Julie Skolnick On Understanding & Supporting Gifted and Distractible Kids

Debbie:

Hey Julie, welcome back to the podcast.

Julie Skolnick:

Thank you for having me, Debbie. I’m so excited to be here.

Debbie:

Yes, I’m excited to dive into your new book, which again, I feel so lucky because I always get advanced copies of these incredible books coming out in the world. So I have had a chance to, to read this, even though as we’re talking, it’s not out still for maybe five weeks. So we’re going to get into that. But before we do, you came on the show a number of years ago to talk about your work with Understanding Comes Calm and supporting twice exceptional kids, both in families and in schools. And I really would love to just know what you have seen in the past couple years in terms of higher levels of understanding and just awareness of the unique profiles of these kids. Because I feel like the landscape has changed a lot, but I always say that might just be who I’m hanging out with. So what have you noticed in your work?

Julie Skolnick:

Right? We’re in a little bit of an echo chamber. But yeah, so my clients are all over the world. And because I train teachers as well, I have sort of this, this view. And actually, I also mentor TUI adults. So you become an adult at 18. And, you know, so I really have, I feel like a holistic view of the landscape. And I will say, on the positive side, which I love to lean on positive, And the positive side, I was just at a conference supporting the emotional needs of the gifted. And I remember back in the day when you were hard pressed to find one talk about 2E. And now I have to tell you, I was hard pressed to find a talk without 2E. So that was really cool.

So that’s sort of anecdote number one is that. The field is catching up and recognizing these kids and seeing these kids within gifted land, within gifted kids, these twice exceptional kids, kids who are gifted and identified with learning differences or learning disabilities. And then I was attending a local professional meeting and we had some cool professionals to help people with their businesses, whatever. teaching about certain ways of marketing and those types of things. And he called on me as the person to sort of be the volunteer. And so I was giving him my mission statement and I used the words twice exceptional and I did it on purpose. And he said, Oh, I don’t think you should use those words because no one will know what those mean. And every single professional, and there were probably 40 or 50 professionals in the room were like, no, you have to use that term. That’s the research term. And I was like, are you kidding? Everybody in this room knows the term. So I was really excited. That was like a really serious seminal moment in this, in my town, even though I work globally, in my town in Maryland, where all my peeps are up to speed. That was really gratifying.

Debbie:

Yeah.

Julie Skolnick:

On the other hand, literally yesterday, there was an article in the Washington Post. about this argument between the word gifted and advanced and arguing to pretty much pun intended dumb down the word gifted to advanced to include more people and to say that gifted isn’t really a thing. So immediately I wrote an op-ed into the Washington Post which I hope will be published, but there’s like this, if we don’t get gifted, we don’t get two E and how could you not have gifted if we have two E sort of tension that I’m feeling?Because I actually think that the exceptionalities that go along with giftedness are the more understood part. It’s the gifted part. That’s really misunderstood. And I don’t think that’s that we’re still, we’re still fighting the fight and worrying about semantics as opposed to understanding the child in front of you and delivering services and interventions that are strength based and impactful.

Debbie:

Mm hmm. Yeah, super interesting. Yeah, I think about the G word documentary and how there is still so much stigma and misunderstanding about the G word about gifted and yeah, you’re absolutely right. We can’t really support two week kids if we’re not even acknowledging or embracing the fact that giftedness exists.

Julie Skolnick:

Yeah.

Debbie:

Yeah. So then in terms of your work, with schools. So those first two anecdotes were very positive, just the awareness. And that is what I kind of sense too. Like it does seem to be there’s more and more recognition, at least as a concept that twice exceptionality exists. Where is still the majority of your work focused in terms of expanding, understanding? Is it focused on getting educators to really understand the unique profiles of these kids, how they can be supported in schools. Like, you know, there’s kind of intellectually or cognitively understanding a concept and then there’s actually what needs to be done. So where do you see the heaviest lifting having to happen right now?

