Bright & Quirky 2021 Tackles Five Key Themes

Each year since 2018, the Bright & Quirky Online Child Summit has aimed to share expertise and support around twice-exceptionality. The summit, which evolved from local 2e support groups designed by licensed marriage and family therapist Debbie Steinberg Kuntz — whose own children are 2e — now attracts thousands of attendees worldwide tuning in to hear from many of the leading voices in the field.

This year’s lineup for the summit, which ran last week and is still available online, included five days of expert talks with five sessions on each day.

Day 1: Taming Stress, Anxiety & Worry
Day 2: Motivating Kids & Balancing Tech
Day 3: Thriving & Learning
Day 4: Neurodiversity & Autism
Day 5: Coping, Growing & Self Care

At the end of each day, Steinberg Kuntz summed up the main takeaways and reviewed places to get more information or to further discuss these topics. Signing up for the summit provides unlimited access to all the talks.
Day 1: Taming Stress, Anxiety & Worry
The summit led off by focusing on the role of fathers in supporting their 2e children. Stephen Porges and Mona Delahooke reviewed responses from fathers to unusual behaviors from their kids. “We as dads buy a certain model of boundary setters,” Porges said. “We often don’t see the behavior as a reflection of the child’s nervous system being under threat.”

To make use of effective strategies to recast parent-child dynamics using stories and to reframe anxieties as a source of “superpowers,” Renee Jain shared many proactive ideas. Similarly, Eli Lebowitz discussed relieving the worries children endure by focusing on what parents can do to understand and respond to anxiety without letting it “hijack” their...