Episode 48: A Holiday Shopping and Celebration Guide

Shopping for the holidays can be a headache, but choosing the right gifts for high-ability kids is extra-challenging. Between meal planning and decorating, Jen Merrill found time to pop in with holiday stories and gift ideas, and Emily divulges her darker history as a “peeker.” Shopping for the hard-to-buy-for kids in your life, on this special holiday edition of Mind Matters.

About the guest - Jen Torbeck Merrill is an Illinois-based writer and gifted family advocate. The mom of two teen sons, she homeschooled one and is happily watching her public schooler thrive. She is a music educator by trade, with degrees in music education and flute performance. Long before she picked up a flute as a child, however, Jen wanted to be a writer. She began that career in 2006, focusing on gifted families and advocacy. Her book, If This is a Gift, Can I Send It Back?: Surviving in the Land of the Gifted and Twice-Exceptional, struck a nerve with families who suspected Jen was living in their closet. Her second book, on the needs of gifted parents and self-care, is in progress.

Jen has branched out into greater advocacy for gifted issues (particularly the needs of parents), personalized learning for gifted and twice-exceptional kids, and giftedness as wiring throughout life.

Links of interest - Laughing at Chaos, Pinterest, Irish coffee, seashell snowmen via Etsy, Perplexus, Raspberry Pi, Maker Shed, Snap Circuits, PocketLab, Girder & Panel, Hippotherapy, Mind Matters Facebook group, Chicago Museum of Science & Industry, Six Flags, weighted blanket info, weighted blankets on Amazon, Crate Joy, Kitkat, Fluxx card game, Quoridor, Teacher Geek, Equine Dreams for equine-assisted activities in Illinois.