Nurturing Twice Exceptional Learners: Melissa Muir's Guide to Fostering

Speaker 1: 0:35
Welcome back to Speak Out. Stand Out. I'm Elizabeth Green, and today Melissa Muir is joining us. Melissa is an online teacher and a homeschooling mama of four, and she has a wealth of knowledge about lots of things in homeschooling and beyond, so we're excited to have you here today. Thanks for joining us.

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Speaker 2: 0:50
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

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Speaker 1: 0:52
So what we're talking about today is twice exceptional kids or 2E, and how to really help them build communication skills, but like taking a big step back because some people were hearing twice exceptional, for the first time, 2e. What does that mean?

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Speaker 2: 1:07
Yeah, so anytime a learner is considered exceptional, we've got things that we just need to take into account. Right, this could be a learning disability, a physical disability, cognitive disability, as well as some giftedness, and so giftedness kind of might ping off your ears in different ways. Right, it might make you think of those nerdy kids. It might make you think of a kid who, like, specializes in something and is super, duper, duper, you know, obsessed with something. But all of this kind of comes to a head when we think about two e-learners who may need some extra support in a few different ways, as well as an extra challenge in different ways. So we just need to take into account different types of giftedness and different types of exceptions based on each learner.

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Speaker 1: 1:49
And is this something that is diagnosed, or how does that work?

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Speaker 2: 1:54
Yeah, usually the learning disability would be diagnosed right. You might have a child with ADHD, a child with autism, a learner who just has some sort of auditory processing disability, as well as things like dysgraphia and dyscalculia and dyslexia, and so all these different things that could play into how they take in their learning and then figuring out how we can best support them as they show what they know. Gotcha.

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Speaker 1: 2:23
And is it important, before we kind of dive into the communication side of things, how important is it for us to provide the correct learning opportunities for 2E kids, Because they're not just like every other kid?

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Speaker 2: 2:35
right, they're not. There's so much that we can do here, but thinking about the type of gifted learner that they are, I'll get into a few here. One might be the kid who just wants to check all the boxes is super academic, right. This is the type of kid we might think of when we think of gifted learners. There are others, though. We might have the kid who's kind of flying under the radar. They might be a little bit of a rebel in class. They do not want to follow the instructions that you're giving them. They are ready to go their own way, and if you don't let them, they are going to crumble and shut down and really not perform in class, which might make you think, oh, they don't get it. They don't know, they got it 10 minutes before everybody else did, they're just bored. We've also got, I like to think of, like mean girls Remember Katie and mean girls the main character right.

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Speaker 2: 3:24
Lindsay Lohan, who's like super good at math, but she does not want to be good at math because it's not cool to be good at math. So she's flying under the radar. She is gifted at math but she is going to make herself not look good at math just to fit in. A lot of middle school girls fit into this category, although that is not the only type of kid who's going to fit into this category. So, thinking about that, and then we've got kids who are like super focused on one thing right. The rest of their academic endeavors they're going to get by on it, they'll be okay.

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Speaker 2: 3:52
But they are either super visually artistically gifted right. They're going to paint you beautiful masterpieces, they're going to create beautiful pieces of music, they're going to engineer something ridiculous right or they're going to program. I mean we need to start taking into account these kids who have been coding, because thankfully, we've got great resources now for our kids to learn coding and things like that. They might be able to whip up a game or an app or something simple as a 10-year-old Whoa, that's really cool. We need to foster that, and so figuring out ways to support our learners in those two-way situations is super, duper important.

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Speaker 1: 4:27
Thank you for breaking that down, because I think you're exactly right. When you say gifted, we imagine the first scenario that you talked about, not the others. So I'm glad you broke that down, because I'm sure some people are thinking, oh, that sounds familiar.

