SuperBetter and Raising Resilient Kids

Off Topic
1

Crowdsourcing here.

I’m giving a talk to about 100 parents of gifted kids. I’d appreciate your help.

  1. Does anyone have experience with the SuperBetter app? It’s a game used to help people conquer anxiety and depression, or just have a better life. The developer, Jane McGonigal has done a couple of Ted Talks, and written a book. Experiences?

Is there anything about it that would make it inappropriate for young kids? I’m having a hard time finding reviews by children or teens. I love the idea of a game that uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to get people to develop healthier habits. So simple. So cheap.

  1. My topic is “Growing Giftedness: How to Nurture Great Kids”
    When someone says, “That’s a great kid!”, or “You have great kids!” - What comes to mind?

  2. If you have experiences that really helped you or your children develop resilience, I’d love to hear them. By resilience, I’m talking about the ability to keep trying, endure, work at the edge of one’s ability, bounce back from failure, have grit. What was the most important thing in your life that helped you develop this trait? and/or Was there one thing that helped you teach it to your kids?

Thank you!

Puff

2

[quote]Powerpuff wrote:

  1. Does anyone have experience with the SuperBetter app? It’s a game used to help people conquer anxiety and depression, or just have a better life. The developer, Jane McGonigal has done a couple of Ted Talks, and written a book. Experiences?

Is there anything about it that would make it inappropriate for young kids? I’m having a hard time finding reviews by children or teens. I love the idea of a game that uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to get people to develop healthier habits. So simple. So cheap.[/quote]

Well, that was good marketing on your part, since now I’m going to look into it.

[quote]2. My topic is “Growing Giftedness: How to Nurture Great Kids”
When someone says, “That’s a great kid!”, or “You have great kids!” - What comes to mind?[/quote]

When you say great kid, I generally think well-behaved, well-spoken, good manners, polite. Stuff like that.

But from a “gifted” standpoint, I think of creativity and the ability to think and reason for oneself. Which I personally think can be strengthened by 1) providing a lot of creative outlets (musically, artistically, engineering/building/inventing), 2) limiting passive entertainment (games, TV, [and I guess these days, Facebook, texting and forums]), and 3) providing access to knowledge. I don’t know what a good modern equivalent would be, but weekly trips to the library were a normal thing for me and my friends.

I’m not sure. Playground fighting I’d say is the way a lot of kids (boys) build that, as just a character trait. Some equivalent from an intellectual, knowledge-driven standpoint might work… but then you run into issues with developing good debate skills rather than actually producing anything.

On a personal level, I was questioning the way things were taught in school since I was in 2nd grade… but that’s me.

Although, I think a certain part of being “allowed to get hurt” when I played was important. I spent 3 years in French schooling before we moved back to the US, and this was normal. The teachers weren’t all “don’t do that, you’ll get hurt!” like they were in the US. I’d say that was pretty formative in just learning to “pick yourself up and try again”.

3

[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
Crowdsourcing here.

I’m giving a talk to about 100 parents of gifted kids. I’d appreciate your help.

  1. Does anyone have experience with the SuperBetter app? It’s a game used to help people conquer anxiety and depression, or just have a better life. The developer, Jane McGonigal has done a couple of Ted Talks, and written a book. Experiences?

Is there anything about it that would make it inappropriate for young kids? I’m having a hard time finding reviews by children or teens. I love the idea of a game that uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to get people to develop healthier habits. So simple. So cheap. [/quote]

Sorry, no help here, but I used to play word games and math games and such on my computer (286/2 Baby!). I would have fallen into the “gifted child” category(not MENSA gifted, but advanced placement and top 10% of my school without really trying) and I attribute much of that to these games. Not just computer games, but anything I can get my hands on: Matching games, puzzles, anything that required me to figure something out.

Now that I write this out, it’s no wonder I’m so competitive. But my competitiveness isn’t about winning, it’s about the fun in the experience and the challenge.