Julie Skolnick:

Yeah. So it’s really awesome when I give a talk and afterwards I get emails from educators who were in the audience saying, can you come and train the teachers in our district or the teachers in our school? And There is no utopia for 2E kids. Even if a school says that they are a 2E school, right? What does that mean? 2E is so different in so many different ways and teachers cannot be trained in every single way.

That’s not an appropriate expectation. I am a firm believer in starting with understanding, followed by the now what? Because I often say to clients, whether they’re parents or they’re… teachers or their two adults even, you can have the best strategies, you can have the read all the books, but you have to have a deep understanding and a connection with the person who you’re trying to help or support or guide. And so in fact, it’s an interesting question, Debbie, because I have what I call the cycle for success, right? It’s three stops. Um, the first is a deep understanding, right? I’m called with understanding comes calm. So that’s the first step is how do I understand overall to be gifted? Cause that’s so misunderstood. And then the kid in front of me followed by strategies followed by advocacy. So the strategies and the advocacy are very much dependent on the kid in front of you. So when I train teachers, I talk in a much more broad way, but then we get into it in the Q&A where they’re saying, okay, this kid did this. And then I can positively reframe for them understanding that the child is struggling and holding it together and all the things that the child didn’t do. So it really, I can’t really separate them out. I will say this, and I know you read this in my book, that one of my pet peeves is when you go to a conference and the person spends 60% or more of their time. on the theory and you get like this teeny little drop of what to do because for parents that’s maddening.

You want to know what to do. And so I really do try to spend the majority of my time, 200 pages of the book are dedicated to strategies, but you can’t do that until you have the understanding. So I can’t really separate it out in that way.

Debbie:

Yeah, fair. And when you’re working with schools, how receptive do you find teachers to be? Because the strategies can be unexpected or, you know, like on the surface something that just doesn’t seem possible in a traditional classroom setting. So do you find that teachers, once they do have this understanding, are willing to explore ways to really support these kids?

Julie Skolnick:

So it runs the gamut. First of all, what was the goal of the school for inviting me in or the teacher or the district? And some of it is self-selected. They obviously need support. So they’re identifying that they need support. But then there are times I’ve given talks where teachers will come up to me at the beginning and be like, listen, if I leave like 20 minutes in, it’s because I have whatever. Or if I’m not, I really appreciate you being, but I, and every time nobody leaves. They just are glued to their seats because they don’t know what they don’t know. And so I think once I can get in there and once I talk and start talking and start problem solving and validating, because I am very much about collaborating with educators. I teach my parents to collaborate with educators. I teach my educators to collaborate with parents. It’s really important that there’s a collaborative atmosphere. So there’s that. there’s this openness. I remember sometimes what I do is instead of like a formalized invite from schools, sometimes parents ask me to meet with teacher teams. And I remember meeting with this teacher team for this middle school age child who was gifted and very gifted in math, but the advanced math person did not think he was gifted, challenged the fact that he was gifted because he had a processing speed difference. And… She literally looked at me in our team meeting and said, wait a minute, are you saying you can be gifted with processing speed challenges? And I said, yes, that is the one and only thing I want you to know from today is yeah, like I needed her to get over that, shock.

Debbie:

Yeah, wow, that is fascinating. And I would think, I’m thinking of Pandora’s box. Like once you see or discover or learn this stuff as in whether you’re a parent or educator, you can’t unsee it. You know, it must just completely change how you look at the students in your classroom or the kids that you’re raising once you have this deeper understanding.

Julie Skolnick:

Absolutely, and that means that strategies have to be practical, implementable, collaborative, meaning the child’s involved, right? So it has to be based on understanding, because the beauty is, the reason why I only work with grownups is because my theory is to circle the wagons of the grownups, because the kids don’t have the power, but who do I really want to empower? Our mission is to empower two-e people all over the world, whether they’re kids, students, adults. And so… First, the grownups have to have the understanding so they can help the child have the understanding because the child is receiving negative feedback we know all day long. So that understanding and then that shared understanding is really empowering.

