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Centre Geelong

CHIP Chat Geelong

Vol: 23 No: 4 December 2017

2017 has been a busy year and productive

for both the CHIP Centre and the CHIP

Family Support Group. Perhaps the new

website and fb page have been the

highlights of the year, Thank you to Dave

Birley, Kate, Meg and indeed everyone who

has been integral in this development.

Thank you again to the outgoing members

of the CFSG and welcome to the new

members.

Thank you to everyone involved in planning

and facilitating workshops and forums this

year.

The CHIP Centre has been involved with

Cohort Assessment and Professional

Development in several schools this year as

well as identification and counselling of

individual CHIP.

On the CFSG Inc front sixteen CHIP had a

wonderful day at the Barwon Heads Airport

n October 22nd learning about planes and

the physics of flight. Zara and Scott from

Sci-Fly engaged the children with their

knowledge. The children made planes using

the flight information that they had been

discussing to have their models "loop the

loop" and complete other aerobatics. Thank

you Zara, Scott and Jeff from BHA who took

the children on a tour of the hangars where

they learned how those planes were made.

In this CHIP Chat:

Sci Fly Report

Facebook

Keys to Preventing or Overcoming

Holiday Overwhelm

CHIP Forum Report

End of year picnic report

Tools to Help Your Creative, Sensitive or Gifted Child Build Confidence

February Meet and Greet flyer on page 14.

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If you are a facebook user please like the

CHIP Centre Page (if you do!)

The end of year picnic on Sunday 12th

November at Queen‘s Park was held on a

perfect day. After a delicious picnic lunch

the children played games that promoted

team work, problem solving and physical

challenges with Tim Dean from Tennis

Australia and the parents were able to have

some good heart to heart discussions.

Keys to Preventing or Overcoming Holiday Overwhelm Sharon M. Barnes, MSSW, LCSW

Therapist for Sensitive and Gifted. Psychotherapist, Consultant, Speaker, Trainer, Internationally Published Author.

The holidays are coming. Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanza are racing towards us. Just saying this starts a sense of overwhelm to creep into me. How about you?

Let‘s explore together how to prevent – or overcome – holiday overwhelm.

When we were children, the wonder and magic of the holidays filled us with eager anticipation. As adults, it‘s quite another story. There‘s gifts to make or buy, homes to decorate, inside and outside; relationships to consider-both interconnecting family relationships and friendships; food to prepare, including considerations of who‘s allergic to what, and who‘s on which diet this year; budgets to balance; events to attend; the list goes on and on.

And if you‘re a creative, highly sensitive and/or gifted adult, these traits add additional layers of complexity, quickly mounting into ―holiday overwhelm‖. Your expectations for yourself and for others are likely to be much higher than are others. If you‘re honest with yourself, might it take a dozen people to fulfill them all? OK, maybe just three or four?

No? Then never mind….you may not find this blog post relevant. But if you identify with any of this, I invite you to join me while we explore some of the horror and the

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happiness of the holidays together. For we often must face the potential horror in order to find the happiness. There is a soulful ‗logic‘ to Halloween preceding these other holidays. Every fairy tale and folk tale, every well spun yarn, every novel or movie worth our time and attention sets out this same template- you must enter the deep dark woods (of danger and despair), fight the dragon(s)—and win!— in order to find the buried treasure. Then you must dig it up and return through those same dangerous woods to bring this treasure back to your home and community so you can use it to heal your own life and if you choose, share it with those you care about.

No wonder you may be tempted to give up before you start. It can seem daunting to even read about it, let alone deal with it. But the stakes are high. Underneath the glitz and glam of the holidays, you know that the calendar year is winding to a close and the solstice is approaching. Consciously or unconsciously, you may be assessing yourself: How do you measure up to the goals and expectations that you set out for yourself in the beginning of the year? How do you compare with your neighbors, siblings, cousins, peers? Where are you in your overall Life Plan compared to where you planned to be by now? Has your year and your life turned out anything like you hoped and planned? What do you make of it if it hasn‘t? Do you feel there is handwriting on the wall, and you are found wanting…..by God, by Life, by the Universe? And especially by your own outrageous, unrealistic expectations? What is often at stake is your internal approval of yourself, or lack of it. But approval is what you-and all of us- may seek and settle for as the false substitute when self-acceptance isn‘t present.

This insecurity can be some of the hidden fuel behind the implosions and explosions that often occur around the holidays.

