Episode 195: Parenting Gifted and Twice-Exceptional Kiddos with Dr. Matt Zakreski
/In our latest episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast, we’ll explore parenting gifted and twice-exceptional children. Joining me for this insightful conversation is Dr. Matt Zakreski a seasoned clinical psychologist, professional speaker, and co-founder of The Neurodiversity Collective, known for his expertise in supporting neurodivergent individuals.
Here’s an overview of what we discussed:
Defining and understanding neurodiversity term
Exploring neurodivergence as a sphere
Understanding what giftedness means
Struggles and signs of gifted children
Difficulties in raising gifted or twice-exceptional children
Differences between intellectual age and academic age
Balancing pressure and expectations for gifted children
Performance cliff and supporting gifted kids facing academic challenges
Addressing perfectionism in gifted children’s struggles
How to “be the lighthouse” for your neurodivergent child so that you don’t both end up in rough seas?
If you enjoyed listening to Dr. Matt, you can visit his websites Dr. Matt Zakreski, The Neurodiversity Collective, and follow him on Facebook @drmattzakreski and LinkedIn @matthewzakreski.
Listen in for practical advice and actionable strategies to confidently support and guide your neurodivergent child.
I would love to hear from you! If you have any questions you’d like to have answered on the podcast or any takeaways or wins you’d like to share you can leave me a message here: https://www.speakpipe.com/laurafroyenphd
TRANSCRIPT
Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic, overwhelmed. In one moment, you're nailing it and the next you're losing your cool. I want to help you find your way to the messy middle, to a place of balance. You see balance is a verb, not a state of being. It is a thing you do. Not a thing you are. It is an action, a process, a series of micro corrections that you make each and every day to keep yourself feeling centered. We are never truly balanced. We are engaged in the process of balancing.
Hello, I'm Dr. Laura Froyen and this is The Balanced Parent Podcast where overwhelmed, stressed out and disconnected parents go to find tools, mindset shifts and practices to help them stop yelling at the people they love and start connecting on a deeper level. All delivered with heaping doses of grace and compassion. Join me in conversations that will help you get clear on your goals and values and start showing up in your parenting, your relationships, your life with openhearted authenticity and balance. Let's go!
Laura: Hello, everybody. This is Doctor Laura Froyen. And on this week's episode of the Balanced Parent Podcast, we're going to be talking about parenting, gifted and twice exceptional kiddos. I'm really excited for this conversation and to help me with it, Doctor Matt Zakreski, he's the co-founder and lead clinician at the Neurodiversity Collective and he's gonna be talking with us. Matt, thank you for coming onto the show. Will you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do? And then we'll just dive into these awesome kiddos.
Dr. Matt: All about diving into the awesome kiddos. But yeah, I mean, people need to know who I am otherwise, I'm just a voice in their ear. So everybody calls me Doctor Matt. Partly because I have a complicated last name. Trust me, it happens all the time. And so I grew up as a gifted kid in New Jersey in the nineties. And back then we really only talked about being gifted is smart, right? You're, you're gonna go to Harvard, you're gonna win a Nobel Prize someday. I didn't, I never got into Harvard though. I did work there for a little while. And I'm nowhere near winning a Nobel Prize. I, but back then we didn't understand giftedness as neuro divergence, right? But it's literally a different brain and part of being so smart and so different means I got away with a lot of stuff. And to the extent to which that I didn't get diagnosed with ADHD until high school. And boy, let me tell you that explained a lot. Like because when you are super smart and you forget that there's a test, you can study for the test in three minutes between the class changeover and get a 93. And then that reinforces the procrastination. It's like,
Laura: Oh my God, I feel it. So I don't know, seen and also a little added right now. Like that's my whole educational career.
Dr. Matt: I was actually just peeking through a window the whole time knowing someday we would be on this podcast. I brought the receipts as the kids say.
Laura: Oh okay, great. Yes, keep going.
Dr. Matt: And so both of my parents were clinical psychologists. So they knew the stuff to look for, they knew the questions to ask. And I grew up in a small town with a great school system and being gifted and ultimately exceptional, still kicked my ass.
Laura: Wait. Can we just, can I hone in on something here because parents are so hard on themselves when they don't see things about their kids. Right. And I just want to highlight that you were living in a house with two clinical psychologists and they also missed these things. And so perhaps we can be a little easier on ourselves as parents for not knowing.
Dr. Matt: What a wild idea. Right. I still think my dad doesn't think I have ADHD and I'm like dad, I am the poster child for twice. Exceptional. But I, you know, it was, I just didn't know back then. I didn't have those words. And, you know, now like having the language and the community around neuro divergence, I mean, I feel so seen and also so added all the time, like, I mean, my poor wife, I was researching my dissertation. I kept running out of my office being and then there's this thing that's true. I would go back and then there's this thing that's true. And I mean, it's just all this developmental stuff and social emotional stuff and, you know, moving past this idea of just the smart kid. Like, do you remember the show Boy Meets World? Do you remember the character Minkus?
Laura: Oh, of course. I remember Minkus.
Dr. Matt: You know, like a lot of kids of our generation grew up with, the arc type was either Topanga or Minkus, right? And actually I went to college with Lee. We were at Wake Forest together. He's a great guy. But it was one of those things where like he's like, yeah, I mean, I was super smart but they were like, no, no be the most obnoxious version of yourself. Like I think gosh, am I that kid? Is that how people see me? You know, so yeah, sometimes we just don't know and I think the messages we get from broader society about what things are or are not impacts us as parents.
Laura: Yeah.
Dr. Matt: And, and I think it contributes to the blind spots we have on our own kids. I mean, you know, my parents knew I was going to be smart because they're both very smart. But you know, entering into that gifted world was a steep learning curve. And as my dad said, he's like, I wish I had taken Carolyn Callahan's class a little bit more seriously. Doctor Callahan being like one of the godmothers of the gifted world, like, and they were at UVA together, right? But my dad was like, I gotta have asked her class and I'm like, thanks dad.
