Therese Rowley, Ph.D.
Facilitating personal alignment, conscious community, and organizational integrity
Families with Intuitive Children
Listen Now.
Therese Rowley's WGN interview with Jen Weigel on "Intuitively Gifted Children"
More for Parents with Intuitive Children
Our Children’s Future
As a long time practitioner of transformation, I believe the next societal institution most in need of transformation is our educational systems.
There is a slowly expanding global awareness of that we have to rethink our definition and measurement of learning. Thanks to the increasing number of children showing up with gifts that don’t fit our collective idea of “normal,” and who are often diagnosed or misdiagnosed with labels such as“ADD,” “ADHD,” “bipolar,” “twice exceptional,” “gifted,” or “meta-gifted,” we are beginning to understand that if we don’t change our educational models, our future is at risk. These children are pioneers and teachers and future leaders. Their diverse talents challenge us to be more creative in our ways of engaging learning and preparing children for their future – one that does not look like the past.
As an intuitive, I see these children not as “disordered,” but as “differently ordered.” Rather than insist they conform to outmoded structures and processes of education, I believe if we pay attention differently, we can learn from them. Some of them cannot process the multiple levels of stimulation around them; others seem to live much of the time in other worlds; and still others are intensely focused exclusively on one area of interest. Medicating these children helps them to fit in and feel the approval of peers, teachers and even parents. In the process, we may be dulling down their gifts or shortchanging ourselves on their potential to learn differently than our current educational model allows. There are ways to support these children while enhancing our own understanding of where they are leading us.
Sessions for Children
When facilitating a Session with children who learn differently, a parent calls or visits the office and gives me their child’s name and the particular challenge with which they are faced. From there, I facilitate the parent’s greater understanding of the child, and sometimes other positive changes are experienced.
The objectives of this Session are:
- To offer intuitive insight concerning other lifetimes and how they influence the child’s current experience and reality
- To articulate the child’s soul lessons and/or life purpose
- To offer understanding as to why this child chose her/his parents
- To offer practical information on what’s important for the child’s environment, what schools are optimal, or other aspects of the child’s life about which the parents are concerned
- To be clear:
- I do not profess to heal children who learn differently, nor do I have any qualifications to make medical diagnosis regarding the children or their medications
- I cannot predict the outcome of the Session
The articles I’ve written below, as well as other resources listed, may be helpful in your own exploration:
Associations for Gifted Children
Supporting the Emotional Needs of Gifted Children
www.SENGifted.org
The National Association of Gifted Children:
www.NAGC.org
New Models for School Curriculum
All Kinds of Minds: A Young Student’s Book about Learning Abilities and Learning Disorders by Melvin D. Levine
www.allkindsofminds.org
Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century (2000) by Gardner, Howard, NY: Basic books
New Models/Insitutions of Learning
Independent schools association of the central states (1908)
www.ISAC.org
The Alternative Education Resource Organization (AERO)
The AERO is a non-profit organization founded in 1989 by education expert Jerry Mintz to advance learner-centered approaches to education.
www.educationrevolution.org
Association of Waldorf Schools of North America (AWSNA) – An association of independent schools working out of the pedagogical indications of Rudolf Steiner.
www.whywaldorfworks.org
MONTESSORI, International Montessori Index – Practical information for parents and teachers, with links to Montessori school lists, lectures, conferences, workshops, teacher training courses.
www.montessori.edu
Home Schooling
www.midnightbeach.com
Waldorf Inspired Homeschooling
www.waldorfhomeschoolers.com
Washington Homeschooling Support Group
www.washtpa.org
Alternate Learning Organization
The Caribbean Center of Home Education Resources
www.tchers.net
Consciousness-Based Education Association (CBEA) is a non-profit, educational organization that provides practical, scientifically validated educational programs, technologies, and consulting services for new schools, existing schools, and after-school organizations.
www.cbeprograms.org
Learning Path Institute, DCF - connecting children to community and leadership throughout their education, in Chicago.
www.designsforchange.org
Schools Attuned: To treat everyone the same is to treat them unequally. We are making a plea for the understanding of diversity, for greater flexibility in education. (Based on Mel Levine, M.D. Philosophy)
www.allkindsofminds.org
Prescott College, AZ, self-directed and self-designed experiential learning.
www.prescott.edu
Leelanau, Residential school for grades 9-12, that only accepts children diagnosed with ADD or ADHD, in Ann Arbor, MI.
www.leelanau.org
HET, a successful UK model for any child diagnosed with a learning disorder.
www.holisticeducationaltherapy.co.uk
Medication
Lawrence H. Diller, M.D.
Running on Ritalin: A Physician Reflects on Children, Society, and Performance in a Pill
Bantam Books: 1999
Should I Medicate My Child? Sane Solutions for Troubled Kids with — and without — Psychiatric Drugs Perseus Books Group: 2003
Judyth Reichenberg-Ullman, Robert Nd Ullman
Ritalin-Free Kids: Safe and Effective Homeopathic Medicine for ADHD and Other Behavioral and Learning Problems
Three Rivers Press: 2nd Rev edition, 2000
Richard Degrandpre
Ritalin Nation: Rapid-Fire Culture and the Transformation of Human Consciousness
John W. Whitehead 6/14/2004
The Rutherford Institute: Ritalin Nation: Are We Killing Our Children?
www.rutherford.org
Free Resources for Children with Learning Differences
Articles by Therese Rowley Ph.D.
(click to read and download pdfs)
ADD/ADHD Diagnosis and Children
Nutrition
Marcia Zimmerman
The A.D.D. Nutrition Solution: A Drug-Free 30 Day Plan, Owl Books; 1st edition, 1999
Rachel Bell, Howard Peiper
The A.D.D. and A.D.H.D. Diet! Updated: A Comprehensive Look at Contributing Factors and Natural Treatments for Symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder and Hyperactivity, Safe Goods/New Century Publishing 2000; 2001
Homework Help
Kimberly Kassner
Your’re A Genius and I Can Prove It., EmpowerMind, Mill Valley, CA, 1996
Glad L. Flick
Homework Skills Improvement Kit: A Training Resource Program To Help Children With ADD/ADHD, Seacoast Publications; 2001
Don Mordasini
Wild Child: How You Can Help Your Child with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Other Behavioral Disorders, Hawthorn Press; 1st edition; 2001
Centers of Research
Linda Silverman
The Gifted Development Center serves parents, schools, and advocacy groups with information about identification, assessment, counseling, learning styles, programs, presentations, and resources for gifted children and adults.
ADD-Holistic Resource Center; Provides information and links to holistic and alternative treatments for ADD. www.holisticmed.com
LiteBooks.net; Relaxation, Meditation, Books, CD’s and other resources for Children; www.LiteBooks.net
Twice Exceptional Children (children who are both gifted and have learning or attention difficulties)
Twice Exceptional Newsletter – Glen Ellyn Media – Linda Neumann and Mark Bade, are longtime professional writers and parents with personal experience in 2e issues. www.2enewsletter.com
Exercise And Movement
Bubbles Academy: Yoga, Art, Music and Motion, and Imagination classes for infants through six year olds. www.bubblesacademy.com
Spiritually Gifted ChildrenPiechowski, M.M., 1998 –
Emotional giftedness: The measure of interapersonal intelligence, N. Colangelo and G.A. Davis, Handbook of Gifted Education.(pp366-381) Needham Heights, MA
Allyn and Bacon Michele Kane, Antioch, IL – To obtain more information on emotionally and intuitively gifted children. Michelekane1@aol.com