Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional No doodling!!!

DD9, ADHD inattentive type, is a doodler. On her math, her hands, at breakfast, during the Cogat, church, you name it. She's famous at school for doodling. Of course it's a concern because she will draw rather than focus on tests or homework or teachers......Yesterday she had a pre algebra test, a big one. She was not happy that she had to take it because she feels that is unfair that she has work outside of school. Honestly, I feel bad, too. She told her sister she would deliberately flunk the test so she wouldn't have to go back. Big sigh from me. I told her she could have an extra privilege if she would just try her best.
After the test last night she comes out all excited, and stated that while she was about the last one done, she DID have time to draw so maybe she would like the class because she has time for doodling. Her drawing was pretty cool, by the way.
Later I asked if the test was hard. She seriously said "No, the test wasn't hard; what was hard was NOT doodling ANYWHERE on my test!!" She focused for over an hour just on her work!!!!!!!! My sweet thing.
And before bed she pulled me over to the side of her bed and whispered "I love you." This is from my never ever share emotions girl. I am so in love with my DD!!!!!

Good for her. I can empathize. Glad to hear she brings the doodles home. My DS is also a big doodler particularly if a class is boring, I do it all the time. My list of notes scattered around my computer are filled with doodles. And I personally think doodling as long as it's in an appropriate place and time.

The one problem we had was when DS was in 8th grade he he doodled a LOT in science class. One day the teacher found one of his doodles in the garbage and she decided that it was a nasty picture of her and took offense. He got pulled to the office about this, I was brought it. My son was honestly perplexed. I forget what it was a drawing about but it was never intended to be her it was just squiggles, or maybe an animal. Didn't help our relationship with that teacher. What he learned out of the episode was to never throw away his doodles in the class garbage or where this teacher could see.

Oops!!!! Interesting that the teacher assumed it was a "nasty" one of her in particular.... DD9's teachers are pretty laid back about the doodling. They just call out "Earth to DD!!" when she is not focused on them. Amazingly she seems to be able to still answer their questions!! DD has actually started a club related to her artwork. She requires kids to fill out forms and send in artwork for her review to be accepted!! She has all these rules and requirements set up online for admission. Crazy!!

As a sometime-doodler myself, I can't say that I'm amazed. I do it in meetings, where I find it helps me keep from mentally checking out completely. Rather than daydreaming, I'm focusing on something in the here-and-now. That makes it easier stay alert through empty business-babble, endless complainers, talk of issues I have no involvement in, etc., and still notice when a topic of substance and usefulness to me shows up.

So in other words, your DD has found a good coping mechanism for boredom, and the only problem here is she takes it too far at times.

Doodlers unite! DD is a doodler and so am I. It's a trait I've taken from gradeschool straight into my corporate life where, at this point I sometimes think I can't concentrate at all without a pen in my hand.

Mo Willems is also a big proponent of doodling ...

This exactly. Signed, fellow meeting-doodler.

Somehow to focus I need to be doing something else as well. The time pressure of an exam works too though.

Our DD's are clones with ADD, and DD draws all over everything at school as well. She says that it actually HELPS to focus. The math/science teacher allows her to use one blank notebook to draw in so that she doesn't keep drawing all over her work. So DD actually has it labeled "doodle notebook"

Another vote for doodling to focus. I usually stick with abstracts so they're not too diverting, but if I don't have something to use up a bit of my attention, I get so bored I tune out. I wonder if perhaps it's because I find getting information orally so slow and painful compared to taking it in myself reading, that I find it astoundingly hard to stay focused on someone talking, even if they are quite interesting? It's just sooooooooo sloooooooow.

In my old age, at important meetings where I need to catch a lot of detail, I now tend to take almost verbatim notes, which similarly keeps me on track. Otherwise, I can miss huge chunks of what was said before I even realize my attention has wandered.

