Vol V, No 1 - January 17, 2023
FROM THE CREATIVE EDITOR
Welcome to 2023! I know better than to ask how everyone survived the holiday season; I still remember how challenging it all was with the complex kids we had under our roof. Changes in routines, all sorts of treats, sensory overload, extended family and all the expectations/disappointments there...it's hard. So, so hard. It's okay to be grateful it's over and things are returning to whatever passes for normal.

Extraordinary creativity was...is...the norm here. One son's creativity lies in computer networks and hacking discarded computers to do his bidding; the other son is all about digital and interactive design. Both are creative programmers who do things I don't understand and I should probably apologize to my parents for teasing them about their blinking VCR light.

Gifted kids seem to be surrounded by an aura of creativity and it's awesome and intimidating. Our job is to provide sustenance for said aura and get out of the way. This month's featured article is about just that: creativity, what it is, and what to do with it. I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

'Til we meet again in February!
Jen Merrill is a writer, musician, teacher, ed-tech marketing advisor, and gifted-family advocate. The mom of two boys, she homeschooled her twice-exceptional teen through high school while happily sending his younger brother off to his high school every morning. Those days now in the past, she is settling into the somewhat quieter life of an empty-nester. Her book, If This is a Gift, Can I Send It Back?, struck a nerve with families; her second book, on the needs of gifted parents and self-care, will be finished shortly before the heat death of the universe. In addition to writing on her longtime blog, Laughing at Chaos, Jen has presented at SENG, NAGC, and WCGTC.

Jen brings both her acquired wisdom and her experience as a teacher and mentor to her work in the service of parents, teaching them techniques and mentoring them into their own versions of success. Her goal is to support parents of gifted and twice-exceptional kids, because they are the ones doing the heavy lifting and are too often ignored, patronized, and discredited. It is her hope that her sons never have to deal with these issues when they raise their own likely gifted children.

Kick-Off the New Year with Creativity

By Tiffany Chaiko

When I think back to my childhood, the memories that stick out the most involve some exploration of creativity. Those were the times when I felt a deep sense of peace and connection. As a 2e Mom of two, twice-exceptional children, the memories still bring big smiles and the feeling of warm positive energy to my heart. These mini-creative experiences were mostly tied to our family celebrations. They are what creative researchers call mini-c creativity.1 And, they blossomed while growing up in the multicultural community of Hawaii and in an Asian-American family.

As a child, I looked forward to doing creative activities with my mom throughout the year. She always wove in activities to make or create something during our family holidays or family vacations. There were jumbo cookies on sticks—cookie pops—to decorate at Christmas time that smelled of almonds. We decorated them with homemade frosting smelling of fresh mint and soothing vanilla in a rainbow of colors. These were our yearly edible ornaments.  

Chinese New Year celebrations usually followed quickly behind the Christmas holidays. Mom never missed an opportunity to take us to the Honolulu Museum of Art to make Chinese crafts like lantern making, watercolor paintings, or paper decorations cut with sharp scissors.

For Easter, we blew out chicken eggs. We enjoyed omelets for dinner while waiting for the rinsed eggs to dry. The white eggs were a blank canvas on which we created using any available craft supplies we could find in the house. Leftover crayons, fine-tipped, and wide-tipped pens, bits of leftover wrapping paper or tissue from the holidays, dried flowers or leaves from nature walks outside or bits of shell or green olivine sand were favorites over the years. Once the eggs were finished, Mom would hang the newly finished eggs with eggs decorated in previous years on a dried branch she called her Easter Egg Tree.

On family beach vacations, we’d take walks early in the morning to look for treasures washed up by the waves the night before. Mom would take our found bits of shell, sea glass, seaweed, and an occasional dried crab in flaming red, and together we would build a collage or mobile on pieces of wood also collected from the beach.

When my children were born, I knew I wanted to include what creative researchers call mini-creative experiences in our daily family life to build on the traditions I experienced growing up.2 However, our mini-creative experiences evolved from my children’s intense curiosity, keen observation, and thirst to know more about everything. I noticed that my children seemed at peace and could concentrate with deliberate ferocity for long periods of time when building or making their own creations. This was a stark contrast to the daily forgetting of where their water bottles were.