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Speaker 2: 4:46
I think that's important because every kid is gifted in some way. If you want to like go further, you can do a quick, open another tab on wherever you're listening to this and look up Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. And we've got nature smart. We've got bodily kinesthetic. We've got music intrapersonal knowing ourselves and our emotions that bodily kinesthetic, we've got music intrapersonal knowing ourselves and our emotions interpersonal, being able to navigate those relationships. So kids have one, two, three, four areas of giftedness, intelligence, right, and so we can latch onto that and see how well they could demonstrate that knowledge. So sorry to interrupt, but that is going to be something for every single kid. So hopefully you hear that and you go oh yeah, I see that in my kiddo.

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Speaker 1: 5:21
Yeah, absolutely no. I'm so glad you said that because, like I said, this is news to me. I'm learning about this as you're explaining it, so that's great. Well, so let's talk about how are we going to build communication skills, particularly in our 2E kids. What kind of challenges do we see and how can we kind of overcome those that we're not, we wouldn't see in just a normal environment?

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Speaker 2: 5:41
Yeah, so you know, in in all of this it's going to depend on the learner, right? It's going to depend on um the second exception, if we're assuming that they're gifted. The second exception is going to um have a big role in how they show their communicate and how they demonstrate their communication skills here, um, but I think a lot of it is going to be um skills here. But I think a lot of it is going to be monitoring the amount of anxiety that we're producing in a situation. We want to lower that anxiety, give them scaffolding to work on this in a way that makes them feel comfortable and then, if they do find something that they are super passionate about, something that they're super obsessed with I keep saying that, but this is a really common characteristic in gifted kids they will be obsessed with reading or a certain area of history. I've got one of my kids could care less about reading and we do a lot of like scaffolding with her reading skills. But she wants to devour everything about World War II, which makes my heart happy because I love learning about World War II and I still almost exclusively read historical fiction about World War II because it's fascinating. But there's that area of intense interest that if you see that great, go with it, go down the rabbit trail with them and then take these little detours. Hey, today we're going to try writing a speech about it. Today we're going to have a debate, you and me. Maybe next week you have a debate with another friend or a sibling about this. Then we're going to kind of move into writing about it. We're going to get into maybe some graphic or drawing areas with this.

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Speaker 2: 7:12
So giving them all the chances to demonstrate what they know. There's a lot of if writing or the physical act of writing is a challenge for some kids. There's plenty of ways that you can do this online with tools. One of my favorites is Nearpod. You can make a free account to use and come up with these different activities for your kid to demonstrate what they know. And they've got like free you know lessons pre-made for you. So one of my favorite things that we use in our homeschool as well. But you can take those other resources and just present them. Think of it as like a buffet and you're going to hit all those skills at some point. But they might devour the macaroni and cheese on a level that does not compare to the broccoli salad right and so kind of figuring out what they really love and giving them more opportunities to take part.

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Speaker 1: 8:01
And it sounds like. Why would we not do that with education in general for all kids?

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Speaker 2: 8:07
I have titled and written and given so many talks that say gifted education, gifted style education for all, because it's just like duh. This feels like common sense to be able to give all learners the chance to pick and choose and then go with what they need. You know, I loved my pre-cal teacher but I have not used pre-cal since 10th grade and thank you very much for that. But I would have really been served by, you know, a financial literacy class or a marketing class or whatever. So find what they're really interested in and let them sort that.

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Speaker 1: 8:39
One of the things you mentioned at the very beginning was really managing anxiety levels right. And especially when we're talking communications or any form of public speaking right, anxiety levels are going to go through the roof for most people in those scenarios. Yet it's something that we have to be able to do. So how do we manage that? How do we know when we still need to push them? Because, you know, some things that we learn how to do are uncomfortable, but we still have to learn them. But how do we do that in a way that benefits our kids instead of pushes them away from it?

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Speaker 2: 9:10
Yeah, I think again, once you know what they're interested in or what they're good at, help them find their strengths and let them gosh. Let them name their strengths hey, I felt really good at that. Maybe once in a while, bring up three things that they've done. Hey, which one felt easiest to you? Let them kind of self-evaluate and say, hey, this one felt great to me because I really loved being on camera, because I really loved drawing this thing that I know a lot about, because I really loved explaining and telling you something you didn't know, because I felt really important that way. So I've seen all these in my kids and I think maybe some of us, as we're thinking through our kids or our students, we might see that too. But being able to have them step up on that ladder and say, hey, this is the step I feel really, really confident in. I'm going to then use this to work on public speaking, for example, and being able to kind outline or prepare in a way that they felt comfortable with. Maybe it's drawing their speech in tiny little cartoons that kind of go step by step.

