My ds8 has essentially been the easiest child, wants to do well etc and does most things when asked. There is a behavior coming to light that ,now that I look back, I've see before and it's becoming a problem. There are just certain things that he doesn't like others to tell him what to do. The coach wants him to catch a ball a certain way. His response 'why? My way is just fine' and he misses a lot of balls. His teacher says write your name here and he writes it someplace else, on purpose.If he writes it in the right place, it's super small and light, so it's hard to read. The are a few other places that this is coming up but you get the idea. I've read that the resisting authority can come up, but I haven't found much on ways to work through it. It's starting to interfere with his ability to learn new things. I'm wondering about perfectionism, visual spatial issues. Yikes, it's kind of complex. Any ideas?

I'm not sure if this is your situation, but I'll offer this anyway.

Sometimes when kids don't feel incharge enough of themselves they resist authority. I think it is better to not get into a power struggle about these situations.

You might ask later, I notice you did this and was wondering about it. Then see what he says. You could also use a third person approach that kids will listen to more easily sometimes. Ex. Say sometimes when kids play baseball sometimes they don't want to listen to their coach. I wonder why?

Also giving kids more choices and being more in charge can help. My son prefers to do his morning chores in his order instead of mine. My kids prefer to pick out their snack for school to put in their school bag. Lots of little things can add up.

Also avoid telling kids what to do too much helps. This is hard for me but the more they can think for themselves the better. Parenting books give lots of tips on ways to talk to kids for better coroporation.

I hope some of this helps.

We have had the same issues with our DS7. It was really a problem in his Montessori preschool/K class. Thankfully, the teacher understood him pretty well and was willing to be flexible. He did best when he had some control over things- we called it "limited choices" and it has generally worked well for us. The teacher was willing to let him have some say in what/how/when he did things, within set limits. (For example, she would often give him a choice of doing one workbook page today, or 2 tomorrow, and let him choose. In the end, he did the requested work, but with some feeling of control on his part.) I think some things you have to just let go, and laugh at (we also had lots of "creative" name writing, or even question-answering, if he wasn't particularly interested in the subject, or just wasn't in the mood.

He has been able to rein in these impulses as he's gotten older, but I still see flashes of the "disrespect" at times. (I put that in quotes, because I don't think DS really means to be disrespectful, it's partly his questioning, stubborn, at times oppositional need to have some control.)

I imagine in baseball it would be especially tough to handle- I notice my son's attitude most often in Karate class (unfortunately, respect is a BIG deal there!) Talking to the coach about adjusting his approach might help- does your son do better with logical explanation? (If coach could add a reason, why this way works better, etc, maybe suggestions would be better received.) DS's Karate instructor "gets" him and doesn't get offended, but does try and reinforce respectful behavior. Sometimes we also just tell DS "I know you didn't mean to sound ---, but that came out as a pretty disrespectful comment." I honestly think he doesn't see it and needs to have it pointed out, in a concrete way.

one more thought, the science of baseball

http://www.exploratorium.edu/baseball/howfar.html

Thank you all for your ideas. We are a pretty choices oriented family so I think we'll try the 'why of it' more often and maybe in more detail and see if that helps.

He has to learn the difference between earned authority and unearned authority.

Those who have experience in the subject are often giving him advice to improve his skills. Just as he can see what others are doing and see a better way, he is also observed and then provided with a better way to do things.

Tell him to try it as an experiment to see if its better. As he gets older, he may have to try several different approaches before he can decide which will work best.

One thing that I think can be really difficult for us as adults to remember is that gifted kids aren't just smarter than other kids, they're smarter than adults. Adults may know more, but a person's ability to process information doesn't really change as they age (if anything, it decays), so these kids can often figure things out in half the time it takes the grown-ups in their lives. They know this, and it can lead to questioning any and all authority. Just a case of "I'm smarter than you, so I can figure it out myself". Austin's comment about teaching him the concept of earned authority is good. He also needs to learn the difference between knowledge and intelligence.

And how those differ from wisdom.

Wisdom is reusing old thoughts because you're no longer accustomed to having new ones....or that's what I tell my dad anyway.

There's an interesting symbolism in the Chinese language on this subject actually. 知 means "knowledge" and 智 means "wisdom". Notice they have two symbols in common. The third symbol that makes the difference between knowledge and wisdom means "days".

Edit: okay, so Chinese characters don't show up on this board. Erm...just copy and paste this into your address bar if you want to see them: http://translate.google.com/translate_t?prev=hp&hl=en&js=y&text=%E7%9F%A5%E6%99%BA&file=&sl=auto&tl=en&history_state0=#auto|en|%E7%9F%A5%20%2C%20%E6%99%BA