Our son Alex, one of our three twice-exceptional teenagers and the only one who was able to officially graduate from high school (with ongoing support), would often spend his off days sleeping. Sometimes, he would be out for 12-14 hours at a time. One might think this pattern of behavior somewhat unusual, even for a teen boy. In fact, we received plenty of advice from family and friends as to how to address the “issue.” Indeed, with every visit, we were advised that this is not normal.
“Clearly there something was wrong with the boy,” they would postulate. “Shouldn’t you get that checked out?”
Despite the pressure, we didn’t — and quite frankly, I was tired of trying to explain that twice-exceptional children require a different set ...