Laura: Okay, let me just zoom out for a second. You've used the term neurodiversity. A few times I feel like that is a word that we hear thrown around and it means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I would love to just even kind of have this like an umbrella understanding for the rest of our conversation. So what do you mean when you say neurodiversity?
Dr. Matt: Awesome. Thank you for granting that because I can absolutely start going full jargon.
Laura: I mean, Matthew same, but yes.
Dr. Matt: So there are three layers to this, right? So there's neurotypical, neurotypical is a brain that is normal, operates within regular parameters. About 80% of people are neurotypical. Then there's neurodivergent, a neurodivergent person has a brain that is quantifiable different in some way, usually in many ways. Neuro divergence can be developmental. So, ADHD, autism, dyslexia, dysgraphia, giftedness, OCD, they're all literally different brains. Like we can show FMRIs and be like, ha ha! That's what that brain does different. And then there's neurodiversity, which is all the brains. I do this talk. I'm like, is anybody in this room? ADHD or gifted? Usually people raise their hands because those are the conferences I speak at. And I was anybody in this room not gifted with ADHD and then those people raised their hands. I was like, so we've got our neuro divergence or neurotypical and all of you are neurodiversity. So, neurodiversity is all the brains and some people will use neurodivergent as a synonym for autism. And I have lots of friends and colleagues in the autism community and I don't want to speak for all of them. But the ones I've spoken to have been like that drives us nuts.
We've spent the last 20 years trying to get the word autism back and now they've given us a different word. So they're like, autism is absolutely part of neurodivergence. It's not the only show in town and the more we know about the brain, I mean, one neuro divergence predicts others at a much higher level. So, if you're autistic, we should definitely assess to see if you're ADHD or, or dyslexic because a different brain predicts other differences. So, you know, I would love it if the APA moved to a world where it's like you could just be diagnosed as it were with neuro divergence. Because they are much more helpful to people.
Laura: So much more helpful. I mean, even just thinking about this binary of like you have it or you don't, that's what a diagnosis is, right? And I've been exploring with thinking about neuro divergence as more spherical than even spectrum me, right? You know, so that's something that I feel like folks are talking about and I really like that. And what do you think about seeing it as more spherical?
Dr. Matt: I mean, I love it. And, you know, there's you've probably seen this on social media,
Laura: I'm not on social media at all. It's been a year of being completely unplugged. So, no, I haven't seen it.
Dr. Matt: You look really healthy. That's probably why. Right. But yeah, I mean, the problem with the spectrum language is that it's like, are you more or less autistic? And, but like if you think of it as a sphere, not even a circle, right? But a sphere
Laura: Just 3D, right? When I teach it, I have a rainbow ball that I,
Dr. Matt: Visual aid, visual aid.
Laura: But I totally stole it from my kids.
Dr. Matt: Well, of course, now that's been recorded. So they're gonna have that exhibit. A mom stole my ball.
Laura: Still think that they're fine. They have a lot of balls there.
Dr. Matt: There's so many balls, right? You just, I don't know how we even ended up with balls and rocks. I don't know how we got.
Laura: The rocks are me. I just stick them in my pockets, you know, along with the kids. Yes. Pockets, right. Yes. Oh my gosh. This is the most distracted conversation. I'm sorry because we're talking about it being a sphere, not even a circle but a sphere.
Dr. Matt: Yes, because it's, it's about everybody's directionality within that, right? And so like my flavor of neuro divergence, right is higher impulsivity, higher creativity, you know, some hyperactivity, but more of that emotional dysregulation piece, right? That shows up for me, I have colleagues who have ADHD who are just like the head in the clouds like they're there, but they're not really there. I'm like most of the time pretty focused on what we're doing and my feet are, if I'm here, it's more that like I can't stop moving my legs and legs and arms. Right. So, you know, so that's what gives us this idea that, that it's not, do you have it or not? What's your flavor? So, a lot of people started using a cupcake analogy, right? You wouldn't say, are you more cupcake or less cupcake than this cupcake, you would say? Oh, that's red velvet, that's chocolate, that's vanilla cream, right? Cupcakes, man.
Laura: Like they're all cupcakes. I like that a lot. Okay. So tell me a little bit too. So I feel like there's a couple of directions I want to go with you because there's, I know that there are folks who are very reluctant to pigeonhole their kids is gifted even when giftedness is going on for their kids. They're worried about the pressure they're worried about like what that will mean? I feel like giftedness can be confusing because how can a kid be gifted but doing poorly in school? And that happens too, right? So can we just talk? So we've done the umbrella like neuro divergence and neurodiversity. Like what like what does giftedness mean? Like what does that actually mean?
Dr. Matt: So gifted is an IQ of 130 or higher. So that is the cleanest, simplest definition of it. It's two standard deviations away from the main. It is the 98th percentile of IQs. Right. So, you know, I mean, if I tell my kids all the time, it's like if I stacked up 100 kids your age, I just have you go stand at the end of the line because that's where your brain is compared to your peers. And it's a helpful metric. Now IQ is not the be all, end, all of things. Right. It's a flawed measure like anything else but it's in many ways it's the best we've got. But you spoke to something important and this is really for those, you know, to really amplify this point for the parents. Gifted doesn't mean necessarily that you do good in school because I say this all the time, gifted kids love to learn, they don't necessarily like school, because I've got a kid who, you know, she's doing homeschool now because all she wants to do is run as far and as fast and as deep as she can on the topic until she's done with that topic.
