45. Gifted and Distractible: Understanding, Supporting & Advocating for your Twice Exceptional (inner) Child
Julie F. Rosenbaum Skolnick, M.A., J.D., Founder of With Understanding Comes Calm, LLC, passionately guides parents of gifted and distractible children, mentors 2e adults, trains educators and advises professionals on how to bring out the best and raise self-confidence in their 2e students and clients. Julie’s studies at Colgate University, Boston College and Cornell Law School allowed her to take a deep dive into sociology and why people do what they do. Her advocacy focus orients her toward seeking what someone needs based on who they are and how they show up in the world. Her community involvement mirrors her passion for the gifted and twice exceptional community serving as Secretary to the Maryland Superintendent’s Gifted and Talented Advisory Council, Advisor for the Masters of Education Program for the Bridges Graduate School of Cognitive Diversity, Maryland liaison for Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted (SENG), Committee member for the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) and as an advisor to “The G Word” feature documentary currently in production. Julie produces Let’s Talk 2e! virtual conferences, hosts Let’s Talk 2e! Empowerment Groups, and publishes “Gifted & Distractible,” a free weekly newsletter. Julie and her husband are parents of three twice exceptional children who keep them on their toes and uproariously laughing. Julie’s therapist is a red standard poodle named Tigger.
Feeling misunderstood or out of place can be a common experience for twice-exceptional (2e) individuals. This episode of Gifted Unleashed welcomes Julie Skolnick, author of "Gifted and Distractible," to shed light on the unique challenges faced by this remarkable group. Driven by self-love and understanding, Julie navigates us through the wide spectrum of conditions under the 2e umbrella and the importance of focusing on the strengths of these individuals.
Through an enriching conversation, we delve into the fascinating concept of 'masking', a coping mechanism often adopted by 2e individuals. Julie generously shares her "cycle for success" and provides a checklist that can help you find professionals who truly understand and support 2e individuals. We also discuss her much-anticipated book dedicated to adults in the 2e community, a beacon of hope and understanding for many.
Julie's passion for supporting and advocating for 2e individuals is further reflected in her website, withunderstandingcomescalm.com, offering free resources and a membership program for 2e adults. She also shares her upcoming course for parents, a priceless resource for those seeking guidance. As we round off our discussion, Julie emphasizes the importance of validating effort over outcomes or external motivation, a mantra not only for 2e individuals but applicable to all. So, join us on this journey of understanding and loving the twice exceptional individuals in our lives. Don't forget to follow the podcast, leave a review, and stay connected with our newsletter for all things Gifted Unleashed.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
WithUnderstandingComesCalm.com
The Hay Stack A community for 2e adults
TRANSCRIPT:
Julie Skolnick: 0:00
We know that 2e kids at least are redirected at least 40 more times than neurotypical peers in a classroom. Why won't you? Why can't you? When will you? Why don't you? And maybe that relates because you've heard that in your workplace why can't you? When will you, why don't you, why won't you Right? So by noticing the efforts, by making yourself notice verbs, the person suddenly feels validated for all the effort they're making. Cause we know that for 2e people, easy things are hard and hard things are easy.
Nadja Cereghetti: 0:33
Hello and welcome to Gifted Unleashed, where we talk about the gifted and twice exceptional brain and how it affects our thinking and experience of the world differently. There are a lot of stereotypes and stigma around the term giftedness, and I'm here to challenge those. I'm here to raise awareness and to have a conversation around the topic of what it means to be a gifted and 2e adult. Common experience among gifted folks is that they feel out of place. They don't quite fit in. They're too sensitive, too intense, too emotional, too overexcitable and too deep thinkers about the world and about themselves. So if you have been called too much of about anything, then this show is for you. My name is Nadja. I'm too loud, too colorful, too bubbly, too bossy and I love to talk too much. So welcome to my world and I'm so happy you're here. Welcome back. I'm so excited you are here and I'm looking forward to this brand new episode under this new name gifted unleashed. And this is what we're doing here unleashing all of what it is gifted and untangling it and learning and growing and just being who we are and improving along the way and feeling better about ourselves. And today we have a wonderful guest. She has been on the podcast before, but today she's back and talking about her new book. I'm talking about Julie Skolnick, and she has written a wonderful book. It's called Gifted and Distractable Understanding, supporting and Advocating for your Twice-Exceptional Child and, as I call it, you're twice exceptional inner child. So this book is full of knowledge and actionable tips and it's just a beautiful piece. It's really amazing, and I had Julie come and talk to me about this book and the release. It took a few weeks to edit and put it all out there, but I'm hoping that you get a lot out of this episode and that you will be inspired to go and buy her book, read it or even listen to it. It is accompanied by an upcoming course of hers, and there's also a community called the Haystack Community. And, yeah, I don't want to say much more now. I encourage you to listen to this episode and if you want to reach out afterwards and let me know what you thought about it, I'm happy to hear from you. And so, without further ado, here is Julie Skolnick. Welcome, julie, I'm so excited to have you back on this podcast, and it's been my first recording since, I think, almost two years, one and a half years, wow and I just wanted to say thank you because you were the one this summer, you know, when we met at Seng for the first time in person. So this is today the fourth time we meet yeah, twice on the podcast. And then we met this summer in Philadelphia at the Seng Conference, and I wasn't in the best place. That's why I actually went to the Seng Conference. My partner supported me, to go to regain some energy, to be inspired, and you were there and you took your time and you talked to me and I just want to say thank you. I'm getting emotional here because it truly meant a lot and I don't think you know how much impact you had just talking to me, talking to me for an hour in the garden, such a beautiful place there.
