Raising a Gifted Child as a Gifted Mother

What happens when your gifted child starts to feel a little too familiar?

Their intensity reminds you of your own. Their perfectionism makes sense to you. Their struggles with friendship, boredom, fairness, or feeling different begin stirring up parts of your own childhood—and suddenly, you're responding not only to what's happening to your child, but perhaps to something in your own story as well.

In this episode, I explore the unique experience of being a gifted mother raising a gifted child—and how parenting can become an unexpected invitation to understand ourselves more deeply.

In this episode, we'll explore:

• What can happen when you begin recognizing yourself in your gifted child
• The difference between empathy and emotional fusion
• Why our children's struggles can activate unfinished parts of our own stories
• How self-awareness can help us stay deeply connected without taking over
• A simple PAUSE practice for emotionally charged parenting moments

Understanding your gifted child can become an invitation to better understand yourself—and create greater freedom for both of you.

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ADDITIONAL RESOURCES & LINKS

• Take the quiz: Are You a Gifted Woman in Hiding?
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• Learn more: andrealein.com

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Transcript

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Throughout the month of August, I'm doing a special back to school mini-series for parents of gifted children, and particularly for the gifted mothers who are often carrying so much of the emotional and mental load behind the scenes. We began the series by talking about why motherhood can feel different for gifted women. And then last week we turned towards our children and talked about what parents need to understand as gifted children head back to school. And today I want to bring those two conversations together because what happens when you are a gifted mother raising a gifted child? What happens when your child's sensitivity looks a little too familiar, and when their intensity reminds you of yourself, and when their questions and their perfectionism and their boredom and their strong sense of justice or their struggle to fit in begin stirring up parts of your own story. Stay tuned. I think you're going to love this conversation. Welcome to the Power to Flourish podcast, where science meets the art of a beautiful life. I'm Dr. Andrea Lyme, positive psychologist, giftedness expert and coach, and modern-day spiritual godmother to brilliant, deep-feeling women. This isn't just another self-help podcast. It's a sanctuary, a sacred space to come back to yourself. Each week we'll explore the emotional experience of gifted, sensitive women and what it means to live a life that feels as beautiful as it may look. Because flourishing isn't a luxury. It's your birthday, and your life is waiting. This is the Power to Flourish Podcast. Welcome back, my friend. I am Dr. Andrea Line, and we are, like I said, in the middle of a series this August as we, some of us with children at home, are preparing or in the actual transition of back to school. This is that time of year. Summer is already sadly coming to a close. Although I know for some people it's not a sad moment. It can be an exciting one. And so today we're going to talk about what do you do when you identify and know you are a gifted woman and you are raising a gifted child. I have worked with so many women. And I, of course, myself have my own personal story to share as a gifted woman who raised a very classic, gifted, actually twice exceptional kiddo. And so I have a lot of personal stories. I have a lot of stories from my professional work over several decades now, working with families and particularly moms. So this topic, I feel like I could probably talk, you know, for a long time or have multiple episodes. I'm going to try to keep it to the issues that I think are most salient for you. And if you have questions as you listen to this, I would love to hear from you because I do feel very passionate about this topic. There are a lot of things out there that you can listen to about how to parent, you know, in general, and even parenting your gifted kid. I don't know how much there is out there about this intersection between being a gifted individual, a gifted adult, parenting a gifted child. Because that is a very unique interaction and it is not for the faint of heart. So one of the core things is sometimes, oftentimes, your child's struggle feels much bigger than the moment right in front of you, right? So maybe some of this feels relatable to you. Your daughter comes home and she says she was left out at recess, and you're not only comforting her, but somewhere inside, you are remembering every room where you felt too much or too serious or too intense or somehow out of step with the social crowd. Your son comes home and tells you he's bored at school, and you feel this urgency inside of you that kind of surprises you because you know what it's like to sit in an environment that just doesn't light you up, doesn't seem to recognize you, and you're stuck powerless, especially as a kid. Perhaps your child is corrected for asking too many questions or being too verbose and something in you wants to rush in and make absolutely sure this story ends differently. I wonder if you've ever experienced anything like that. I think it's probably likely that you have, if you identify as a gifted woman and you know you have a kid who is gifted. When we recognize ourselves in our children, and this happens, by the way, for all parents. Giftedness aside, this happens