Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy DS6 and rule-worrying etc.

DS6 has been having some social and emotional problems in school lately: I'd really appreciate any BTDTs and tips.

Background: he's in our equivalent of 1st grade, in a small class in a private school. Intellectually things are going pretty well, thanks to a lot of effort from his teacher and weekly communication between us. He seems to be being given work at his own level, consistently, in maths and reading; as far as I can gather, in other subject areas he's being appropriately challenged by their normal processes, at least most of the time. So we're very fortunate.

However, apparently DS is often getting upset at school and his teacher feels a though she is "walking on eggshells. Or broken glass", while he rates each day primarily by how much she got cross with him and says fairly often that he dreads school (although it's clearly more complex than that: he is cheerful on arriving there and when we collect him, and obviously enjoys a lot of it).

I think we have two main kinds of issues, probably related:

1) He is terribly concerned about doing things right, according to the rules, and often gets into trouble because of the "analysis paralysis" that results when he can't work it out and is too scared of getting into trouble to just go ahead and do something. Typical example: he came back from a music lesson and wasn't sure whether he should knock on the classroom door or just go straight in - so he stayed outside until he got into trouble for not returning from his lesson!

2) When he does get into trouble, it's the end of the world for him and he behaves in ways they see as immature. E.g., in a recent episode where his teacher was telling him off, there was a genuine misunderstanding (his teacher had asked one question, he'd answered another...) and I think if he'd stayed calm and explained it would have been OK. But his teacher describes him as having "chosen to throw an enormous temper tantrum" which then became the focus of the incident. (Incidentally he's never, even as a toddler, been tantrum-prone at home; we can't remember the last time he got this upset with us; but in social situations with other people, we do see him get upset and give up in situations that really just call for a little negotiation - he normally runs away, but I can imagine that if not allowed to do that, it might well escalate into what they describe.)

His teacher also describes him as having social problems with the other children ("His idea of starting a conversation is to bark a scientific fact", "He doesn't interact like a normal 6yo") but I'm not so convinced by this as a problem. He can name friends, talks happily about playtime, gets invited to parties... I think here he may be weird but taken on his own terms more by the children than he is by the adults. Hard to tell of course.

Clearly we have some OEs here, especially emotional OE, and I've sent his teacher an article on them, which she said was interesting. We have a parent/teacher meeting in a couple of weeks, we've asked for the special needs teacher to be present, I've ordered a copy of Misdiagnosis...

Any ideas what we can do directly with him? We're talking through incidents as we hear about them, trying to get him to use his strengths e.g. in logic to handle the situations he finds difficult, encouraging watching what other children do and considering using that as a guide to his own action [he's capable of sitting doing nothing because he hasn't fully understood an instruction, when copying what the others are doing would have been the obvious low-risk course!] trying role play a bit, suggesting imagining his teacher has a chicken on her head as an aid to not getting into the cross-upset-cross vicious cycle. I also tentatively mentioned the concepts of OEs and giftedness and how they often go together to him yesterday - previously we've stuck to the "everyone learns differently at different things" line - and his relief was palpable, so I wonder whether I should talk to him more about those things.

Any BTDTs or suggestions?

Can you go in to help one day and observe the class. I wondering about this teacher?

Maybe you can look this up for more info. I'm not sure of where. I recall around K kids have a hightened conscience. They can feel like the teacher is yelling at them all day but it's their conscience. Pefectionism can come into play here.

It sounds like you are talking to him in a I want to help you manner. Just having a parent who understands will help him.

Try to get him outside for lots of exercise. It's good to burn off all the anxiety.

I hope this is helpful. Hope it gets better soon.

Schools here don't work like that - no such thing as parent volunteers, so even if it were permitted, it would disrupt the class just by being so unusual. It would be nice to have unmediated evidence, though - DH and I were saying that it's quite tempting to put a bug on DS :-) I have a great deal of admiration for DS's teacher, and am convinced that she is working hard and open-mindedly at helping DS, although being human and having the rest of the class to deal with she does not always do the thing that would be ideal for him. She is intrinsically quite a difficult person for him to deal with, but she's certainly well within the bounds of reasonable person he needs to be able to deal with, so although I think he may have an easier time with another teacher, I'm keen to help him learn from this year.

That's interesting: DS certainly has a tendency to see any kind of help or correction as "telling off", even when his teacher doesn't intend it that way.

Thanks for your input!

BTDT. My ds9 has and still sometimes does get very very worried if he thinks he's done something wrong. We were at a cub scout meeting the other day and I usually let the boys make paper airplanes while I'm talking to keep their busy hands busy...he threw his into a basketball net and came over to tell me. I explained a couple times I couldn't get it and not to worry about it, it was too high up. Finally after his asking again, I said, 'well, they're not going to finger print it! if you're really worried, you can make another and write an apology note on it and send it up there...', hoping to make him laugh. Partly because I was trying to continue the meeting, I didn't notice he was actually distressed.
One of the dads there did, however, and he just gently told ds he would try to get it, and to just try to participate in the meeting. I stopped what I was doing and looked at ds, his eyes were just saucers ~ he was really worried about getting into BIG TROUBLE. Sigh.

Similar note on social behavior except that ds himself felt isolated so we knew there was a definite change needed there.

Our approach after some assessment from a neuropsych was multi-pronged...social skills training course, helped both with finding better ways to interact, ways to back out of a situation that was going 'off course', and to see that there were other kids out there who sometimes didn't click with others. All the adults who speak with him are very impressed and enjoy actual conversations with him, but getting along with other kids was a puzzle.
Further, we had a few counseling sessions for him on anxiety; one pressure area is school, one is bedtime. Bedtime has gotten a lot better; my dh was a night shift guy, but has since changed that and it has really helped ds.
School anxiety is still sort of strange to me since he usually does A work; it is less about assignments than 'fairness' in some situations, getting in trouble on the bus because other people are misbehaving, he hates be lumped with others for behavior, good or bad. He wants to earn any praise legitimately.
Anxiety is less and less a problem as he learns the rules of the road, and it has also been a matter just getting older. Good luck to you and your ds!

Thanks, Chris and Cricket, it's good to hear about children who've made it through this kind of issue. It may be that some social skills training for DS wouldn't go amiss; I'll see what's around. Btw, if you have any recommendations for books written *for children* (but not pre-readers :-) about social conventions, how to make friends etc, that might well be useful. I think this is sort of about DS's teacher, but it's not that she's not a good teacher; I'm sure she is, and in some many she is fantastic for DS specifically - even though he does have a touch of being afraid of her, or perhaps in awe of would be a better way of putting it, he nevertheless bounces in to say good morning, is keen to ask her things and show her stuff etc. It's just that they aren't quite on the same wavelength. If DS could learn to adjust his receiver a little, as it were, he has a lot to gain, and I'm hopeful he can.

Thanks, kcab, and I hope your son's anxiety eases. DS came home today saying that his teacher had had a new idea: she's given all the children two laminated cards, one saying "I'm OK" and the other saying "Help" so that if they need help but daren't ask out loud they can just display the Help card! This in reaction to DS having *three* such occasions yesterday when he just sat and did nothing because he wasn't sure what to do next. Seems like a good idea, and I'm very happy to hear that his teacher isn't out of ideas yet!