When you aren‘t OK as a person; when it‘s not acceptable to be who you are, with the vulnerabilities and challenges you have, then the gifts you have aren‘t very accessible and don‘t count for much. When it‘s not Ok to be YOU, then it‘s also not OK to not BE PERFECT, AKA TO DO THE HOLIDAYS PERFECTLY. When you‘re not enough, then you have to try to make up for it by (over) doing the holidays.

So what? We know that Self-Acceptance and Self-Love don‘t come overnight. Well, consider this: IF you were OK just as you are, would it also be OK for you to have a dirty carpet, unpolished silver, not as much money to spend on gifts, and not enough time and ____________ (you fill in the blank) to know what the perfect gifts would be, and to make or find and buy them? Would it also be ok for you to have physical and financial and emotional limits….and to honor them? Might you be freed from your obsessing about every detail and from comparing yourself to your Impossible Inner Standards? Might it be OK to be human? Might it also be possible to recognize the voice of the Ego, trying to make up for inner lack by pushing for more and more outer accomplishment? Maybe you then begin to interact with that inner voice, and also turn down the volume on its channel.

What if you knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that no matter what happens, you are OK?

If you knew in your bones that you have the right to occupy the space you do, you have a right to breathe the air you breathe and eat the food you eat, and have a legitimate place on this planet, would it have an impact

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on your life? Might you also be able to identify what are your deep inner needs leading to your true priorities and goals…..for the upcoming holidays, and also the year to come?

What if you could accept this holiday season as an opportunity to practice self-acceptance and self-love?

―No‖, you say. ―I would be selfish to do such an outlandish thing as this.‖ No? Then why does every major religion teach in one way or another that LOVE starts at home- with yourself. We misunderstand and misinterpret what is written in the sacred texts. The truth is that your ability to love others is limited by your ability to love yourself. In this case, it is necessary, imperative even, to face your faults, mistakes, inadequacies and vulnerabilities and to love accept yourself WITH all of this baggage. By refusing to do this, you voluntarily limit your ability to love others. And so do I. Ouch.

Does this seem impossible? So does going into the deep dark woods, facing the dangers and despair there and fighting the dragons. No wonder it is expressed this way.

This is a universal, archetypal challenge that all humans face, and have faced since the beginning of time. The sacred stories that accompany this time of year each speak to these deep essential needs and each address them a little differently. In spite of their differences, maybe the underlying commonality is that we each face these same inner dragons and we can‘t do it alone.

Instinctively we seem to seek the company of others…. so we know that we are not alone in our foray into the forest to face and fight our inner dragons, search for and find

our deeply buried inner treasure, and carefully carry it back home through those same deep dark woods so we can use it for our own healing and that of those we love and know.

Maybe one thing that‘s important in this holiday time is for us to take the time to acknowledge our own inner journey in this last year, with its tragedies and triumphs, and to share it with each other. Maybe one thing we need is to tell stories, sing songs and dance dances of despair and triumph with others─face to face, on the phone, and online.

I will start the sharing here, for I, too have had my share of ups and downs, challenges and victories in this last year.

Here goes: I‘ll start with my ―Gripes‖. Growing my counseling practice from part-time to full-time is slower than I would like. Every task seems to have umpteen hidden aspects that don‘t show up until after the project is started. So it takes longer than I anticipate, and often other things are already scheduled to begin before I finish the previous one. The result? I have many started but fewer finished projects, such as this new website; articles intended for this blog and elsewhere, and books (yes, more than one), quilts and other fabric art pieces;

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and workshops/Playshops that never got off the ground. I have launched a webinar series, but did it too ambitiously (weekly), a pace I cannot sustain, so am having to pull back and readjust in order to continue with the webinars. Life has its challenges, too–just last week, I had a minor auto accident which also takes time and energy to deal with, and though minor, has both a financial and physical impact on me. Of course, there‘s more of an impact on my sensitive body than it might on someone else who has a less sensitive physiology than I do. Each time I experience a challenge or a setback, it can also trigger my complexes, such as ―You should have known better‖ and ―How stupid is that!‖ and well, you get the idea.

The discipline of identifying and expressing both our Gripes and our Gratitude is quite beneficial

I found myself reading my Sharing paragraphs, and especially the Gratitude paragraph over and over after I wrote it. Indeed, that is part of why many cultures set aside one day a year to express gratitude. Maybe True, Deep Self-Acceptance is Key in preventing holiday overwhelm. Maybe acknowledging and expressing both our setbacks along with our victories can go a long ways toward helping us accept our selves- our whole selves.