And then she does another thing. So her mom has built their school around, you know, right now she's learning about ancient Greek architecture. How did they build the things? Right. When she's done with that? Or when she knows she's wrapping up, mom asked her to make some sort of capstone, right? Take a test, do a project, do a powerpoint, whatever the thing might be, right? And then she'll be into Dickensian literature or, you know, the art of the samurai or with, you know, pastries, who knows? But this is a kid who loved to learn but literally wouldn't leave class if she was doing anything she wanted to do. She said, why do I need to stop reading Wind of the Willows to go play kickball? I hate kickball. I like Window of the Willows. Right.
Laura: Makes sense.
Dr. Matt: Right. I mean, seriously make it make sense to me and, and so like a lot of gifted kids, she got labeled as oppositional, she got labeled as a bad kid.
Laura: Yeah, I was just talking about this exact thing with my 11 year old. She was, we were talking about like, if you just explain to me the logic of why I need to do something, I'll do anything. But if you try to tell me just to do it and just do it without an explanation, I'm not gonna do it. I was like, yeah.
Dr. Matt: Yeah, that's, that's exactly how that goes.
Laura: Yeah, that makes, that makes sense, you know? I mean, and, and lots of adults don't like that. They don't like that. They have to explain things to kids. Right. You know, they don't want to, they want to be in a position that feels like disrespect for authority as opposed to respecting the child's needs for understanding, you know.
Dr. Matt: And that's, I mean, I couldn't agree more and, respect is such a tricky word, right?
Laura: I mean, it means really different things like the feeling of respect versus disrespect and what it means to respect someone in authority versus respect someone's humanity two different things.
Dr. Matt: Yeah. And just like we took a moment to make sure we're using the same words around like neuro divergence, neurodiversity. A lot of times adults won't take that moment to tell kids what they mean by respect. So it shows up as like, don't you disrespect me? And it's like, well, what does that mean? We ask questions? Do you mean respect as in fall in line? Don't question authority because I honestly think at least in my clinical practice, like when kids question stuff, I think they're showing me the respect of being engaged in the process.
Laura: Being a full partner.
Dr. Matt: Why are we doing this thing? I want to answer that question.
Laura: I love that for sure. Yes. Okay. So talk to me a little bit more than we. We veered off again. I'm sorry. I feel like I'm kind of unmasking you, which feels delightful but hard to take care.
Dr. Matt: It doesn't feel bad as far as I'm concerned. I'm loving this. I feel like I've known you for a lot longer than 26 minutes.
Laura: Well, that's lovely. That's wonderful to hear. I like that a lot. Okay, so I wanna kind of come back to this, this world of giftedness and what are some of like, what are some of the unique struggles that gifted kids who maybe we don't even know yet are gifted might be facing? Like, what are some signs that parents should like ring the bells for parents to be looking into? Like this is something I should be exploring. Do they need support? And kind of where do they go from there?
Dr. Matt: So things you wanna look for are I'm gonna give you a tangible thing and an intangible thing. The tangible thing is advanced development in something. Does your kid read early? Does your kid draw really well? Does your kid remember the way to grandma's house? Like are doing something that is demonstrably unusual for a kid their age. Not all gifted kids speak in full sentences at two, but some do, right? My, you know, I assessed a four year old the other day who would just sit there on a map and be like, that's Kazakhstan, the capital of Kazakhstan. Is this. That's Kuwait, the capital of Kuwait is this. That's Mongolia, the capital of Mongolia is this. And his mom is sitting there filming it like, where did this knowledge come from? She's like, I don't even watch Jeopardy.
I mean, like, where is he getting this? Like he just got that information and could rattle it off, you know, and unsurprisingly he's wildly gifted. And then that actually segues nicely into the sort of less tangible part is gifted people. If we are going to distill it to one thing, it's intense, they are intense humans, they are intense, thought, intense emotion, intense and learning, intense relationships. I mean, you know, so it's like, does your kid just come across as a lot? You know, and you can say that about ADHD or you can say that about dyslexic kids, you can say about autistic kids because it's all neuro divergence, right? But giftedness has this particular flavor of like they're a fire hose, right? And I, you know, and I just asked you what you wanted for dinner and you started talking to me about the Great Molasses flood of 1919 in Boston. And I'm just trying to decide what kind of chicken nuggets you want me to make. And it's this weird disconnect, right? Because they're just at a different wavelength than a lot of other people.
Laura: Okay. And tell me a little bit about the difficulties that can come up when raising a gifted child or a twice exceptional child. I guess maybe we should define that term too. What do we mean by twice exceptional?
Dr. Matt: So twice exceptional is gifted, plus a second learning difference or a second neuro divergence. So you can be gifted in ADHD, gifted and autistic, gifted and dyslexic. I mean, there's a lot of them that would file under that and serving gifted kids is challenging, serving exceptional kids is borderline impossible.
Laura: Why tell me more like, why is serving gifted kids so challenging? And, then like, why is it even more intensely challenging for the two kids?
Dr. Matt: So let's imagine, right, that you've got a neurotypical 10-year-old. A neurotypical 10-year-old is going to develop synchronously. It's basically they just hang together, right? So they're 10, socially, emotionally, academically, intellectually, physically, uh like motorly, like they're just gonna more or less be 10. Then you've got a neurodivergent 10-year-old. Now, based on how the brain comes online, there's so much developmental energy that goes to your frontal parietal, frontal integration area, which is sort of like right here on top of your hairline, that other stuff lags behind. So you get it because there's only so much energy to go around. So like the IQ part of your brain where intelligence comes from gets extra, tend to see emotion and social skills last, right? So we call this developmental asynchrony. And the sort of colloquial rule for this is what we call the rule of five.
