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Jen Merrill
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If This is a Gift, Can I Send it Back?: Surviving in the Land of the Gifted and Twice Exceptional Paperback – August 2, 2012

by Jen Merrill (Author), Sarah J. Wilson (Editor)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 72 ratings
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When is life like a prize fight, a garden, and a quiz show, all hurtling down the road on an office chair, wrapped in song? When you're living in the land of the gifted and twice exceptional.Jen Merrill, author of the "Laughing at Chaos" blog, brings laughter, tears, and honesty to her latest book by GHF Press, "If This is a Gift, Can I Send it Back?: Surviving in the Land of the Gifted and Twice Exceptional." Join Jen on her journey through discovery, understanding, and acceptance, as she copes with the challenges that only the gifted and twice exceptional can create.So, pull up a chair, pour a glass of wine, and start reading. You'll swear Jen's written about you!
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  1. Print length
    79 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    August 2, 2012
  4. Dimensions
    6 x 0.18 x 9 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    0615648789
  6. ISBN-13
    978-0615648781
  7. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jen Merrill is a Chicago-based blogger and writer, having recently returned to her Windy City hometown after 14 years in Denver. A musician by training and a writer by choice, when she has something to say, Jen says it at her blog, Laughing at Chaos (www.laughingatchaos.com).

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ GHF Press (August 2, 2012)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 79 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0615648789
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0615648781
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 4.2 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.18 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 72 ratings

About the author

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Jen Merrill

Jen Merrill

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Jen Torbeck Merrill is an Illinois-based writer and gifted family advocate. The mom of two teen sons, she homeschools one while happily sending the other off to public school every morning. She is a music educator by trade, with degrees in music education and flute performance. Long before she picked up a flute as a child, however, Jen wanted to be a writer, something that didn’t happen until she opened a Blogger account in 2006 and never looked back. Since that time, her writing has focused more on gifted families and advocacy. Her book, If This is a Gift, Can I Send It Back?: Surviving in the Land of the Gifted and Twice-Exceptional, struck a nerve with families who suspected Jen was living in their closet. Her second book, on the needs of gifted parents and self-care, is in progress; it is taking significantly longer than anticipated because the author herself struggles mightily with self-care and has been spending a lot of time banging her head on the keyboard and hyperventilating in writerly frustration. In the meantime she continues to blog at Laughing at Chaos.

From writing, Jen has branched out into greater advocacy in gifted issues, particularly the needs of parents, personalized learning for gifted and twice-exceptional kids, and giftedness as wiring throughout life. She has partnered with Kate Arms of Signal Fire Coaching to develop an online class on self-care for parents of complex kids, and with Kate and Dr. Chris Wells of the Gifted Development Center to present a series of webinars on Thriving With Complexity.

Jen is a Gifted Homeschoolers Forum Ambassador and has presented at the National Association for Gifted Children conference (2013), the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children conference (2013), the Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted conference (2016, 2017, 2018), the Illinois Association for Gifted Children Parents’ Day (2017, 2018), and was the keynote speaker for the Twice-Exceptional Children’s Advocacy conference (2016). She is slated to be one of the SENG keynote speakers at the annual convention in Houston, July 2019. Her intention is to support the parents of gifted and twice-exceptional kids, because they are the ones doing the heavy lifting and are too often ignored, patronized, and discredited. It is her hope that her sons never have to deal with these issues when they raise their own likely gifted children.

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
72 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Maggie Bogdan
5.0 out of 5 stars Honest & Funny
Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2022
Verified Purchase
What a rare find of a book. As a mother new to the 2e journey, I found so much solidarity in this.It could have very well been my personal diary. It was much shorter than I expected (only about 60 pages), but there isn't much out there like it. This book is not a handbook or guide for our children, it's for the parents (mothers) who need validation and solidarity. There were many passages in this book that put into words what I have found difficult to articulate. I think this would also be helpful to pass on to family and friends who need help understanding the journey and isolation of a 2e parent.
One person found this helpful
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Lenore Ealy
5.0 out of 5 stars For parents who want to keep it all in perspective
Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2013
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This, too, is life and can be life lived abundantly! Jen Merrill offers the parents of kids who are "gifted" and "twice exceptional"--gifted on the one hand but with some strange quirks and difficult challenges in cognitive processing on the other--a glimpse of how to navigate a world that still depends on social institutions built to serve bureaucratic administration and social control more than people. With humor and insight, Merrill dispenses with the clinical approach (often the cover professionals adopt when they just don't really know a lot) and pulls back the curtain on her own experiences as a parent. For those of us walking in similar shoes, the advice to grab a glass of wine and relax into the process of getting to know the particular kid(s) you have is a breath of fresh air... and it offers hope.

Filled with little gems through which the reader has flashes of recognition and finds comfort to know that he or she is not alone out here, this is one of my favorites:

"the [school] district's GT program is more for high-achievers, and not exactly for gifted students. Gifted students can be high-achievers, but not all high-achievers are truly gifted. I swear I'll say it until my lungs hurt, but gifted is wiring. Parents who desperately want gifted kids really want high-achieving kids, because if they truly had gifted kids with the (hmm, what descriptor shall I use?) interesting wiring, they'd be rocking under their desks, quivering like the rest of us. It ain't all sunshine and roses, folks. Some days make me want to stab a rainbow."

