Child(ish) Reads: Advanced Parenting

Advanced Parenting is one of those books that I thought wouldn’t really apply to me, but I knew it would give me a new perspective. I do not yet have a child with a specific medical diagnosis. Neither of my girls have allergies so far, they are neurotypical as of now, and I don’t believe they anything hereditary that we need to be on the serious lookout for. However, so far is not never. I don’t think parents really prepare for medical challenges until they happen, and then it all comes at you so fast.

Advanced Parenting: Advice for Helping Kids Through Diagnoses, Differences, and Mental Health Challenges by Kelly Fradin.

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Coffee Chat: Week 2 Check In

So many First Day of School pics….

Our kids have been in school almost two full weeks now. For context, both Mary’s son and my twins are in their second year of elementary school. And even though we got most of the first-time student anxieties out last year, there is still plenty to go around for year two.

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Things We Loved: August

We should know by now that planning a Things We Loved post in early August is going to be a scramble. It’s the end of summer, both sets of twins have their birthdays, and school just started. While it’s not hard just to go recap into our Amazon orders, those lists are all crayons, school supplies, toiletry refills, and packs of new socks because our kids have outgrown everything. But here are a few other things that stood out.

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The Gifted Parent

Last week, I did a Google and podcast search to see what resources or articles covered “gifted” parents. To be clear, this is about parents who were in the Gifted and Talented programs growing up in the 90s. Not parents of currently gifted children.

Both Mary and I grew up in gifted program in it’s various forms. In the spirit of Millennial Parenting, which has a sturdy base in self-reflection and re-parenting, we wanted to see how growing up as gifted students could have an impact on how we now raise our own kids.

My search ended up with not that many hits. Mary and I have five kids between us and for the most part, they are too young to be considered for gifted right now. So in this liminal time where our kids and their relationship with school is in development, how can we see what this academically-accelerated program has done for/to us when it comes to parenting?

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Supporting Teachers

Last year was Mary and my first year as elementary parents. It was a big transition for our families and we did a ton of homework to prepare our kids for their new community. In addition, Mary volunteered for her PTO and I was just elected to my School Governance Committee.

This year, I wanted to share more about how we’re approaching Back-to-School and supporting our teachers now that we have our feet wet.

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