CHIP Forum Report

Extending the Capabilities of Gifted Students

We welcomed Educational Consultant

Karen Green who spoke at the CHIP Forum

was held at Kardinia International College

on the 30th November 2017. Karen

extending gifted students within the

Victorian Curriculum.

Meg Branson has written a comprehensive report of the evening. Columbus Group definition:

Advanced cognitive abilities and

heightened intensity combine to create

inner experiences and awareness that

are qualitatively different from the norm.

This asynchrony increases with higher

intellectual capacity

The uniqueness of the gifted renders

them particularly vulnerable and requires

modifications in parenting, teaching and

counselling in order for them to develop

optimally (The Columbus Group, 1991)

Definition came from a group of women

who became frustrated with the

definitions of giftedness always revolved

around achievement – called Columbus

Group as they met in Columbus

Further explanation ‗Off the Charts‘ chap

2 – Asynchrony and the Gifted Child

2013

Social & emotional needs - At risk if we

don‘t nurture them and support them

Dabrowski based his theory of emotional

development (The Theory of Positive

Disintegration) on the study of sensitive,

nonaggressive, highly intelligent and

creative individuals

Overexcitabilities (OE) – believed

connected strongly to giftedness

o Psychomotor:

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Primary sign of this intensity is a

surplus of energy. Children with a

dominant psychomotor OE are often

misdiagnosed with ADHD since

characteristics are similar

o Sensual :

Primary sign is a heightened

awareness of all 5 senses: sight,

smell, taste, touch and hearing.

Children with a dominant OE can

get sick from the smell of certain

foods or as toddlers will hate to walk

on grass or sand in their bare feet

(fluoro light humming…absorbing

world in different way)

o Intellectual:

This intensity is the one most

recognised in gifted children.

Characteristics by activities of the

mind, thought & thinking about

thinking. Children who lead with this

intensity seem to be thinking all the

time and want answers to deep

thoughts. Sometimes their needs for

answers will get them into trouble in

school when they‘re questioning of

the teacher can look like

disrespectful challenging

o Imaginational:

The primary sign of this intensity is

the free play of the imagination.

Their vivid imaginations can cause

them to visualise the worst

possibility in any situation. It can

keep them from taking chances or

getting involved in new situations.

Often space cadets

o Emotional:

The primary sign of this intensity is

exceptional emotional sensitivity.

Children with a strong emotional OE

are sometimes mistakenly believed

to have Bipolar disorder or other

emotional problems and disorders.

They are often the children about

whom people will say ―He‘s too

sensitive for his own good.‖

Moral sensitivity of gifted children

and the evolution of Society – Linda

Silverman

o Central feature of the gifted

experience is their moral sensitivity

which is essential to the welfare of

the entire society

o Gifted children reason more

like older children than their

agemates and set standards for

themselves more appropriate for

older children (Robinson & Noble,

1991)

o Asynchrony, intensity and

moral sensitivity are inherent in the

experience of giftedness, whether

or not a child demonstrates specific

talents in a given domain

Victorian Curriculum:

It is expected that the skills and

knowledge defined in the capabilities will

be developed, practised, deployed and

demonstrated by students in and

through their learning across the

curriculum

Learning areas and capabilities

4 capabilities: (21st Century skills)

o Critical and creative thinking

o Ethical

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o Intercultural

o Personal and social

Weave these capabilities in through the

learning areas as suitable

Why these capabilities?

Gifted students can benefit enormously from

having a deep understanding of:

What makes them tick/what pushes their

buttons

How they can manage/channel their

emotions

Ways to harness their intensities and

use the productively

How they can collaborate effectively with

others who are different to them

Ways to provide appropriate effective

and timely feedback

What they can learn about people

through observation and active listening

(wait time/not always hearing their own

voice/don‘t have prepared in your head

the answer)

Their benefits of hearing the viewpoints

of others (especially those whose

viewpoints differ from their own)

The importance of forming their own

code of ethics that are justifiable and

well intentioned

What happens to them both internally

and externally, when other behave in

ways that contradict or dismiss rules

How their ideas and opinions, when

delivered with clarity and integrity can

change the minds of others in a positive

way

The best ways to explore and engage

with topics that are contentious that don‘t

have a clearly defined solution

Ways to present a fair and rational

argument

How to deal with bad things happening

to good people

How they can influence and guide others

Aims of the personal and social

capability:

Aims to develop knowledge, understandings

and skills to enable students to;

