Educational Consulting for Parent Groups

Parents are often overwhelmed by the demands and multi-faceted needs of their gifted children. Dr. Patty’s sensitive and reassuring presentation style, coupled with her vast and intimate knowledge of the inner workings of gifted children and families, creates an experience that changes the lives of participants. She responds to parents spoken and unspoken concerns with thorough and concise information, suggestions, practical tools, and strategies to enhance parental effectiveness and family harmony.

Dr. Patty adjusts her presentations to address varying stages of development, and specific traits, needs and concerns across the range of giftedness–moderate, highly and profoundly gifted-and twice-exceptional children.

Additionally, virtual presentations and teleconferencing services provide an accessible format for Dr, Patty to deliver pertinent information, parental guidance, and respond to parents’ questions and concerns.

Educational Consulting for Parent Groups
  • Being “out of sync” with age peers in many ways-asynchronous development
  • Difficulty making friends, and simply not fitting in
  • Intense expressions and reactions: physically, sensually, emotionally, intellectually and with imagination
  • Being emotionally sensitive, absorbing other’s emotions
  • Being physically sensitive and reactive to temperature, texture, smell, taste, light, noise, allergies
  • Stress, anxiety and depression
  • Cataclysmic thinking and fears
  • Dissatisfaction with classroom instruction and frustration with homework; advocacy needs
  • Requiring intellectual stimulation, wanting to pursue own interests, endlessly curious with passions
  • Vivid imagination, fantasy, imaginary worlds and friends
  • Depth and breadth of perceptivity, pursuing thorough details, vivid recall
  • Perfectionistic anxiety, being judgmental of self with thoughts of “not being good enough”
  • Self-expectation to excel at most things without instruction or effort, low frustration tolerance
  • Socially isolated, rejected, harassed, misunderstood, or mistreated

Assemblies for Gifted Students

(Grades 3-12; College Honors Programs)

Dr. Patty’s thoughtful and caring interactive style, coupled with her intimate understanding of the holistic inner workings of gifted children and adolescents, makes her an outstanding speaker with gifted students of diverse ethnicity, race and socio-economic class. Her empathic, perceptive and enthusiastic personality facilitates children’s comfort as they explore their giftedness from the inside out. Dr. Patty helps students reflect on their individuality and daily life experiences to understand and embrace how they are similar and different from chronological peers. Together they dialogue about their intensities, sensitivities, and academic, emotional and social challenges and difficulties.

Presentations address the concerns and needs of varying maturity levels of participants. Students cry, laugh, clap and shriek as they listen to her tell “their” personal story with humor, insight and wisdom.

Dr. Patty offers this service both in-person and through online connection with gifted youth across the nation. Teleconferencing allows her to interact spontaneously, guiding students to a more hopeful perspective, empowering new choices, and delivering reassurance and encouragement.

Assemblies for Gifted Students
  • What does the term gifted really mean? Can I be gifted and not do well in all classes? Do I have to constantly prove I am gifted? Can I choose not to be gifted?
  • Questioning whether the label itself has caused rejected by others. Where can I “fit in?” Is there anyone really like me? Can I have true friends my age?
  • Online classes are tedious, mind-numbing and tiresome. Without my friends to interact and joke with, everything seems dull. I now realize how necessary it is to have in-person contact with the teacher too. Not being able to ask questions and get immediate clarification, makes me confused, uninterested and even apathetic. I am afraid my grades and GPA are going to drop, but it is hard not to be lazy.
  • Will my parents and teachers always have high expectations of me? Will kids in my classes expect me to get the highest grade all the time? Do I have to always be “the best” to be personally satisfied? I want more than just schoolwork and good grades in my life.
  • Sometimes I am so bored in school. I feel unmotivated and uninspired. I am tired of all the memorization and homework. Most of the time it is meaningless. Is it always going to be this way?

Professional Development for Teachers, K-12

Dr. Patty, during in-service teacher training, provides information to end confusion and misperceptions of gifted students and aid teachers to more fully understand their intellectual, emotional, social and behavioral dynamics shown in the classroom. Incorporating decades of experience working with gifted and twice-exceptional children and adolescents, she assists teachers to integrate what it means to be gifted from the inside out so they can develop meaningful, cooperative relationships with these unique students. Teachers discover essential perspectives, words and behaviors to motivate and encourage productivity, and acquire tools and strategies to enhance gifted children’s academic and personal growth. Dr. Patty’s witty, sensitive and enthusiastic presentation style entertains and supports teachers, as they develop greater confidence in their ability to be a “gifted teacher” and not just a teacher of the gifted.

Virtual presentations and teleconferencing dialogues are available for educators to ensure the continuation of enrichment services to gifted students, whether engaged in classroom instruction or remote learning.

