Like other kids their age, highly capable adolescents experience developmental challenges. They’re forging identity, finding direction, exploring relationships, and learning to resolve conflicts. These are difficult tasks to do alone, no matter how smart one may be. The 70 guided discussions in this book are an affective curriculum for gifted teens. By “just talking” with caring peers and an attentive adult, kids gain self-awareness and self-esteem, learn to manage stress, build social skills and life skills, and discover they are not alone. Each session is self-contained and step-by-step; many include reproducible handouts. Introductory and background materials help even less-experienced group leaders feel prepared and secure in their role. For advising teachers, counselors, and youth workers in all kinds of school and group settings working with gifted kids in grades 6–12.
Jean Sunde Peterson, Ph.D., is professor emerita and former director of school counselor preparation at Purdue University. She conducts workshops on academic underachievement, prevention- and development-oriented small-group work with children and adolescents, bullying, and more.
Dr. Peterson has authored more than 130 books (including Get Gifted Students Talking, How (and Why) to Get Students Talking, and Bright, Complex Kids), journal articles, and invited chapters, and her articles have appeared in all major gifted-education journals as well as the Journal of Counseling & Development, Professional School Counseling, and International Journal of Educational Reform. She has received ten national awards for scholarship, as well as numerous awards at Purdue for teaching, research, or service, and was a state teacher of the year in her first career as a classroom teacher.
She lives in Indiana.