Recognise, understand and evaluate the

expression of emotions

Demonstrate an awareness of their

personal qualities and the factors that

contribute to resilience

Develop empathy for and understanding

of others and recognise the importance

of supporting diversity for a cohesive

community

Understand how relationships are

developed and use interpersonal skills to

establish and maintain respectful

relationships

Work effectively in teams and develop

strategies to manage challenging

situations

Advancing the personal & social

capabilities of gifted students:

Provide a checklist for students

Facilitate discussion about the

importance of self and social awareness

Explicitly teach study skills and time

management (don‘t assume that gifted

students know about theses)

Provide biographies of people who

excelled due to their people skills and

capacity to empathise and communicate

clearly - bibliotherapy

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o ―Some of my best friends are

books‖

Introduce an ―emotional barometer‖

whereby students can identify their own

emotional state as well as develop an

awareness of how others are feeling

Introduce reflective journals (as learners)

Discuss the difference between

sympathy (Poor you) and empathy (I‘m

in your shoes, I can feel that) We want

empathy.

Where appropriate introduce the OE to

students and their parents

Explicitly teach social skills –

Social skills cards – Get Mappen

Aims of the ethical capability:

Aims to develop knowledge, understandings

and skills to enable students to:

Analyse and evaluate ethical issues,

recognising areas of contestability

Identify the bases of ethical principles

and ethical reasoning

Engage with the challenges of managing

ethical decision making and action for

individuals and groups

Cultivate open-mindedness and

reasonableness

Advancing the ethical capabilities of

gifted students:

Be aware of covert bullying or put

downs (body language, sneers) listen

carefully to the student‘s concerns

Create a safe classroom climate where

students understand and agree to a set

of class rules

Forewarn students about sensitive

issues that will be raised

Select students who want to go further

into ethical issues – may not necessarily

interest or be relevant for all students

Teach debating skills explicitly and then

provide opportunities to debate about

ethical issues

Provide opportunities for students to

complete individual projects where they

can investigate an issue about which

they are passionate

Create opportunities for students to

present ethical issues to real life

audiences to present ethical issues – eg)

school leadership/councils, local council,

state/federal politician, businesses It isn‘t

something they do just to earn a score, it

has real meaning

Consider ethics in various professional

eg) Hippocratic Oath, Legal professional

rules, mandatory reporting

Explain the purpose of ―thought

experiments‖ opening a can of worms in

order to understand personal belief

system of those and others

Where appropriate, and when students

are emotionally ready, debate real life

ethical dilemma as such as ―Dying with

Dignity‖

PoLT:

New version coming out…including

―student voice‖

Research shows by giving students a

voice and a choice – guiding them

towards something, but giving them

agency and making it authentic

Tools to Help Your Creative,

Sensitive or Gifted Child

Build Confidence

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Sharon Barnes (SENG) July 6, 2017

Robert and Sue, parents of 9 year old

Ethan and 6 year old Olivia (not their real

names) recently asked me how to help their

creative, sensitive, gifted children build

confidence and experience less fear and

avoidance in new or difficult situations. As

many creative, highly sensitive or gifted

children do, they would often pull back from

new or challenging situations. He or she

would claim to be shy, say she has a

headache, or he has a stomach ache or

some other physical symptom in order to

get out of doing whatever it was that they

didn‘t want to do. As I talked with Robert

and Sue, I remembered helping other

families face similar situations. I also

recalled facing similar challenges with my

children and grandchildren … and yes, also

with myself. For I remember being taken to

see a doctor and then a dentist at age 6 for

frequent stomach aches. Now as I look back

on this time of my life, there was significant

family stress during this time, and I‘m sure

that had much more to do with my ―frequent

stomach aches‖ than did how my teeth

aligned or how much or how I chewed my

food.

I also found myself thinking about a

recent winter afternoon when I took care

of my then 4 and 6 year old

grandchildren. Selfishly, I took them to a

playground at a nearby park. Why

―selfishly‖? I wanted to encourage them to

be physically active there to reduce their

mischievous energy later. The oldest is a

girl, and as are many oldest children, she is

an adventurer. She led the way through the

partly grassy, partly snowy parkland. It

wasn‘t long before her 4 year old brother

was in tears. He slipped and fell just once

on the icy snow piles, and then pulled back

and became afraid of falling on them.