for all parents. But today, again, like I typically do, we are looking at this through the lens of our giftedness, our child's giftedness. So when we recognize ourselves in our children, our empathy can be extraordinary, which is a beautiful thing. We might notice things that other people might miss, you know, that other parents, really great parents, might miss about this particular kind of child because we can empathize. We we know, we remember what it was like. And we often understand what is underneath the words before our child can explain it. And it truly is a gift. I remember thinking as I raised my daughter, even from a very young age, I knew that she was not a typical kid for lots of reasons. And at the same time, I felt, I don't want, I want to say strangely equipped. I strangely because I was a young mom and I was a single mom. And yet, so there were definitely like the struggles, you know, the hardship that comes with that. But when it came to parenting her, when it came to understanding her, I felt like I had this edge because I got her. I got her. However, recognition and our empathy, our seeing ourselves in them, can also make it much harder to see where our story ends and our child's story begins. And again, this is true for all parent-child relationships. And that is what I want to talk about today with a lot of compassion, because this is not about criticizing thoughtful, deeply engaged mothers. Absolutely not. If you know me and you've been sticking around here for a while, you know that is not my aim at all. And it's really about becoming more aware of what is happening inside us so that we can stay connected to our children without unintentionally asking them to carry parts of our unfinished story. So the central idea I want you to take away with this episode is this understanding your gifted child often becomes an invitation to better understand yourself and perhaps oftentimes heal parts of ourselves that still need healing. And when we accept this beautiful invitation that comes with parenting, parenting really does become a place of healing and bringing us to wholeness. Not because we are using our children in some way, because that doesn't feel good, right? It's not because our children repair our past, per se, but because we learn if we're being very intentional, we learn to meet both their experience and our own with greater honesty and tenderness and ideally freedom. So what happens when your child becomes a mirror? Parenting has a way of bringing us into contact with our own history, right? If you have been parenting even for just a couple years, but definitely if you've been doing this for a while, you know this is true. I think it's true for almost every parent. I mean, I've worked with hundreds of parents over the years. I have yet to meet a parent that this is not true for, if they're if their eyes are open and they're paying attention. But when your child's mind and or their temperament and or their sensitivity, or perhaps it's very specifically their social experience resembles your own, that contact can feel immediate. That contact with our own history, it like it just rises immediately to the surface. And you may suddenly begin understanding parts of yourself that never made sense before. Or you might not understand it quite yet, but you're noticing it's coming up. So maybe your child is identified as gifted, and maybe they're not, but maybe you suspect they probably are. And as you learn more about giftedness, you begin thinking, maybe this explains me too. That has happened with a lot of parents I've worked with, especially women. I think it's very funny to me. They are so focused on their kid. And it's like they can kind of see, especially we've got a lot of other people and teachers saying, Oh, your kid is this and that. And, you know, they get assessed and identified. And as you learn about giftedness, this also happens with other things, right? Oftentimes, very, very common with a kid who goes through assessment and gets identified with ADHD, that diagnosis. And oftentimes, because there is a strong genetic component, one of the parents, or maybe both, but one of the parents is usually like, huh, this sounds like me, you know? And so it just takes you on this whole learning journey if you yourself had never recognized that in yourself or had not been identified or diagnosed with something in the past, right? So here we are with the giftedness piece. You're learning about it. And now you could be someone who already knew, but here you, here we are. We're let's let's talk about the woman who their child gets identified and then they start learning. And actually, I had a woman reach out to me not too long ago, and this was exactly the story. And this is how she found the podcast because her child was identified as gifted, and she started learning about it, and then thought, wait a minute, this sounds like me. And she searched and she found this podcast. So I'm hoping that some of you at least, this is this is how you come to find yourself here with me today. And I'm so grateful for you. But maybe you begin recognizing your own intensity and your own sensitivity and your own need for meaning or the way your mind has always made connections in a certain way that other people just didn't seem to make. And there can be real relief in that, especially if you're, you know, a grown adult and you've been living on this planet for several decades and you had no idea until now that this is what explained it, or this is one lens, right? Because we are multifaceted people. And so I don't want to simplify and distill everything down to this lens of giftedness, but this is, you know, this is what the podcast is about. So this is what