Page 12 - Dainfern Precinct Living Issue 10 2025

TODAY'S CHILD

CHANGE THE LENS,

CHANGE THE STORY

BY KATE LA TROBE MSC, BCBA AND NICOLA KILLOPS, EDUCATOR AND GIFTED & TWICE-EXCEPTIONAL SPECIALIST

e were those kids: bright, world never seemed to make sense. ideas and call it “non-compliance.”
talkative, imaginative,
distracted. The ones teachers WHERE OUR STORIES MET Kate sees it every day in her clinical work.
Wdescribed as “full of potential if That quiet recognition became the thread Nicola has seen it from the front of a
they’d just apply themselves.” We did apply that later tied two lives together. Kate classroom and from the driver’s seat of
ourselves — just not to what made sense to and Nicola came from different paths but the car after yet another call from school.
other people’s brains. recognised the same story — children who Gifted and twice-exceptional learners live
were never quite understood, growing into in a strange limbo—smart enough to know
Like so many adults, especially women, we adults determined to make sure no one else they’re failing invisible tests, too tired to
were misdiagnosed, overlooked, or told we felt that way again. keep pretending to be typical.
were simply “too sensitive.” It was only later,
as adults, that we began to understand our THE COST OF MISUNDERSTANDING The real cost isn’t detentions or grades. It’s
own wiring. That understanding brought a When difference isn’t recognised, it gets self-worth.
kind of quiet liberation: the release of years punished. DIAGNOSIS AS TURNING POINT
of guilt, of endless self-flagellation for not Kids learn to hide. Parents learn to brace. For both of them, diagnosis wasn’t about a
being okay, for not understanding why the Teachers, even the kind ones, run out of label; it was about language.

20 Kyalami Estates • CONNECT • Issue 2 • 2025
10 DPL issue 10 2025