An Uncommon Life

Psychiatry and the pharmaceuticals they recommend to treat ADHD, ADD, depression and other mental health issues should be of concern to the parents of gifted children. It has been said (and from my own experience, I agree most heartily) that a gifted youngster often has trouble sitting still in a class room. He or she may be a bit dreamy and uninterested in memorizing the multiplication tables. She might doodle rather than be willing to listen to a lecture that has nothing to do with her own purposes and goals. To a teacher who has been won over to the dark side (psychiatry) these are symptoms of mental illness!

Having raised two gifted children, and having been so labeled myself as a girl, I want to warn parents from a position of some familiarity with the above behavior. I am speaking as a mother and a grandmother. Please do not take the advice of teachers who recommend your child be seen by a psychiatrist for evaluation and possible drugging. Please make sure your gifted child is protected from damage from psychiatric drugging. Home school them if you must, or at least find a school for them that  understands young artists and is willing to work with their unique abilities and ways of learning.

I cannot separate my daughter’s  passionate nature from her art, because that is the way she meant to change the world. She had a burning purpose to uplift society, to send it rocketing skyward from its plunging and dwindling spiral down. She believed that artists were the ones to get that job done.

When Cedar died, I felt the world had lost a great crusader for change. I guess most of us have endless  hope invested in our children’s potential. I had it in droves.

Cedar was not only immensely talented, but had an incredibly strong purpose to use her gifts to help. In her twenty years, she did a damned good job.

What effect did she go for, above all others? Laughter. Belly-achingly, unstoppable “guffawing until you” cry laughter. She thought there was too much sorrow and seriousness all around. Much of her art, and most everything she wrote was funny. Her heroes were Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Laurel & Hardy.

Cedar had her private sorrows, but laughter was the antidote she prescribed for herself and life in general. It’s what I try to remember when things get to feeling awfully serious, which seems easy these days.  Cedar died before the economy took its plunge and the great oil leak began creating havoc with some of the gulf shoreline. She would have been concerned with today’s events, of course. But she still would have recommended a good belly laugh to balance things out.

Daydreaming may be a forgotten art. What happened to lazing around on a Saturday morning in bed, letting your mind peacefully wander far away? Or stretching out by the river, your fishing pole just a prop while you “travel” to other realms?

It is difficult when our lives are jammed with activity, most of which  are perfectly necessary and legitimate. But I have noticed something interesting. Whenever I am creating (which happens with some regularity, out of necessity in my profession) I “space out” for a few minutes, and stare out the studio window.

Not for long. Sometimes just a few quiet seconds allows a creative bubble to work its way to the surface. It doesn’t involve effort at all. More a state of just  “being.”

I think everyone can develop this technique.  I think it is built into our nature, and obscured by all the visual and attention stealing noise in the environment.

Try retreating for a few moments and visit your creative side. Then let me know how it went! – Merry

I think of all children as being gifted. Maybe I am naive, but I cannot look at a baby and imagine anything but a life of creation for that child.

Tooks the Mushroom Fairy

It has been said that children’s art is some of the best and most creative. I have studio walls covered top to bottom with my granddaughter’s drawings. I don’t  display them just to make her feel good. I tape them to my walls because seeing them  make me feel good. How could you NOT smile at this rendition of Tooks, the Mushroom Fairy? (by Ada Rosenfield)

So how do you raise a gifted child? I am not an “expert”, but having raised a couple of artists myself, I do have some opinions:

• Do not “correct” their creations
• Encourage  their art, music, stories and so on
• Display the ones you especially love
• And most importantly, do not stifle your own creativity

Seeing a parent pursue his or her artistic goals creates  a strong reality that it can be done. What would you love to create? A child is like a sponge, soaking up the joy of creation that surrounds him. Of course, he will soak up heartbreak and cruelty as well. We can choose quite a bit of what our little sponges absorb.-Merry