Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Behaviour & WPPSI Test Result HELP!!

Ive posted before but I have received my sons WPPSI results.

Ok so my son has some behavioural issues I think. Last year he started school & his teacher had some issues with him & over the years we have had some issues with controlling his behaviour as well as took him to a child psycologist (not a specific gifted on though). She conducted the WPPSI IQ test & observed him & she says he has anxiety issues which we should work on.

The WPPSI came back with;

FSIQ - 103
VIQ - 109
PIQ - 100
PSQ - 104
GLC - 152

During our meetings with the psychologist she couldnt tell us why he has average cognitive skills but gifted language component.

His behaviour more recently has started to concern me though (he is 5 & half). He is constantly pushing our buttons & boundaries & doing things he knows he shouldnt & when asked why he does them he says there is something wrong with his brain. He has also mentioned things like killing himself & not liking himself. These comments are getting more & more. I do believe he isnt naughty on purpose but I dont know what to do or where to turn. No form of discipline works & im wondering if there is something "wrong with his brain"??

Please help - i am worried about my boy as I dont think the things he says are normal for a child of his age.

SMB, any mention of suicide or self-harm has to be taken very seriously. I'd suggest getting him to a pediatric psychologist ASAP.

Often IQ tests aren't that accurate on kids who have behavior issues. Maybe you should pursue evaluation with a neuropsychologist or developmental pediatrician-- knowing what's going on will help you know what to do to solve the discipline and other issues, and maybe shed light on the IQ disparity.

DeeDee

Those comments are unsettling for a parent to hear, and I am sorry.

A child psychiatrist or a neuropsychiatrist evaluation would be helpful. Maybe your pediatrician could give you a referral. If not, often these doctors have an association with a children's hospital.

The person you saw thought your child had anxiety, and anxiety untreated can cause a child to say things like that.

But so can a lot of other issues: anxiety, ADHD, Aspergers, or even a form(s)of a depression.

You will need to take your child to a medical specialist to sort it all out, and a good one will look at the entire picture: cognitive, emotional, physical, social etc.

I am no expert on this by any means, but have there been any serious life changing events that might be causing stress, which in turn might cause this behavior? When my DS9 entered kindergarten, we had moved into a new house/neighborhood, AND had a new baby in the house just a few months prior-it took us a while to figure out that all these events had caused stress on him and he acted out in school and home. Not sure if this is your case or not, but we didn't put two and two together until after the fact. We've learned that even the littlest change in environment/life can have a big impact on a child that age. Good luck and I hope you get some resolution soon!

So give some examples here of exactly what he does to push buttons and boundaries, etc and exactly what what was happening just before and how you and other adults responded.

IMH(?)O, don't ever ever ask a kid why they did something they knew they weren't supposed to do. I can't answer why I go off my diet even though I'm an articulate, experienced grown up. The fact that you ask creates - in the mind of a child who can reason well above his years - the expectation that he can answer this question. He can't. I can't. You probably can't either. So he feels that there must be something wrong with his brain, naturally.

Lately I've been meditating to help myself not be that guy who 'speaks of going South and walks North.' I explain why I meditate as: We were all born with console controllers that don't work well. By meditating, I trade mine in for a better controller - one where I actually walk North when I push the North button.

It's true that other parents of more average children can say "Why did you do that?" and get the response they are looking for - a child who acts submissive and says sorry. Your kid is different in some way that has something to do with giftedness, likely with serious other issues, but when you ask that question, he EXPECTS to be be able to answer it in some way he finds meaningful. He believes that for every question there is an answer. He pays more attention to the content of the words than, as others would do, the emotional ritual that is going on. A lot of more average kids have scripts that say something like, "When mom gets mad because I did something wrong she says X, and if I do Y, she'll calm down and everything will be fine." and they know they don't understand the content of X - they are used to it - they don't understand 99% of what adults say, they just learn algorithm by experience.


Make sense?

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Grinity - what you have written makes a lot of sense, especially the bit about "He believes that for every question there is an answer." That sounds like my son - to him "i dont know" isnt an answer to a question. For example Ill say he cant do something & he will ask why & my response will be because I said so but he keeps pressing me saying thats not an answer, he needs to know why he cant do something.

Ummmm examples?? OK Recently he went over a block away to play with another child even though he knows he is not to leave our front yard & he is to tell us even if he is going next door. We have told him this many times. We will be in a shop & ill tell him not to touch something & then he does it even though ive just finished the sentence telling him not to touch.

