Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Willful, probably gifted toddler- advice?

This is my first post! Any help or guidance would be much appreciated!

I have an almost 3 year old who I believe is gifted. He started speaking at 2 1/2 months old- in short sentences at 4 months. He taught himself 1/2 to 2/3 of the alphabet right before he turned two. Now he seems be interested in internal organs and engines. I believe he is also trying to teach himself how to read. He has very little patience for letting me teach him, although he may be able to spell his name now. He gets bored quickly. I'm here at home with him all day. He goes through many 10 different activities a day.

I think he also fits into this category I've just learned about called "spirited child"? He's very strong willed, sensitive, active. He's also unusually large and strong.

He acts alright at home, but we have had to take him out of preschool and one of his extracurricular activities because he kept throwing fits. Willful, emotional fits because he didn't want to do what he was told for whatever reason. In the instance with the preschool, he told us that they were hitting and pinching him, I think to try to control him. My husband and I are worried about what will happen when he needs to go to real school.

We're just trying our best as we go along. We don't know of any other kids who are like this. Has anyone else "been here" and have any advice?

Welcome! I have a fantastic book selection for you! Another parent on this forum shared it with me and I'm happy to pass on the suggestion.

The Explosive Child - book
Livesinthebalance.org - corresponding website

The premise is "children do well if they can." However, when children have any developmental anomaly (and most people have or have had one at some point), they are being asked to do things they're not capable of, and when they try to express it, we move to punishment.

The Explosive Child is looking at predictable patterns of outbursts for underlying lagging skills, then works with the child for solutions.

(((Hugs))) to you! Hang in there, and post often ❤

Welcome!

You've received great advice above.

I'll just add a response to this part of your post... Hitting and pinching would be "corporal punishment" and are not acceptable forms of discipline. There are a host of reasons why corporal punishment is not OK, including being a negative role model, essentially encouraging a child to emulate this behavior.

Please do the following:
1) Make careful notes at home. Ask your child gently probing questions to learn Who-What-Where-When-Why-How regarding the hitting and/or pinching. Are there any marks on your child? Any witnesses? Write down all the facts, according to your child's account. Make a copy and keep it at home, in a safe place.
2) Check your State laws online to see if there is any mention of corporal punishment as a form of discipline in schools.
3) Check your preschool website and/or marketing materials, application forms, agreements, parent handbook, etc, for any mention of disciplinary policies.
4) Talk calmly to the head of your preschool:
4a)Present the facts (#1 above) as you understand them to be.
4b)Calmly state that hitting or pinching your child as a form of discipline is not OK.
4c) Ask to hear the teacher's account of the situation(s). Ask when you can expect to receive this information.
4d) Be prepared to take notes on what they say.
There may be awkward pauses in the conversation. Do not attempt to fill them. Keep focused and on-topic.
4e) Thank them, leave politely.
5) After the meeting, send a polite e-mail thanking the head of the preschool for his/her time in meeting with you, and stating that you look forward to hearing the preschool teacher's account of the events of MM/DD/YY (and MM/DD/YY) by MM/DD/YY.

Thank you for you guys' thoughtful replies! I have "The Explosive Child" ordered and that site bookmarked!

Indigo- Thank you. We have been doing some of that and did have a meeting, but we have not been documenting. That is a really good point.

I think most of the people in my family are strong willed like this, so it was kind of a shock to me when I saw other little kids just walking along doing what they were told with no problem. I feel like what I see as normal development "for us" is not in the scope of the world and and I don't know what do to in a class or group environment when he's expected to do things that I don't think he's capable of (behave, obey, sit still).

I also honestly do not tell anyone that he is even bright, let alone gifted, because they never believe me. For example, our dentist tried to have a conversation with him and he just stared back at him in return. Our dentist told me privately that maybe I should take him to "see" someone because children who are almost three should be able to talk. He CAN talk, he just chose not to talk to our dentist.

Sounds like your kiddo is quite similar to my almost 3-y/o. We also had an issue when he changed room recently at preschool where he would come home and tell us about all the fights he'd been in that day - hitting, kicking, pushing... it had me worried when it continued for a couple of weeks even though he never had any marks. So we investigated, and it turned out he was largely making up stories and exaggerating the events of the day. Such as, someone bumped into him on the playground being viewed as a personal and deliberate attack. Our son is very sensitive, so I think this made him more prone to exaggeration. This may not be what's happening with your child, but maybe an avenue worth investigating.

I tried to reply earlier but I guess I messed it up.

Thank you for all the thoughtful replies!

Sanne- Ordered Dr. Greene's book and have been watching the videos on his site all morning. THANK YOU!

Indigo- We did some of the things on your list, but didn't think about documenting. Man, what a good idea.

SarahMarie- I do think this was some of it. My son is large and strong and really likes other people. Once he was trying to play with a little girl but she did not want to play with him. They never touched each other at any point. On the way home he told us he "hurt the gal." He seems to see any negative interaction as being his fault and to involve him "hurting" another person. He definitely picked that up at preschool.

I would have thought that having a smart child would mean that you could reason with him, but at least for MY child, he usually looks at me like I'm an idiot when I try to explain things.

To reassure you... you did not mess up. I believe that for new members, the first 5 posts or so are held for moderator approval. This is to ensure that posts are real... not spam.

If your child is large for his age, it is not uncommon for others around him to treat him as an older child who is more emotionally more developed - I have seen this with a few children, and the frustrations that comes out of the child is very real when teachers expect him to be more mature purely based on size even when he was the youngest in the room.

Gifted or not, 3 years old is too young to expect to apply what seems reasonable logic to us on a child especially one that is quite sensitive and explosive. DD4 is our explosive one and when she is upset, reason is not what works. What we notice is that she will have a precise picture in her mind on how things will work and if even one piece is out of place, she just can not recover as easily.

There are no easy answers for that... sometimes it helps when we validate her feelings "I know it is so awful that this thing is not where you want it (broke/lost etc)" We have some hard fast rules - meltdowns at the table (where she is crying too hard to eat safely), we will remove her and let her get all the emotions out then talk with her. It has gotten easier as her motor skills allow her to control more of what she can do (she would rip up paper or rage when she could not control her drawing/painting motor skills and a mistake was made). We speculate that her mind is ahead of what her body can do and that just angers her when she runs into that wall (having an older brother seems to fuel her drive to catch up to what he can do, and cause rage when he can do things she can not do yet).

Yes I think there IS some of that.



You know what...This is an interesting idea. My husband has a very high IQ and my mom is mentally ill but is also on a very high intellectual level. I'm not a stupid person myself, but I'm used to living with people who are smarter than I am. My husband and my mom have always had problems conceding my points because deep down they see errors in whatever my argument is. Maybe my son is doing this too, but it's coupled with the strong toddler emotions. So he's not able to take the next step that we adults do where we swallow our pride and say "okay" when secretly we think the other person is still wrong.