Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Discipline for The Strong Willed Gifted Child?

We've been able to successfully alter DD's behavioral choices in three ways:

a) you're being rude/disrespectful and you're making {authority figure} feel bad because of your behavior. Is that what you want?

b) your behavior is leading your peers to have more difficulty in this environment. You are negatively impacting others' ability to (do whatever activity is in play). Do you have the right to limit others this way?

c) you are a role model. What kind of behavior are you modeling for others?

This works for my DD14 primarily because she is an extreme empath and highly-- no, really HIGHLY-- prosocial. She is also, at heart, an authority pleaser who does not want to cause others distress.

I wouldn't even try it with a child that was not both of those things, but with a child that is, it's worth a shot.


There is no level of punishment (or if there is, it's clearly into "abuse" territory) that can act as a sufficient deterrent for one of these kids, in my experience with mine. Bribes can work-- but understand that anything that becomes a SYSTEM is doomed.

As soon as you place extrinsic rewards and punishments around something, it becomes a power struggle, and some kids will literally do ANYTHING rather than submit to such a system.


If you suspect that the autonomy bit is the underlying issue here, hand it over. So to speak. "I know that you can take control of your behavior so that it is within the boundaries that make it acceptable. Let me know if you have trouble and need my help to come up with ways to manage this." (Most highly autonomous children would rather chew off an arm than admit that they need HELP with something like this-- but if the behavior is truly voluntary, such a statement can work miracles-- IF the child believes in the goal, that is, which is where my earlier trio of talking points comes into things-- gaining that BUY-IN to begin with.)

Appeal to their intellect.

DS6 started off this year with pretty poor behavior but has gotten much better. Most of that improvement was solely time and his anxiety level decreasing. He's still occasionally been directly rude to teachers. But it seems like it's now completely acceptable to the school. He does not have a lot of natural empathy and is not highly social, so unfortunately appealing to that side of him was not a useful strategy for us. He does respect us as parents, and feels we act fairly and reasonably, and that's what we've relied on.

Initially we did the "we support the school 100%". That made sense because on paper the discipline system seems very rational. But sometimes his teacher would ignore the policy and just react on what seemed like more a personal level, for example jumping discipline steps and giving him a weightier punishment than a first infraction warranted. Not that we didn't sympathize with her, we are not always as consistent as we want to be either, but it was a bit unpredictable. And it just felt like lying to him to act supportive to the school about things we didn't care about or actively disagreed with. We went to the following:

a. We have a written list of very basic house rules at home. The list contains things such as: no hitting, kicking, etc, no telling people you don't like them, help when asked to unless you have an excellent reason not to, share, and so on. DS is generally very good at adhering to these rules at home. Some things we do NOT have on the list include: "listen politely at all times", "do not interrupt your elders", "do not wiggle a lot", "do not make loud sighing noises" or anything vague such as "respect others". Our list consists of what we feel are clear and concrete rules we know he can achieve even when under stress. We reminded him of this list and that we expect him to follow our family's rules at school, always. If we're told he did the things on the list we'll follow through with the same consequences as if it had happened at home.

b. We tell him the rest is optional to us as parents. That we do see his side of it that the rules are annoying or picky or overly strict. But that we certainly do not feel comfortable defending him in any way, it is not up to us, we are not in charge in that building. It's solely his choice. We say he either needs to follow the rules and express himself in acceptable ways, or just make himself at peace with the punishments. We now do not mention to him anything the school mentions to us regarding that latter list of things. And we don't comment to the school either on any of that, it's solely his arena.

c. We tell him that it's a very slow process but we are working on making his day a better experience for him. And that it will help us help him if teachers and school see him as a mature and polite student. That teachers will not be going to go out of their way to make school more fun for a child who they find difficult.

A couple times recently he has come home and with a sort of questioning bravado said he's made unpleasant noises, quietly and on purpose, while walking down the hall in the line of kids between classes. He's basically checking with us to see how we feel about it. If his teacher doesn't notice is it bad? We tell him that we don't care, but he needs to be aware he'll get in trouble some day when randomly he's caught.

As much as I wish he didn't feel the need for that release of tension, he does, it's just how he is in this less than ideal environment. I'm happy for him to find any moments that decrease the direct friction between him and his teacher.

I feel like if we told him he's got to just buckle down and follow every rule always, or if we went with general statements such as that he should respect others, that he'd either crack at school in a big way now and then or that he would just get more generally anxious/depressed. He's healthier when he's acting out a little bit, than when he's not.

@Polly your ds sounds a lot like mine! This has been a rough week. Things run in trends.

The big issue is the school doesn't understand nor has time for non-compliance. He has been on Parent Contact twice this week which warrants discipline at home. We are focusing on good choices/bad choices and WHY we share and use kind words. School and everyone wants to force him to comply and the clip chart does nothing. Stoping to address why he is misbehaving and why it makes other feel bad etc would work better. You can't force this kid to comply he has a backbone of steel. He isn't always empathetic but can be when he wants to be. I have to appeal to the empathy and not try to force him, let him accept the consequences.

But public schools are very misinformed about gifted traits. Simply realizing the cause of his behavior would help greatly!!

Thanks Polly for sharing. It is encouraging to me. I feel like we are finding the middle of the road. I won't shame or berate my child to conform. His low self esteem stems from their projected feelings concerning his defiance. I don't approve of what he always does, but i don't approve of their choices always either.

Oh the one thing that seemed to help my DS be more empathetic towards his teacher was in a calm moment we went into some detail educating him on how public education is structured. Basically made gross generalizations and told him that people in our state capital, who don't even know his name, dictate specifically what the teacher is to say. That they make rules based on what worked for some group of kids at some school some years ago, and that they then apply that logic across the state. Therefore any other teacher, even in another town, would have the same expectations and might even be using the same words. This was all a big surprise to DS. He had assumed that the teacher (or if not then the principal) organizes the day, chooses the material, says what she wants, decides what students are allowed to say and do, etc. Certainly helps him like the teacher more in theory, but getting through the day is still hard for him.

Per the principal at DSs school the teacher is allowed to exempt DS from assignments, change the content or challenge of them, etc. If his teacher would just do so, even just a little bit, he would likely be a lot happier and less difficult for her. It's first grade and they have no testing that matters to the school. How is it that difficult to see?

Do you have any other school choices for next year?

This topic caught my attention because I used to be a strong-willed little hellion. (Still am, really ) I don't know if this will be of any help to you, but I found this Davidson article to be insightful for me: http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10114.aspx


"Type II
The Challenging
Type II's are the divergently gifted. Many school systems fail to identify Type II gifted children for programs unless the programs have been in place at least five years and substantial inservicing has been done with teachers. Type II's typically possess a high degree of creativity and may appear to be obstinate, tactless, or sarcastic. They often question authority and may challenge the teacher in front of the class. They do not conform to the system, and they have not learned to use it to their advantage. They receive little recognition and few rewards or honors. Their interactions at school and at home often involve conflict.

These children feel frustrated because the school system has not affirmed their talents and abilities. They are struggling with their self-esteem. They may or may not feel included in the social group. Some Type II's also challenge their peers, and therefore are often not included or welcomed in activities or group projects; on the other hand, some Type II's have a sense of humor and creativity that is very appealing to peers. Nevertheless their spontaneity may be disruptive in the classroom. In spite of their creativity, Type II's often possess negative self-concepts."