yeah - Manipulation 101 - that's apparently my course for the year. btw, HK - that book (Manipulative Child)? genius.

reading it gave me enough space to think about where the interactions (and which ones in particular) go sideways. we always did set good limits and she's been really logical her entire life (all 5 years of it!), so her new screaming and stomping strategy was really perplexing, but what she was actually doing was trying to change non-negotiables into negotiables. and it never, ever worked with us - so she was simply settling for causing the biggest scream-y, stomp-y delays she could manage.

but not anymore! THANK YOU!

No problem! I actually categorize that particular book among the best GT parenting books of all time. LOL.

I am new here and had to register because of this topic. You are my people!!!! I have finally found a place to discuss funny things without people looking at me like I am a) bragging or b) crazy.

My dd (9 yrs) and dh are both gifted and well ... weird. Ugh I hate saying it that way but some days the two of them together just baffle me.

I am not dumb by any means but when I am around them I feel like Penny in the Big Bang Theory. I just don't get it.

My dh has been put under strict rules that he is not allowed to have anything to do with fire or explosives because he tends to not know how things are going to react, or if he does he just doesn't care, or he does care and thinks it really cool.

My dd is aggravated at school because the work isn't hard enough. I talk to dh about it and he just says "well she's right."

At 4 she was in her bath and asked me what the shape of water was. After I explained to her that it takes the shape of whatever it is in, my husband decided to jump in and explain to her that if it's in a vacuum it would form a bubble. She gave him a long suffering look and said, "Daddy you can't put water in a vacuum because it won't work anymore."

She was in 2nd grade and obsessed with science and did a book report over a book on energy then we had to explain to her what an atom was because she was trying to figure out what the smallest thing in the universe was.

Then there is the instances that just come out of nowhere when she asks me what a word in another language means and we have to look it up. Or she gets to wondering things like what are the numbers in Irish. I only had 1 year of high school German so I have know idea any other language.

She talks in her sleep which is too funny. She was 5 when she shouted out in her sleep "Rhumbus!" Or she wakes up with a question fully formed in her head that was bugging her. As soon as I answer her she goes back to sleep. She has no knowledge of any of these things the next morning.

Now she wants to make a Star Wars fan film starring her dad as Jedi knight in tie-dye robes. Huh? She thinks it will be funny.

I know there are more stories but so many things happen I can't keep track of them all.

i totally agree. i would go so far as to say it has been the ONLY parenting book that has been really useful so far. except maybe Learned Optimism (Seligman), which isn't technically even a parenting book, but i'm actively using it to attack DD's perfectionism and i think (?) it's making a small dent.

The other day DD6 was demonstrating her time travel theory using rubber bands. I totally didn't follow it but got the creepy feeling she might have actually been on to something

I promise you are all going to question what I'm teaching my DS22mo after reading this. This is definitely one of those "kids say the darndest things" moments.

We were at Mass and DS gestured toward the altar and said, "Jesus is in the tabernacle". A prim looking parishioner looked back and nodded approvingly.

As the processional hymn was sung, DS was playing with two plastic toy elephants. They were rather artistic renditions of elephants, each with two lumps on its underside representing the front and hind sets of limbs. Well, DS stacked the elephants stomach to stomach and announced at about 70 decibels, "Look, their penises are touching!"

I couldn't stop laughing.

DD9 had a "challenge problem" that was the old grain-goose-fox across-the-river problem this week. (Different animals, though - I think it was hay, a goat, and a wolf or something.) She solved it correctly, then wrote at the bottom, "Or just throw the goat in the river until he swims."

Yes, you're definitely in the right place!

I was playing the Million Second Quiz app last week, and asked DS a question, which of course he didn't manage to answer fast enough (it's hard with only five seconds for asking and answering) and I punched a different answer just as he gave me what turned out to be the correct one. My answer came up wrong, and I said, "Foo! Foo, I say!" He laughed like a maniac and said, "Ha! You've been Foo'd! ...wait a second, that sounded a lot better in my head. Can I have a do-over?"

ROFL at Aquinas and Elizabeth... well, you know. More like laughing WITH you.



I still say plenty of things that sound a LOT better in my head.

Love it!