we're talking about. And so you learn about these things and you finally feel like, ugh, there is language for something you have experienced your whole life. But here's the thing. I gotta I feel a little emotional. There can also be a lot of grief, right? You may think, you know, now that you're maybe in your 30s or maybe even your 40s, you may think, why did no one recognize this in me? Why was I told, or why did I receive the message that I was just too sensitive or too dramatic or too verbal or too much or too demanding, too whatever, fill in the blank. Or maybe it was I'm not living up to my potential. And so there can be a process where on the one hand, we're excited that we discovered this, and on the other hand, as we learn more, we're like, oh my gosh, I've just spent so much of my life with judgments about myself, usually negative ones. And, you know, I am not to blame. This is the way I am wired. And so then there may be like a determination that comes up, right? Like, my child will not go through what I went through. And all of those reactions make complete sense. I see this often with mothers who are incredibly thoughtful and intentional, which by the way, is like every mom, I mean, really almost every mom I have ever worked with, they are thoughtful, they are intentional, they want the best for their kids. And they are not trying to make parenting about themselves, typically. They simply love their children and they know what it is like to go unseen. So when they recognize something familiar, they want to protect their child from the pain that they experienced, right? Just recently, I mean, I have so many stories I could share, but just recently, I had a situation with a mom I was coaching, and she has a younger child, identified gifted, really, really, really bright. And one of the things that she could identify with her child around was the challenges with relationships socially. And her child, very bright, very creative, very insightful, definitely had some challenges socially. And I had to constantly remind her that this was not necessarily because there's something wrong with him, but there is just simply a mismatch when you are a very bright child. Say your cognitive ability is way higher than the average kid. And it doesn't make you better, it doesn't make you worse, it's just different. And so you put a kid who is cognitively functioning at a certain level, who wants to talk about things in a certain way, a certain depth, a certain complexity, like more like a teenager might, or an adult, depending on their age. And you put them in a room or on the playground with a bunch of other kids their age who are just, you know, average, happy, average kids, they're not necessarily going to connect in the same way. And that is a developmental experience for every kid. But most gifted kids, unless they find communities where they can be with other kids like themselves, it's it's a very common experience that they just grow up feeling a little, they know they're different, they think differently, and they don't find a lot of kids typically who are like them. Now, depending on where you live, or if you're at a private school or a special school for gifted kids, of course, that can be very, very different, which is one of the arguments for programs like gifted education or special schools. And I I'm a big believer in that. I know there's a lot of, I'm not gonna get on this tangent. This could be for another episode, but you know, there's a lot of conversation around whether these programs are elitist and whether we should just dismantle all of them. Like very recent discussions. This has always been an issue, but very recently there have been some articles and a lot of conversation about that. But the one of the reasons why I believe it's important is because of the social piece. So this mom uh started to unpack with me not just her childhood experiences socially, but actually how she still can feel like that today as an adult, as a gifted woman, an accomplished gifted woman, a woman who's involved in her community, a woman who's very involved professionally. And if you were looking at her from the outside, you may never know that she still feels this way. And a lot of women I talk to one-on-one tell me that. So this is just an example, right, of a mother feeling both this relief, because she's like, oh, I get my kid, I understand it, I went through this. And then the feelings that can come up when you see a child struggling with something similar and you out of love, you know, want to fix it for them so they don't go through the same thing. So this recognition can, you know, create this beautiful attunement. And this particular mom I am thinking of is wonderfully attuned to her child. She really is exceptional at doing that. And you may understand, if you're this kind of parent, that when your child says, I don't care, you know, I don't care, that they may actually care very deeply and be protecting themselves from disappointment because maybe you were the child that said the very same thing, or maybe you're an adult that says that very same thing. So our attunement uh and our empathy is a great gift, especially, you know, when we're aware. And you may understand, for example, that what looks like stubbornness in your kid could be a very, very strong need for logic or meaning in a way that a lot of other kids just do not they just don't need in the same way. You may recognize that perfectionism isn't simply wanting to do well, but sometimes it's a lot of fear. Sometimes it's the feeling that, you know, if you can't do something exactly as you see it in your mind's eye, you would rather not begin. If you were someone who struggled with that and you