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Speaker 2: 10:13
I have one child who will do that for days if I let her. I've got another one who wants to just tell me and tell me, and tell me, and he does not want to edit himself. That's fine for now. We'll start editing ourselves later and figure out how to be a little bit more concise with our words, right? And then I've got another one who just wants to soak it in and then share in written form, and so there's there's so many different ways that we can do this, but being able to give them the tools to say hey, I'm really good at this part, I'm going to use this to do this task that we all have to have to do. But the lead up is going to look different.

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Speaker 1: 10:47
Gotcha. Okay. So you mentioned you know those kids that, especially when they're really obsessed with something and they want to share. And you mentioned you said tell and tell and tell. Right, that is a communication skill that our kids have to learn at some point too. Like you said how to be more concise or how to judge the room right. Have you lost people? Have you gone too much? Basically telling them, at some point you have to stop talking and let somebody else talk, right, that is a hard skill to learn from, I mean.

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Speaker 1: 11:17
I struggle with that right. But how would you suggest approaching that with our kids, because we don't want them to shut down, right, but we want them to be aware of their surroundings and the other people in the communication?

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Speaker 2: 11:29
Exactly, and I think mirroring is one of those things reflecting back what we're feeling to them and what they're giving us. Wow, that's a lot. That's a lot, but there has to be that safe space. So this is where I think a lot of families might lean toward outsourcing when it comes to this moment, because there is this level of rapport that needs to be there and if your parent-child relationship is really going to struggle under that pressure, perhaps go take class with some of your amazing teachers, because that is definitely a step that feels really big. But if you've got that relationship, that rapport, reflect that back to them. Hey, can I tell you something that I noticed from there when you started talking about this example, or when you started giving this example, your fifth example, that just felt like I already kind of knew what you were saying. Which ones do you think we could eliminate from your list of examples and which really, you know, demonstrate your point best? Which evidence can we draw on that would best support your point? Okay, that's something that we're affirming that they've already gotten something right in there and there are a few things that are right, but some things are lesser and we can get rid of those lesser things.

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Speaker 2: 12:43
I would also say, like having them record themselves is really helpful, because then they get bored watching themselves and they'll go, wow, I don't think I need to talk that much and so figuring out, great, what could we cut out? And sometimes we think of this my older daughter loves editing. She's seen me edit stuff for YouTube and so she'll go, hey, I want to learn how to do that, and so I taught her and now she's the one doing that for her own videos, which is really cool. But for the kids who maybe aren't of age or aren't interested in doing that video type editing, um, just a quick, simple phone video and showing it back to them, that is something really, really powerful.

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Speaker 2: 13:23
Um, I think another thing is when kids are obsessed, they will go to a level of detail on Minecraft, on historical topics, just these areas of obsession that we might see come up over and over again. They'll just be a little bit heavy-handed with it, and so I'll kind of bring them back to an imaginary audience. I'll go, hey, I love World War II too, but let's think about dad Dad. Hey, I love World War II too, but let's think about dad. Dad could care less about World War II. Let's imagine that you're presenting to him what would he know he may not know about X event. Let's explain to him what this would be. So giving them another imaginary audience and, if possible, bringing in that audience and having them sit through and be like, no, I didn't get any of that, I don't know. Giving them a little bit of real-time feedback would be really, really helpful there.

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Speaker 1: 14:10
I love it. I love it, and that's obviously a hard thing that we the last thing we want to do is make them not want to communicate with us, right, but at the same time, we have to teach them that this is a communication skill, and just because you want to talk about it for 10 minutes doesn't mean everybody else wants to listen to it for 10 minutes. But at the same time, right as parents, that's our job, right Is to listen to things that they care about, even if we don't understand it, right? Yeah, exactly exactly. What other kind of tips do you have for parents who either know that they have two e-kids or, after hearing this, they're thinking you know what this sounds like, my child, whether it's building communication skills or just any other kind of social skills.

