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Posted By: slammie smart but scattered book - 04/23/14 08:06 PM
Have any of you read this book and have had success with it?

http://www.amazon.com/Smart-but-Scattered-Revolutionary-Executive/dp/1593854455

I would like to know if the methods advised in the book work well with your gifted children. Thank you!
Posted By: Jklm Re: smart but scattered book - 04/23/14 08:43 PM
I bought it a while back - maybe 1.5 years ago. I tried a few techniques and they did not work well, in my case (visual timers, scaffolding, task board, etc.)

DS5 was and is still on the young side, though. That is probably a big factor.
Posted By: Nautigal Re: smart but scattered book - 04/23/14 09:06 PM
I bought it, started reading, found it pretty accurate, got to the part with the quizzes where you find out your different areas, kept forgetting to have DS try it, finally remembered after months and had him do it, and then, being scattered myself, forgot all about it again.

That's where we stand now. smile

FWIW, the test was spot-on for my DS. I just have to remember to read the rest to find out what to do about it.
Posted By: HowlerKarma Re: smart but scattered book - 04/23/14 09:56 PM
We have found it useful over the past six years or so. As Jklm posits above, though, it's going to be most useful with kids who are old enough that they have some metacognitive ability to internalize assistance.

We also found that many of the suggestions were not applicable-- but that is not necessarily a failing of the book in my estimation. It's merely that it is a toolbox, and in spite of it containing a hammer, most of our problems in particular called for a screwdriver instead, if that makes sense. For someone else, the screwdriver is not going to be helpful, but the hammer will-- both are present in this book.

I will also say that I find it deliciously ironic that when I went to check this book and one like it (Late, Lost, and Unprepared) out several years later... the latter was not available. Why not? Well, because someone LOST it... smirk As they say, the apple doesn't always fall far from the tree.

I do appreciate that this book doesn't necessarily pathologize executive function in any way-- it simply IS, and the suggestions for scaffolding and other interventions are made upon no particular assumptions about the need for permanence.

I found the tests extremely accurate for all of our family members. DH is highly sequential, with remarkable auditory recall and executive function (he was, no surprise, a STELLAR student), I am highly visual/spatial with excellent recall in that domain and also have well-developed EF in some domains... and DD is a mixture of us both.

We all have very particular EF/metacognitive blind spots-- and compensatory strengths to manage our way around them-- but this book (along with a couple of others in this same vein) have been helpful to us in hothousing DD to better use her developing compensatory strategies as she matures, and for her to recognize that being 14 and PG means that she HAS to rely upon scaffolding and consider herself somewhat impaired relative to peers-- but that this impairment is likely to be temporary, since genetically she doesn't have a lot of EF problems in the family.

That makes her more amenable to suggestions that she rely upon supports like using a planner, writing things down, using her smartphone to monitor a calendar and issue alarm-reminders, etc.


Posted By: slammie Re: smart but scattered book - 04/25/14 04:56 PM
thanks all. Well I did get the book yesterday but other than the test sections, I found it a bit overwhelming to read. Perhaps I have been reading too many gifted parenting books lately. But thank you, in particular HK. Will start on it after I get through the emotional intensity one which is particularly pressing at the moment.
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