have a kid who struggles with that, you know, you're like, I get it, I get it. And you may be able, you're like beautifully positioned to give language to an experience that your child is going through, but they can't yet explain or even articulate. So if you've gone through something similar, you're just at this advantage. Right. But here's where I think we have to remain curious. Because while we may share a lot of things with our kid, your child may resemble you without being a total, complete repetition of you, if you know what I mean. And it's so important. And I think back, you know, my daughter, when she was growing up, everyone would refer to her as my mini me, mainly because we looked very similar. And at a certain point as she got older, I really, for her sake, once she got into adolescence, I really didn't want people to keep saying that. People would just naturally say it. Strangers, we would run into strangers and say it. It was like, oh, she was just a little mini me. But I tease to this day that my daughter is, I I have zero tattoos. I am not a tattoo kind of, you know, girl. Not that I wouldn't get a tattoo, but I just don't have any. And my daughter, on the other hand, the artist, is like covered in tattoos. And I tease that in her adolescence, she probably thought the only way I can separate from my mother, who everyone keeps saying I'm a little mini version of, is to literally, you know, like change something I can control on my body that makes me look different than her. And so tattoos, it is. She doesn't look like me, at least our skin. So anyway, I share that funny story because, you know, our kids may have a lot of similarities to us, and that's beautiful, but they're not, they're not us, right? And so that familiarity can sometimes create a sense of certainty when within us before we have really listened. And that's that's the thing, is that we don't want to make too many assumptions. Our empathy, our attunement, all of that can be a great gift, but we want to always stay curious because we might think, oh, I know exactly how this feels, or I know what this means, I know what this means, or I know what's gonna happen next, right? But we don't. You know, perhaps we don't, or maybe sometimes you're right. But a lot of times we're gonna miss it. So your child's experience may be very similar to you, and it may also be very different in in some important ways. And recognition is really the beginning of curiosity. We we can recognize something and we can even recognize something that seems familiar, and that can be the beginning of our curiosity. So instead of saying, I know exactly how you feel, honey, which we might feel like we do, we might say something like, something about this situation feels really familiar to me, because I went through some similar things when I was younger, but I want to understand what it's like for you. And if they're really young or you think they don't have the words for that, you can offer up some ideas, right? You know, does it feel like this? Does it feel like that? And maybe they're older and they can just share. But that small shift, like the the communication of I don't want to assume your experience. It allows your passion. Your past experience to help you listen and be very present without assuming that your child is reliving your life. Because you know, they're not, they're living their own life. And one of the things I've learned, again, both professionally and personally as a mom, is that the emotional intensity of a parenting moment can sometimes tell us that more than one story is present. So something as normal as a teacher sends an email, it's a fairly ordinary email, and then you read it and your body reacts as though your child's whole identity is under attack. Or your child happens to be excluded from a birthday party in the neighborhood, and you feel an ache that seems much larger than what seems appropriate for this one event. Right. Or maybe your child says school is so boring and suddenly you feel grief about your own education and your own unrealized potential, or the years you spent making yourself smaller, or all the missed opportunities. And then you're projecting into the future about, oh my gosh, this is what's going to happen to my kid? Like all of the things. I have worked with moms. These are all normal responses, by the way, right? And these moms are like not trying to be dramatic. It's, you know, you're not failing as a mom, but these reactions are information, right? They're data. Our feelings tell us something. And so sometimes these present moments that come up for our kids, it brushes up against an old wound. And because gifted women often process our experiences so deeply, and because we're often very quick at seeing the possible patterns and the consequences, our minds can move rapidly from what is happening in the here and now to everything we fear it might mean. Right? A difficult moment or a difficult day becomes a difficult year. Like, oh my gosh, second grade is going to be awful, right? This teacher's blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. Or a difficult season, you know, or an insensitive comment, like one insensitive comment becomes evidence to you based on your previous experience in school that the teacher is never going to understand my child. And this is where I think it can be really helpful to pause and ask ourselves just a few gentle questions. I love this one. How old do I feel right now? Now, that's a funny question for me to ask because on some days I feel real old, but in these moments where the old emotion starts coming up, like, how old do I feel right now? What is this part of me that is rising up in the fear or the grief or the anger or