So every gifted kid, every neurodivergent kid is five kids because they might be chronologically 10, emotionally, seven, socially, eight, academically, 11, intellectually 15 and psychomotor, right? Because just one intervention, right? It's five interventions because that kid can actually handle high levels like academics but they might not be able to handle the social group work part of it. So you can't just pick that up and drop them in the high school because they can't hang that way. So we've got to build that kid up emotionally so they can then transition. But how do you do that without playing down to their like down to that level because then they're gonna feel like they're infantilized.
Laura: Yeah. Oh my gosh. That makes so much sense. Can you differentiate something that you just said? So you mentioned having an intellectual age and then an academic age and I feel very curious about the difference between the two of those for our listeners. And how someone can be, have a higher intellectual age as opposed to a lower academic age.
Dr. Matt: You ask such great questions. This is really good. So, think of an intellectual age as academic, as intellectual potential, like raw power. These are the things I can learn and I can learn them very well. Then you've got academic skills which are how well you can harness your brain's intellectual power and make it fit the rules of learning. Right. There are people who like to say it like my mom is a great cook, right? My mom has a very high academic level in cooking because she can follow the recipe. She'll do the steps. It'll be perfect. Right. You want three tablespoons of cornstarch and they're gonna be three tablespoons of cornstarch in there. Right. Whereas I'm more of an intellectual potential cook where I'm like, hey, will these things go together? Can I grill grapes? Let's find out. And sometimes it works out great. There are no cookbooks in my home.
Laura: That makes so much sense. I love it. Thank you very much. Okay, so talk to me a little bit about what are some of the wait? No, we didn't talk about what are some of the hard parts of having a two e kid, a kid who has these kinds of these five people within themselves, right? And then on top of it, another learning difference.
Dr. Matt: So the more neurodivergent somebody is, the more exceptional they have, the bigger we can expect the developmental spread to be. So that puts a lot more strain and stress under the system. I worked with a kid many years ago who had a verbal IQ in the one fifties but was dyslexic and dysgraphic. So imagine all of the words in your head, but you can't say them, read them or write them. That's, I mean, it was right.
Laura: I mean, gosh, so much compassion for that child.
Dr. Matt: And we're sitting there like we used every tool in the toolbox to get this kid unstuck. We ultimately found that basically plugging them into a headset. So they could speak their stories and then we worked to clean that up. It was sort of like retrofitting grammar into their vomit of text, like it worked out pretty well. So, because I like this, you could be the next Percy Jackson in their brain, their body and brain cannot let that story release.
Laura: Okay. Wait. So you're just blowing my mind on something, right? So my daughter has a very high verbal IQ but she struggles with composition and consistently wants like me or her grandma to write stories for her where she dictates the story and like we write it and edit it kind of as we're going like I and there's a part of me like this like competitive or I don't know parenting part of me that like thinks she should be doing these things by herself. But are we actually doing it like a good thing for her and helping her in that way?
Dr. Matt: You're not just doing a good thing for her? You're doing a great thing for her.
Laura: Yeah. That feels good.
Dr. Matt: So there's a famous story in gifted education about Einstein that I think is relevant here. Einstein, when he wrote the theory of Relativity, he knew the physics, he didn't know the math and he published anyway, knowing that he would have a year or so to learn the math to show his work because people were going to challenge him on this Right. So he learned the things he needed to know when he needed to know them and not before. Right? And you could make the argument that if he had stopped to learn the math, he may have never published the Theory of Relativity, right? Because it's been bogged down in that stuff. So, you know, it's amazing how inspiration will create motivation, right? Maybe a point at some point where your daughter is in a writing competition and has to write that stuff on her own. And then that will be the impetus to learn those skills. But right now, you're really just trying to get her to fall in love with storytelling. And if she falls in love with storytelling, then I would go. So I'm a little bit of a rebel in this. But like, I think it doesn't matter how the story comes out if it's interpretive dance or graphic novel or, or old school typewriter, like I don't care like I just, but kids need to tell their stories, right? And the more we do that, they get comfortable with their voice, they get comfortable with the creative process, you're creating more functional adults.
Laura: Okay. Doctor Matt, I feel like you're giving, I want to just kind of broaden this because we're talking about a very specific example with my child. But I think that there is a lot of pressure among parents to do things the right way in the right order and sequence. Right. And we can get really bogged down in that as parents wanting to see our kids progress through the things, not skip steps, not, you know, and it sounds like what you're saying is that there's really a lot of benefit potentially to allowing them the space and freedom to kind of show up as they are supporting them and that it's ok if they're, if they, we have to kind of go back and build some skills later.
Dr. Matt: Yeah, because I would go so far as to say that the steps are only helpful if you need the steps, right? If you can look at the Lego hit for the you know, millennium Falcon and just see that in your head and put it together, then do the damn thing. You can look at the directions if you need them along the way, it's not worth throwing the directions in the garbage and doing it, just do it right. And then since 80% of people are neurotypical, the world is built for neurotypical people who tend to be direction followers. Like my mom, you know, you could give her a recipe of a thing. She's never cooked before, she would read it, she'd figure it out, she would do it and she would do it damn well. Right. That's like that's just how her brain is. And so that's not that there's nothing wrong with that, right? It's part of leaning into asynchrony is meeting your kid where they are in all the places they are. Can I tell you an adorable story about these? So I work with the kiddo. They are 17. They also do sort of a homeschool hybrid. They go in for some classes, but their best friend is a 45 year old retired physics professor and they go to the coffee shop and they have their lattes and they play some chess and everybody's like, well, isn't that weird?
