Mensa or Triple Nine Society cutoffs (130 and 146 respectively, assuming a standard deviation of 15 and mean of 100) on intelligence tests. There are some incredible people (levels 4 and 5) in your longitudinal study whose deviation IQs would miss the TNS cutoff and would be gate kept from joining and interacting with other exceptionally and profoundly gifted people in this group: IMO, they clearly belong in any group of intellectual outliers and would have unique and enriching insights to contribute.
That said, IMO, it is interesting to consider high IQ society and gifted program cutoffs from the perspective of true scores. For example, a person in a high IQ society qualified by obtaining a particular result among many possible hypothetical results that go into computing a true score. However, it is also possible that, on a different day with a different mindset, he or she could have obtained one of the hypothetical results that did not meet the cutoff (something similar can be observed going the other way: a person who missed the cutoff one day, could obtain a qualifying result on a different day). Hence, this is another reason why one should not fixate on scores, and why qualitative means for examining a person’s giftedness can be very meaningful, helpful, and invaluable tools.
Eager to listen! We are a couple months into our gifted home Ed journey, though we've always been on team "learning happens everywhere and anywhere" but as we've developed understanding of gifted neurodivergences and they're entering middle school, I didn't want them to have to struggle in the system and risk the pathology paradigms of public schooling... Knowing our own selves and how we "work" is tantamount to serving our communities better, but I'll say more once I've listened!
Thank you, Deb!