Greenlotus, do I recall correctly that your DD was a seriously visual-spatial type? If so, perhaps you could help her learn to take "visual notes", thus killing two birds with one stone (and assuaging the teacher, for a bonus)? For example, there's some basic ideas at www.visualspatial.org/files/notes.pdf

Repeating geometric patterns here, for the same reason.

Well, that, and I'm crap at art.

I definitely use doodling to focus and to enhance my notes including embellishing the lettering. Makes it very easy to spot words later. And, I might add that when I took art history, my quick Doodling practice helped me in lecture to quickly sketch whatever was on the slide, draw arrows to my note, etc, and enhance with font embellishments appropriate to the time period. And now when I go to the doctor with my mother, I can easily find an old note in my journal.

Seriously!!! Every time you post about your DD I find myself nodding!!! They would either be the best of friends or drive each other batty!!!! I don't think I could count how many drawing books DD has. And guess what? She calls them "doodle notebooks" as well!

Yes - she is definitely a visual-spatial type! What a great idea about visual notes!! As soon as I get my fill of the forum, I will be checking out that website!

just to sidetrack this a wee bit... (and tell me to put it in rec resources if nec)

anyone got any clue how to help VS kids with music? DD can play very well but gets stuck when she has to do instant repetition of clapped rhythms as it takes her a minute to catch up. She does cope quite well with the vocal instant repetition.

Teacher won't consider her for extension lessons because of this, she's now getting bored and disliking class although she still spends a lot of time playing at home. (I'm struggling to find another teacher for her age so we are stuck with this one for at least another 3 months.)

I like the idea of the pictures in the link above, I'm thinking about colour coding the piano so that should help with notation but I'm wondering about rhythm, any clues?

Rhythm = fractions

And have you tried teaching her the visual patterns for chords and intervals (notation & hand position)? Once she learns them, she'll probably be a much better sight reader then the pure auditory pianists.

Mahagogo - This might be totally off base, but bear with me.... There seems to be a lot of overlap in learning approaches among the severely visual-spatial and the dyslexic (I have both in my house), so perhaps some of the suggested approaches for teaching music to dyslexic children would resonate with you? Most suggest a multi-sensory approach (like Suzuki); we were doing a "Music for Young Children" program with DD which seems to share a lot of those recommended approaches.

Some of the things the program did with rhythm, for example, included having a different sound for each kind of note that took up the correct amount of airtime ("ta" for a quarter, "ti-ti" for eighth, "half note" and "great big whole note"). New and challenging rhythms would be sung using these words, clapped and done with castanets, while also being built of manipulatives on the floor, which you could do in both colour and size differentiation. Body, hand and eyes would move together to sing the pattern while pointing to each kind of (physical) note on the floor. This type of class has a huge emphasis on learning patterns of both rhythms and notes. Patterns are learned as visual pictures (picture a drawing of notes "stepping up vs jumping") and as physical movements. Known patterns are then always highlighted in colour code on the music sheet. Well, I'm sure you get the idea!

This kind of approach helped my DD a lot. But to be honest, her older, crazily-VS brother, would have gone nuts if forced to use the manipulatives and the "full body approach", even though he could have benefitted greatly from the focus on learning, finding and marking the patterns. So YMMV! But just a thought.

Thanks Aeh & MichelleC.

She does the intl school of music program. Honestly I'm starting to just think she needs one on one rather than group as if I sit down with her and get eye contact and just give her a moment after I clap she is fine but anyway.

It's given me a bit to think about. I hear what you are saying re dyslexia. She def isn't (as far as I know) but the pauses she takes at times to process what she has heard make me think of dyslexic kids who are trying to process what they are reading as they go.

I know she understands the value of each note, it's just rapidly converting the tahn, ti ti etc into action. I guess if we focus more on the picture of the notes and getting her more involved bodily it'll become second nature and she won't have to think. Maybe making "friends" with the notes.

Last night I popped removable coloured stickers on the keys and shaded some photocopies of her music. She can def play notes by ear (I think she has perfect pitch) but she can't do ANY of the notation activities in class, ie when they are given a staff and have to put magnets on doh etc. So I'm hoping the colours will help her in that regard more so than in playing.