[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
2. My topic is “Growing Giftedness: How to Nurture Great Kids”
When someone says, “That’s a great kid!”, or “You have great kids!” - What comes to mind?[/quote]

Someone who can understand concepts versus the rules derived from concepts. For example, someone who can understand things like: Time value money equations are really the derivation of one equation.

A lot of kids try to memorize all equations, but a gifted kid would say “well I’ll just remember one equation and then solve for the missing variable”.

To further broaden this idea, the ability to understand and identify allegory is another example.

Kids that have a higher level understanding of things in general.

[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
3. If you have experiences that really helped you or your children develop resilience, I’d love to hear them. By resilience, I’m talking about the ability to keep trying, endure, work at the edge of one’s ability, bounce back from failure, have grit. What was the most important thing in your life that helped you develop this trait? and/or Was there one thing that helped you teach it to your kids?

Thank you!

Puff[/quote]

I think support my support system- my parents, my teachers- and an innate competitiveness with myself. I wanted to be a better than I was and my support system believed in me and supported my goals through various means, but never compelled me because they wanted it for me if that makes any sense.

4

I tried to come up with answers to your questions, but I’ve really got nothing of value. Here are some thoughts I have:

  1. A lot of times this comes down to a child being polite and having manners. I’m not sure that helps you, though.

If this is in the context of intelligence or sports or something else, comments like these are usually reserved for an impressive performance of some sort (good grades, good games, etc.) and may not be indicative of what you mention (perseverance, practice, etc.) but could be very natural.

  1. I think failure is necessary for everyone. I think the trick is finding the right balance of how much failure a child should be exposed to. Too much failure and the child may accept it and it could really hurt long term self esteem. Too little failure and the child comes to a point in which they are so uncomfortable with failure that they avoid trying things they think they will fail at and never challenge themselves. I think this balancing act is different in all children and quite frankly, I have no idea how to get it right.

Those are my preliminary thoughts, but great thread and I would love to watch/listen to your presentation when it’s complete.

5

[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
3. If you have experiences that really helped you or your children develop resilience, I’d love to hear them. By resilience, I’m talking about the ability to keep trying, endure, work at the edge of one’s ability, bounce back from failure, have grit. What was the most important thing in your life that helped you develop this trait? and/or Was there one thing that helped you teach it to your kids?[/quote]
I guess I’ll go ahead and be the guy who just says deadlifts.

6

I was a “gifted” child that went to a publicly-funded residential high school for gifted students (Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics and Humanities). I’ll give you my $0.02 on this topic.

  1. Sorry, I don’t know anything about it.

  2. Nothing related to intelligence. Being a “great kid” is all about effort and applying yourself. Being a “great kid” is allowing yourself to be guided to make good decisions in life. Being a “great kid” is becoming a well-rounded person at a young age and developing the physical, mental and emotional qualities that are universally admired. There were plenty of kids at my gifted and talented high school who possessed exceptional aptitude but few of the qualities I just mentioned.

  3. Failure. Being a gifted child means that things come easy. I was a top student without even trying, and I was taking all of the AP-level courses. Actually, I was a top student while doing everything that the adults in my life told me not to do - specifically partying, staying up late, hanging with dregs, making poor health choices, etc. I did not have any significant failures until I reached adulthood, at which point I struggled with those failures, making my 20’s a lot rockier than they needed to be. Simply stated, if you aren’t failing, you probably aren’t challenging yourself enough. Working through those failures is what develops resilience.

I hope this was helpful. Good luck with your talk!

7

[quote]csulli wrote:

[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
3. If you have experiences that really helped you or your children develop resilience, I’d love to hear them. By resilience, I’m talking about the ability to keep trying, endure, work at the edge of one’s ability, bounce back from failure, have grit. What was the most important thing in your life that helped you develop this trait? and/or Was there one thing that helped you teach it to your kids?[/quote]
I guess I’ll go ahead and be the guy who just says deadlifts.[/quote]

Ohhh, incorrect! The answer we were looking for is “squats & milk”.

