Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Impulse control and the strong willed child

I almost forgot! I always go through my mental checklist when things start getting ugly. H.A.L.T. is the child hungry, angry, lonely, tired? Sometimes, as others have pointed out, resolving these issues clears up the problem behavior immediately.

It's comforting to know that we are far from alone!

Yesterday was a good day for DS. I suspect the rest helped. I shared these tips with DH and we are going to try really monitoring food, water and sleep. DS tried to get a reaction from me with his latest unapproved word. I ignored it, thus avoiding a long, drawn out back-and-forth with him. Point 1 for me!

We have the book "The Explosive Child," having purchased it before the testing. Honestly, it didn't seem to apply much to his patterns. I would describe most of his troubling behaviors to be more along the lines of "what would happen if I do this thing I'm not supposed to" than just having a big reaction (soccer camp example notwithstanding). aeh, thank you for the link. I'd wandered across it a few weeks ago. I will look at it more closely and share it with DH.

Oh, yes. Here, too. DD is an EXTRAORDINARILY picky eater and many of her bad moods start with being told she needs to pick a healthier food option. This is my child who GAGS on fruits and vegetables. I gave her pureed fruits up until recently, just to get more healthy food into her. She rarely eats vegetables, so we allow her to drink low-sodium V8 (poor substitute, but I have trouble getting her to consume FRUIT!). (Sigh). She seems to be genuinely texture and taste-sensitive, and it is a real struggle - we make many fruit smoothies and have also sometimes hidden healthy ingredients in food. We have tried to avoid food battles, but when your child wants to live on carbs and dairy products alone (and sweets, if we'd let her - we don't), you DO feel like you need to put your foot down.

So many, many of DD's bad moods have been tied to limits we put on unhealthy foods/insisting on healthy foods.

Loy, our DD3 is like that - almost 4 and we still have to purée fruit and vegetables to get some vitamins unto her (would not drink juice, even). When she stopped pooping even with laxatives and was found to have a dilated rectum from her chronic constipation, we simply stopped serving processed carbs in the house (that's when we went primal, and that it helped with DS7 and my blood sugar issues and helps DS1 who has major special needs was a happy by-product.) I cannot recommend the nutritionist Kelly dorffman and her book "cure your child with food" enough. We shelled out for two private phone consultation because we are really at the worse end of the picky eater spectrum she deals with - screaming for a full afternoon about a minuscule sliver to soft-boiled carrot, falling asleep exhausted on DHs arm rather than swallowing...that bad. Major sensory issues. It has taken us over a year but she is finally eating a variety of vegetables, some not even puréed!) and another fruit (than banana). Yes, one other fruit. We expect to add nr. three soon, and take it from there. And she is off laxatives!
For myself, I needed to realize that not forcing her to give up on her all carb diet was as detrimental to her as not following through with toothbrushing or car seats or essential medication in order to have the strength to go through with the year of screaming, throwing food away and running away from the table. The way dorffman puts it: you are in an ongoing food battle and have been since (in our case) the first spoonful of solids at six months, but you are losing every day. We win some, we lose some but altogether there is constant progress.
Sorry, somewhat off topic but I feel so much for my fellow fighters!

Matter of fact...


DD is one of those kids who pushes the envelope REGULARLY. We had to put our collective feet down as parents when she was about seven that she was NOT allowed to refer to any adults she knew as "Stupid." Decisions or behaviors, fine... but not PEOPLE. And especially not Mom or Dad.

{sigh}

I'm afraid that this is a lot like wildland firefighting, though: the terrain is hostile, and lightning strikes often and everywhere, meaning that your work is never truly done. LOL!

Another useful tip: Immediate consequences are most effective, even if they're quite small. Consequences that are delayed or extended over time tend to be ineffective. So "You can't play with that toy (read that book, be with your friends) for 10 minutes" is going to work better than "You can't go to the birthday party on Saturday" or "You're grounded for a week."

So glad i found this thread. My DD7 is very negatively vocal and critical (of me in particular.) She scratches and bites her brother when she can't think of a come back, and they fight *a lot.*

Almost every day she tells me she a) hates me b) I'm the worst mother in the world and c) asks her dad "why did you marry her!? why dad?! (which we both find kind of funny.

She also tells me she hates what I'm wearing, and wants to know why I never wear anything "pretty." It's very hard sometimes.

I'm going to try the books recommended. Hopefully something will work.

Oh. My. Goodness. It is so nice to hear other people telling such stories about their kiddos. Sometimes the mouth that my DS5.5 gets on him makes me feel like such a failure. There's a meme going around on Facebook that says, "You're making it very hard for me to be the parent I'd always dreamed of being." That's totally how I feel.

Eating is really hard here because he's gotten even more picky as he's gotten older. I'm really taste/texture sensitive myself, so I sympathize, but want some healthy foods into him. Going to think about this all some more.

Strong willed child with an attitude that literally scares me, right here, sitting next to me so peacefully now. But we are on egg shells so often with him. One thing we have recently changed, was taking him off his allergy pills (Claritin). I'd never heard that some kids have major attitude changes by being on these. I do see some attitude change, at the very least with his ability to cope with school work, so far. The attitude may or may not be affected in general. Also, highly agree with the poster who mentioned anxiety in the gifted. I know that is causing a lot of our problems. Our ability to be able to respond calmly is being stretched daily. I thought I was calm before, now I've achieved some sort of Zen.

My DD7 has anxiety (at least it seems like she does, she hasn't been diagnosed yet) so a lot of time I try to look at her criticism through that lens...I am an extension of her, so as cruel as she's being to me, there's probably a lot of criticism and perfectionism going on her head about herself...I'm going to have to help her with that.