His intensity kicked in, and he cried and

begged me to hold his hand and help him

cross these small snow piles. In my

empathy, I did this a time or two, but I soon

became impatient with what now felt like an

unnecessary game to me. I got a hunch and

decided to check it out. I tested the snow

hills and determined that, as I thought, they

were not totally icy. There was a thin crust

of ice on top while underneath was softer,

somewhat squishy snow. So I became the

Mean Grandma and refused to lead him by

the hand anymore.

Instead, I encouraged him to stomp hard,

REALLY HARD on the snow hills, hard

enough to break through that top icy crust.

He was certain that he could not do it and

used his tears to communicate his

helplessness and his certainty that this was

too dangerous for him. But Mean Grandma

prevailed. Notwithstanding his tears loudly

in progress, I took him one more time by the

hand, walked him up to the snow pile,

instructed (strongly urged) him to stomp as

hard as he could.

I kept moving, stomping as I went, to

show him how to do it. He had a choice: he

either had to let go of my hand or walk on

the snow pile. He chose to hang on, and

soon began stomping, timidly at first, and

harder each time as I gave encouragement

but mostly as his efforts quickly paid off. His

feet broke through the top layer of ice and

voila! He didn‘t slip or slide any more. It

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wasn‘t long before he left me behind and

then called to me, asking me to watch him

stomp up and down these snow piles, acting

like he had been doing this all along, and

like it was all his idea. Yes, it was his idea,

after all. He had to own it as his idea in

order to accomplish it.

How had I learned this? I too had been a

shy, often hesitant child, but to my chagrin

at the time, neither of my parents would let

me get away with it. I had been forced to

move forward, to move through my fears

over and over again. They had not literally

or physically forced me, but my feet had

been held to the fire, so to speak, over and

over again.

As you may recall, we get this reference

of holding feet to the fire from the myth

of the Greek goddess Demeter.

Demeter was the goddess whose daughter

Persephone was abducted by Hades and

disappeared. Demeter went into mourning

for the loss of her daughter. At first she

searched for her everywhere, until someone

let her know that her daughter had been

taken into the Underworld. She went

around to one after another of the Greek

gods, asking for their help to get her

daughter back. When that wasn‘t

successful, she went into exile, disguised

herself as a maid and went to work doing

child care. Metaneira, the mother of the boy

Demeter was caring for, suspected

something odd was going on, so she snuck

in one night and caught Demeter holding

her son Demophoon in the fire, with his feet

on the coals. Metaneira instantly snatched

him away and accused Demeter of trying to

kill him. Then Demeter revealed who she

was and what she had been doing- holding

his feet to the fire to make him immortal. By

holding his feet to the fire long enough, he

would no longer be mortal, but become one

of the gods. This story is not to be taken

literally, but rather metaphorically. I am NOT

recommending that we hurt our children in

this or in any other way.

We mortals are often like Metaneira in

her ignorance. We don‘t understand the

purpose of facing challenges, of ―holding a

little one‘s feet to the fire‖. And we haven‘t

learned how to do it so it doesn‘t harm

them. Instead, we often protect our children

from all challenges or we immerse them in

it. This story of Demeter holding

Demophoon‘s feet to the fire is an important

metaphor and an illustration of the value of

exposure to difficulty and challenge at a

young age. Please do not misunderstand

me here. I do not to condone or recommend

child abuse, neglect or anything of the kind.

Ever.

Instead, the moral of the story is that if

you want your child to be a Super

Hero, expose them to fiery challenges

over and over again. That‘s how they

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can develop Super Hero tolerance for

difficulty and challenge which then

builds in them Super Hero skills,

strength and courage.

Back to my original story – I was able to

recognize hesitancy based in fear, rooted in

lack of knowledge and lack of skill in my

grandson mostly because of how my

parents had not allowed me to shrink away

from difficulty and challenge when I was

little. Of course at the time, I would not have

expressed appreciation for it. But because

of this, by the time I became a mother, I

knew experientially how important it was to

develop the skills to do the thing I was afraid

of and thereby move through the fear.

And Life, with its odd sense of humor, has

given me lots of practice with this, in my

own life, and later with my children. I have

joked that if I had allowed it, my youngest

son would still have been eating baby food

when he was a teenager. He didn‘t like

many foods, and in his sensitivity and

intensity was hesitant about new things in

many ways. He also hated to read. He

swore he could not do it. He despised word

problems in both math and language arts.

He was certain he couldn‘t do them and

took pains to make sure I knew how he felt.

He wanted anything difficult to be done for

him.

Not that my parents were perfect or that I

have been a perfect parent. They made

plenty of other mistakes, and so have I.

