Blog Articles
Welcome to Gifted - Did You Know?, a weekly blog for the parents and educators raising and supporting gifted and twice-exceptional children. Each post is short, practical, and grounded in more than two decades inside classrooms, district offices, and living rooms, exploring the surprising, sometimes counter-intuitive truths about how gifted minds actually work. One week you might read about why "smart" can quietly hide real struggle; the next, why the most overwhelmed parent in the room is often the one who sees their child most clearly. Posts alternate between insights from my two books, Supporting Your Twice-Exceptional Child and A Gifted Parent's Handbook, so over time you will build a full, balanced picture of the gifted and 2e experience. If you have ever looked at your brilliant, complicated, intense child and thought there has to be more to this than anyone is telling me, you are in the right place. These children are capable, complex, and gifted first. Let's make sure they are seen.
— Adam C. Laningham, M.Ed.
Coming September 2026 - May 2027….
Blog posts specifically focusing on Executive Functioning Support!
Two posts each month, one for parents and one for educators. They are full of quick tips and understandings to help you better support the gifted children in your life.
Why “She's So Smart” Doesn't Add Up at Home
Did you know your child's brain won't finish building the part responsible for planning, organizing, and impulse control until their mid-twenties, and that for gifted kids, this system often develops on a completely different timeline than their intellect does?
If dinner-table homework battles feel confusing, that gap is usually why.
Executive Functioning Isn't a Character Flaw
Did you know that the part of a student's brain responsible for planning, organizing, and following through doesn't finish developing until their mid-twenties, for every student in your building, gifted or not?
You Are Exactly the Parent Your Child Needs
Did you know that the most consequential person in your gifted child's life is, almost always, you? Not the best teacher she ever had. Not the most expensive program you ever enrolled her in…
Your Child Is Gifted First
Did you know that the single most important thing you can give a twice-exceptional child is a sense of who she is before who she struggles to be? In meetings, in reports, in intervention plans, and even sometimes at home, the conversation around a 2e child gradually tilts toward what isn't working…
Advocacy Is a Skill — and It Can Be Learned
Did you know that effective advocacy is not a personality trait? It is not reserved for the parents who are naturally assertive, the ones who were raised to speak up, or the ones who happen to be lawyers or educators themselves. Advocacy for a gifted or 2e child is a learnable skill…
Advocacy Burnout Is Real — and It Matters
Did you know that the parents most likely to be exhausted are often the ones doing the most important work? Advocating for a twice-exceptional child is a long-haul job…
Gifted Children Don't Grow Up in a Straight Line
Did you know that giftedness doesn't look the same at four as it does at fourteen — and that parents who don't understand the stages often panic, or miss, at exactly the wrong moments? Gifted development tends to move through recognizable phases…
Behavior Problems Might Be Unmet Potential
Did you know that some of the most consistently disruptive children in a classroom are not acting out because they are defiant — they are acting out because they are bored, frustrated, or drowning…
How to Love a Passion to Death
Did you know that one of the fastest ways to kill a gifted child's passion is to love it too publicly, too eagerly, and too formally? The story is almost always the same…
Some of History's Brightest Minds Were Twice-Exceptional
Did you know that some of the most consequential minds in recorded history would likely be flagged as struggling students in a modern classroom…
When Gifted Meets Questions of Identity
Did you know that LGBTQ+ identification appears more frequently among gifted youth than in the general population? This is a pattern that parents, educators, and researchers have observed for decades, and one that deserves honest, compassionate attention…
Compliance Isn't the Same as Learning
Did you know that the quietest, most cooperative child in the classroom is sometimes the one learning the least? In most traditional schools, compliance gets rewarded automatically. A student who finishes the worksheet, follows the directions, hands it in on time, and sits still between activities is read as a successful learner, even when her actual understanding is shallow…
Giftedness Is Everywhere — but Identification Isn't
Did you know that gifted potential is distributed equally across every racial, ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic group — but identification is not? The research on this has been clear for decades. The talent is there, in equal proportion, in every community. What is not equal is access to identification…
Perfectionism Can Look a Lot Like Laziness
Did you know that the child who never finishes her homework might be holding herself to a higher standard than anyone else in the room? For many gifted and twice-exceptional children, what looks from the outside like laziness, avoidance, or refusal is actually something almost opposite…
When Your Gifted Child Falls Apart After School
Did you know that the child who kept it together all day at school — who smiled at the teacher, said please and thank you, sat through every lesson — is often the same child who walks through your front door and detonates…
"They'll Be Fine" Is Not a Plan
Did you know that the phrase most commonly used to describe twice-exceptional children in school meetings is also the most dangerous? "He'll be fine." "She's doing okay." "Let's give it another year and see." These sentences sound reassuring. They sound like the adults in the room have decided your child is not in crisis, which feels, for a moment, like good news…
The Lonely Genius Myth
Did you know that some of the loneliest children in any given classroom are the ones the other parents assume must have it easy? The cliché of the popular, well-adjusted, effortlessly social gifted child exists mostly in brochures. The reality, for many gifted kids, is quieter and more painful…
Why Gifted Kids Often Don't Qualify for Help
Did you know that one of the most common experiences for parents of twice-exceptional children is being told their child doesn't qualify for anything? Not gifted services, because his grades aren't high enough. Not special education, because she's not struggling enough…
The Volume Is Turned Up
Did you know that gifted children don't just think more deeply than other children — they feel more deeply too? One of the most consistent, research-backed features of giftedness is emotional intensity…
A Child Can Be Years Ahead AND Years Behind
Did you know that a single child can function like an adult in one area and a much younger child in another — on the same day, in the same hour, sometimes in the same conversation? This is called asynchronous development, and it is one of the most defining features of the gifted and 2e experience. It is also one of the most confusing…