To me its like he has "brain snaps". One minute he can be really good & the next minute he is pushing boundaries or doing things he shouldnt be. There doesnt seem to be anything in particular except boredom that sets him off.

Our response really depends on the situation & how much he has been playing up. For example with the going to the friends house a block away, we spoke to him about what he did & then we took away things he loves to do - bike, cartoons etc. No yelling or anything - just an explanation about why what he did was wrong.

The fact that you can't get him to stop 'coming after you' with a 'because I said so' is an example of him not demonstrating trust in adult guidance. When my son way young he was the same way, and I empathized and thought it was fine. Problem was that when puberty hit his logical reasoning went out the window for a few years, but he still wanted a logical explaination. Unfortunately the logical explaination no longer made sense to his hormone-adled brain. Ut - oh!!!

So we worked first on 'taking No for an answer' - we praised any bit of faith or trust he demonstrated and made a big fuss. Eventually he internalized himself as someone strong enough to live with the irrationality of life. I'm so pleased, because even if I could manage to be completely rational at all times, guess what? I can't manage all the adults he needs to interact with to get them to follow my lead.

So yeah, I do think gifted kids need to learn to 'take no for an answer' and it's fine to give an explaination at times, at OUR discretion because we find it interesting, not because we fear the barage of push back that we know will follow a 'because I said so.'

But that isn't the place to start, because we have kids for whom breaking the rules is interesting, in and of itself - which is why I highlighted the bordome comment - and if there is a lot of upset (obvious loud yelling or the quieter, more subtle worry) some of our kids find this a positive reinforcer also - remember Captian Kirk saying that even a tormentor was better than being alone with the tantalus beam?

www.startrek.com/database_article/dagger-of-the-mindCached - Similar
Star Trek Dagger of the Mind. ... When Dr. Simon van Gelder of the psychiatric staff at the Tantalus Penal Colony escapes to the U.S.S. Enterprise exhibiting ...

So even upsetting you is better than being alone with boredom for a child that has high capasity for learning about the world. You may find that you like intensity too - I did anyway.

So the place to start is to give recognition to the micro-positives and give enough healthy stimulation that there is less of a need for any stimulation at all. The 'transforming' book explains all of this in more detail. You are worth following and worth expecting to be followed. I think that inside every 'That isn't fair/That isn't right' sort of kid, there are the emotionals of a child who really would be happier being 'out of the job' of being on alert for injustice. Better to submit to the idea that the world isn't fair, but that you have the inner strength to live with that just fine.

Hope this makes sense, and hope even more that it actually helps. I know that every kid is different. Keep posting and let us know what you figure out!

Love and More Love,
Grinity

You are telling him what you don't want him to do, tell him what you DO want him to do. In the store make it clear he should not touch but after the first "don't touch the goods" my instruction is "clasp your hands together". They can't grab stuff with their hands interwoven. You've given them something to concentrate on and then you can praise them doing a good job of doing what you said. You could tell him to see how many ways he can weave his fingers together.

And consequences should be directly tied to the the behavior, unless he was riding his bike and then went off and so you have removed the bike sonhe won't be outside I am not clear how that is a good punishment and I am an adult?

I really recommend the book "easy to love, difficult to discipline" I suspect it's very similar to Grinity's fav, but it's the one i know...

Also just curious, as I didn't raise my son in a neighborhood - how many parents would expect a 5 year old to stay in the yard without a gate/fence set up unsupervised? Do other kids in the neighborhood manage this?

I didn't really expect my son at 5 to be able to restrain himself from touching things in a store for more than 5 minutes, we had phrases, like 'lookin' no touchin'' and 'no touch other people's food' that I'd repeat over and over in the grocery line. I didn't expect him to be able to keep his hands to himself unless I was providing some kind of entertainment. I'm not saying I shouldn't have had higher standards, I just believed that he was doing the best he could. Not sure why, except that there is lots of ADHD in the family, and my expectations were influenced by my memories of younger brothers. I remember that my mom often put me in charge of 'occupying' their attention so that they wouldn't do what they weren't supposed to.

shrugs and more shrugs,
Grinity

I agree with Grinity, the "put your hands together" tip I use on my 5.5 yr old who I suspect will eventually be diagnosed with inattentive ADHD, like her older sister. Shopping with my three kids is a special kind of torture. But telling her what TO do instead of what not to do results in less stress (and less likelihood of my combusting in a public place). I still have to remind her about the hands, but she can do it. If I am saying "don't touch" it has no impact at all.