100 Words of Wisdom: Amy Harrington (2013)

100 Words of Wisdom, Social & Emotional Development

Parenting an asynchronous child resembles piecing together a 1,000-piece puzzle with missing pieces and no picture: a confusing, unending roller coaster that is exciting, challenging, and daunting. Appreciating the gap between cognitive ability and functional performance requires compassion, understanding, and individualized approaches to parenting and education.

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Parenting an asynchronous child is like doing a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces and no image. It is a confusing roller coaster ride that never ends. It is exciting, challenging, and daunting. To appreciate the disparity between what the mind thinks and what the body can execute while being expected to tow an invisible line that seems arbitrary is a stark reality for gifted families. Fostering the unique social emotional needs of a highly asynchronous child requires compassion and understanding, as well as an individualized approach to parenting and education. One size rarely fits all.

Amy Harrington

Amy Harrington, Esq. is a SENG Model Parent Group facilitator, homeschooling advocate and an eclectic unschooler of two profoundly gifted children. She is an attorney, writer and blogger (Gifted Unschooling Blogspot) who is passionate about the future of self-directed education. She is the Founder and Managing Director of Atypical Minds which provides coaching and guidance to gifted families in their quest for alternative education and school accommodations. Amy has helped families with gifted and twice-exceptional children from all over the world transition to home education and has guided them to seek appropriate assessment, treatment, counseling, and school accommodations. She is a multilingual transactional attorney and a former internet entrepreneur, interested in educating teachers, school counselors, and parents about the unique social, emotional, and intellectual needs of gifted and twice-exceptional children.

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