I'm like, this kid finally found an intellectual peer and they enjoy each other's company. It's like they were like, well, it's like Harold and Maude. Maybe someday I like it. But like, right now we have a kid who had no friends who has a friend and we, and I'm guessing this 45 year old, retired physics professor didn't have a lot on their social calendar either if they're spending a lot of time with a 16 year old. Right. But there's nothing untoward about it. They're just, they're truly intellectually matched and there's something beautiful about that. And, you know, so they sit there and she gives my client some life advice, like do they need to go to college? And my client makes sure that if she were to get back into teaching, she knows that modern slang and how to use zoom and, and it's very adorable and it's,
Laura: I mean, I think that that's the way humanity is supposed to be. I do think that sometimes when we lock our kids away in schools with their age peers, that we keep them from their communities. Right. And, I mean, if we were growing up raising kids 1000 years ago, like those, those intellectual peers of all sorts would have found each other. You would have followed the, the, you know, the guys out doing the building or the, you know, the folks gathering the herbs and like that, like, you would have just found those people regardless of age, right? Like, that's how we're meant to do things too and being in community with each other.
Dr. Matt: In a weird way, the one room schoolhouse had some stuff. Right? One room schoolhouse if you're a third grader, but you want to learn with the 12 year olds, you just across the room.
Laura: Yeah. But you still get to play with the third graders.
Dr. Matt: You still get to play with the third graders, first graders if that's your vibe. Right? Like, and it's amazing to me how often because I do a lot of advocacy work. So I'm saying to the schools, I'm like, listen, just instead of sending this kid to third grade math, let them walk down the hall to fourth grade. Math. Like, well, that's not how we do things I like, but, but it's all arbitrary. Like, it's like the stuff was handed down to us by God it's just decisions we made 100 and 20 years ago, stuff that there's some good stuff there and there's some stuff that's antiquated and, and kids should be taught where they need to be taught with whom they need to be taught. And I said, because we do this with the arts and we do this with sports. Right. 28 soccer players who's dominating the other eight year olds, you move them up to U 10 and then you see if they can dominate the 10 year olds, right? And if you know, if you've got a brilliant musician, you don't make them, do you know the school orchestra with the other second graders?
You see how high they can fly and you know, I have a client who is the second chair in their instrument in their city's orchestra, not the youth orchestra, the school orchestra, the city's orchestra, right? And the pictures are adorable because it's like grown up, grown up, grown up, grown up, grown, small child, grown up, grown up. But that's hard for parents because there's no the playbook that we got when we became parents doesn't say that it says girl scouts and you do T ball and you do, you know junior lifeguards and the things that are a step wise along the developmental curve. But if your kid skips those steps, not only are they gonna meet the level where they want to be educated at regardless of what that thing is, but they're gonna love it more because, I mean, honestly if it was up to you, like, wouldn't you rather do the fun parts of your job rather than the grudrudgery parts of your job?
Laura: Yeah. I mean, that's basically what I do. Yes.
Dr. Matt: I never had to write a single note. Right. I would be a better, it would be a happier therapist. I don't know if I, but I would be happier, you know.
Laura: Yeah. Okay. So I have a question, as you were talking and thinking about kids, you know, like moving up classes and stuff, I wanna talk a little bit about, I don't know, pressure because I know some parents who have kids who fall in this gifted or to be category are really afraid of the pressure of for their kids, a afraid of their kids getting some, some messages about their worth being tied to their intellect. You know, like all they're worried about that on one hand and then there's, there's other sets of parents who can get a little caught up, I think in the ego of it and then increased pressure. And I'm kind of what I would love to have a conversation about, kind of what you see out there as being a good way to, to navigate that in a balanced way for the child.
Dr. Matt: So balance is the keyword there, right? Because you know, I say this to parents all the time and to administrators all the time, gifted education is special education. It’s just on the other end of the IQ spectrum. Right. And that's important because giftedness has this perception as elitist.
Laura: Yeah. It totally does.
Dr. Matt: It totally does. Right. And, to me it's, equity. It's people getting what they need. Like, I might need faster, richer, deeper stuff than you. But those are the things my brain needs to be happy and comfortable. It's not like, oh, I don't read Tom Sawyer, like you idiots. I'm going to read Dostoevsky in the original Russian. Like, it's not about, look how much I'm flexing on you. It's about, this is the thing my kid needs to, to love learning and be able to produce. Giftedness isn't about getting into Harvard. Right. Well, there are certainly some gifted people at Harvard. Harvard is a better fit for what we call high achievers. People who are, whose IQs are in that sort of like 112 to 124 range. Because you get all the goodness of being very smart but not all the baggage of neurodivergence. And you know, like I had like, one of my sisters is in that IQ range. She has a master's degree. She's very good at her job. She, from a young age, she knew how to focus, she knew how to work because she like, very greatly figured out what worked for her and did it. Whereas a lot of gifted kids are sort of floating out there in the universe, like, you know. Oh, gosh. How does one study for a thing? And that class is obnoxious. But if you never had to study you never learned how to study.
Laura: Yeah. I mean, my freshman year of college and my calculus class where I was bombing hugely. I mean, and that's when I figured out how to work with my self worth. Right. So, my self worth was really attached to my ability to my intelligence, to my ability to do well in school. And I mean, I was not going to get an A, in this calculus class. There was nothing I could do on the final to get an A, you know, I was gonna be lucky to get a C in that class, after the first two exams. And so I spent my time studying writing. My worth as a person is not defined by my ability to do calculus because I had no idea how to actually study calculus, you know. So I just kind of doubled down on my worth as opposed to the actual skills.
Dr. Matt: Absolutely. And, that's an important lesson for parents to get because we are all unwitting participants in that. There's a phenomenon in the gifted education world called the performance cliff. And I've done, I've published some research on this. So basically imagine that if we imagine that IQ is relatively static, for neurotypical kids, school gets harder for all kids, school gets harder every year. For neurotypical kids, they meet their intellectual level sooner, second grade, something like that. Right. And then from that point forward to keep up, they have to use the study skills asking for help. Those soft skills, gifted learners tend not to reach that level into somewhere between seventh and 10th grade. So kids are much less malleable than they're much. They've developed some bad habits, guilt. You know, and so, and this is when gifted stops being a badge of honor, it starts, it can be a millstone around your neck because like if things have always been so easy for me and.