Thanks to their willingness to hold my feet

to the fire – their commitment to help me

develop my skills and abilities even when I

objected vociferously, I knew better than to

give in to my son when he wanted to shrink

back in fear and inadequacy. And I had a

model to follow. My son was angry, even

livid with me for not doing his homework for

him. Instead, I would ask him question after

question. My questions were designed to

lead him to what he needed to think about

or understand in order to solve his

homework problems. Yes, it would have

been easier to tell him the answer, but I

couldn‘t live with myself if I had done it. So

we spent many an evening in conflict over

this. And every so often through the years,

the memory of these homework battle would

come back to haunt me, and I would wonder

if I had done wrong by him in being a Mean

Mom.

It wasn‘t until a couple of years ago, now

that he‘s thirty-something, and we were

sitting on his patio over dinner, that he

brought this up to me. My heart rose into my

throat, in anticipation of learning of One

More Thing I had done that had not turned

out well. He was reminiscing about his

elementary school years. To my surprise,

he told me that now when he‘s facing tough

problems at work, often he finds himself

asking himself the same kinds of questions

that I used to ask him—back when he was

so angry with me and we had the battles

over homework. He thanked me and

identified that this was how and when he

learned problem solving skills. I sat there

with my mouth falling open. And my heart

was now in my throat for a totally different

reason than it had gone there. All the guilt I

tortured myself with so many times during

these 20-some intervening years, about the

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homework battles for being such a ―Mean

Mom‖ was totally unnecessary!

So when you‘re in the thick of a Homework

Battle or some other situation in which your

child pulls back and insists that they ―can‘t

do it‖, encourage yourself. Encourage them.

It may be a very long time before you get

any positive feedback (if you‘re lucky

enough to get it at all). But it is crucial that

you hold your children’s feet to the

(metaphorical) fire. It‘s never too late to

start this, whether your children are 2 or 22.

It‘s critical—AND POSSIBLE— to help them

overcome their fears and learn the life skills

they need to become the confident creative,

sensitive and/or gifted adults that they can

be. That‘s what I shared with Robert and

Sue, and what I share with you here:

7 Useful Tools to help you Hold Their Feet

to the Fire to Build Their Skill and

Confidence:

1. Get real with yourself: Identify if this

is a skill that is within their true ability.

Can this child stomp through the thin

icy crust to a better substance

underneath? Can this child truly

read? If you know in your heart of

hearts that they really CAN do this,

but just lack confidence, then that is

the time to hold their feel to the fire. If

they truly cannot do this, if this is too

high a mountain for their skill or

strength level, then back down and

develop lower level skills first.

2. Use your own emotion to guide you:

When you child‘s behavior brings up

feelings of helplessness within you,

then that is a clue that he or she is

feeling helpless in the face of this

task or situation. That means that

what they need is encouragement

from you, and they need you to hold

their feet to the fire.

3. Practice the new skill with them,

modeling for them how to do it. If it‘s

a physical skill, show them how you

do it.

4. Have them show you how they do it,

or how their teacher or coach has

taught them to do it. Then find ways

to practice and demonstrate it back

and forth, including others if it helps

and if they‘re available.

5. Don‘t let yourself be pulled in to

feeling sorry for them and doing

things for them that they have the

capability to do. Remember that your

empathy for their sense of

helplessness is a clue that they need

encouragement to do it themselves,

rather than to have it done for them.

They will become confident and

―strong on the inside‖ by doing things

that are difficult, not by pulling back

from them.

6. Celebrate their success, even when

it‘s only a little or a partial one.

Especially if it is a little one or a

partial one. Every little or partial

success is also an opportunity to chip

away at the Perfectionism Monster

that lurks just around the corner. Do

a Happy Dance. Have a Family Hug.

Give High Five, Low Fives, you get

the picture.

7. Let them choose or even make

something to tangibly remind them of

this success the next time they face a

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similarly daunting challenge. It can

be something as simple as a rock

from the back yard, a ―Winner‘s

Award‖ ribbon pulled from Mom‘s

sewing supplies or made out of

construction paper, or whatever

works in your situation.

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14

Thank you to Kardinia International

College, Tate St, Geelong Regional

Library and Highton Primary School for

supporting our workshops and forums

again this year. Thank you to the

wonderful CHIP Family Support Group

who volunteers to organise and facilitate

the great workshops.

To all our CHIP families have a

wonderful and safe Christmas

and New Year.

Sandra Lea-Wood PhD

Manager

CHIP Centre Geelong 0407320043

www.chipcentregeelong.com.

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15