8

[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
By resilience, I’m talking about the ability to keep trying, endure, work at the edge of one’s ability, bounce back from failure, have grit. What was the most important thing in your life that helped you develop this trait?[/quote]

In this order:

  1. G-d. His Torah. His promises.

  2. Military draft in Israel helps a lot of Israeli kids get discipline. Nothing unclouds the mind and sharpens ones focus like the possibility of getting yourself or your friends killed, or the fact that, if you fail, your family may be the ones who die. You become very serious very quickly. This applies to other things in your life.

  3. Weight lifting. I’m not an especially gifted athlete. But grinding out weights is incremental, with results of hard work being much more important than any natural gift. It instilled a lot of discipline in me. It is also a very singular activity.

9

[quote]twojarslave wrote:
3) Failure. Being a gifted child means that things come easy. I was a top student without even trying, and I was taking all of the AP-level courses. Actually, I was a top student while doing everything that the adults in my life told me not to do - specifically partying, staying up late, hanging with dregs, making poor health choices, etc. I did not have any significant failures until I reached adulthood, at which point I struggled with those failures, making my 20’s a lot rockier than they needed to be. Simply stated, if you aren’t failing, you probably aren’t challenging yourself enough. Working through those failures is what develops resilience.
[/quote]
Holy shit dude this is me to a T! I always tell people that the only thing I learned in school was that I didn’t have to work hard. It will eventually come back to bite you even if you have to learn that lesson 10 years later than everyone else.

10

I don’t know if I can be of any help but as a parent of four young men, I have seen my share of almost everything. I have one in college, two who are in a “Gifted” or “Advanced” program and a fourth that is a “Special needs” The “Special needs” had a stroke at the age of four months; a heartache I wish on no one. The oldest is on an athletic scholarship. So I have been all over the spectrum when it comes to seeing them deal with success and failure. If you really want to see determination, look toward the special needs person. You will start to understand that what comes easy to most, they struggle with and in that you will find a quiet determination.

As for parenting, except nothing less than the best from your children. Another one I’m big on and this is evident in anything I have written or said; I’m raising 4 men, not 4 boys. Raise boys and you get an older boy, raise men and you get men. Treat them like an adult; explain why or why not as opposed to the old “Because I said so”. When I’m dead and gone, they will have the ability to make the right choices even if that day is tomorrow.

To echo Jewbacca, have faith in something greater than yourself. I fall short as a Christian sometimes but my children know if it’s important for Dad to get his ass in a pew on Sunday, it’s has to be important.

On a lighter note, spend time with them. They need to see BOTH Mom and Dad’s failures and successes. And lastly; take them fishing!

11

[quote]csulli wrote:

[quote]twojarslave wrote:
3) Failure. Being a gifted child means that things come easy. I was a top student without even trying, and I was taking all of the AP-level courses. Actually, I was a top student while doing everything that the adults in my life told me not to do - specifically partying, staying up late, hanging with dregs, making poor health choices, etc. I did not have any significant failures until I reached adulthood, at which point I struggled with those failures, making my 20’s a lot rockier than they needed to be. Simply stated, if you aren’t failing, you probably aren’t challenging yourself enough. Working through those failures is what develops resilience.
[/quote]
Holy shit dude this is me to a T! I always tell people that the only thing I learned in school was that I didn’t have to work hard. It will eventually come back to bite you even if you have to learn that lesson 10 years later than everyone else.[/quote]

Was pretty much me as well and I definitely agree. Luckily I had a handful of “failures” to ground me early enough on.

12

[quote]doublelung84 wrote:
And lastly; take them fishing!
[/quote]

Would be a great time for any kids of mine to see “Dad” fail.

13

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]csulli wrote:

[quote]twojarslave wrote:
3) Failure. Being a gifted child means that things come easy. I was a top student without even trying, and I was taking all of the AP-level courses. Actually, I was a top student while doing everything that the adults in my life told me not to do - specifically partying, staying up late, hanging with dregs, making poor health choices, etc. I did not have any significant failures until I reached adulthood, at which point I struggled with those failures, making my 20’s a lot rockier than they needed to be. Simply stated, if you aren’t failing, you probably aren’t challenging yourself enough. Working through those failures is what develops resilience.
[/quote]
Holy shit dude this is me to a T! I always tell people that the only thing I learned in school was that I didn’t have to work hard. It will eventually come back to bite you even if you have to learn that lesson 10 years later than everyone else.[/quote]

Was pretty much me as well and I definitely agree. Luckily I had a handful of “failures” to ground me early enough on. [/quote]

Same boat here. And if I hadn’t, the Army certainly made sure I’d fail in Basic. :wink: haha

Nice positive thread here.