Laura: They're suddenly not. What does that mean?
Dr. Matt: I mean, think about it, like gifted kids can be a little socially awkward. They tend not to be very good at sports, the things that are socially very valuable. So you get a lot of praise and a lot of worth from these papers and this test go up on the class board, right? You know, making honor roll was very important to me as a young man. Right? Because I knew I sucked at soccer and I knew I wasn't any good at baseball, right? But I was always gonna get a, a on that spelling test, right. So you get value from that. But if, then if you fuse that intellectual capacity with who you are, and it becomes one thing when that's taken away from you. If you hit this performance cliff, all that's left is the angst right. Kids can crash really hard, which is why we call it the cliff and the intellectual challenge fades. The academic skills aren't, can't keep a pace and it ends up costing a lot socially and emotionally.
Laura: What can parents do to support their kids? Like, you know, they're gifted or to be kids who are facing that cliff, who are approaching it and we see them approaching it.
Dr. Matt: It's the single biggest and best argument for gifted education. And I will say this, it's like the best practices in gifted education are just the best practices in education. This is not gifted is elite. Again, all kids should be level set and figure out where they are and what they learn best and how they learned us and teach them that way. Right. They're absolutely neurotypical first graders who can read at a second or third grade level who should be taught in second or third grade reading. I don't care if you're gifted or not. That's just where you should be taught and that rigidity that, you know, that focus, we have to, this rigid system holds everybody back. Absolutely. So getting kids a meaningful challenge early and, you know, inoculates them against the training pressure. It also shows them that struggle is normal and it's ok. Right. You know, you mentioned calculus. I had a flashback to my calculus class, senior high school and similar moments. It's like there's no way I can get a B in this class.
I got one of those letters. It looks like a moon. I'm not sure. The only time I've ever seen the key C was in chemistry class. But like that was, it was weird. But I was in high school so people were like senioritis and I was like, I haven't understood a word she said in months. But if you're the smart kid, you don't get to ask for help, you don't get to struggle. You don't need a tutor. I finally backed up and said I need a tutor and ended up getting a B minus, God bless you, Mrs Paulson, wherever you are. You're very kind.
Laura: Yeah, I was, I was lucky in college. I was an athlete so I got free tutoring, which was really nice. That's how I managed that moon-shaped letter.
Dr. Matt: The weird letters I don't understand.
Laura: They're not okay. So, you know, I love what you're saying though is that by, by being more okay with meeting their kids where they are, wherever they are, they will find those edges at a time where they're able to get more support, before they've built in this kind of more like deeper problematic things, right? Okay. So one of the things I just wanna be mindful of your time, I wasn't expecting to go, you know, well, I'm really enjoying talking with you. But I do, you know, one of the things that a lot of the parents who come to me with their two kiddos that their kids struggle with is perfectionism. And I'm kind of curious about your views on perfectionism, how it relates to giftedness. And, and I feel, I just feel curious. So can I just drop that on you? And let's see where you take it?
Dr. Matt: I mean, you crush the transition because one of the things that happens to us when you are the smart kid or the ADHD kid or the dyslexic kid is you're like, I'm going to do, I'm going to be perfect in the things I can control because I in those things, they won't yell at me anymore, right? ADHD kids, like if I'm a great soccer player or dancer, then I will be praised in those spaces and it will counterbalance the fact that I get yelled at all the time. The kid who doesn't maybe have a lot of friends or you know, was the last person on the bench on their flag football team knows that they're doing high school science in sixth grade and there's a badge of honor in there and, and listen, it's a wonderful thing. But perfectionism can enter us into what I like to call the hamster wheel of doom where you only run faster and faster and faster and there's no end in sight. So what we want to do is shift from we want to take perfectionism and break it in half. There's adaptive perfectionism and maladaptive perfectionism. Adaptive perfectionism is the best or else.
Laura: Or else? Yes.
Dr. Matt: Adaptive perfection is. How well can I do? It asked the question. It's curious, it's adaptive in nature, It's, you know, it's sort of cumulative like I learned this thing. What else can I learn? Versus maladaptive perfectionism is to be the best or else go to Harvard or else get the lead in the play or else? And are, you know, and I don't need to tell you how our anxiety works. But for those of you out there, what I'm describing is catastrophizing, right thing or something terrible will happen. Dun dun dun.
Laura: Yeah. I mean, I think usually the terrible thing that will happen is I won't be, I mean, ultimately at the core of it is I won't be loved and accepted.
Dr. Matt: And that's right. And, I think that's hard for a lot of parents, especially with your tweens and teens who have this sort of FU attitude. Like, no, they don't care about me not loving them. Anymore. I'm like, trust me, they do. But part of being a teen is sort of differentiating and scooting out. But yeah, I mean, and that's ramped up to 11 if you're a kid who got your primary value as a child for being a smart, achieving human. So, you know, it becomes almost cyclical in nature, right? So one way to tie all this stuff together and it's a helpful thing for parenting, for the kids, for the education system, but also applies to the real world is the difference between top down thinking and bottom up thinking. Right. So we tend to be top down thinkers. I am a good parent, good parents do this when I did this thing. That is not a good parent. I am a bad parent. Okay. Top is good. Anything less than that is disappointment. So the easiest way to think about this. So Laura, if you got a 93 on the test, is that a good grade?
Laura: No, it's spoken like a true gifted kid. I don't know. No, but yes, it's a wonderful grade.
Dr. Matt: It's a wonderful grade.
Laura: As a parent though, I don't care, you know. So as a parent, I don't care.