Debbie:

Mm hmm. Yeah, that’s wonderful. Okay, so thank you for that. I really like kind of just to get the landscape of things and we are going to dive into your book and we’ll do that as soon as we get back from this quick break. 

Okay, so you have a brand new book. It is called, Gifted and Distractible, Understanding, Supporting, and Advocating for Your Twice Exceptional Child. I know that this is many years in the making. This is something you’ve been wanting to get out into the world for a long time. And I would love if you could just kind of generally tell us about your book, why you wrote it, why you felt this urgency to get it out into the world.

Julie Skolnick:

Yeah, I like to say that I’ve been trying to shout from the rooftops about this topic. I’ve been, I’m going on 10 years now of my service with Understanding Comes Calm. The book really, I talked about that cycle for success earlier in our conversation and those three stops and that’s actually how the book’s organized. It’s in three parts. So the first part is a deep understanding, talks about the gifted side, talks about the other exceptionality side. and then strategies, really, really practical strategies, and then advocacy and a specific way of advocating on behalf of a 2e child. So this is how I work with clients. And basically I took my, you know, eight plus years of working with clients and put it in this book and all the passion that I have, because I raised my own three awesome 2e kids. I just, you know, Debbie, like, like the gifted 2e people of the planet, I have incredible wells, deep wells of empathy. And I have deep wells of empathy for this population, for the parents who raise them and for the teachers who teach them. And I just see so much misunderstanding and frustration and parents beating themselves up kids beating themselves up teachers beating themselves up. And it doesn’t have to be that way. We don’t have to be enemies. We can be collaborators. And by the way, we don’t have kids who need to be fixed or who are broken. They need to be understood and addressed in a certain way, which does not mean dropping expectations, does not mean letting them get away with things. It means really understanding and having a lot of conversations and in certain specific ways. And. Figuring out what everybody’s needs are because guess what? the parent who’s parenting an emotionally over excitable intense kid Probably one or both parents are also emotionally over excitable or intense. And so how do we manage that right? So there’s no blame. There’s no shame. The typical response to people who are different in any way is judgment, assumptions, blame and shame. And so this book really debunks all of those things.

Debbie:

Mm hmm. Yeah, that’s great. And it is so rich, especially, you know, I’m thinking of the first section of the book where you are really explaining deeply all of you know, the components, the over-excitabilities, all the different ways that being twice exceptional can show up. How did you even go about I just, as a writer, I’m always reading books as a writer as well, as a consumer and a content, someone who’s taking in the content. And I’m just kind of curious, how did you go about structuring even that first section and gathering all of that research? And I mean, it must have been a huge lift to kind of lay it all out in a way that was easily digestible, but so deeply comprehensive.

Julie Skolnick:

Well, that is such a huge compliment coming from you, my friend. And I have to say thank you. And thank you for all the support and guidance you gave me along the way with my author journey. You know, I used to say before I wrote the book, I used to say I have a book in my head. And if I could just tip my head over, it would fall out of my ear. And it’s kind of what I do every day. This is what I do with clients. I start by explaining to them and discussing with them based on their child. My clients get an intake and they sort of indicate certain things that are challenges. Of course, I ask about strengths first and foremost, but they’re not coming to see me for that. They’re going to see me for challenges. So there are patterns that I’ve seen that years and years of experience of talking about this with different people from all over the world. I had to think I have to figure out a way. So that’s a little bit why the book is so conversational, because it’s the way that I talk with clients.

Debbie:

Yeah, that’s great. And I want to talk about misunderstandings, because, you know, you’re again, your business is with understanding comes calm, you’ve been emphasizing how critical it is that we really understand these kids. You mentioned the slow processing speed, which is such a great example. Are there other kind of very common misunderstandings that you find yourself addressing over and over again about? the twice exceptional population.

Julie Skolnick:

Sure, and I’m just gonna put on my favorite hat, which is my positive reframe hat. And you mentioned slow processing speed and I am absolutely certain I never said slow processing speed because I never do, unless I have to talk about it.