Julie Skolnick: 4:12
Well, that was my pleasure, Nadja, and, if you recall, you were the first person I actually saw when I arrived and I was like wait a minute in person. You came all this way and we have that gorgeous picture that I love of the two of us up on my site and yeah, so it was very special to meet you in person.
Nadja Cereghetti: 4:35
Yeah, it was a really, really special moment and also going to the conference in person, being surrounded by gifted and 2E people, and I think that's also something you covered in your book that we're going to talk about. You know this feeling misunderstood for a long time and then you go into a space where you don't have to explain yourself, People just get you and so beautiful when that happens.
Julie Skolnick: 5:06
That was really really, really beautiful.
Nadja Cereghetti: 5:09
Yes, I just wanted to say thank you and, yeah, that also a reason why I have the energy and the space and the motivation to be back and continue with this amazing podcast.
Julie Skolnick: 5:23
So, yeah, well yay for you and all your listeners, because they didn't get to go to the same conference, so this is their special place, exactly.
Nadja Cereghetti: 5:35
And I think that's also why I want to encourage people that are listening to and encourage them to reach out to others. I think, yeah, rejection and feeling misunderstood for a long time, it is scary to reach out again, but I feel this gifted and 2E space that I've entered. Everybody has just been welcoming nice, nice, and I'm really excited. Yeah, and nobody ever questioned my giftedness. So I think a lot of people I think a lot of people who have this imposter syndrome that feel like, oh, but what if I'm not gifted? And then they have imposter syndrome. I don't think you know.
Julie Skolnick: 6:18
Yeah, we don't have a checklist at the door. No for sure not, no, no, we don't.
Nadja Cereghetti: 6:23
But I also want to congratulate you on your book. Wow, yay, thank you.
Julie Skolnick: 6:29
There it is, yes.
Nadja Cereghetti: 6:32
And I just want to say, yeah, it's amazing. It just came out and I speed listened to most of it already and I'm like oh, and I know. So. The book title is called Gifted and Distractable. Right, it's for Parents of 2e Kids.
Julie Skolnick: 6:54
Well, actually it's all, for all people who are 2e or know 2e, love 2e, work with 2e. It really is.
Nadja Cereghetti: 7:02
Exactly yes, and when I read it and you mentioned, you know, 2e children I read it as my inner 2e child. Yeah, and it was very therapeutic, this way, I must say. And so, yeah, what made you write this book?
Julie Skolnick: 7:25
Well, first I have to get over the full body chills I'm having that. You just said that, Nadja. I am so delighted that you, as a 2e adult, related to it and thought about it as your 2e in our child, because there's so many, and this is answering your questions. This is why I wrote it, because we don't outgrow our 2e-ness. 2e children. Their parents get these layers of mud thrown on them throughout their lives. They're told they're 2 something, not enough something. Why can they do this something but they can't do that something? And then parents are blamed or not, you know, it's just based on a lot of misunderstanding. So my business is called With Understanding Comes Calm. So writing this book is really a huge step in trying to help the universe understand what it means to be gifted and 2e. So I have this service called With Understanding Comes Calm, through which I work with parents and I train teachers and I work directly with 2e adults, but I also raise three awesome 2e kids who are 22, 20, and 14. So throughout their lives, my biggest goal is to really help them understand the perspective of who they are to themselves, because so often we're told that we should be less of or more of something, and I want them to recognize who actually their authentic selves are, so that then, when they are trying to understand the perspective of others which we find difficult because we're experiencing our own experience at least they can do it through the authentic vision of who they are, to notice that they're different in incredible ways, and other people are different in ways too.
Nadja Cereghetti: 9:21
Yeah, and I think this self-understanding, as you said, with understanding, comes your children, as you said, but also oneself, right. And I met a few gifted and especially 2e adults who haven't really gone through that process yet and you can see their dysregulation and they know something's up, but they don't know what's up. So I'm trying to get them to engage in the topic. But, yeah, as much as it helps as a parent's guide, the children as an adult reading your book, there's so much nuggets in there that I could also draw from or nodding my head. And, yeah, so do you want to share a little bit more about the book?
