Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Insight into "Tantrums"

This actually really concerns me. Now that I'm seeing the big picture, I realize I didn't out grow it.

I spent my first semester at college lost in a walking day dream and ended up detouring to a different school/ major that was easier.

It didn't really stop until I, unfortunately, took up smoking. I gave up smoking and started working 70 hours a week, then distance running and grad school. The last few years of my life have been packed with adult responsibility. With three of my four away from home, I believe I need to be proactively looking for something to productively fill my time, as well as help Dd avoid losing chunks of her life to this.

Our kids sound very similar. My son also picks at/bites nails (I also bite my nails). I have also noticed that my son is ignoring projects he would have really enjoyed (like making a bug model in his class) because it cuts into his daydreaming time. He was also sensory seeking but had a lot of OT as a baby and doesn't seem to have a lot of sensory stuff anymore. Do a google search on MD and see if it fits your experience growing up. I do remember daydreaming a lot to survive boredom, but no one I know of in my family did this, but they could have just never mentioned it or learned to hide it. I do feel like I have addictive behaviors, for instance I will use "flow" to solve problems whenever I have down time... I will do all that is required, but once I have down time I'm back to researching...it is hard for me to just sit and be in the moment.

Smoking sounds like self medicating... interesting. When I have looked this up, most of the people who are managing it are reducing triggers - triggers are tv, media, books, etc. I'm not sure the cure isn't worse than the disease.

Hmm... here's a thought- something that saved me later. I became less entranced in my day dream life and channeled it productively into "ideas."

I was (and still am) interested in big questions and thoughts. I enjoy sociology, educational philosophy, ethics/logic because it provides a framework for big thoughts.

It started when I stumbled across Lincoln's Gettysberg Address and later Martin Luther King's speeches- I became immersed in the language and the ideas- equality, justice, courage, conviction. These are real life extensions of the ideas in books like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, etc. It's why they are so entrancing- little people doing big things, overcoming odds, being brave and loyal.

I wonder if there is a way to help your daughter be mindful of time and her tendencies (no one helped me with this to my detriment). Maybe incorporate some philosophy, ethics, sociology into her coursework?

Just some thoughts.

Also, anecdotally some people have had luck managing it with meditation- which makes sense because meditation is about controlling your thoughts, mindfulness etc.

By the way, this is not in itself a problem, as you are catching it in time to help her learn to control it. My DS apparently has anxiety, so if I help him with that, I'm hoping that his imagination will become an asset instead of the land of the lotus eaters...

These days when thinking about my kids my primary thoughts seem to be.. is your giftedness working for or against you? If it's working against you, how can I help you shift that?

What about offering a sabbatical? NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is coming up, and they have a Young Writer's program where kids sign up and set their own writing goals. What if you used November as a break for her to work through all her rich imaginative stuff while putting some of it down in novella form - and at the same time, start her on a walking/running/jumping routine, so that by the end of the month she would potentially have set her thoughts down, so might feel that she doesn't need to keep revisiting them continuously (I did this a lot as a kid too, and then started writing, and writing everything down was therapeutic for me, because then I wasn't stressed about what I might have forgotten between yesterday and today, I used to panic about all of it, and can remember waiting for "me time" and feeling rather anxious poking at that part of my mind, wondering how much I forgot).

What also helped me was to get a little ideas notebook that I carried around for a while and every time I had a great idea (to my mind anyway), I would jot it down. Then it was "safe" and I didn't have to spend so much time running it through my mind over and over and I could come back to it later instead.

The Young Writer's program from NaNoWriMo offers quite a lot to kids who take part. They also offer t-shirts and other merchandise if you make your target (even if not) - was just thinking maybe you could buy her a shirt if she makes her target within the month and she's settled into the new, more physical routine as well?
It might be easier for her to then settle back into "normal" academics afterwards as she'll have worked through all her daydreaming time type stuff, and will also be a little more tired due to the physical stuff?

She does have idea notebooks. I do the same with a running documents on the computer, although I really don't write any fiction. I know the "I don't want to loose this thought!" feeling.

I'll keep the NaNoWriMo in mind for next year as she is in a writing class for this fall, using resources she likes.

She's a "need input" kid- always has been. I increased her supply of history and science (and comic) books/ magazines and bought her a model rocket to build. So far, so good. We are on a school break right now, so it's tough to say how next week will go.

Last year we did more contest math/ problem solving as part of our routine math, but it's fallen off of our schedule as we button up some loose ends for before Algebra.

What if she got to channel some of that creativity into designing her own projects for homeschooling? You could create a jar or bowl so everytime she has an idea she can write it down and put it into the jar. When she is looking for something to do, she can take one out and work on it. This way you are showing her how to organise her thoughts and then turn them into output.

This has worked well for my oldest (7) thus far. We still largely unschool although he is now gravitating towards more rigour on his own. I am loving the self-driven goal setting. And more so, the frustration he feels when he has gotten sidetracked from doing his "big plans". I think it's a great lifeskill that can be learnt in a real life setting and I love seeing how week by week he is getting so much better at translating his ideas into workable projects and plans.

Well, we started back from out break on Monday. Had a tantrum right off when she had an error in math I asked her to correct. Since they were simple problems and simple errors, I gave others to do instead. And informed her there would be twice as many of whatever she was rebelling against.

Things have been much better, though. I've added some hands on projects with dad while I'm at work and she started a Starbase class last week. We added a pile of non fiction books that are over her head (math and science), and she's working her way through vi hart's infinity videos stopping whenever she doesn't understand something. She seems to need the out of level stuff to chew on. Although she reads at something of an advanced level, her strength is in math.

Most importantly, I took away her day planner and told her we will finish at 2:30 pm (which was when we finished when I had daily tutoring students). If we finish before that, it's a bonus.

We did also start back to our group writing class I teach. She willingly spent an hour writing and revising her story for that yesterday.

I know the day dreaming is still happening in the evening, but with more to think about during the day, it seems less intrusive.