Professional Development for Teachers K-12
  • Define gifted innate traits which are similar, different and unique from chronological peers
  • Common temperament, intellectual, social and emotional qualities and behaviors which differentiates moderately, highly and profoundly gifted children
  • Understand beyond IQ, test scores, and academic grades what comprises giftedness
  • Learn to recognize giftedness among diverse racial, economic and ethnic populations
  • Strengths and challenges for the twice-exceptional child academically, socially and emotionally
  • What motivates gifted kids to perform, and conversely, what creates non-productivity
  • See beyond what the gifted child can do; respond to who she is
  • What gifted kids proclaim is truly essential for them to thrive in school
  • Create respectful, interactive and cooperative relationships with gifted students
  • Effectively reducing stress and anxiety for students
  • Understand the complexity of perfectionism; minimize perfectionistic angst
  • Create a classroom environment where everyone belongs and is challenged

Educational Consulting for Administrators

Dr. Patty will focus on your district’s questions and concerns, while adding pertinent information on educational services and teacher personas and behaviors that enhance gifted students’ engagement and productivity. Drawing upon experience as an administrator in a school for the gifted, and decades as a consultant in gifted education, administrators will attain a newfound depth and breadth of understanding how gifted children are similar, different and unique from chronological peers, including students of diverse ethnicity, race and socio-economic class. Recognizing temperament traits and behaviors across the range of giftedness—moderate, highly and profoundly gifted—will enable you to provide academic enrichment to all gifted students. Focus is given to distinctive multifaceted academic and personal needs, coupled with practical tools and strategies to create an educational environment that keeps gifted students motivated, challenged, and thriving.

Virtual presentations and teleconsulting services are available to administrators to continue the engagement and motivation of gifted students in both classroom and remote instruction.

Educational Consulting for Administrators
  • Innate differences of gifted children that warrant differentiated instruction
  • Recognize inherent strengths and vulnerabilities of being gifted across diverse populations
  • What enhances and reduces student motivation and productivity
  • How to re-engage gifted youth who do not demonstrate their heightened abilities
  • Effects of intrinsic perfectionistic pressures and expectancy to “be the best”
  • Effects of heightened performance and productivity expectations of teachers, parents, fellow students and the community-at -large
  • Gifted students’ social alienation and “not belonging” among fellow students
  • Stress, anxiety and depression
  • Understand attitudes, skills and competencies necessary for teachers to engage and challenge exceptional students

Corporate Consulting

Dr. Patty incorporates decades of consulting experience to help management and executives build a focused, engaging and stimulating environment where all employees excel. It is her belief that company success stories are built on a foundation of constructive, straight-forward communication and respect between personnel, management and corporate leaders. Achievement of company objectives and goals is the result of ongoing positive connections, collective focus on excellence, diligent efforts and engagement of all personnel. Every employee, on all levels of an organization, deserve recognition and appreciation for their contribution to the development and prosperity of the company’s products, delivery and growth. When all individuals are respected and valued, an upbeat creative work environment ensues, team solidarity grows, and organizations prosper.

As a consultant, Dr. Patty interacts confidentially with members from all levels of employment to discern what is functioning well among personnel, and what is not. She recognizes and gives voice to loopholes that interrupt team solidarity and commitment to improvement, and provides relationship skill development to restore collaboration and cooperation. Virtual teleconsulting is available and equally effective, allowing Dr. Patty to provide services nationally.

Corporate Consulting
  • Clarify levels of solidarity and engagement regarding unified striving for excellence, objectives and goals among workforce;
  • Define group dynamics within departments which facilitate or deter company advancement;
  • Assessment of team relations;
  • Direct supportive and information gathering interviews with selective personnel across all levels within the company;
  • Analyze information from interviews and providing detailed analysis of strengths and concerns to executives, while maintaining employees’ anonymity;
  • Train management on essential words, attitudes and behaviors necessary to develop and maintain positive work relationships;
  • Facilitate workshops on stress reduction in the workplace;
  • Inspire actions towards health and well-being through presentations on how to create work-life balance.

CLIENTELE FEEDBACK

“Fabulous! In one meeting, you affirmed and guided me as a parent! I more thoroughly understand the complexity of my gifted kids. Their behaviors both at home and school now make sense. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom!”

-Consulting Client

“In honesty, it is rare I am impressed, but you thoroughly answered all my questions and filled in pieces of information I did not know were missing. Wow! Thank you for sharing your expertise and practical advice to help me be a more effective parent.”

-Consulting Client

“I am an educator and parent of gifted children. You validated me and gave me tools and strategies to relate more fully to my own kids and students. I now get what is different about gifted children, and us gifted adults too! The societal stigma of being gifted is gone—I can say I am a proud parent and teacher of extraordinary gifted children.”

-Consulting Client

“Can I package you up and take you home with me? The magic you did with me I want for the whole family! Do you make house calls?!”

-Consulting Client