14

[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
Crowdsourcing here.

I’m giving a talk to about 100 parents of gifted kids. I’d appreciate your help.

  1. Does anyone have experience with the SuperBetter app? It’s a game used to help people conquer anxiety and depression, or just have a better life. The developer, Jane McGonigal has done a couple of Ted Talks, and written a book. Experiences?

Is there anything about it that would make it inappropriate for young kids? I’m having a hard time finding reviews by children or teens. I love the idea of a game that uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to get people to develop healthier habits. So simple. So cheap.

  1. My topic is “Growing Giftedness: How to Nurture Great Kids”
    When someone says, “That’s a great kid!”, or “You have great kids!” - What comes to mind?

  2. If you have experiences that really helped you or your children develop resilience, I’d love to hear them. By resilience, I’m talking about the ability to keep trying, endure, work at the edge of one’s ability, bounce back from failure, have grit. What was the most important thing in your life that helped you develop this trait? and/or Was there one thing that helped you teach it to your kids?

Thank you!

Puff[/quote]

I think about this stuff a lot so this is a great question.

  1. No idea, sorry.

  2. When I hear “great kid” I think of one who is well adjusted to society, cares about other people, and tries hard at what they do.

  3. I was forced into resilience having moved every 3 -4 years of my life. That experience of always have to start over made me very resilient and confident. Combine that with tours in both the Army and Marine Corps and I got a lot of practice with that. I’ve always been competitive against myself and not other people so I think that is one thing that really helped me out too. But I’ve definitely gotten more resilient with age.

For my son I’m really trying to teach him that the struggle or path to get to a destination is what counts. My son won’t have the same experiences that I did as a kid so I’ll need to guide him in that way. I’m going to do my best to teach him that failure is OK and it’s getting past that which is important. I’ll do that through my actions and by taking chances myself. I try to relate to him my failures now and how I overcome them. Most people are scared to fail. I don’t see anything as a true failure unless I simply don’t bounce back. But I think that’s something that people need to practice. So the one thing? Practice failing.

james

15

[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
Crowdsourcing here.

I’m giving a talk to about 100 parents of gifted kids. I’d appreciate your help.

  1. Does anyone have experience with the SuperBetter app? It’s a game used to help people conquer anxiety and depression, or just have a better life. The developer, Jane McGonigal has done a couple of Ted Talks, and written a book. Experiences?

Is there anything about it that would make it inappropriate for young kids? I’m having a hard time finding reviews by children or teens. I love the idea of a game that uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to get people to develop healthier habits. So simple. So cheap.

  1. My topic is “Growing Giftedness: How to Nurture Great Kids”
    When someone says, “That’s a great kid!”, or “You have great kids!” - What comes to mind?

  2. If you have experiences that really helped you or your children develop resilience, I’d love to hear them. By resilience, I’m talking about the ability to keep trying, endure, work at the edge of one’s ability, bounce back from failure, have grit. What was the most important thing in your life that helped you develop this trait? and/or Was there one thing that helped you teach it to your kids?

Thank you!

Puff[/quote]

I am the father of three daughters age 22,19 and 17

Absolutely, and without a doubt, get them as heavily involved as possible in some type of group activity at an EARLY age.

In my case it was athletics.

By affording them the opportunities of prolonged and consistent exposure in group setting’s amongst their peer’s it ingrains within them the values of confidence, competitiveness and perseverance.

Of course, as a parent, one needs not only to provide these opportunities for their children but to encourage and support it through all of it’s high’s and low’s.

Yes, I have great kids and am often told so.

