Jen Merrill

Jen Merrill is an Illinois-based writer, blogger, flutist, and gifted family advocate. The mom of two boys, she homeschooled her twice-exceptional teen through high school while happily sending his brother off to his high school every morning. She is a music educator by trade, with degrees in music education and flute performance. Long before she picked up a flute as a child, however, Jen wanted to be a writer, something that didn’t happen until she opened a Blogger account in 2006 and never looked back. Since that time, her writing has focused more on gifted families and advocacy. Her book, If This is a Gift, Can I Send It Back?: Surviving in the Land of the Gifted and Twice-Exceptional, struck a nerve with families who suspected Jen was living in their closet. Her second book, on the needs of gifted parents and self-care, is in progress; it is taking significantly longer than anticipated because the author herself struggles mightily with self-care and has been spending a lot of time banging her head on the keyboard and hyperventilating in writerly frustration. In addition to writing on her long-time blog, Laughing at Chaos, she has published articles in the Understanding Our Gifted Journal, the 2e Newsletter, and the Huffington Post.
Jen is a GHF Learners Ambassador and has presented at the National Association for Gifted Children conference (2013), the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children conference (2013), the Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted conference (2016, 2017, 2018), and the Illinois Association for Gifted Children Parents’ Day (2017, 2018). She was also the keynote speaker for the Twice-Exceptional Children’s Advocacy conference (2016) and the SENG conference (2019). She has partnered with Kate Arms and Dr. Christiane Wells to present online webinars and classes on self-care for gifted and twice-exceptional parents. Her goal is to support those parents, because they are the ones doing the heavy lifting and are too often ignored, patronized, and discredited. It is her hope that her sons never have to deal with these issues when they raise their own likely gifted children.
~~~~~~~~~