Their creative exploration started with blocks and Lego but quickly evolved into mud sculptures, cardboard buildings, and sleds, and then to building electrical circuits and self-designed flashlights with professional tools and parts—while still in elementary school. There was an intense self-motivation to learn by asking questions of retired electricians and trying out new ideas in the garage for hours. Creativity researchers might define this as using creative problem-finding and creative problem-solving skills in a domain that is both original and useful in the creation.3 To my children, it was fun.

My role in these activities was to provide access to parts and support for ideas developed by my children. We noticed when my children had choices in designing and creating their own original light circuits, they had no problem acquiring knowledge to answer their own questions through videos and websites. This content was then easily synthesized into detailed conversations about electrical designs with commercial electronics store owners – retired electricians. Their conversations sounded more like listening to electricians talk and less like a conversation between an adult and a child. It was a beautiful sight.

But creativity can be more than making. It can include developing novel combinations and unique solutions, which is another way to define creativity.4 We see this in the cooking and baking combinations my children try out. We provide ingredients and pans, and they experiment and get inspired with video recipes.

All of these diverse mini-creative experiences have helped my children build their confidence in areas of interest and build skills in doing what they enjoy. Using their creativity in these mini experiences has helped them to exercise their creative strengths and continues to build their confidence in their creative abilities.5

So as we start a new year, I hope these stories will inspire you to incorporate mini-creative experiences into everyday life. Not only are they fun, but they also provide our twice-exceptional children with great opportunities to use their creative strengths in their interest areas. And that makes for a very happy new year, indeed!
 
Notes:
1. James C. Kaufman, and Ronald A. Begetto, “Beyond Big and Little: The Four C Model of Creativity,” Review of General Psychology, 13, no. 1 (2009): 1-13, https://doi.org/10.1037/a0013688.

2. James C. Kaufman, and Ronald A. Begetto, “Beyond Big and Little: The Four C Model of Creativity,” Review of General Psychology, 13, no. 1 (2009): 1-13, https://doi.org/10.1037/a0013688.

Vlad P. Glăveanu and Ronald A. Beghetto, “Creative Experience: A Non-Standard Definition of Creativity,” Creativity Research Journal, 33, no. 2 (2021): 75-80, https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2020.1827606.

3. Marc A. Runco, “Positive Creativity and the Intentions, Discretion, Problem Finding, and Divergent Thinking That Support It Can Be Encouraged in the Classroom,” Education Sciences, 12, no. 340 (2022): 1-13, https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12050340.  

C. June Maker, “Exceptional Talent in the 21st Century Context:
Conceptual Framework, Definition, Assessment, and Development,” Gifted Education International, 37, no. 2 (2021): 158-198, https://doi.org/10.1177/0261429421995188.

4. Marc A. Runco, “Positive Creativity and the Intentions, Discretion, Problem Finding, and Divergent Thinking That Support It Can Be Encouraged in the Classroom,” Education Sciences, 12, no. 340 (2022): 1-13, https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12050340.

5. C. Matthew Fugate, Sydney S. Zentall, and Marcia Gentry, “Creativity and Working Memory in Gifted Students With and Without Characteristics of Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder: Lifting the Mask,” Gifted Child Quarterly, 57, no. 4 (2013): 234-246, https://doi.org/10.1177/0016986213500069. 

Ronald A. Beghetto, “Creative Identity Development in Classrooms,” in The Cambridge Handbook of Lifespan Development of Creativity, edited by Sandra W. Russ, Jessica D. Hoffmann, and James C. Kaufman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 395-414.
Tiffany Chaiko is a Mom, wife, 2e adult with dyslexia, parent of several 2e children, and a second-year doctoral student at Bridges Graduate School of Cognitive Diversity in Education. She holds a certificate in Twice-Exceptional Education. Chaiko is a former accredited, but now non-practicing, public relations professional. She also has experience in independent sales of custom merchandise and more than a decade of volunteer experience in educational settings. Her research interests are twice-exceptionality, creativity, and positive strength-based and talent-focused approaches and environments. She is a member of GHF, SENG, and NAGC.
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