16

[quote]LoRez wrote:

[quote]Powerpuff wrote:

  1. Does anyone have experience with the SuperBetter app? It’s a game used to help people conquer anxiety and depression, or just have a better life. The developer, Jane McGonigal has done a couple of Ted Talks, and written a book. Experiences?

Is there anything about it that would make it inappropriate for young kids? I’m having a hard time finding reviews by children or teens. I love the idea of a game that uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to get people to develop healthier habits. So simple. So cheap.[/quote]

Well, that was good marketing on your part, since now I’m going to look into it.

[quote]2. My topic is “Growing Giftedness: How to Nurture Great Kids”
When someone says, “That’s a great kid!”, or “You have great kids!” - What comes to mind?[/quote]

When you say great kid, I generally think well-behaved, well-spoken, good manners, polite. Stuff like that.

But from a “gifted” standpoint, I think of creativity and the ability to think and reason for oneself. Which I personally think can be strengthened by 1) providing a lot of creative outlets (musically, artistically, engineering/building/inventing), 2) limiting passive entertainment (games, TV, [and I guess these days, Facebook, texting and forums]), and 3) providing access to knowledge. I don’t know what a good modern equivalent would be, but weekly trips to the library were a normal thing for me and my friends.

I’m not sure. Playground fighting I’d say is the way a lot of kids (boys) build that, as just a character trait. Some equivalent from an intellectual, knowledge-driven standpoint might work… but then you run into issues with developing good debate skills rather than actually producing anything.

On a personal level, I was questioning the way things were taught in school since I was in 2nd grade… but that’s me.

Although, I think a certain part of being “allowed to get hurt” when I played was important. I spent 3 years in French schooling before we moved back to the US, and this was normal. The teachers weren’t all “don’t do that, you’ll get hurt!” like they were in the US. I’d say that was pretty formative in just learning to “pick yourself up and try again”.[/quote]

LoRez, I’m not being compensated in anyway by the SuperBetter people, but I really wish I’d come up with the idea!! I’m intrigued as well. I’m going to get it and start playing around with it and see. Here’s a review and video about it. http://lifehacker.com/5902598/superbetter-is-a-game-that-rewards-you-for-healthy-living-and-working-towards-your-goals

Thanks so much for your responses. I’m trying to anticipate what people are going to say, so that was fantastic.

We have become super protective of kids these days. The safety related playground rules at my daughter’s elementary are just mind boggling. And I completely agree about the need to limit participation in passive activities so kids have more time for real life experiences.

17

[quote]ZJStrope wrote:

[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
Crowdsourcing here.

I’m giving a talk to about 100 parents of gifted kids. I’d appreciate your help.

  1. Does anyone have experience with the SuperBetter app? It’s a game used to help people conquer anxiety and depression, or just have a better life. The developer, Jane McGonigal has done a couple of Ted Talks, and written a book. Experiences?

Is there anything about it that would make it inappropriate for young kids? I’m having a hard time finding reviews by children or teens. I love the idea of a game that uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to get people to develop healthier habits. So simple. So cheap. [/quote]

Sorry, no help here, but I used to play word games and math games and such on my computer (286/2 Baby!). I would have fallen into the “gifted child” category(not MENSA gifted, but advanced placement and top 10% of my school without really trying) and I attribute much of that to these games. Not just computer games, but anything I can get my hands on: Matching games, puzzles, anything that required me to figure something out.

Now that I write this out, it’s no wonder I’m so competitive. But my competitiveness isn’t about winning, it’s about the fun in the experience and the challenge.

[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
2. My topic is “Growing Giftedness: How to Nurture Great Kids”
When someone says, “That’s a great kid!”, or “You have great kids!” - What comes to mind?[/quote]

Someone who can understand concepts versus the rules derived from concepts. For example, someone who can understand things like: Time value money equations are really the derivation of one equation.

A lot of kids try to memorize all equations, but a gifted kid would say “well I’ll just remember one equation and then solve for the missing variable”.

To further broaden this idea, the ability to understand and identify allegory is another example.

Kids that have a higher level understanding of things in general.