the frustration? What am I afraid is going to happen? What ending am I urgently trying to prevent? And what did I need then in my childhood that I might be able to offer myself now? That you can offer yourself now, and then perhaps also your child. And asking these questions, I want to encourage you if you feel like you run into these spots, the key is asking them of yourself in a way that's not an accusation, right? We are being curious. We are being curious. They are simply um questions to help us understand. Because sometimes the teacher really does misunderstand the child. And sometimes the classroom environment really is a poor fit. And sometimes adult advocacy is absolutely necessary. And we're actually going to talk more about that in the next episode. But this self-awareness helps us distinguish between what the present situation requires and what our history is begging us, asking us to resolve. Your child should not have to live a certain life that it has to go a certain way in order to prove that your life could have been different. Because sometimes without intending to, we become so deeply invested in our children without receiving the opportunities or the recognition or friendships or particular outcomes that we did not receive. And of course we want good things for them. Of course you're a mom and you love your kids and you want good things for them. But their life cannot become the correction of ours. That's that's the thing, right? They may make totally different choices, they most likely will, and they may not care about the same things we cared about. They may have strengths that look like ours in some ways, but express them in a completely different way. And they may even reject an opportunity we would have desperately wanted. And, you know, I again, I used to work with teenagers and young adults and worked with their and with their families. I still do, but I used to work with them really intensely. And it pained me particularly when I'd see parents put subtle or not so subtle expectations on their children to pursue opportunities that really mattered to the parent, but not to the kid. And again, this this is for every child, not just gifted kids. But I think when you're dealing with a gifted child, a gifted adolescent, there's so much potential and there's so many things they could do really well. And so I remember one time there was a family, uh, the parents were both parents were athletes, and their expectation of their child was that Olympic training was like the path, Olympic level athlete. This young man was incredibly, incredibly intelligent in so many ways. Um, and he was very athletic, and he could have probably done it. But I remember him coming to me at some point, and for a lot of different reasons, he made some different decisions that made it really impossible at a certain point to pursue that. And then later it was something else his parents wanted him to go to college and a certain kind of college and of a certain level and you know, major in something particular that would bring him a lot of external success and therefore their own validation. And he went through a period of wanting to do that and then sorting through things and eventually sharing with me, um, and then ultimately his parents like that he didn't want to do that. That was a huge, huge turning point for him. And some of you may be able to relate to that, and some of us might realize that we, you know, it took us years, you know, years before we could have that kind of conversation with parents. But anyway, at this point, you are the parent. And part of loving them, part of loving your gifted child is allowing them to have their original life. And then healing doesn't mean our past stops mattering to us, but it does mean our past does not have to make every decision in our current life. That's what healing can do for us. And lastly, as I wrap up, I want to talk about something that's really important. And that is what happens when both mother and child feel things deeply. Two intense nervous systems can amplify one another very quickly. Can I get an amen? This is definitely true of my daughter and I. I've worked with a lot of parent-child dynamics where this was very much true, especially with moms. Not always the mom, sometimes it's the dad. But if your child is anxious and because you're highly attuned, then you immediately feel anxious about the anxiety, right? And your child sees a concern on your face and thinks, this must be even more serious than I realized. Or perhaps your child is upset about something that happened at school that was very unfair. And you also care deeply about fairness. And so before long, both of you are intensely passionate and arguing about the situation, even though you are technically on the same side. And sometimes both people, parent and child, are simply trying very hard to feel accurately understood. And I think it helps to make a distinction between empathy and fusion. This is really important because, like I said earlier, oftentimes mothers can have a lot of empathy with their kid. But we have to be careful it doesn't morph into fusion. So empathy says, I am with you. I get it. And fusion says, I must feel exactly what you feel, and I must make this feeling go away right now. Right. And the difference can be a little subtle and sometimes unclear, especially if those boundaries have, you know, for whatever reason, weren't clear to begin with. And I think especially for loving mothers who are naturally more perceptive and emotionally responsive, this can be a challenge. But one of the most loving things that we can offer our children, gifted or not, is our steadiness. Not total detachment, necessarily, not like coldness, but