Debbie::

Apologies.

Julie Skolnick:

I say deep processing speed or processing speed differences because imagine… As you know, as well as I do, a child who’s crunching so much data and notices so many more things than the average bear, right? When you’ve got to, when your computer has to crunch more data, it’s slower, right? It’s deeper. It’s a deeper processing. So anyway, I just had to jump in with that.

Debbie:

Thank you, yeah.

Julie Skolnick:

So sure, you know, over excitabilities, which is a term of art and gifted land, over excitabilities, which is a phrase coined by Kashmir’s Dabrowski, a psychologist no longer with us. Um, he identified over excitabilities in five areas, intellectual, emotional, imaginational, sensual, or sensory and psychomotor. So think of these as an intensities. Think of these as a widened heightened antenna, taking in and giving out more intense input and output. And so, so often that’s where the miss. And I’m so glad you asked me this question, because this is actually a pain point for me, because it’s not just not understanding, but it’s misunderstanding. So in other words, Debbie, stop being so sensitive. You’re over sensitive. Why would it bother you so much that there are fires in California? I mean, you don’t even live on that coast. What is the big deal? You’re just trying to get attention, right? That’s like not only not understanding your deep empathy for people and put… perhaps your connection to the land or that specific land, but it’s totally misunderstanding why you care so much and you care so much because you feel powerless and you wanna do something about it.

So that’s like a random example I pulled out of the air of an overexcitability, which would have been an emotional overexcitability and maybe an intellectual overexcitability by learning so much about it. But so often the intensity. is misunderstood. The child wants more attention rather than they’re a curious learner. The child is too sensitive rather than they’re emotional, over-excitable, and have deep empathy and care so much and feel like they want to do something but don’t know what to do. Or if we look at sensual over-excitability, you know, sensory seekers and sensory avoiders. And if you don’t get If you’re a sensory seeker, you don’t get a sensory avoider. You’re going to misunderstand. You’re going to think, oh, that kid is like avoiding stuff. That kid is like a recluse. All that misunderstanding that comes from this beautiful, intense difference that helps them plug into the world in a much more organic way. Why do we just want to skip through the world with blinders on, not being affected by anything? That might be. easier for some people, but that doesn’t make it right or wrong. It’s the idea of taking the person in front of you for who they are in the moment. And the big mistake that people make is that they think they need to change people so that their lives are better. Who are you to judge? Right? As parents, we see the train coming down the track and we think, oh my God. If he would just start or stop doing that thing, his life would be so much better. Her life would be that much better. Their life would be that much better. And we don’t know that. And we have to actually respect the child to give them the choice to do their own cost benefit analysis of what matters. And part of what matters is being your authentic self.

Debbie:

Yeah, that is so well said. I mean, that really just sums up the work that we’re doing here, right. And it is, it is a big reframe for parents, because that’s not how we were most of us. I’m speaking for all of us at this age of parenting. And life, it’s not really what was modeled for many of us as we were growing up. And so this idea of really respecting our kids’ unique journey. And you know, I like this idea of coaching, championing them to be their most authentic kind of self actualized self, as opposed to us feeling like we know what’s best for our kids. So I love that. So And I would also say not to be Pollyanna because this is deep work and there are things our kids do that definitely sabotage their social, you know, desires, needs, goals. We have to be curious. Remember how we talked at the beginning about the importance of understanding and helping our kids actually understand themselves? We all are born, we look through our own eyes and we don’t know that nobody else looks through the same eyes that we look through. So we need to have some understanding in a non-judgmental way, not that everybody else does this, but here’s another perspective that might be happening and asking questions when a child comes home and is frustrated or complaining about something to say, why do you think that happened? What do you think they were thinking? You know, like to go through all of those exploratory conversations rather than the decision is made, your behavior was wrong, you know?

