The Prodigy’s Cousin + Raising Confident, Creative Kids

Joanne Ruthsatz and Kimberly Stephens, coauthors of The Prodigy’s Cousin. Topic: The family link between autism and extraordinary talent. Issues: What is a prodigy? What traits do prodigies and children with autism share? Misunderstandings and misconceptions about people with autism and empathy; could child prodigies be the key to a long-awaited autism breakthrough? Heather Shumaker, author of It’s OK to Go up the Slide. Topic: Renegade rules for raising confident and creative kids. Issues: Risk vs. independence; why we need to put safety second; the importance of modeling mistakes; navigating technology; children’s rights at school; don’t banish scary stories; deal with disasters in the news; mean words matter learning to relax.