warm, loving steadiness. And oftentimes what that means is regulating us before we begin to interpret, right? So it's maybe slowing down our speech, using fewer words. This is a big one that I have to work on myself and I help other parents do. Taking one breath before asking the next question. And we might say, I can see that this really matters to you. And I'm gonna take a breath so I can listen well. Your calm is so important. It's the shelter, it's that safe place, it's that foundation. And this is also where the boundaries become really important because gifted mothers sometimes worry that boundaries will make them somehow like less responsive or less emotionally available. But a boundary is not the withdrawal of love, it is a container for your love. So you are responsible for safety and guidance and limits and repair and helping your child build the skills they need, right, in the world. But you are not responsible for preventing every possible disappointment that happens in your child's life. And you are not responsible for making every outcome fair. And there's gonna be a lot of situations in your child's life, especially outside your home where it's not gonna feel fair. And you're not responsible for controlling how your child feels about a reasonable limit. Your child may be unhappy when you say no. Most kids I know don't really love to hear no. And gifted kids can be highly verbal and highly intense and have all sorts of reactions, but that does not automatically mean the boundary was wrong, right? So, this is what I mean by staying deeply connected without becoming fused. We have to, we have to strike that right balance. That connection doesn't require exact sameness or 100% agreement all the time or, you know, immediate relief. You want to strike that balance so you can say with your actions and your words, I can support you, my child that I love, without taking full ownership of your life. And of course, that is gonna shift and look different ways as your child develops and grows. Okay, I'm gonna leave you with one simple practice at the end of this episode here. We're wrapping things up. The acronym is PAUSE. I just want to give you a practical tool that you can use in an emotionally charged moment where your gifted brain and intensity is interacting with your child's gifted brain and intensity. And this can work with any kid, but this is really important. I'm calling it pause, not because I think parenting, you know, is all about nice little acronyms, but it's nice because maybe hopefully you can remember. But the pause itself is often what gives us enough room to respond differently. So P P is the pause, right? Pause the urgency. You may still feel urgent, you are simply deciding that urgency will not make the next decision for you. So we need to pause. A is ask. Ask what belongs to my child and what belongs to me. And you don't need a perfect answer. Even just asking the question to ourselves can create a little separation, right? U is understanding before advising. You might ask, what was the hardest part about that? Or what do you wish I understood? Or even do you want me to listen, help you think through this, or do you want me to help you take action? Okay. This is separate support from rescue. This is very important, Mamas. Whose task is this? Now again, whether you have a five-year-old or a 15-year-old, it's gonna probably look a little different. What support looks like. But does your child need comfort, maybe coaching, collaboration, or do they need actual adult intervention? What part can your child own? You got to separate supporting them from stepping in and rescuing them because that does not do them any good in the long run. And lastly, ease for engage. Engage from your values. Choose the next response that serves connection, growth, and safety, not simply the response that reduces everyone's discomfort the fastest. So let's imagine your child comes home upset about an unfair group project. Oh my gosh, how many gifted kids hate group projects? That was me for sure. And you notice immediate anger. And maybe it touches an old memory of being overlooked or having to carry other people's work. Does that sound familiar? So you pause. The P. And then the A. You ask yourself what belongs to whom. You listen to what actually happened. You ask your child what outcome they want. And then together you decide whether the next step is maybe tolerating some frustration or practicing a conversation. Maybe it's asking the teacher a question, or maybe involving adult, or maybe it's involving another adult more directly. Self-awareness is key. And it doesn't take away or make you less instinctive as a mother. It actually makes your instincts more trustworthy. Because we all have that motherly instinct. But when we react from it all the time without giving ourselves that pause, sometimes it gets a little wonky. You know what I mean? So you do not need to be completely healed or completely untriggered to parent well. Trust me. I spent decades of healing on all sorts of different levels. And you know what? We parent the best we can with intention, and we're still going to be healing. We're still going to be learning new things. You simply just need to find a path back to yourself. And before I close, there's one more piece, one more piece that I want to name because I think it's particularly important for gifted mothers. And that is, I talked about this in a previous episode, but many gifted women deeply love big mothers. You know, they're fascinated by their children, they they care intensely, they want to create a meaningful family life. And they usually find motherhood to be one of the richest and the most important parts of who they are. And at