Julie Skolnick: 10:20
Sure. So the book is called Gifted and Distractable Understanding, supporting and Advocating for your Twice-Exceptional Child. Maybe Insert Inner Inner Child. I really love that, najee, I'm going to be quoting you. So it's organized and structured in three parts, and the three parts mirror what I call my cycle for success. So there are these three parts to the cycle for success, which include understanding. With understanding comes calm. So the necessity for a deep understanding of what the profile of gifted and 2e mean in general, and then the 2e person in front of you or yourself. Once we have that understanding and we actually get that, gifted means way more than just being smart, which everybody kind of assumes. Then we can look at strategies that are particularly practical and impactful for the 2e human. Once we have strategies, then we need to advocate, and this cycle for success is the cycle. It goes around and around and around because we have to advocate for people to understand, we have to advocate for the strategies. We have to think about this in a myriad of ways. We have to do it on behalf of ourselves and on behalf of others, and so there are specific ways to collaborate. It's very emotional when you're misunderstood right. With misunderstanding comes chaos, right. So we need to really have this deep understanding and this knowledge base in this way, because when we advocate and we feel misunderstood, it's very emotional and it becomes actually. It inhibits us from advocating in the most productive ways. So the book really digs in to those three parts. There's actually 25 worksheets. At the end there's an audiobook. I think I heard you say, Nadja, that you're listening to the audiobook and I narrated it.
Nadja Cereghetti: 12:17
So, yes, that was amazing, because I felt like we've been talking the last three days straight, you know whenever I had a minute I was listening to you and so I had your voice and, yeah, I really think you did a really really good job reading it, because not all audiobooks are, you know, made the same, but yours is really, really a gift to the world. So, thank you so much, thank you.
Julie Skolnick: 12:44
I had so much fun doing it and actually we just had our launch celebration here in Washington DC on the day that it published, on the 17th of October 2023. And my two audio engineers came to the launch because they loved the book so much. And just be told the last chapter. People always want to say what is the one message? Right? Well, you know I have four billion messages, but if I had to boil it down to one message, it's really all about self-love. Self-love for the two-ee humans, self-love for the person who is two-ee, self-love for the person who is raising and loving the two-ee person, self-love for the practitioners, the teachers. You know you leave the room and you're still with you, so you might as well really enjoy being with you. And how do we do that? So when I read that last chapter, Nadja, like the rest of the book, I kind of like I read and I was like really into it, but I got to this last chapter about self-love and we had to do a couple of takes and we had to pause because I was crying, because I really it means so much to me. I think that is. That is the answer to life's question. It is self-love. And why are we born into this world being this bright light? Every the world is literally your oyster. And and then slowly by slowly, by slowly, by layer, we lose that appreciation for how we come to the world. Why is that allowed to happen and how can we stop it?
Nadja Cereghetti: 14:18
I think when you grow up and the world mirrors you, that there's something wrong with you. You're too much, you know too intense, too loud, too bubbly, you know talk too much to yeah, in all of the twos, then you think there's something wrong with you. Right? Why can I not fit in? Because, as you describe in the book, you know, it's not that the children want to stand out. They know they do, but they don't want to. And then they feel it's their fault, their character flawed. And when you realize it's not you as a person, and then when you realize there's others out there that have the same experience, then life gets really beautiful.
Julie Skolnick: 15:11
Yeah, it's validating, right, it's validating to know that wait a minute, not only am I not broken and do I not need to be fixed, but there's like a whole bunch of people out there which is really hard to find. In fact, Naja, we launched something called the haystack for two adults. We call it the haystack because they're all needles in the haystack finding each other, and it's an awesome membership in place to be, because suddenly there's a place for two adults to hang out and talk about the theme of the month and just be in a breakout room and inevitably somebody starts weeping because they're like this must be what it feels like not to mask. I've never felt this before which is incredibly powerful.
Nadja Cereghetti: 15:59
Do you want to quickly say what masking is?
Julie Skolnick: 16:01
Yeah, sure. So masking is actually an adaptive way of dealing with feeling different. It's when we know we want to. We're scanning right, we're echolocating like bats, we're just picking up all the data and how other people are in the world. That seems a little bit different than how we are in the world and so maybe we mask some of the TOOs the two, your two, this two, that two, the other thing, maybe we do, we turn down the volume a little bit on that and this can be an adaptive way to strategize to be successful in quotes in the world. But first of all, what does it mean to be successful and who's successful? Are we trying to meet Right? Those are questions you should ask yourself. So masking literally is hiding something about yourself because you think it's not going to be welcome in this face that you're in. That can be okay. If you've done a cost-benefit analysis and you decided you know I really, really hate small talk, but I really need to meet people and for these other people on the planet it seems like that's step one to get toward the good stuff, get through the cookie in the Oreo, to get to the middle part. And so I've done my cost-benefit analysis, I've decided I can handle 15 minutes of small talk and that's going to be my very intentional decision to do at this party and after 15 minutes, if I haven't made a friend or I don't feel like I've made a connection, I'm going to leave, like that would be one way. That would be okay. But if you're masking and you come home I've had clients after clients of two-way adult clients who come home they cannot turn the lights on, they have to lie down on their couch, maybe hold their pet on their belly, and that's as much as they can handle because they're exhausted from masking all day long Then that's a problem. Then we need to really seek out the people and the places where we can actually be our authentic selves. And that also, by the way, for my perfectionist friends, does not have to look like the perfect you know date out. It could be a phone call with somebody who gets you so you can actually just talk, like you, with another human and feel good about it.
