Eldering: Taking the Next Step

Hi! I haven’t written a new column in a very long time. The last couple years have been challenging. Health issues and the loss of both of my parents have brought me to a new phase in my life: the role of elder.

When we are parenting young children, or developing our careers, it is hard to imagine reaching a point at which all our priorities shift. During the first half of our lives, we’re not only the center of our own lives, we are also central to so many other lives around us. Our children, our parents, our friends and relations, our colleagues and co-workers, our communities, all depend on us. We build complex networks that require nurturing. One needs to have boundless energy to try to meet all the demands.

Throughout my life, I have been the Energizer Bunny: I just kept going and going and going… And then, one day, I wanted to keep going but my body stopped. I had to learn how to be on the receiving end. That, in itself, was a challenge. I was used to giving to others rather than having them give to me. Instead of tending to the needs of my friends and colleagues, I tended to the beautiful flowers they sent me.

The moment we discover that we are not immortal, nor indispensable, our lives are forever changed. It makes us search deeply for who we are and our purpose for being here. When the dance of doing subsides, we begin to ask ourselves essential questions: “Am I accomplishing my life’s purpose?” “What will become of all I have poured my energies into when I can no longer keep going and going and going?”

As long as our parents are alive, we feel young. Even the existence of an aunt or uncle allows us to consider ourselves “the younger generation.” My parents were the youngest members of their families. Living well into their nineties, they outlived all their siblings. I thought only my immediate family would feel the loss. It didn’t occur to me that their passing would precipitate identity changes in all my cousins on both sides of the family. We are now the elders.

What are the responsibilities of elders? In addition to guiding the young, we are in the remarkable position of having to replace ourselves, fully realizing that we are unique in the world and that no one can really take our place. We have to focus on what we feel is essential to be carried forward and then generate our successors. We have to let go of believing that the way we do things is the only right way they can be done. We have to nourish and honor the individuality of the next generation. It’s a lot like parenting:

We know we’ve succeeded when we’re no longer needed!

In the last year, I’ve learned painfully how much the Gifted Development Center depended on my being available to do presentations, consultations, write, see clients, etc. I definitely had not succeeded in becoming dispensable! I hadn’t even realized that this was an important goal. After all, wouldn’t the Energizer Bunny just keep going and going and going indefinitely? Now that I’ve woken up, I’m revisiting a vision I had in 1984, when I was still on the faculty of the University of Denver. It was a real vision—a mystical experience—the only vision I ever had in my entire life.

There was a beautiful brick building with a view of the mountains. On the door was a bronze plaque with the name, “Institute for the Study of Advanced Development.” The purposes of the Institute were three-pronged: teaching, research and service. These were essentially the same purposes as a college, but there was a marked difference in structure. The Institute was non-hierarchical. The finest students came to the Institute from all over the country for the opportunity of working on mutual goals and learning with leaders they respected. They worked side by side with their mentors, teaching their mentors as well as learning from them. It was difficult to tell the faculty from the students, as they all had great respect for each other’s contributions. It was collaboration in its finest sense.

Shortly after the vision came to me, the Dabrowski Study Group at the University of Denver, initiated by Frank Falk and myself, decided to become a 501(c)3 tax exempt organization. We adopted the name, “Institute for the Study of Advanced Development” (ISAD). Our main functions were to conduct research and to produce the first journal on adult giftedness, Advanced Development, in which we defined giftedness as devotion to higher human values: empathy, responsibility, integrity, autonomy, authenticity, moral courage, commitment, harmony. The Gifted Development Center, which provides services for the gifted of all ages, merged with ISAD in 1995.

Gradually, the vision began materializing in ways that astounded me. First, Kathi Kearney, who had founded the Hollingworth Center for Highly Gifted Children, came from New England for an internship. It was exactly as I had seen it in the vision! We were more productive in that month than either of us had ever been in our lives. I learned as much from Kathi as she did from me. The mentor/mentee roles merged into perfect collaboration. We organized a memorial conference in honor of Leta Hollingworth, conducted joint research on parents of exceptionally gifted children, wrote articles, and undertook numerous projects. What a wonderful experience it was for both of us!

After Kathi, the Institute continued to attract a steady stream of the finest minds in the country in pre- and postdoctoral internships. Frank Falk and Nancy Miller came from the University of Akron for postdoctoral internships. They helped us refine instruments for studying exceptionally gifted children and visual-spatial learners. They developed a system of converting clinical data so that it could be tabulated for empirical research. Then Karen Rogers, a pre-eminent researcher in gifted education from the University of St. Thomas at St. Paul, asked to do a postdoctoral internship with the Institute. She painstakingly coded and analyzed data from 241 files of children above 160 IQ, using the system that Nancy and Frank had constructed. This is the largest sample of exceptionally gifted children that has ever been studied.

In time, ISAD’s range of influence far surpassed my vision. We attracted interns from all over the globe: Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, and The Philippines. Recently, we established an international support group to extend the collaborative atmosphere found at our center. We continually host psychologists and counselors who want to learn how to assess gifted children and work more effectively with them. In 1998, Michael Piechowski, from Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin, taught two courses for the Institute on “Emotional Development and Emotional Giftedness” and “Transpersonal Psychology.” There were participants from as far away as Melbourne and Hong Kong. The Institute has become a worldwide drawing card.

Essentially, my vision has come to pass, except for the brick building. I truly believe that the building will materialize as well. It must so that there will be sufficient room for us to hold classes. We all yearn to do more teaching. Then the vision will be complete.

We are the guardians of the gifts, when they are buried or hard to detect, and others can only see the problems. We are the champions of gifted girls and women. We see the brilliance in those children with powerful right hemispheres—the artists, scientists, architects, visionaries, empaths—who may or may not do well in school. We are finding the gifted among the culturally diverse and economically challenged. We are a safe haven where children with spiritual experiences can be taken seriously.

Each Soul comes into existence with a mission to accomplish. The gifts the Soul brings are for the purpose of fulfilling that mission. The greater the gifts, the greater the mission. All who cherish and nurture gifted children provide the support they need to realize their Soul’s purpose. We are responsible for creating safe space for them to develop in their own unique ways. They need a Center that will help them recognize themselves—a place where they are seen, where they are understood, where they are appreciated for who they are, rather than for what they can do.

We’ve been told over and over again that our work has changed people’s lives. Have you been moved by our website or by our writings? Have you or your children or grandchildren or friends been helped by our staff? If you have been touched in any way by our work, or if you resonate with our vision, we pray that you will step forward to keep our efforts alive.

In my role as elder, it is my mission to see to it that the Institute for the Study of Advanced Development/Gifted Development Center continues to be there for generations to come. We need to pass on to parents, educators and mental health workers what we have learned about the gifted. Our continued existence proves that an agency based on collaboration can thrive. Please help me fulfill my mission.

Donations of any amount will be greatly appreciated and are tax deductible. Thank you.

Previous Columns:

• Eldering: Taking the Next Step
• Lessons from Aslan
• Confessions of a Non-Visual-Spatial Learner
• What Can We Say to the Children?
• Hail to Our Heroes
• Where Have All the Flowers Gone?
• Unconditional Love
• A Letter to Gifted Children