Dr. Matt: I love asking that question in conferences because you can feel people fighting against their own nature like it's, you hurt it. It's ok. It's fine. It's fine. Just don't have an aneurysm. Right. Oh, you can flip that because top down thinking says I got seven points off. The first thing you see is what's wrong. Yeah. Bottom up thinking is the default here is I did nothing. It's the null hypothesis. I did zero things. I didn't even show up for the test. So everything I do is value added. Every question I answer is value added. Every point I get is value added. My ability to stay through this whole class is value added. So if you get a 93% bottom up thinking tells us, you know, 93% of the thing that's damn good, right? And, if you know, and as parents doing a job that is quite literally impossible. Like there are no 100% days as parents, they are just right?
And if God help you, you found one, then your brain would move the goalposts and be like, oh well, you were, you know what about these other things? Or you have to do it again like every day for the rest of your life, right? My colleague describes it as Maslow parenting. She's like every morning my Children wake up with a roof over their head, there is food in the cupboard, they have clean clothes on the doors and if that's all we do, then that's okay. Everything else is value added. And I was like, that's bottom up thinking, right? My kids' basic needs were met. There was running water, clothes, food, shelter,
Laura: What a privilege that we can say those things, right? Such a privilege.
Dr. Matt: It's and, so this is why as an intervention it's not just helpful to our kids, but it's helpful to us. If your kiddo is playing in the state orchestra and they're, and they play 100 and three out of the 107 notes. Correct? In their solo. Bottom up thinking says that was awesome. Top down thinking says you got four notes wrong.
Laura: Yeah. Oh, that makes a lot of sense. I really like that. I think so, I wanna just be super practical for our listeners. So when we're faced with a kid’s, perfectionism and sometimes for kids, this looks like ripping up a piece of paper because they can't make their g look right, you know, or throwing the Legos across the room because they can't get it to fit, you know, what can we do in those moments there more, you know, intense in the moment things, right? So like we've been talking kind of about a general attitude towards this. Like how can what can you offer for parents in those difficult moments where we hear either two of their actions or their words of like I can't do this, right? Whatever comes next.
Dr. Matt: So the first thing we have to do is fight back against our primary instincts as parents, which is weirdly to disagree with our kids. Yes, you can. Yes, you can. Right. You're not failing in school. Yes, you do. Who are they? Right. Like, it's wild how we are because we don't want it to be true. So we push it away. So your kid says I can't draw J. Now your brain is gonna say yes. And I've seen them do, I've seen them do the J. That's not what they're communicating to you right now. Right? So it can be helpful to add in your own words right now. I can't do this right now, right?
Laura: Just in your own brain even just saying right?
Dr. Matt: Because then that's going to keep us from spiraling like boy. Yeah, that really sucks. I can see how hard you've been working at this and it's really hard when stuff doesn't go the way we want it to, even though we're working really hard. And I think that the simplest solution is often the best one and that's when we can say, you know what? You've been working really hard at this. Let's take five minutes. Let's get a snack. Let's walk to the mailbox and back. Let's show me that youtube video. You've been asking me to show me for like seven days, right? It's amazing how changing the setting. That our brain and when we get double down, triple down, quadruple down on, on the thing we must do in that moment. We're actually stressing our brains out more, which is making us less likely to be successful. You know, there's a, there's thing and that's when the maladaptive perfectionism creeps in, it's like, it better be good or something terrible will happen or it's like, listen, I always tell my kids like, if that voice in your head is being mean to you just make sure you've got a counter narrative and the best counter narrative is from uh you know, the patron saint of all gifted kids, Miss Frizzle. And Miss Frizzle always says if at first you don't succeed, find out why.
Now after perfection says, sure you don't succeed, try, try again. Don't learn from your mistakes by God, right? There's something wrong with you and keep trying. Right? Miss Frizzle says it first you don't succeed. Find out why and then we learn why the G doesn't work. We learned what's wrong with the lego set. We learned why I can't make a free throw in basketball or hit that high, high C on the piano or whatever that thing is, right? Because then, we naturally take this from failure as a monolith like this thing, I am bad at this part of the thing I can't do yet. And even if all we do is shrink the challenge. Well, shrinking the challenge means it's not so scary, right? It's a more surmountable thing. Like I can't climb the mountain, but I can walk around that boulder. And those conversations for our kids, especially our kids who are a little bit more intense, a little bit more cognitively rigid goes a long way to resizing the problem. Right. So we don't argue with our kids' feelings. We help provide context, we help them take a break. And then, there's one more thing that we help them learn from what, learn from what they've done. And then there's one more thing that I think all parents can do, which is be the lighthouse, not the lifeguard.
So I grew on the Jersey shore, right? And I was a lifeguard and the first thing they teach in lifeguard school, right? If someone is struggling in the water, you do not go out there without a tool because the first thing that a drowning person does is they grab you and you sink, right? And so you always yell at the dads, the moms, the best friends, the boyfriends, whatever do not swim out after that person. I've got this, I've got my lifeguard floaty. I've got my giant surfboard. I'm going. Whereas parents, when our kids are struggling, it's so easy to be the lifeguard and into the water to save the day. But then we put ourselves at risk, then we put ourselves in the soup. We lose that objectivity. So jump in, jump in with a tool, jump in with a calculator. Jump in with, I will scribe for you. You just tell me the words kid out, right? I will run lines with you. I will rebound your basketball shots, right. If you're gonna jump in with the tool. If you do not use your lighthouse, the lighthouse is steady and consistent and if it needs help, it will call for help, but it doesn't do the help itself. So as a parenting strategy, I always tell my parents it's impossible not to do anything as a parent, right? Like we're just, we're compelled to help. But if we help as lighthouse, what we're doing is we're maintaining our own spoons to help ourselves out. We're getting that distance and it helps us co regulate with our kids.