Debbie:

Yeah, exactly. I wanna talk a little bit more about the parenting style, the parenting dynamic, and we’ll do that right after a quick break. So you have a chapter in the book called Anticipating Your Parenting Style and working with parents raising twice exceptional kids. I’m just wondering what you have found. What is it that you’ve found that presents the biggest challenges for these parents in terms of their own expectations and how do you guide them in better showing up for the kids that they have? You just talked about curiosity and how important it is that we show up for our kids with curiosity, but what other kind of… barriers do you typically encounter with parents and how do you kind of help them push the needle?

Julie Skolnick:

So over the years, I have seen really three parenting styles. I mean, they’re not the only parenting styles on the planet, but the three that I see in parents who are parenting two-e kids are typically the ones who use a lot of words. We’re pretty verbal. This bunch, we’re pretty verbal. Right? Our kids are verbal, we’re verbal. So we think we can talk the heck out of our kids. We can just absolutely talk and lecture through and explain what we have in our heads to show them and tell them and teach them. And all of those wonderful things where that all of these styles come from a beautiful place, a very authentic place. But OK, so I see lots and lots of words. I see anxiety. Oh, my gosh. The train is coming down the track and they are going to crash. I’ve got to. literally pick up the train and move it to another track, right? I am so scared about what might or might not happen in the future for my kid. That’s another style. And then the third style, which is sort of related to that, picking up the train and putting on another track is problem solving. I’m just going to handle this. I am going to frontal lobe the heck out of this problem and I’m going to solve it. Right. And those three styles, unfortunately, work against Our biggest goal for our kids, I mean, our biggest goals for our kids to be happy. And how do you become happy? You’re individuated. You have control. You have agency. You’re able to kind of set your course. But when we cause them to shut down, cause we’re filling the space with all our words or we’re reacting because we’re reliving something from our past that makes us scared for their future. or we aren’t allowing them or teaching them how to solve their own problems or learn the lagging skills that they have. We take away that opportunity. So to answer the second part of your question, there are a bunch of strategies, 200 pages of strategies in the book, and all of them address these styles. There, there are some very specific strategies. There are some overall strategies. One of them I alluded to earlier, which was what I call the parent pivot, which goes from solving problems or, you know, I say relinquish the frontal lobe and to ask questions and asking questions of the child to get them to go where we want them to go. And this can be as specific as I had a client who’s a teenager when we started working together at the beginning of the year that we worked together. This child was not, mom was preparing his medication and giving his medication. And I was like, so the first thing we need to really do is kind of let go of that and teach him how to do that. And she was like, deer in headlights, no way is that going to happen. Right. And of course it happened. But there, you know, a lot of it, a lot of it is when we frontal lobe the heck out of our kids, the message is, we don’t think you can do this. So when we do this parent pivot, one of the messages is, even if you say it verbally, I know you can do this. It’s huge, it’s huge. So that’s a big pivot that I work with parents and we tweak language and sometimes I write scripts and sometimes, you know, we really get into the weeds because it’s very hard, the fear is there. And so it’s very hard sometimes.

Debbie:

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, talking, lecturing, anxiety slash fear, and the problem solving being that frontal lobe, I am guilty of all three of those. And that parent pivot, I imagine it’s not just one pivot. It’s an ongoing pivot, right? It’s something that we’re always working to show up for and adapt and change as necessary, right?

Julie Skolnick:

Yeah, yeah, it’s ongoing and as our kids change, right? Their job when they become usually around 14, their job is to push us away. Their job is to think that we know nothing. So that parent pivot is really important at that point because you could talk yourself blue in the face as many of us have done and you can have the greatest solution for their problem. But if you utter those words that you better believe that’s the last thing they’ll ever try.

Debbie:

Mm hmm. Yes, indeed, indeed. Here on the Tilt Parenting podcast, we’ve been talking a lot about the importance of neurodivergent affirming support that’s come up in so many conversations, especially when it comes to treating whether it’s behavioral challenges or mental health challenges, executive function challenges, like all the things and the areas of support we’re looking for. And I’m just wondering, when we’re talking about complex, twice exceptional kids. What is it about that profile that we should be kind of thinking about when trying to identify therapists or modalities that might support who they are and how they move through the world? Because, well, there’s no one size fits all, I know. But when you think about the families you work with, how do you kind of guide them towards getting the support that they need for their kids?