Nadja Cereghetti: 18:16
You know, I thought that's called adulting.
Julie Skolnick: 18:19
Well, yeah, it's not. Kids do it too. When kids do it, you know it might be that they don't have this broader perspective of having the goal. You know, and that's why awareness is so important, being aware of who you are and how that affects the world, and if that's okay with you and what matters.
Nadja Cereghetti: 18:43
Yeah, I was always, you know, too loud, I talk too much, I was bossy, as you said, you know I. In your book you describe this child who came up with rules for playing. Oh, that was me, and I got sent home from play days.
Julie Skolnick: 19:01
I was always called intimidating. I was always intimidating, which is lovely as a female, like intimidating, yeah, yeah.
Nadja Cereghetti: 19:08
You just outed yourself as a two-year-old too, right.
Julie Skolnick: 19:13
Well, listen, if you read the book you'll learn about my three-layer cake of giftedness. And the first characteristic is a synchronous development. And if a synchronous development developing in your physical, social, emotional and intellectual spheres at different rates and abilities, if that is a defining characteristic of gifted, then isn't everybody too? E? So yes, I did.
Nadja Cereghetti: 19:37
Oh yeah, I love this cake analogy and it made me want to eat cake. I had to say it.
Julie Skolnick: 19:43
Yeah, you know when I, when I talk about the three-layer cake at a conference in person, I always tell everybody to close their eyes and imagine their flavors. What's the flavor of your cake? What's the flavor of the frosting? Mine's chocolate with chocolate.
Nadja Cereghetti: 19:57
Yeah, do you want to describe the cake?
Julie Skolnick: 20:00
Yeah, sure. So the three-layer cake of giftedness has again. So everybody out there gets your flavors. What's your flavor of cake and what's your flavor? Ice cream or ice icing? I try to remember that frosting in America might be icing in Europe, so I'm trying to get both terms. Oh, okay, yeah, so okay. So you've got your cake and your frosting, and the frosting is sort of a thinner layer than the cakes. The cake layers are these nice chunky layers of yummy cake, but the frosting it's above, around and between all the layers. That's the assumption of gifted, smart, right potential. But then we have these three layers asynchronous development, as I just described, sort of that uneven development in the social, emotional, physical and intellectual spheres. It might mean there's a learning difference, it might mean there's a social, emotional challenge there. And then our next layer characteristic is perfectionism. Perfectionism, the other side of which can be anxiety, because we see in our head and we're so good at some things, but when we're not good at something and we're perfectionistic, it actually causes us to freeze and to worry that we're not meeting expectations. We're not meeting other people's expectations or our own, and so that can turn into anxiety. And then the third layer is an intensity, all the TOOs that you're describing, which are known in sort of the gifted research land as overexcited abilities, and they typically present in the intellectual, emotional, imaginal, sensual or sensory and psychomotors spheres. That intensity in those areas, that's the cake.
Nadja Cereghetti: 21:42
Thank you, I really love the analogy. And then the 2e child is then a child who has a learning difference, some form of difficulties, especially in school, but also with other children interactions, right? Do you want to describe a little bit what makes the 2e, 2e, the twice exceptionality?
Julie Skolnick: 22:07
Yeah, and I try not to say difficulties or disorders, I like to say differences.
Nadja Cereghetti: 22:14
Differences. That's why I was a little bit hesitant.
Julie Skolnick: 22:16
Yeah, I asked the word Differences Exactly Okay, no problem, so right. Working memory. Exactly. So 2e. The letter 2, slowercase "e or twice exceptional is the same thing as gifted and distractible, as I cast my net quite widely. But it includes an identification of gifted, which, by the way, in and of itself is the special need, plus a learning difference or learning differences. It's never really 2E, it's usually like 10E, but it has anything from ADHD to autism, processing speed, working memory, executive functioning, social emotional challenges, dysgraphia, dyslexia, written expression disorder, all of the auditory and visual processing, all of the things. I didn't by any chance say all of them, but you have some other learning difference that brings you to the world and has your experience different. So therefore, you need to be taught differently. You need to have a work environment that allows you to advocate for what you need in a different way than a neurotypical peer, and my favorite thing in the planet to do is to positively reframe. So, for instance, when you read my book, you'll learn that I don't call ADHD ADHD. I call it hyperattention activity deficit, because ADHD people who have the most incredibly creative minds and such awesome font of energy they can pay attention to so many things at the same time, the challenge is that you know how do I prioritize according to anybody but myself, and then they need to move, which why is that a bad thing? So I really love to reframe positively in that way, but that is what 2e really is specifically.