She wants to start violin as well soon (we'll wait until she's had piano a full year) so in 3 months she'll be doing both instruments. I think we will def be doing Suzuki. Her goal is to play trumpet eventually so she started recorder at home yesterday too. Fingers are way too small though.

I love the idea of coloured stickers on keys. I might steal that idea for DS!

God, yes. Totally this.

DD12 said this was why she hates books on tape and being read to in class... because people just read toooo slowly. Everyone except for me, apparently. She loves when I read to her because I'm the only person who reads fast enough.

I struggled with this in college. I would like to speed everyone up, like Vi Hart does in her videos (I love her videos!) Rapid assimilation of verbal information is by far my most "out there" strength. DH can outdo me in almost all areas, but I probably read 3X as fast as he does. I have been told by others that I read aloud too fast, but even so, my DD no longer wanted to be read to by age 6 because she preferred the faster speed of reading alone.

This is one of the reasons I hate those news video's (and TV news) that have proliferated over the net. I can read the relevant information is 1/4 of the time it takes to impart the same info in a video format.

Personally, books on tape and podcast put me to sleep. A lot of my friends love them and don't understand. I would much prefer to simple read the information.

I don't have the same problem with the speed of verbal information (maybe because I like the social aspect), but I reject TV news in part because they just don't cover anything in the kind of depth I want. It's news-lite. Print journalism presents far more information, which is easy to augment with video or other visual aids when you're getting your print journalism online.

Also, sensationalism bias.

I will watch a good movie or TV show, of course, but I don't watch talking heads. I can't even watch TED talks. I will listen to podcasts or books on tape, but must do something else at the same time. If I try to just sit and listen, I am likely to fall asleep.

I am always wishing for a transcript when people post videos of things they want me to see. Why would I take all that time???

Jeez, I sound weird.

I should say, I don't need to speed people up in back and forth conversation (unless they monopolize!), but lectures, speeches, some types of meetings, or things where someone talks solo drive me mad.

My kind of weird! And I can't count the number of times I've followed an interesting-looking link only to find it's a video - and fooey on that.

I am weirder.

I had this reputation In law school for being the super weird kid that would fall asleep in class all the time. Once I even fell off the chair with a loud crash - though that was from jiggling so desperately on my chair trying to keep myself awake, and that was shortly before finals,with everyone else listening with desperate attention. No one believed me, and the story kept being told that I fell off the chair as I fell asleep.
I also drove some people mad with my constant running in and out of the library. I had such a hard time focusing when sitting down.
And as if I hadn't done enough to ruin my reputation, I run into a brick wall during the all important finals and realize I am starting to panic. So I put my head on my arms trying to calm myself and the next thing I know is the proctor shaking my shoulder and asking whether I was alright. I had to get up and do some stretches, but could focus on my paper after that. So after that I was known as the absolute super nutso who fell asleep during finals.
Years after leaving that school, I'd still meet people who did not know me but had watched me jiggle or sleep or crash or had heard of me doing so. They'd go "that was you?!" (guess I looked far to normal and plain to be so weird).
A few even had the gall to ask me outright whether I ever made it through finals and how I did. I kinda enjoy shutting them up with the answer.

Ditto on the video transcript thing. Also, I almost got kicked out of the GREs because I was wiggling so much the person next to me complained to the proctor.

This is one reason I have never wanted to go back to school. Lecture-based environments torture me. Very hard for me to learn well unless the lecturer talks quite fast and/or is very dynamic. I'm great at learning from printed material or back and forth dialogue.

That is AWESOME. Good teacher

(Signed, fellow doodler )

To this day I still use a doodle notebook. It is funny when somebody at work has only noticed that I am always writing in my notebook during meetings asks to see my notes. The fact is my doodles really are notes about the meeting most of the time, just encoded in my own language. I can put a lot of meaning into my doodling.