The Essential Guide to Talking with Gifted Teens: Ready-to-Use Discussions About Identity, Stress, Relationships, and More [Paperback]

Jean Sunde Peterson Ph.D. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 15, 2007

Like other kids their age, highly capable adolescents experience developmental challenges. They’re forging identity, finding direction, exploring relationships, and learning to resolve conflicts. These are difficult tasks to do alone, no matter how smart one may be. The 70 guided discussions in this book are an affective curriculum for gifted teens. By “just talking” with caring peers and an attentive adult, kids gain self-awareness and self-esteem, learn to manage stress, build social skills and life skills, and discover they are not alone. Each session is self-contained and step-by-step; many include reproducible handouts. Introductory and background materials help even less-experienced group leaders feel prepared and secure in their role. For advising teachers, counselors, and youth workers in all kinds of school and group settings working with gifted kids in grades 6–12.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Gifted teens have unique social needs but most programs for this population focus on their academic needs. This book remedies that problem by providing discussion guides for 70 topics across 6 categories: identity, stress, relationships, feelings, family, and the future. Helpful activitiy sheets and an extensive list of resources by subject are also included." —Curriculum Connections, a supplement of School Library Journal

“The Essential Guide is a valuable resource for youth workers who may have gifted students and need more information or perspective on their unique needs.”
—Youthworker Journal

About the Author

Jean Sunde Peterson, Ph.D., was a classroom teacher for many years, was involved in teacher education, and developed summer language camps for children prior to her graduate work in counseling and development at the University of Iowa. She is currently on the faculty of the Department of Educational Studies at Purdue University and is the coordinator of school counselor preparation. For the past several years, she has conducted workshops in the areas of underachievement, group interventions for the prevention of problems in children and adolescents, multicultural issues in education, listening skills for teachers, and the social and emotional concerns of high-ability students, all of these areas related to her own practitioner-oriented research. As a licensed mental health counselor, she also continues to be involved in clinical work with children and  adolescents.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Free Spirit Publishing (November 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1575422603
• ISBN-13: 978-1575422602
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #535,527 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars step by step instructions for forming a discussion group!, March 12, 2008

By 

Lorel Shea (New England) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Essential Guide to Talking with Gifted Teens: Ready-to-Use Discussions About Identity, Stress, Relationships, and More (Paperback)

The Essential Guide to Talking with Gifted Teens, copyright 2008, is a carefully wrought work by Jean Sunde Peterson. This well organized book details how to initiate and run a discussion group for gifted teens. The author's intention is for the group to facilitate social and emotional development, and only tangentially to affect scholastic performance. A handy CD contains all of the printable worksheets included in the book.

In the introduction, Sunde Peterson states, "For many, adolescence is not an easy time. Even remarkable performers, who delight the adults around them, are growing and developing- with self doubts and uncertainties about the present and future. Gifted underachievers may not feel as self-assured as some of them seem..." It is clear that she understands that there is more to being gifted than just getting good grades or being a fast learner.

Important questions are asked of potential group leaders, such as, "Can you avoid feeling competitive with gifted teens?" Some gifted adults feel uncomfortable with kids who may be more highly gifted than they are themselves. If a leader cannot get over competitive feelings, she may be better off working with gifted teens in another format, and not in a group designed to encourage sharing inner thoughts.

Talking with Gifted Teens has six main areas of focus. These include: identity, stress, relationships, feelings, family, and the future. Within these areas are some serious subtopics such as bullying and cyber-aggression, sexuality, cutting, eating disorders, divorce, and loss. The author introduces Gardner's multiple intelligences theory as well as learning styles and useful self-inventories. An example worksheet requires the student to fill in the blanks:

The way I really am_______

The self I don't like_______

How I'd like to be________

This book is designed to meet standards of the American School Counselor Association. It is recommended that middle school groups be separated by gender if possible, and that high school groups be co-educational. The most effective groups have regular meetings and closed membership, to allow teens to build trust in one another.

I sincerely wish that there had been a group like this at my high school!