Merrill gives voice to many of this reviewers own frustrations as she describes her family's journey from institutional schooling to homeschooling. It's not that we disdain society and don't want to fit in, we just want to see our kids flourishing. It's not that we believe teachers aren't up to the task--as Merrill puts it, "Teachers are the front-line scapegoats for a very broken system." It's just that we have to put our kids before the system.

Merrill eloquently describes the razor's edge we travel of making a choice between working to fit in and deciding to do something different. In the end, some of us choose to try to work with the system, and some choose to stand with our kid outside the system. Neither choice is right or wrong, neither path is easy, and as canaries in the coal mine, we should all be chirping in harmony: the system is broken.

Merrill offers no easy answers about system reform, but it's possible that this journey we are on is one that will eventually lead to a new vision for what it means to educate all children well. And it may be that some of our children, allowed to learn along their own unique pathways, will be the ones to design the new schools so desperately needed for the world of the future.
15 people found this helpful
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BeckyG
5.0 out of 5 stars Makes you laugh and makes you think
Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2012
Verified Purchase
I started to highlight the parts that really resonated with me, but after underlining page after page, I realized that I might as well give up because I needed the entire book. Her collections of ideas are particularly awesome and funny; some of her lists include:
*what I wish the world knew about parenting 2e kids
*some things to keep in mind
*how to make a difficult decision in 100 steps
*what gifted is/isn't
*what is said/meant
*how to lose your everlovin' mind in five easy steps
*ten reasons not to strangle your gifted child
*I love/hate homeschooling my son
*"Dear Teacher" letters.
I laughed so hard that I almost woke up my husband in the next room over. There is so much truth here, and encouragement, for those of us living in the 2e world.
17 people found this helpful
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julesandjase
3.0 out of 5 stars it's fairly negative
Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2014
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I probably haven't learned anything from this book. It's very casual and and the authors own experience/opinion. I wouldn't recommend it.
One person found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Destroyed talents
Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2016
Verified Purchase
This book the problem of 2e children. In someways their highly talented in many areas. But in so other their terrible in in some. The problem of 2e children see the weakness and ignore strength them. But forget the talent they have hardly develop them. Or not at all. Which leaves a lost of talent. The problem is been far too ignored. And no answers, how many lost or destoryed dreams. Of a problem could of been solved.
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Kirry
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for everyone "lucky enough" to have a 2e gifted kid.
Reviewed in the United States on September 10, 2012
Verified Purchase
I loved the book!
Ever since I found Jen's blog, I've been reading it and it's like she is living my life or is me living hers in a parallel universe ;).
When the book was published, I knew I had to read it, and it didn't disappoint. It's fun, it's real, and I couldn't stop reading once I started.
It's not easy being gifted, it surely not easy being 2e, but being a mom for this amazing kids, it's specially hard, and it's hard to find books to talk about the parents and the way they are experiencing this. This is why this book is so special, mom's can find ourselves in it, and feel connected and laugh and live our victories and tragedies.
2 people found this helpful
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Abby L.
1.0 out of 5 stars List of complaints from an unhappy mom
Reviewed in the United States on September 13, 2014
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This book is repetitive and all over the place. It is short and unhelpful and was not even slightly entertaining. It wasn't full of funny stories and the crazy things her sons did like I thought it would be. It was more about a mom explaining her situation and her frustrations-- mainly her frustrations. The author clearly is not happy with her situation, which she attempts to justify in order to make herself feel less guilty. Apparently few people "understand" what she's going through. If you want to read a book about an unhappy mom whose boys have driven her to become crazy, unorganized, and unsure of herself, then this is the book for you. If you want anything but that, don't waste your time. Even though this book is short, it won't be worth the quick read.
6 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Jillian
5.0 out of 5 stars Honesty & Humour
Reviewed in Canada on March 28, 2021
Verified Purchase
Love this book. Honest, hilarious, and informative all in one.
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older not wiser
5.0 out of 5 stars My children are not wierd after all...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 25, 2012
Verified Purchase
For anyone whose children are non-standard, this is an incredible read. I laughed out loud, I read it once at break-neck speed and then more slowly to savour the time when I was in company with someone else with a child like mine. So many 'help' books are grim and depressing. This one made me feel better...
One person found this helpful
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Bobbie Jo Pepin
5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommend!
Reviewed in Canada on November 6, 2019
Verified Purchase
What an amazing read! Thank you for writing down all the things I was thinking but couldn't put into words!
I highly recommend this book to anyone with a 2e child!
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CBH
5.0 out of 5 stars fantastic, raw, real. I am not alone!
Reviewed in Canada on February 23, 2015
Verified Purchase
This book is a sanity saviour. My sanity in particular. Even made me smile and laugh out loud. Hell I even nearly spilt my wine whilst reading. A must read for all people on this wild and crazy inducing ride.
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Terri-Lynne Sullivan
4.0 out of 5 stars Very funny...
Reviewed in Canada on February 7, 2013
Verified Purchase
It was refreshing to read this book. The author's lighthearted humor made reading about this subject worthwhile. I would recommend it to other parents in the same situation.
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