[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
3. If you have experiences that really helped you or your children develop resilience, I’d love to hear them. By resilience, I’m talking about the ability to keep trying, endure, work at the edge of one’s ability, bounce back from failure, have grit. What was the most important thing in your life that helped you develop this trait? and/or Was there one thing that helped you teach it to your kids?

Thank you!

Puff[/quote]

I think support my support system- my parents, my teachers- and an innate competitiveness with myself. I wanted to be a better than I was and my support system believed in me and supported my goals through various means, but never compelled me because they wanted it for me if that makes any sense.
[/quote]

JZ - thank you for your insights. And for bringing up the importance of support systems and good mentors. There’s a book called The Talent Code, that talks a lot about the qualities of master coaches or teachers who are gifted at helping kids excel. It can make all the difference.

18

[quote]LankyMofo wrote:
I tried to come up with answers to your questions, but I’ve really got nothing of value. Here are some thoughts I have:

  1. A lot of times this comes down to a child being polite and having manners. I’m not sure that helps you, though.

If this is in the context of intelligence or sports or something else, comments like these are usually reserved for an impressive performance of some sort (good grades, good games, etc.) and may not be indicative of what you mention (perseverance, practice, etc.) but could be very natural.

  1. I think failure is necessary for everyone. I think the trick is finding the right balance of how much failure a child should be exposed to. Too much failure and the child may accept it and it could really hurt long term self esteem. Too little failure and the child comes to a point in which they are so uncomfortable with failure that they avoid trying things they think they will fail at and never challenge themselves. I think this balancing act is different in all children and quite frankly, I have no idea how to get it right.

Those are my preliminary thoughts, but great thread and I would love to watch/listen to your presentation when it’s complete. [/quote]

Lanky, Thanks for taking the time. Yes, that was helpful.

I’m going to talk about failure quite a bit. It’s a real problem with a lot of gifted kids. They are used to being told they are “so smart.” The smart kid label can become a negative thing if they start avoiding things where there’s a high likelihood of failure, looking stupid. There’s a fear that others will find out that they aren’t really “so smart” or great at everything.

Of course, avoiding situations where we are probably going to fail or be bad at something is true of most of us, but gifted kids sometimes have these higher expectations that can be restrictive. There’s the quote - “If you’re not willing to look stupid, nothing great is ever going to happen to you.” - True.

19

I have no practical experience in raising a great kid but am very interested in getting some.

I was considered gifted but not much ever came of it due to some environmental/behavioral problems.

20

[quote]twojarslave wrote:
I was a “gifted” child that went to a publicly-funded residential high school for gifted students (Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics and Humanities). I’ll give you my $0.02 on this topic.

  1. Sorry, I don’t know anything about it.

  2. Nothing related to intelligence. Being a “great kid” is all about effort and applying yourself. Being a “great kid” is allowing yourself to be guided to make good decisions in life. Being a “great kid” is becoming a well-rounded person at a young age and developing the physical, mental and emotional qualities that are universally admired. There were plenty of kids at my gifted and talented high school who possessed exceptional aptitude but few of the qualities I just mentioned.

  3. Failure. Being a gifted child means that things come easy. I was a top student without even trying, and I was taking all of the AP-level courses. Actually, I was a top student while doing everything that the adults in my life told me not to do - specifically partying, staying up late, hanging with dregs, making poor health choices, etc. I did not have any significant failures until I reached adulthood, at which point I struggled with those failures, making my 20’s a lot rockier than they needed to be. Simply stated, if you aren’t failing, you probably aren’t challenging yourself enough. Working through those failures is what develops resilience.

I hope this was helpful. Good luck with your talk!
[/quote]

Thank you! And yes, that was helpful. I teach gifted junior high kids - much like your younger self - in the summer and it’s one of the highlights of my year. So much fun.

What you said about many intellectually gifted kids who aren’t thriving because they lack some of the qualities/traits that bring life success really resonates. One of the smartest kids from my high school got caught up in alcohol/ drug addiction and other negative influences that really sidetracked his life. It was particularly sad because he had so much potential.