Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy What is going on with DS6?

Not sure what it is, but it almost seems like he is retreating from his gifts or is bothered by them.

He is very good at chess and got a lot of attention for it last year, especially from coaches and other adults in his life. He began to see that he was unusually good at this thing. He has now retreated from chess. He insists he still wants to play, but seems to be studiously avoiding it, regardless of who asks him to play (that is, doesn't seem to be a case of not wanting to lose). He chose not to attend chess camp after begging to go earlier in the year. This is very surprising coming from someone who used to eat/sleep/breathe chess. It could just be that a phase is over--but...

He recently also became able to read many of the same books as his older sister (10), including Harry Potter. He really enjoyed these books, but when I got him some other books around this level he read them for a while (got 50 pages in or so, so didn't just get bored right off)and then told me they were too hard and boring and retreated to much easier books he was reading long ago. He does not want to even look at serious chapter books right now.

Drawing skills/penmanship have also kinda gone downhill, but that's not as noticeable and may not be anything.

He's about to finish up kindergarten with a teacher he really loved. Could that be it? Fear of getting older? Could we be putting too much pressure on him?

If I try to talk to him about all of this, he bursts into tears and says he doesn't want to talk about it and I'm making him feel bad---agh! So he is very sensitive and angsty about whatever this is. There is something there.

I went through this as a child, and I have one like this too.

I'd say you're handling it well. Ride it out supportively... and see how the transition to summer goes...

I think it could be any or a combination of these, or it could be something else you might not even expect. My advice would be to let him set aside chess for now, and enjoy summer vacation. Once he's more relaxed, he'll probably tell you what the problem is.

My DD9 went through a similar process with literature, then went back to more difficult literature later. We gave her the space to read whatever she wanted. That may have been related to a fear of getting older, because she has DEFINITELY communicated to us loud and clear about not wanting to grow up, and the loss of certain things associated with childhood. To counter that, we emphasize the positive aspects of getting older whenever we get the chance. Yesterday she got to roam a small waterpark with just an age peer, and she loved the autonomy.

She went through a long period of rejecting the guitar, which was weird, because she loves it. It turned out that she was having difficulty reaching the top string, and she decided she just couldn't play. When she finally explained that to me, I showed her how I adjust my grip to reach the same string on my classical guitar (it has a wide neck), she copied it, and away she went. She was avoiding the conversation because she was afraid I'd be upset that I'd wasted all that money on her good guitar, and she couldn't play it.

Yeah, we've let the chess go and just aren't bringing it up-- but it's hard, because like you, Dude, I'm pretty sure he loves it but there is something that's bothering him about it that he isn't able to/doesn't want to communicate. I feel stuck, because part of me thinks it's best to just back off and not say a word about any of this, but part of me really suspects something happened or is happening internally that needs to be processed or dealt with. He is one of those kids who will suddenly come out with a sad, bizarro theory he's been holding onto for a while, and you're like "What? No! Omg." Deep emotional thinker, but he's only 6 so he gets things way wrong sometimes, of course. With the books, he told me he found at least one too hard (it likely was--I didn't vet it) and thought that meant he "shouldn't read big books" and was essentially punishing himself. (He would be a good Catholic. Heavy on guilting himself.) I thought I debunked that, but maybe not.

I think that some kids pursue an interest or passion for a while and when they sense that the intensity is too much, they like to back off and try other things and go back to the passion later on. The child may have been putting too much pressure on themselves rather than the parent pushing their child - in our family, we need to tell our child to slow down because he pushes himself too much.

So, it is not out of the normal for a child who has been spending a lot of time on one activity to feel that the time has come to explore other activities or hobbies.
I would not abandon chess right now. I suggest that you talk to him about other games/sports/activities that he can pursue over the summer and tell him that we will spend lesser time on chess and maybe explore basketball/soccer/astronomy/dancing/swimming/"whatever you like" this summer.

I am new and certainly not in the position to give anyone advice, but...why not play around with multiple ways of getting whatever it is that you think he's missing?

My K kid was reading O-P guided reading level books on her own this year & instead of putting her in a reading group, the teacher suggested she read to me. She hated reading those "big" books out loud, but I thought she needed that level to practice the K reading skills that the other kids were learning (advanced phonics, using context clues, realizing when you don't understand a word or concept, etc.).

At some point another teacher gave her some short, educator-designed nonfiction books to bring home that had unfamiliar words and situations and met the guidelines that I was looking for without having small print. She ate those up.

We talked about the differences and together we figured out that she wasn't enjoying reading books with small print unless it was okay for her just to get the "gist" of it, which she couldn't do reading to me.

It's all good. She's actually found other ways to develop the skills I think she needs but isn't getting in school (reading captions in adult books and then looking at the picture if she doesn't understand that caption is a way she can approach the "picture walk" they do in school).

Because it's not the length of the book that matters but the size of the text, I also look for large print books to give her. (She has and loves a large print Pippi Longstocking, for example.)

I think it helped identifying the problem (print too small) and then giving guidelines that fill my needs: "you need to learn how to approach words you aren't familiar with, so for school I just need you to choose a book with some words and concepts you don't know." Letting her figure out how to meet that has really helped.

Last week she checked a whole bunch of Annie and Snowball books out of the library. She was reading those when she was a young 4. But she likes them, so okay...

My DS, in K, is FICKLE. He also plays chess and has had some success, but we don't place a ton of emphasis on it. DS is people-pleaser and has all of the makings of a future raging perfectionist ( ), so I feel like I need to avoid pressuring him/creating too many expectations for him - he seems to do this on his own. My DS is also very sensitive. He is exploring a good variety of interests right now (sports, chess, reading, math), and finding out what he is good at. His "favorite things" change frequently.

I bet if you do not necessarily have your DS quit chess, but perhaps let him focus a bit less for a while, he might decide to "rediscover" his intense interest again on his own. Best wishes - your DS sounds like a really neat kid!!!

Well, he doesn't have to make a decision about quitting chess right now--that can wait till next year (and of course, need not be permanent, as he could re-join the team). We mainly just decided not to suggest playing, bring it up, offer computer/phone chess, etc. And when we did that, he stopped playing. He still plays a lot of other games. Interestingly, he did watch my DH play chess on his phone the other day and "coached" him (very effectively, I might add) but then as soon as the game was over, he walked away. I would also add that I noticed he was consistently beating a new level in his chess app when he quit playing.

DS IS a perfectionist, in ways that DD isn't (she has the occasional tendency, but DS is a different animal).

He may be going through a period of regression. When DS8 gets overwhelmed with sensory input, or new knowledge, he needs a period to let it absorb. We do a burrito wrap for a couple of days and let him regress to easier tasks, then he is fresh and ready to go!

He may not have the words to tell you adequately what is happening which might be why he doesn't want to discuss it. DS8 told his teacher "I need a break!" when he had just arrived at school (this was when he was six). She didn't understand but as soon as she told me, I got it because that is how he learns. He learns like he grows; he stores up knowledge (getting chubby) and then he absorbs it (growing tall).

I just wanted to bring this post back up because of something I recently discovered that makes my advice here very bad.


When my 6 year old daughter abruptly stopped reading O-P Level books a few months ago, we had a discussion and she said the print was too small. I decided maybe I had been unintentionally pushing and stopped encouraging her to read those books.

A couple of days ago we got her new glasses. Wow. She spent the whole weekend reading pretty much everything in the house. THAT was the issue. She couldn't see. Anyway, she's now requesting novels again.

What I learned is that when sometimes a child stops doing something, there IS something wrong. And I will never again assume it's just because she's reading books a kindergartner really shouldn't be reading and that I should just let her have fun where she's at.