Nadja Cereghetti: 24:01
Yeah, thank you, and I think you just beautifully described also the strengths of some of the 2e people and I really appreciated that list, that comparison of how, for example, kids with ADHD, how the DSM-5 really negatively points out some of the traits. And I remember in July you gave us a sneak peek at the Science Conference.
Julie Skolnick: 24:33
That's right, you're talking about the uncanny likeness of giftedness in ADHD. That is one of my very most popular talks and the reason why I made that side-by-side comparison of external and internal factors, of how ADHD or giftedness presents in the world according to those factors, is for two reasons. One I wanted people to realize just how identical giftedness and ADHD can present and that the difference is looking at the environment versus looking at a lagging skill. So, while you might look like you can't pay attention when you're gifted because you're bored out of your brains, sometimes that happens also with ADHD. You might be bored out of your brains, but you also might be having an attention deficit or something where you need to have direct instruction on how to tap into what's going to allow you to pay attention.
Nadja Cereghetti: 25:33
Yeah, I really, really liked that list and it was an eye-opener and ever since that I've been, you know, had that in the back of my mind and I had conversation with adults the last couple of months with people I think they're twice exceptional. Some people know about their differences, so they have a diagnosis, they embrace that very much and I think it's also more acceptable in society to say I have a deficit or I have, you know, I have ADHD, I'm on the autism spectrum, I have dyslexia. You might not say it so out loud, but going out and say, oh, I'm gifted, I don't think anybody does that. I try to be a role model. It feels icky and weird, but yeah, and if people are too E, they still usually focus on these negative traits.
Julie Skolnick: 26:40
Isn't that fascinating that we feel more comfortable saying what's challenging than owning our you know? And I still say the challenging parts are still awesome. I think ADHD is an incredible brain. God forbid I'm ever in an emergency Boy. Do I want somebody with ADHD as my EMT or as my you know person to swoop in and take care of the situation, because boy can they. But you know the giftedness and it's really interesting that giftedness is seen as such a positive as well, because when you look at the three layer cake it's neurodiverse. Giftedness is a special need and a neurodiversity so it comes with this incredible abilities and unfortunately the way we measure giftedness is through it. It's intelligent quotient score and IQ score on a bell curve of intelligence. But the existential considerations and the intensities and the rage to learn the importance of absolutely everything on the planet, it's hard to contain in our little bodies. It is.
Nadja Cereghetti: 27:53
And that brings me to one of the thoughts that I had listening to your book, when you said when you find somebody, a professional for your child here's a checklist of questions you need to ask this person in order for you to figure out if that person really understands to each children and that doesn't only apply for children, right, that applies to the adults as well. If you look for a therapist, for a coach, for anybody that works with you in this realm, you need to have somebody that understands who you are 100%. I can only like if you buy this book only for this checklist, it's already super worth it.
Julie Skolnick: 28:46
Well, here's the cool news. I'm going to say this out loud. You know how sometimes you want to do something and you make yourself do it by telling other people you're going to do it. If you ever do that, that's something I do, my own little hack.
Nadja Cereghetti: 28:56
I told you to come on a podcast, so we had to do it Exactly exactly so book number two is going to really be for adults. That was my next question. When is the adult book coming out? Yeah, I'm trying.
Julie Skolnick: 29:11
I have the proposal half written. My agent knows about it. So it really is something I want to do, Whether I can take off this summer, like I took off last summer, to write the book.
Nadja Cereghetti: 29:20
I don't know if it'll be the summer or the following summer, but it is in the works then my brain Okay, it's so needed, but even then, the inner child work, you can still do with book number one. And the checklist is applicable for adults. Because, yeah, I had actually again a bad experience. I was looking for a therapist. Now that I know what I look for, I looked for a gifted therapist and I was looking where my insurance will cover and I found somebody and I was super excited. I talked to the person. Turns out not the same understanding of what giftedness is.
Julie Skolnick: 30:04
Not so much.
Nadja Cereghetti: 30:06
And that, I think, can also now be a little bit I don't know if I want to use the word dangerous but we're telling people, yeah, go and find a professional, find somebody that understands giftedness, understands twice exceptionality. But there might be already people in this space that have a very different understanding of how we talk about this topic.
Julie Skolnick: 30:31
The reason it's dangerous, nadja, and it is dangerous is because you're just going to get more of the same misunderstanding Like why don't you just get over yourself and do the thing? Well, there's a lot of reasons right, and why can't you just? There's a lot of that. There's no holding space for the conflicting thoughts and feelings that are happening for you in various places. There's no, just do this. We know that cognitive behavioral therapy, for instance, isn't always so effective with to be and gifted people, because we sort of outthink it, we can figure it out, but we can't necessarily implement it. It may not be relevant in what's happening for us because there's so many complex layers of what we need to think about. But just a little disclaimer I am not a therapist and I do not do therapy, so I'm a 2e expert. I work with parents, adults, teachers and clinicians to bring out the best in race, health, confidence 2e humans. That's my goal.