Julie Skolnick:

Yeah, so I’m trying to remember what chapter I address this in as far as I know I, I think in footnotes and within the text I talk about the importance of somebody who understands 2e. I don’t actually think I use the language neuro diverse affirming though you know I’m hearing that a lot. And I’m really curious. I think I’m going to start asking people what they mean by that to make sure that we’re all on the same page, because the words sound really great.

Um, and what does it actually mean? So to me, again, I go to the understanding that they understand the complexity of a kid, again, a school that says it’s a two E school. I’m going to look into that pretty hard. Like how are the teachers trained? Because how are you a 2e school? There are a few, but how are you a 2e school as opposed to like a gifted school who understand ADHD or a gifted school dyslexia, totally different interventions than ADHD. Okay. So anyway, The first question is what is neurodiversity affirming mean? In my mind, neurodiversity affirming means someone who’s not making those assumptions about intensities. Somebody who’s not going, well, you just have to get over it. Well, you just have to, you just have to do anything, fill in the blank. That’s never the right answer. And so it has to be somebody who has experience with the complexity, who has curiosity about the complexity, who has love and enjoyment for the complexity and intensity of. the twice exceptional profile. So I include questions in the book to ask various professionals. And I do this all the time. The question, you know, the first question, the most general question is, what is your experience with twice exceptionality? And if they’re like, twice a what? Then we move on. If they say, oh, I have tons of experience with two-week kids, you know, okay, good. They know the lingo. And tell me what… What was really hard once and what felt really fulfilling about the support that you provided for a twice exceptional family or child, right? I want to know, have they had to work out complex stuff and how did they do it? Because you can’t just refer to any OT / PT / SLP all the letters in the alphabet. You actually have to really know that this person is going to come to this child. I never know what I’m going to say to a parent. Of course I have a structure of scaffolding that’s in the book, but your kid is totally different than another kid. I need to, and your parent, right? All the triangles. And I like to know how they communicate, especially with teachers. How and how often are you gonna communicate with parents? Like, what does that look like? What’s the collaboration between the parent? You know, the parent, I’m telling you right now, parents who are listening to this awesome podcast, you are the expert on your kid. You know the most about your kid. And because you are your child’s parent, the way you interact with your child is incredibly important for any professional to understand. And if they’re not interested, that’s a problem.

Debbie:

Yeah, yeah, that’s a great, great response. And I love that you said love and enjoyment for the complexities of these kids. I think enjoyment is not a word that is often thrown around when we’re talking about the path of supporting neurodivergent humans. And I’m sure we share this view. These are the most fascinating. amazing humans, these twice exceptional two-week kids. I love their complexity, so I just love that you drew attention to that enjoyment for all of the complexities of who they are. It’s awesome.

Julie Skolnick:

I once gave, had my son give to his fourth grade teacher a necklace and it was a charm on the necklace that said you got me, cause it was so rare that somebody would get him. He was so complex. And to me that’s the biggest compliment you can give somebody. And by getting him, it means totally loving and enjoying him.

Debbie:

Yeah, and seeing him. That’s so cool. I love that. So I don’t know if this question is possible to answer because again, your book is so it is again, I keep using the word comprehensive, but it is very rich and deep. And I’m just wondering, do you have any kind of favorite takeaways that you want to share with us something from the book that you would really want? listeners to know about or to dive deeper into when they die when they read your book.

