Your Extraordinary Saturday (YES)

Spring Session 2023

April 15:  The Road To Positive Advocacy For Your Gifted Child, Carol Malueg

The journey from preschool to college can present a tricky route to navigate when you are the parent of a gifted or twice-exceptional child. It can feel like a lonely, overwhelming job, but you don’t have to go it alone. A collaborative network, including your student, parenting/caregiving peers and partners, educators, and other practicing professionals, make the journey far less treacherous and much more rewarding. Starting with the earliest school years, we’ll talk about collecting resources, expanding your network, and practicing and modeling positive advocacy skills. Over time, the load gets lighter as your child learns and grows and eventually becomes their own best advocate.

Bio:  Carol Malueg is the mother of 2 gifted young adults, works as a consultant in gifted and 2e, and volunteers with state and national organizations that support gifted people. Carol is a Master Facilitator and Trainer for SENG and sits on the Board of Directors for the Gifted Homeschoolers Forum and the Minnesota Council for the Gifted and Talented. Her new venture, Gifted Roads LLC, addresses the gifted and 2e experience across the lifespan.

April 22:  The ADHD Brain: Neurobiology And Real-Life Implications Of Executive Function In Gifted Students, Dr. Liz Adams

In this session we will explore aspects of neuroscience behind motivation/rewards, focus, working memory, and emotion regulation/intensities. We will discuss examples of how these cognitive concepts show up in everyday life and supports and other perspective-shifting exercises (e.g., “both/and expansiveness” and “future visioning”) to help parents maintain a compassionate and creative mindset for their neurodiverse gifted kids (and, thanks to the high heritability rate of ADHD, maybe even for themselves).

Bio:  Dr. Liz Adams is a board-certified clinical neuropsychologist and owner of Minnesota Neuropsychology. She has been practicing neuropsychology for 16 years and is passionate about finding new ways to think creatively about ADHD and other aspects of neurodiversity. She completed a PhD at Fuller Graduate School in Los Angeles, including clinical training at UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute. She completed a residency in neuropsychology at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago and a 2-year post-doctoral fellowship in neuropsychology at the Medical College of Wisconsin. She is a member of MCGT and has presented at MITY and MEGT. She sees a wide range of twice exceptional students in her neuropsychology practice.

Recent Presentations:

• "Guiding Principles For Raising Gifted Kids" - Dr. Danika Maddocks
• "If Gifted Kids Are So Smart, Why Can't They Just..." - Anne Tyler
• "A Mind Body Approach To Promoting Wellness For Gifted Kids" - Dr. Andrea Johnson
• "Perfectionism, Passions, Problems, And Possibilities" - Pam McDonald
• "Learning to Learn in 2022" - Tina Van Erp
• "Executive Functioning in Gifted Children" - Jennifer Siebenaler
• "Supporting Gifted Students in Schools" - Dr. Melissa Malen
• "Intelligence is not Executive Functioning" - Dr. Teresa Boatman
• "Increasing Engagement and Success Through Creative Expression and Exploration" - Erin Boltik
• "Navigating a Gifted Child's Educational Journey: Strategies to Support Parent-Teacher Collaboration" - Dr. Carol Hokanson