the very same time, they may still need and desire and hunger for intellectual challenge or outlets for creativity and a deeper sense of purpose. Not that parenting is not so full of purpose, but maybe something that is just bigger, a larger purpose than just one's own family. Or maybe it's around work or learning or just having space to develop, you know, ideas of their own. And these realities, the loving motherhood and wanting to be fully engaged in it, and then also having these desires for other things, they're not in conflict. They don't have to be. And wanting room for your own mind does not mean you love your children less. It doesn't make you selfish. In fact, when, in my experience, when a gifted woman and mother abandons every part of herself outside of caregiving, she may become often more depleted, more restless, and sometimes like more emotionally entangled, that often happens, with her children, because so much of her identity and purpose has narrowed into their lives only. And there's nothing bigger to contain her. So that can be, it doesn't always have to happen that way. Like if you're a stay-at-home mom and that's your full-time thing, awesome. You just have to be careful that you don't get too fused, right? Your child benefits, every child benefits from seeing their mother as a whole person when she can remain a whole person. And they benefit from watching you care for your own gifts and your own growth and your own relationships and your own calling because you are modeling it for them, what you want for them. And that too is part of a healthy, differentiated love and closeness. Like it's that balance of I can love you profoundly without making you the only place, the only place where my identity lives. And I can tell you, as a mom who is at this stage of the journey on the other side of actively parenting, now as a grandmother, I am so thankful that I had parts of my identity and my strengths expressed in places outside of motherhood. And that doesn't always mean you have a full-time out-of-the-home job. That can be being a complete stay-at-home mom while also volunteering in this thing that you love or creating space in your home to paint or whatever it is. So it doesn't, please don't hear me. This is not about whether you should be working outside the home or not. This is just about creating space in your life to be all the parts of yourself as a gifted woman, especially as you're raising your gifted children to figure that out for themselves. So as you move through this week, I want to invite you to notice, as always, we're not judging, we are just noticing what quality in your child feels most familiar to you, and which of their struggles creates the greatest urgency in you. And where might empathy be slipping into fusion or perhaps rescue? And what might your younger self need from you not from your child? These are really tender questions, but I believe they're also very fraying questions. And one of the beautiful things about parenting is that our children do not just grow up, but we do. We do too. And they invite us into these places we might never have revisited on our own, right? And sometimes that's painful and sometimes that's joyful and beautiful, but I I think it can also become just one of God's greatest, most gracious gifts to us because every time we become a little more aware, every time we choose curiosity instead of urgency or like we had to fix it. And every time we separate our personal story from our children's, we create more freedom. We create freedom for our children to become the people they were created to be, and freedom for us to meet our own story with compassion rather than continuing to live from it unconsciously. My friend, your giftedness may help you notice more, feel more, and understand complex patterns within your family. Those are real gifts, and self-awareness helps you carry those gifts without turning them into pressure for yourself or for your child. Understanding your gifted child often becomes that invitation, whether we like it or not, to better understand yourself. And when you accept that invitation, you offer both generations something powerful. The freedom to be deeply connected without needing to become the exact same person. Thanks for hanging out with me today. I know this was a lot and it can touch on some tender spots. I hope that it served you in some way. And if you have a friend who you think is going through some interaction, being a gifted mom with a gifted kid, maybe you share this with her today. Next week, we are going to take this self-awareness into the very practical question of advocacy, which is a huge thing, again, for any parent, but whenever you have a child that doesn't fit the mainstream, we really do have to understand how to do this well. And so we're going to talk about when to step in, when to step back, how to support a gifted child without taking over, the very experiences, right, that can help them build the confidence and resilience that we want to see. So join me next week. I hope you have a wonderful week. Until then, keep flourishing. Thank you for listening to the Power to Flourish podcast. I hope today's conversation left you feeling more seen, more supported, and more deeply connected to yourself. If this episode resonated, would you take a moment to subscribe, leave a review, or share it with a friend? It's one of the best ways to help this work reach the women who need it most. You'll find show notes, links, and resources from today's episode at powertoflourish.com. And now just a quick reminder: this podcast is for educational and informational purposes. Not therapy, medical advice, or substitute. If you're looking for a coach, you know where to find.