Julie Skolnick:

So it’s a lovely question. And there are so many things, but I will tell you this. I mean, I love every part of my book. I have to say, I was honored to be asked by my publisher to actually record the audio version. Andevery so often I go, God, I love this book. And I was like, that is so funny. Like I really. really poured my heart and soul into this book. But when you get to the last chapter, I really struggled with the last chapter because I was like, okay, how am I gonna end this thing? Right? Like, what am I gonna do? And really the message is a little bit like what I just said to parents a moment ago. Not only are you the expert on your parents, on your child, but you are the just right parent for your child. And I know sometimes it doesn’t feel that way. I know sometimes it feels like, oh my gosh, I’ve ruined my kid or, oh my gosh, I did all the wrong things or we look back or we look forward or whatever. And the truth of the matter is, you know, I deeply believe that children choose their parents and that you are the just right parent for your child. And I don’t think parents hear that enough. I think parents struggle so hard to figure out what to do. I think parents are given lots of mixed messages of what some people professionally think they should do. Some people personally think that what they should do, sometimes the most hurtful thing is when our relatives, our own flesh and blood tell us all the things we’re doing wrong about raising our kids. And we just have to stop that noise because it’s absolutely not serving you. I like to say to clients, there’s no use for a rear view mirror. In fact, we don’t even use rear view mirrors in our cars anymore, we use backup cameras. So no use for looking back. and it’s only looking forward and every day is a new opportunity and every time you screw up because I promise you will, that is the greatest moment to role model how to apologize, how to own up, how to get over it, how to be human, how to be kind. Every moment of every day is an opportunity and if you’re fighting against yourself, it’s just going to be harder to get up every day and do it again.

Debbie:

Mm hmm. I love that so much. And I am, I am really good at practicing screwing up. So I really appreciate that. Just keeping it real. That’s great. So before we say goodbye, I always like asking authors kind of birthing, you know, a book into the world, what is your greatest hope for it? What do you hope it does in the world for our kids, for our families?

Julie Skolnick:

Oh man, I’m getting chills, Debbie. I just want this baby to get out there to the world. Guess what? Really cool. At this moment when it hasn’t even published yet, it’s already, the rights have been purchased to translate it into Arabic, which is crazy and I just want it to be everywhere. I want it to be everywhere. So please, if you love my book, if you read my book and you know people who would benefit from it, teachers, parents, whoever. please, please share it and let them know about it. Because I think it’s part of the movement that you’re so important in, Debbie, the work that you do. And I just, this wave is cresting. You started with a really awesome question about where is 2E now? And I think we are a cresting wave that people are starting to understand. And as the wave moves forward, we’re only… We’re only helping all neurodiversity. We’re only helping all ends and parts of the bell curve that need support and look around and aren’t sure there’s somebody sitting next to them who look like them, act like them, think like them.

Debbie:

That’s wonderful. So tell us where listeners can connect with you and learn more about your work.

Julie Skolnick:

Sure, you can go to withunderstandingcomescom.com. I like to say pack snacks, because there’s a lot there. You can be there for days. Lots of free stuff on the website, including our weekly newsletter, which is also called Gifted and Distractible. So if you subscribe there, you’ll get our weekly newsletter. Lots of videos and information on the site. And you can go to giftedanddistractable.com or anywhere to buy the book. And we’re all over social media. Look under Julie Skolnick and look under With Understanding Comes Calm. And then I have specific groups on Facebook. Let’s talk to e-parents, let’s talk to e-adults, let’s talk to e-teachers lounge that are all on Facebook. So Instagram everywhere. And look, you know, if you get the newsletter, what happens is you find out all the stuff we do. So I do a parent empowerment group, I have a haystack. the Haystack community for TUI adults, finding TUI needles in the Haystack. And when we do something like that, or I’m speaking somewhere, we always put it in the newsletter so people can look and see events all over the world and resources that they can find on our website.

Debbie:

Yeah, awesome. And listeners, Julie does have a ton of resources and just shared a lot. And so pack your snacks. I will definitely include links to everything Julie and her book and with understanding comes calm in the show notes page. The book again is called gifted and distractible understanding, supporting, and advocating for your twice exceptional child. And congratulations, Julie. And thank you so much for chatting with us today and giving us the update on all your awesome work.

Julie Skolnick:

Thank you, Debbie, and thank you for providing this platform for the neurodiverse community. I know it’s so impactful. So thank you.