Laura: Yeah. We're staying on the shore. We're not in the water thrashing around with them.
Dr. Matt: Yeah. And it's amazing how helpful that is. Right? Like, you know, I know this sucks. I see you struggling. I am here for you. I love you. You can do this, what help you need. I will provide it right. Going to stay here in my lighthouse.
Laura: I stay here in my light. I really, really like that. I'm thinking about my 1 of my kiddos who, when she's in the throes of a kind of perfectionistic, I don't know, meltdown. The idea of taking a break. I can't like I can't even get her to do that. And I definitely see myself wading in as that lifeguard in those moments just like, desperately trying to get her to like, put the Legos down or, gosh, right now, it's like making birthday cards for her friends just like, put the markers down and walk away and she won't, you know, she's because she's so narrowly, you know, she has that intensity, that focus, that persistence, all those good things that we wanna see that can, you know, I like that imagery of the lighthouse of kind of lighting the way out as opposed to waiting in with her in those moments.
Dr. Matt: There's a great exercise here. It's adapted from, from acceptance and commitment therapy. It's called the handbag test. So I'm assuming you carry a bag.
Laura: Yeah. Sure.
Dr. Matt: And you're a mom. So your bag is probably filled with things. So if I gave you four seconds to find a specific thing in your bag, do you think you could do it? Yes. Right. Of course, you could. Right. Would it, be stressful?
Laura: Yes.
Dr. Matt: Absolutely. Right. So, and you could argue that the stress factor would make it harder for you to find the thing in four seconds. Handbag test is, don't hold all the stuff, dump your bag out because once the stuff is on the carpet, it's easy to see arbitrarily holding it. You've released it. And then like, yes, like there's that stick of gum. There's the b for the car, right? It was in the bag, it was in the recesses of the bag. So I tell my kids that the reason you're struggling right now is that you're reaching around in the dark trying to find something in your handbag and you can't. And you know, and it's funny one of my teens, she was like, oh my God, she's like this kid, I love this girl.
She's, a high school student and she was at uh prom recently and you know, her period started and you know, so it's prom and it's stressful and like she's like reaching around in her clutch trying to find the thing and then she's like, then I remember what you said about the handbag that so I just ran to the bathroom, dumped my shit out, found a, found a tampon and somebody came in and she was like, oh my God, you two and then they bonded over that. It was a whole thing, right? But if you're too close to it, it's harder to solve it. So we need to dump it out, right? Sometimes we need to spread all the cards out so we can see the cards we've done and then we take the next step. Right. It's very, cool practice and it's sneakily a way to inure us against perfection of feelings because he makes a little bit of a mess. But then you get the benefit of cleaning that up. Right. So, it's that, oh, look at that, you know. I did make this better and the world did not stop spinning when I made things a little bit worse to make them ultimately much better down the lot.
Laura: Oh, I like that. I, I know too that, you know, for myself and for many of our listeners like that lesson for our kids can always come in the heat of the moment. And so it is ok to walk away, give them some space so that they can calm down, you know, get help them, take a break in whatever way we can. And, then like, I really love that analogy. I'm definitely going to, I think I'll use a backpack because she doesn't carry a handbag. But yes. Yeah. Love it. Yeah, that's really helpful. Thank you, Matt, I've loved our conversation. Loved it. I'm positive that there are listeners who are gonna want to keep learning from you. Where can they do that?
Dr. Matt: So I have two primary jobs and each job has a website. So therapy is theneurodiversitycollective.com. That's all about my colleagues and I who do therapy. It's all online. So we can see people from anywhere in the country. It's pretty great.
Laura: Do you do diagnosis?
Dr. Matt: Yes. Especially autism, ADHD, dyslexia, OCD. You can do that all remotely, there are people who do online IQ tests. I don't love them. Because I'm not very good at them, let's be honest. But, you know, I prefer to do that in person. So, but and I say this not as a humble brag but just because I don't, it's weird for me to believe it, people will fly to me, they will come from far away. Right to, because testing the intellectual and academic levels of two e kids is hard and it may be worth going to find a specialist though. I'll tell you that there are specialists in your state, I promise you. Yes.
Laura: Yeah. Is it the airfare? Is it worth it? Like, is it worth getting your kid tested? Like getting their IQ tested if you suspect giftedness?
Dr. Matt: Absolutely. You mentioned this before you know, diagnosis can cut two ways. But I tell everybody that it's better to know you're a zebra than a weird horse. Like zebras and horses look similar, they move similar but they eat different things. They're from different parts of the world. They need different medical care. Like, but we all just sort of default to think we're horses and if you're not a horse like everybody else, you think you're a weird horse. Yeah, this gives us a word for what we are and then unlock services that make our lives easier. The zebra can survive on horse food but it's not gonna be healthy.
Laura: I see. Oh, great.
Dr. Matt: Yeah, diagnosis can be very helpful. It opens up the doors to those programs in the summer, all that other stuff. And then if this stuff I'm talking about supporting neurodivergent kids or parents makes sense to you. And do you think it should make sense for a group? So I'm also a professional speaker. So that's drmattzakreski.com and, you know, I speak to local parent groups and state and national organizations and even the occasional international one which is wild. But, you know, I mean, there's a lot of need out there, you know, I've worked everything from our local theater group here in Northern New Jersey to, you know, international companies. So, there's a lot of need out there and I'm happy to do what I can to make that better.
Laura: That's awesome, Matt. Thank you so much for being with us. I really, really appreciate our conversation.
Dr. Matt: I mean, you are so easy to talk to. I can see why your clients love you. You know, and but it really was a wonderful conversation. Thank you for having me.
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All right. That's it for me today. I hope that you keep taking really good care of your kids and your family and each other and most importantly of yourself. And just to remember, balance is a verb and you're already doing it. You've got this!