Tiffany Kent first dreamed up Bright Kids Coalition when she realized how hard it was to find real, practical resources and quality education options for her bright children, including her profoundly gifted son. As a mom of four bright boys, a former educator, a PK-12 curriculum developer, and someone who was herself identified as “gifted” growing up, Tiffany noticed something that other experts have affirmed: gifted and advanced students are among the most neglected in the United States.

Often, gifted students are ignored in overcrowded classrooms by educators who are teaching to the test and trying to help students who are behind, or their needs are simply unmet due to educator inexperience or lack of information on gifted students in teacher preparation programs. The current education system has created an epidemic of boredom, disengagement, and underachievement for many highly capable, high-potential students. Tiffany also picked up on something important: many children (including those with bright and highly capable minds) struggle not due to a lack of cognitive capability, but because their executive functioning skills develop more slowly than their reasoning skills.When executive functioning skills lag behind, everyday life becomes harder than it needs to be for children, parents, and educators, and gifted learners cannot reach their full potential because of things like internalized perfectionism, fear of failure, emotional intensity, difficulty adapting, disorganization, and incomplete follow-through. These struggles are commonplace for bright students in public, and many private and homeschool settings.

This understanding that executive functioning skills actually have a greater impact on a child’s success is strongly supported by Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child, which notes that executive function skills are more critical to long-term success than raw intelligence. They describe EF as the “air traffic control system of the brain,” guiding how children plan, focus, remember, regulate emotions, shift between tasks, and complete goals.

Inspired by this knowledge and motivated by her own children’s experiences, Tiffany returned to graduate study with emphasis on Gifted Education. She began developing resources for educators to help them understand the gifted brain, and eventually turned her research and firsthand experience towards parents through the launch of Bright Kids Coalition.

The goal of Bright Kids Co. is to be a voice for the 6-10% of students estimated to be intellectually gifted, which includes advocating for better education practices (such as differentiation, subject acceleration, mastery-based learning, project-based learning, critical thinking vs. rote memorization as a baseline, gifted programs in every school, and educator development programs focused on gifted learners). Secondarily, Bright Kids Co. serves to empower parents and educators of gifted learners with options for gifted education program development to curating individualized education and enrichment plans for families (including helping parents in finding schools, activities, psychologists for gifted testing, and social/intellectual communities to support their children). Tiffany also consults with families regarding the research-backed ways to support early cognition, early literacy, and early numeracy in young learners. Tiffany is passionate about empowering families and educators with practical, neuroscience-informed ways to support the gifted learner so they can reach their full potential.

Some areas covered include:

• Working Memory
• Inhibition and Self-Control
• Cognitive Flexibility
• Emotional Regulation
• Task Initiation
• Organization
• Planning and Prioritization
• Goal-Directed Behavior
• Sustained Attention
• Time Management
• Metacognition (thinking about thinking)

Tiffany’s mission is to make giftedness and executive functioning easier for families to understand and navigate, and to help raise the bar of education in the United States and around the world.