Nadja Cereghetti: 31:34
Yeah, and do you want to share a little bit what you offer? I mean, you just said a little bit of who you are, but this is also a place where you can promote and get people to join your communities. You mentioned the Haystack community, you do so much yeah. What else do you offer and do?
Julie Skolnick: 31:51
You're so sweet, so listen. The easiest way to find out the 5 million things that I do is to go to with understandingcomescomcom, but pack snacks, because you'll be there a while. That's a lot to see. There's a ton of free stuff. The first thing to do is to go to publications or resources, click on that link in the menu and then sign up for the free weekly newsletter called Gifted and Distractable. There will be a checklist for you to check off everything that's relevant, so you don't have to be just an adult or just a parent or just an educator or just a grandparent or just an anything. You can be a bunch of things and that way you'll get curated information that's relevant to you. So that newsletter, gifted and Distractable, I've been publishing since 2014 and I've been writing a blog monthly since 2014. So all the blogs are there. You can search under any topic and see if there's a blog on it. There is, of course, the Haystack membership and you can find that out under I think it's under groups, but it will be obvious. I'm on a lot of podcasts. I don't do my own podcast, but I speak on podcasts almost weekly. So we post them all to the site under podcasts, which I believe is under media, so you can find that there. I write a lot of articles. I've interviewed a lot. They're all there bite-sized stuff to listen to or to read, and we are going to be launching a course in February that goes along with Gifted and Distractable. That is going to be focusing on parents because there's a workbook for parents to work through. But the Haystack is the greatest place for two-year adults to hang out and meet other people. We open enrollment for the Haystack four times a year, so the next time after this podcast airs will be November 2023 for December, but we'll be doing it every quarter along those lines and it's $47 a month.
Nadja Cereghetti: 33:42
Wow, this, wow, it sounds like you're five people in one. How do you do that?
Julie Skolnick: 33:48
Yeah, I didn't even say that. I of course consult one-on-one with adults parents, teachers. I do teacher trainings, I come and I speak. People ask me to come and speak. Next week I'm training a bunch of gymnastics coaches because a client asked me to go and do that and then adults asked me to come and talk to their workplace about how two-year employees need to be sort of understood and what will make it best for them. So I'm doing that. So really, I have this disease Nadja, it's called the unable to say no disease, and so when people ask me to do something, if it has to do with two-year and my passion, I'm just going to figure out how to do it. So yeah, that's the deal.
Nadja Cereghetti: 34:27
When you said I have a disease, I thought you're going to say I am to eat. That's why I do all the things. Not a disease. It's not a disease, I know. But, because you're too E and that, yeah, I can relate. But can I ask you, maybe for myself and for everybody listening, what do you do for self-care? How do you recharge? How do you keep your batteries up high, your spoons full, awesome.
Julie Skolnick: 34:55
Awesome, your spoons full. My oldest likes to tell me when they're out of spoons, so I love that you just use that. So there are a bunch of things that I do. First of all, thank God, I love what I do and I could do it 24, seven and I almost do, but I do take breaks. So, first and foremost, every Friday from sundown to Saturday at sundown, everything's turned off. It is 100% family time, reading time, playing game time, be outside time for 24 hours. Everything is turned off, no phone, I don't drive anywhere. It's a beautiful, beautiful respite during the week. Secondly, I love to crochet. So when I have time I crochet. I love to do that. I try to work out every morning for about 40 minutes and that's really important. I try to be outside. I love to cook and bake and I love, love, love to be with my children and my husband. So I try to get some really present time, which the best time to do that is that 24 hours that I am plugged, because otherwise I am totally lassoed to my phone as a small business owner. So it's really important for me to make it easy for me to be present. And I also love to read silly fiction books and to watch silly fiction TV, usually when I work out.
Nadja Cereghetti: 36:17
Thank you for sharing, for, yeah, being so vulnerable and sharing your routine. I like to knit, not very good, but I think doing something with our hands like it's there, I think it's totally therapeutic.
Julie Skolnick: 36:32
Totally. I can't knit Nadja because I'm too tightly wound, so my sweaters and things become like all jumbled and weird. But I just crocheted an entire sweater that I love and so I'm really excited about that, and I like to crochet hats actually a lot.
Nadja Cereghetti: 36:47
That sounds amazing. Yeah, I like to knit hats because it's fast, but yeah, I think a lot of neurodivergent people actually like to knit or crochet or do something with their hands. I really, yeah, I think it's very therapeutic and if you haven't tried listening, that's something we can recommend. It really helps. I mean, our conversation is a little bit all over the place, as we tend to you know ping pong. But I want to go back a little bit to your book because that's why you're here and want to promote it and want to give it maybe another sneak peek. It's so amazing and you really made it so approachable with these three parts where you said also in the beginning you know you went through a lot of talks and the tips came at the end for like five minutes and you really packed it. The middle section is full of very specific tips for parents. The first explains what giftedness and 2e is, then all the tips for parents and then in the end you have a whole section on advocacy. And it's amazing. Do you want to share maybe like one tip as a sneak peek to make people want to get more of those amazing tips?
