GiftED Way

Hi, my name is Melissa Greczy. I’m a single mom with two kids and founder of GiftED. Our mission is to unleash the natural genius in every child.

Currently I run several businesses, live on a 10 acre farm and have a pretty great life that involves lots of traveling, spending time with my kids and working on charitable causes.

But it wasn’t always this way… the main reason I’m so interested in parenting and giving my kids a wonderful childhood is precisely because my childhood was rather unconventional.

The new face of GiftED

So many of you may know that the original Project GiftED started from my desire to revolutionize the education system and change the way we as parents and educators view a child’s ability to learn and grow. But something happened along my journey that changed my direction ever so slightly…

In the beginning I was only concerned about a child’s genius as it pertained to their brain, but after meeting so many amazing speakers authors and childhood experts, I realized that children are smart in many ways other than the traditional book smart we normally prioritize. After talking with some very successful people, I realized that there are many other ‘genius zones’ other than just increased brain power which contribute to success and happiness in life.

So here I am with the second generation of GiftED – taking my passion for children and learning to a whole new level. Instead of just having GiftED be a blog with my personal rantings and ideas, I have decided to bring on an entire panel of experts and guest bloggers in all areas of childhood learning – from the traditional brain based or cognitive learning – to emotional intelligence, creativity, music, spiritual development, and financial/abundance mindsets. I believe that children naturally excel in all of these areas until they learn from us how to ‘dumb down.’ They forget or repress many of the natural gifts that they are born with so they can fit into our mold of what a child should learn like.

Don’t believe me? Then clear your mind and think of a “good girl.” She’s sugar and spice and everything nice – right?  She is sweet and does what she is told and doesn’t talk back –  Not in my world!  Some of the most amazing women I know are changing the world, building successful businesses, giving back to their communities, and changing lives – and they come with a whole lotta spice!  Trust me, they are far from the mold of sweet little girl that obeys blindly and doesn’t make waves.  They are strong and brilliant and believe in themselves and take chances so they can live out their dream.  And it is not just women, men are breaking the mold as well, taking on bigger roles at home and in giving back to their community.  I have met more stay at home dads in the last few months than I have in my other 30 years combined!

The point is, people are redefining what life and parenting and children ‘should’ look like.

That is what the new face of GiftED is about – helping children create their own mold – to help them live up to their fullest potential and create a future that our grown up minds can’t even begin to imagine. Our mission at GiftED is to directly and positively affect the lives of 1 million children. We are not yet sure how we are going to keep count or how exactly we can measure a positive affect, but I think those things will answer themselves as we move forward with passion and excitement :)

I hope you enjoy the new GiftED, please stay tuned as we announce more and more panelists and guest bloggers. We also love to hear your feedback, comments and questions – so don’t be afraid to drop us a note below!

Love,

Melissa and the GiftED Team

P.S…

The Future of Parenting as I see it ;)

I realize that there is so much that I did not do with my girls (they are 8 and 10 now!!!) things that could have helped them become so much happier and more well rounded than they are now – however I am still learning and am going to implement what I still can and share this knowledge with you.

One of the biggest discoveries I have had is from a Harvard Study that shows how all kids are born geniuses – unfortunately by the time they hit the age of 20, 98% of children have lost their genius ability.  This is due to lack of understand from parents and educators on how to facilitate and teach a young, growing mind.

I don’t want this happening to my girls and I dream about the kind of future we could create if we fostered this potential in all children.

Imagine if at the age of eight your child could play the violin effortlessly, or speak ten different languages. What if they call you at work during the day just say they love you, and are so self-confident they know how to face down a bully because their self-esteem is so high.

Even if children were placed in a poor education system with bad teachers they would not be affected because they are such passionate learners that they would be able to be self-taught (it is possible!). Imagine if children were reading at the age of 2 and doing math problems at the age of 3. All of this is easily achievable, but most parents never get to that point with their children because we don’t even realize it is possible.

This is especially important in the U.S. as teenagers of this current generation are actually less likely to graduate from high school than their parents were. This fact astounded me the first time I read it!  I want to create a new era of parenting where children retain their genius potential and parents can go through the parenting process joyously with minimal stress or frustration.

But it is not just brain based learning, a child’s emotional, physical and spiritual well-being are just as important. That is the reason behind the building the GiftED Community, to make this information widley available to the public so that you as a mom or dad, teacher, grandparent, mentor or neighbor can go about with your daily lives knowing that our team at GiftED is working hard to bring to you a range of teaching methodologies and amazing ideas and practices so that, unlike me, you don’t have to spend hours everyday reading books or spending years in study to find valuable information about raising children.

We hope you will join us and become part of our GiftED family. We are looking forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas, stories and dreams as we work together to create a better future for our children :)