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Speaker 2: 14:55
What are some things that we can do at home to really support them? Sure, we've talked about this before, but I love having my kids tell me jokes. To be like the gatekeeper here, I'm going to open the door. If you tell me a joke and if you can get the right timing in there, you can get the right pauses in there. That's really fun to do.

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Speaker 2: 15:09
Um, making it really on their level, um, you know, bringing in different things that they had to do anyway. Um, let's see, asking their grandmother, or letting their grandmother know in a gracious way, what they would like for their birthday or Christmas or whatever. You know, that's one of those things where, hey, here's what it sounded like when you said all I want is this, this, this and this. You know figuring out, hey, what tone could we use here? So that's something that's come up recently. We just got through birthday season in our house.

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Speaker 2: 15:40
So, having that sort of thing, that sort of skill in their pocket, jokes, and I would even say being able to think about the essays that they're writing If you've got upper elementary and middle schoolers that are starting to write essays, figuring out a way to have them communicate that to a caring audience, somebody who really wants to hear what they have to say verbally. For us, we live abroad, we live outside the US right now, and so being able to send a video to grandma and grandpa in the US and say, hey, this is what we're learning about, I want to tell you about it, and they're literally reading their five paragraph essay but grandma and grandpa feel like they're getting something really really special and a peek into their education and the kids feel like, hey, I'm really sharing this amazing information and getting a good bit of affirmation from it because they love hearing it. So kind of fun. Finding those sympathetic audiences are really important.

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Speaker 1: 16:37
Absolutely, and I love you're having them do that with their essays, because it would be so easy to be like okay, you wrote this, you did a great job, we're done with it. Let's move on to the next thing. Instead of taking that extra layer of communication and practicing what they've already spent time working on, but in a totally different way, we do this as adults. You and I do this all the time, I bet.

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Speaker 2: 16:56
I'll write an email to people that I'm working with and then I'll go talk about it on a YouTube video and then I'll make other social media content about it. I mean, I just think these ideas are not wasted after one use. I want to tell as many people in as many different ways about it. Why not start early? It doesn't have to have a big motive or agenda behind it, but it does really amplify the fact that they've done this work and they can share about it in multiple ways.

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Speaker 1: 17:20
Oh, I love that so much and I feel like even my kids go to public school and the options for them to practice public speaking are so few and far between, and it's like if they're going to do it, they work on that, they do this one speech and that's it, as opposed to, I mean like just continuing to utilize, like I said, this information that they've already built, they've already worked on and they're interested in and being able to practice their communication in more than one way. I think like we should be doing this all the time. Right, I think that's a fantastic idea Instead of it just being you're going to write a speech today, you know.

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Speaker 1: 17:49
No, you're going to take your essay and make it a speech. You know I love it.

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Speaker 2: 17:52
And one more thing, to just bring it back to 2E a little bit, for 2E kids, especially if this is not their strength, but again, this is a skill that they're going to need. Space it out, space it out, let's make. Main point is going to be done on Monday. Point two is going to be done on Tuesday. Point three so make it just real, real bite-sized pieces to start with and then build it up. Yeah, the next time we're going to do our thesis in one day and all three main points in the next. So there's no rush. If you're doing this out of a love for building, a love for communication, this is one of those things that does not have to be rushed. Please don't make your kids hate this. There are so many ways that we can make it fun and interesting and palatable for them, with a cool purpose at the end.

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Speaker 1: 18:37
Yeah for sure when. Last thing about the two e-kids how important is it for you to have a community that understands some of the unique learning challenges that you have and how to support your kids? I mean, is that important? Where do you find those communities and how have you brought that into your homeschooling?