Julie Skolnick: 38:10
Sure, sure, I have about 200 pages of strategies. I actually counted because I wanted to make sure I did my 6040 split. I always promise 60% strategies, majority strategies in all talks and all writing. So my very favorite strategy of the 200 pages of strategies is noticing verbs. I usually say, and I probably said in the book, that there is no magic bullet. But if there was secret sauce, this is it. So noticing verbs like action words, not nouns, not adjectives, but verbs. Noticing verbs is noticing effort. So you think about the behavior you want to encourage for your child, for your partner, for your Employer, for your teacher. You can do this even for yourself when you start to have negative self-talk. Instead of focusing on the outcome or the product, we want to Notice the process, and that's something that Carol Dweck talks about in her book mindset. But this noticing verbs is having this idea of what do you want your and I'm gonna use child as an example, because that's what this book Primarily addresses. But let's say you want your child to, instead of throwing their book back, their backpack, into the living room, you want them to actually hanging up on the hook in the closet that you've set aside for them. So, assuming that you've made this very clear, and which is another. Another type of strategy that I talk about is how to set up responsibilities and expectations around responsibilities. So, assuming that we've made it clear, when the child does this, you pull out as many verbs as you can. Instead of saying hey, dude, thanks for hanging up your backpack, I'm gonna say hey, I noticed you got out of car when we got home today. That's verb number one. You walk to the door, you went into the foyer, you open the closet door. I'm on four verbs already. You hung up your backpack, unzip your zipper, took your lunchbox out, put it on the island. That was eight things that I said, and I didn't say thank you and I didn't say I'm proud of you, because I don't want external motivation. I don't want you doing this for me. I want you doing this because this is what you know is your responsibility and you know what the expectations are. The Expectations are that you're gonna hang it on the hook, that you're gonna open it up and take your lunch out. You're gonna put your lunch on that, whatever your expectations are around this responsibility. When we do this, it is sad to the wound of all the things that our two e kids usually here Are two e itself is usually here. We know that two e kids at least are redirect at least 40 more times than neurotypical peers in a classroom. Why won't you? Why can't you? When will you? Why don't you and maybe that relates because you've heard that in your workplace why can't you? When will you? Why don't you? Why won't you right? So by noticing the efforts, by making yourself notice verbs, the person suddenly feels validated for all the effort they're making. Because we know that for two e people, easy things are hard and hard things are easy. So we have to notice that there are efforts and very often, if you're doing this with somebody else, or even if you're doing it with yourself, the person says thank you, thank you for for noted. I mean, it's almost like subconsciously oh my gosh, you've noticed that I was trying all these things. To do all these things, it fills what I call your resilience bucket. So you have a resilience bucket and if it's empty, hard things are even harder. And if it's full, hard things aren't as hard. So how do we fill the resilience bucket, while noticing verbs is one way.
Nadja Cereghetti: 41:50
Wow, thank you, thank you. And when you say you know hard things are easy, but the easy things are hard, that that's really, yeah, describing my life Well.
Julie Skolnick: 42:02
so so all you 2e grown-ups out there who are listening, if you have a partner or a spouse or A friend who you live with and they do something, notice the verbs around it. Hey, you made dinner tonight and you made that chicken with exactly the apricot sauce that I love and you baked it at a Degree that made it so crispy on the outside. And I, you know, instead of like thanks for making dinner, isn't that so much nicer? And they have it all called out.
Nadja Cereghetti: 42:32
I Will try to.
Julie Skolnick: 42:38
Awesome, let me know how it goes. I will and you have to let your partner or spouse know that. That would be really effective for you.
Nadja Cereghetti: 42:46
Yes, yes, because, yeah, I do the hard things. You know well, I don't know how hard it is to put a podcast out, I'm just saying I think it's pretty hard.
Julie Skolnick: 42:57
I don't think everybody on the planet puts out a podcast.
Nadja Cereghetti: 42:59
Yeah, but recycling is hard, Vacuuming is hard, yeah, yeah yeah, although very lot of the housework, so I'm Noticing that, I'm pointing that out as a verb here.
Julie Skolnick: 43:17
Yeah, you can say, I noticed that. You know. You saw there were some stuff on the floor and you went and you got the vacuum out of the closet and you plugged it in and turned it on and you made the floor look so much cleaner.
Nadja Cereghetti: 43:29
Yeah, I will try that. Thank you so much. Yeah maybe one last piece from the book Advocacy. Do you want to say why is it important? And is there one thing that even adults can use for themselves?
