With Understanding Comes Calm with Julie Skolnick
Dr. Dan welcomes colleague and friend Julie F. Skolnick, M.A., J.D. to today’s show. Julie is the founder of With Understanding Comes Calm, LLC a community for gifted/2e families, children, adults, and educators. In today’s episode, Dr. Dan and Julie focus on Julie’s work with gifted, twice-exceptional and much more.
Julie’s touching opening story about her own children and her parenting journey (and later her very honest and real Parent Footprint moment) will resonate with parents. As the founder of With Understanding Comes Calm, Julie Skolnick passionately guides parents of gifted and distractible children, mentors 2e adults, and collaborates with and advises educators and professionals on bringing out the best and raising self-esteem in their students and clients. A frequent speaker and prolific writer, Julie is also the mother of three twice exceptional children who keep her on her toes and laughing.
During today’s show, Julie describes her process to Dr. Dan which includes three parts and a “cycle for success” as well as her P.R.A.I.S.E. method. Here is more information, in her own words from the interview and her website:
Understanding With understanding comes calm. Through the lenses of giftedness and distractibility, I will help you understand your child’s perplexing behaviors, complicated feelings and challenging attitudes and the responses of others toward them…When we understand why our children feel what they feel we can respond to their behavior in a calm and productive way.
Strategies Once we understand why your child reacts, behaves and feels the way he does, we can calmly create strategies to redirect or diffuse his behavior and help bring out the best in him so he may successfully reach his potential. We will fill your toolbox with ways to avoid negative reactions, encourage responsibility, and increase your child’s self-awareness and self esteem.
Implement/Advocate How will these strategies actually happen at home, in the classroom and out in the world? The success of implementation is planning ahead. Along with an implementation plan, we advise parents on how to advocate with necessary professionals: teachers, administrators, coaches and others so parents create a mutually supportive team without creating a defensive atmosphere. The goal is to form a partnership where parents and professionals gain mutual benefits from sharing information, techniques, and have a respectful back and forth about the best way to help your child thrive.
Julie serves as Secretary on the Maryland Superintendent’s Gifted and Talented Advisory Council and is on the Advisory Council for “The G Word” movie. Julie is the SENG (Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted) Maryland liaison, a SENG Model Parent Group (SMPG) trained facilitator and on the Simultaneous Supports committee for the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC). She is trained in a suite of tools “Putting the Person into Personalized Learning” through the 2e Center in Studio City, Ca. Julie’s work has changed the lives of many children and families.