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Speaker 2: 18:55
To be honest, I think families that have gifted kids number one. You don't have to be tested to know that your child is gifted. If you see some of these obsessions or these propensities or just precociousness in them, they can't get enough of learning. You start to seek out other families that are going through something similar, right, and so these kids might end up in the same class. And if you find a community of those people and you've got a 2E learner, they are so much more open to those 2E kids because they understand. They understand feeling like the outsider in their gen ed classroom.

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Speaker 2: 19:33
So I've seen this in some of the classes that I teach.

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Speaker 2: 19:36
I have, you know, let's say, six gifted kids, highly gifted kids, in a class we're debating, we're doing critical thinking and we've got a learner with autism and this kiddo is so bright. We were creating like a company in one of these classes and they were saying, okay, who would be great for, like, managing information in our company? And like three kids raise their hand and go, he would, he would, he would. This kid would, because he is such a good, he has like pretty much instant memory and can just really recall stuff very easily, and so he would be a shoo-in for this role, and so just the fact that they can identify their own strengths they've done the work, they already know what they're pretty good at and what they're not as good at, and they'll try to sidestep all that stuff that they're not as good at usually because they don't want to fail. We need to be careful with that, but the idea of celebrating their strengths and finding a community that celebrates those strengths, even in our 2E kids, can be really, really rewarding and very cool.

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Speaker 1: 20:37
When it all comes together, it's really really cool, and so it's not just as much about you having somebody to connect with and collaborate with. It's really much more about the kids having other people that are just like them. Right, Because we all want to be around people that we relate to right.

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Speaker 2: 20:52
Exactly, and I'm not going to be there when they're in college and they're trying to deal with a lecture or something that is not their style, but they're going to try to maybe find like-minded folks who can kind of piece together and work together and they'll be able to share their own gifts with them. So it's I don't know, there's so much. That just goes beyond formulating and strengthening those academic skills. One thing that I often come back to in homeschooling and I hope that most families would in general, even if you're homeschooling, even if you're not homeschooling is what do you want your child's future spouse to say they loved most about them? Is it that they were a state champ in soccer? Is it that they were, you know, a straight A student? Is it that they got a scholarship to this university? Probably not, hopefully not right.

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Speaker 2: 21:47
Hopefully it's their generosity, their kindness, their willingness to be flexible, right. There's so many of these other skills that are going to be things that speak to their future success, that go way beyond the classroom, and so for TUI kids, for the general population, I think that would be a really, really helpful way to start thinking about equipping these kids to go beyond, not just in the classroom.

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Speaker 1: 22:06
Yeah, and I think that's such a good reminder because obviously that's our biggest hope for our kids to raise healthy, happy, kind people, right. But sometimes we get so caught up in the day-to-day and whether it's, you know, we're working on homeschooling or, in my case, trying to help my kids with math homework you know we're working on homeschooling or, in my case, trying to help my kids with math homework you know, sometimes we just forget that. That's, that this is a minor yes, we have to do this, but this is, this is not our end goal. So, exactly, exactly. Well, melissa, you were always so enlightening. Is there anything else that you want to share? Anything we didn't chat about that you think that our audience would be interested in knowing.

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Speaker 2: 22:45
I just want people to remember that their child has a gifted area and I think that would be a really good thing to start taking a step toward. And if you're thinking of listening to this during the summer or maybe before the school year starts, and you're thinking how can I really make this school year a winner for my child, I think starting with yourself understanding that there are lots of different ways that your child is going to show what they know and what they're excited about and what they're really good at, and leaning into those. And if they happen to be too E, then let them kind of soar and have that buffet. I think that would be a really cool way to have them demonstrate their learning as much as you're able, whatever schooling environment they're in. So there's a lot that we can do. We just have to take the steps, make the effort.

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Speaker 1: 23:25
Absolutely Well. Thank you so much for being here. We'll link to all your socials and everything on the show notes below so you can click right down there to connect with Melissa if you want more information and or any more insight, things like that. So again, thanks for being here and we appreciate your time.

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Speaker 2: 23:40
Have a great day Thanks.