Julie Skolnick: 43:45
Absolutely. Advocacy is super important and super hard because we're emotional, we are in our amygdala when we are not feeling understood and that's exactly what we need to advocate, which kind of defeats our own purpose. So I talk about the ART of Advocacy, ART, and it has three steps. When you advocate, they seem simple and obvious, but when you're in that moment they aren't, which is why everything in the book, like the cake, like I, have these sort of sound Bite, easy to remember things for our working memory, friends. So the art of advocacy "Acknowledge, request, thank. So we acknowledge. Whoever we're advocating to, we probably feel frustrated or we might not feel hurt or understood or seen. So we have to pause and remember to acknowledge them because, unless we are talking to the devil, they probably don't really want to make you feel as crappy as you do and they probably would love some direction, whether it's a teacher, a boss, a parent, a client, a friend. So we acknowledge hey, I really appreciate you taking this time. I know your plate is overflowing and full and you know that you have the interest in talking with me about. This is really important to me and I really appreciate it. Then the request part has to be really specific and actionable. So if you can develop a very specific goal and the book talks about this and even has worksheets on how to do this I always say, if a four-year-old could hear your goal and know what the first step is, that means you have a really good specific goal. Because from the goal should come action items and from those action items should come measurables and from those measurables should come the person who's in charge of measuring and following up. So that's the request piece and then thinking I always tell my clients To bring homemade cookies to any meaning that they're having to advocate now in the workplace. That depends. You don't want to undermine your professionalism, so if that would feel kind of yucky to you then don't do that. But certainly if you're meeting with teachers, if you're meeting with the team, you know nobody is upset that you bring cookies. It's always a nice way to say, but you have to remember to say thank you at the end of the conversation and to send a follow-up Email. Now, part of my advocacy has a very strict rule, which is the three sentence rule. If your email is more than three sentences, don't send the email. It's a meaning. The only exception is the follow-up email to the meeting which very succinctly Bullet points what everybody decided who's supposed to do what, when it's supposed to be done by and when you're meeting next.
Nadja Cereghetti: 46:22
Thank you. Fully packed with nuggets, wisdom, actionable items. So, yeah, I really was looking forward to the book and then listening, you know, to your voice, with all this information, yeah, I fell in love.
Julie Skolnick: 46:38
Aw, thank you, I'm so glad it really. It really is sort of my life's work. I had a practitioner, a good friend, say to me I just smiled because you just pretty much dumped every single thing you do with clients into this book. I was like, yeah, there's no secret, there's no, I'm not holding anything back. No, you did not. You can get the book and you can work through the book and you'll gain understanding, you'll get some strategies, you'll get some advocacy tips and it's gonna be great for you. And then if you're a parent, you want to do the course. That's gonna help also and you're gonna have sort of a community of parents. And then if you want to work one-on-one I'm sort of working backwards in the most effective way of course you can get the book, of course you can do the course. Working one-on-one is, of course, I'm only one person, but if we can schedule you, that is a very impactful thing because we're gonna talk specifically about you.
Nadja Cereghetti: 47:26
Hmm, so thank you so much for this conversation. Thank you, not you. Is there anything else that we didn't cover? Something you want to share, something you wish people know, something you wish you knew earlier? Hmm.
Julie Skolnick: 47:42
I think the most important word is pause. You have to pause and challenge that negative voice in your head. You have to pause and consider is that person saying that actually to hurt me or is that person really hurting? You have to pause and give yourself grace and Recognize. You are exactly who you are meant to be. You are born complete and Then you have to grow into yourself and love yourself.
Nadja Cereghetti: 48:18
Hmm, thank you. Thank you so much, julie. Thank you for being here, thank you for this book and thank you for everything that you're gonna do in the future. Already.
Julie Skolnick: 48:31
Thank you, Nadja. I really appreciate it. I looked forward to this. You're ending my work week cuz my all my devices are gonna go off in a couple of hours when the sun sets, so yay.
Nadja Cereghetti: 48:44
So I'm wishing you a really nice unplugging from this amazing launch week. I saw you know all over social media and, yeah, I'm wishing you obviously all the success and I hope we see each other soon, either online or in person.
Julie Skolnick: 49:00
I would. I would love to be in person. I actually want to come to where you are. That's what I want to do. Let's figure that out.
Nadja Cereghetti: 49:07
Okay, let's do that. Okay, but in the meantime, I'm gonna say goodbye and enjoy your unplugging. Thanks, Nadja, you, too. Thank you for listening and I hope you got some practical and actionable insights from this episode. As I'm currently uploading the episodes as they come out, they are not on a strict schedule. Therefore, I recommend you like and follow the podcast on your podcast app or wherever you listen to your podcast and, if you feel generous over the holidays, maybe you want to leave a review. That will be really amazing and appreciated. And if you want to be the first person to know about new episodes and other news on Gifted Unleashed, I invite you to subscribe to the newsletter. You can find a sign-up link on the new beautiful website giftedunleashed.com and I'm hoping to see you soon and have a wonderful day. Bye.