Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Intro / help

Hi team,

Been reading here for a couple months, but first time posting. Sorry if this is long.

To set the stage, things were already crazy for us. Two big careers: me at a tech start-up, and DW is founder / executive director of a midsize non-profit. We've got three kids: DS9, DS6, DD2.

I think we always noticed a few things about DS6 that made us raise our eyebrows. DS9 was a 31-week preemie with some developmental delays, so with DS6 it was easy to pass those moments off as "ah, so this is what normal development looks like." We really started to take pause this past fall though. He had a seemingly overnight leap in reading ability. My jaw dropped when I heard him read aloud from Harry Potter with perfect expression -- like a book on tape in a 6-year-old voice. And he memorized the script for a play that DS9 was in after sitting through a couple of rehearsals.

1st grade did not start off well -- daily reports of being bored, teacher won't let me read the books I want to read, can't make friends with any of the kids. Deeply emotional about it, telling us he feels sad, sad, sad. We had meetings with his teacher several times but she couldn't see it. "He seems like he's in his own world a lot of the time." Totally unhelpful.

The crystalizing moment was in November though. We were at the park, it was getting dark and we said "it's time to go home." He got grumpy and said "I don't wanna go home." And I knew he was about to have this specific kind of tantrum where he just repeats that one thing over and over and over. Crying and bawling.
He gets "stuck" and there's no reasoning or consoling him in that state. Been going on since he was 2, and I always thought of it as just an aspect of his personality.

But this was a doozy. It went on for almost an hour, he must've said "I don't wanna go home" a few hundred times. Eventually we started walking toward the car saying "okay, seeya later" (of course not planning to really leave him) and he did follow shortly. But then he says, emphatically, "You never leave a child behind!" And a bit later after I forced him into the car, we start driving away with him standing in the back seat (because he refused to sit) he says "Are you crazy! You're going to kill me!"

And that was really the moment where I thought "Whoa. These are not things your average 6-year-old is thinking about. We need to see someone."

So we did start seeing someone, a psychologist who specializes in in gifted issues. She recommended as a first step that we try to resolve the school situation ASAP. Our school district's GATE program consists of a single 4th/5th combined classroom, and the psych's other clients have had basically zero luck getting any accommodation before then. So we reluctantly pulled him from public school and put him in a private Montessori that goes through 8th grade. Language immersion, 3 teachers per classroom. One speaks only in French, one in Spanish, and one in English. We're on week 3 of the new school, and things seem positive on that front. He's challenged, happier with school.

But the tantrums continue, with increased frequency. We never know what it's going to be. "I just wanna go out for dinner." "I just wanna play with DS9." (who is busy doing his homework) "I don't wanna get out of the bath." When he's in that place, he doesn't want to be comforted, consequences like a time out or etc. just seem to lead to defiance and escalation. We've tried just ignoring, but then he starts slamming doors or kicking things so that we can't ignore. One of us just has to be with him and wait it out until he calms down / snaps out of it.

Anyone else dealt with something like this? What did you do?

Also would love to hear suggestions on how / where to find peers that he can relate to.

My DS was/is a fairly intense guy. We found "The Explosive Child" to be a fantastic resource for us. The name is a bit much but it really, really helped us.

The other thing that worked in our case was to give DS as much control as possible over his day/life. Now of course at age 6 this is a bit of a challenge but start with little things. We shifted from saying demands like "get ready for bed" to "what do you want to do first, get jammies on or brush your teeth?" when we could. Both have the same end result but in the second case, he got some control and he wasn't constantly escalating every little thing into a battle and we had more energy/patience for the battles that remained. We also found that he was a bit more cooperative on the occasions that we did just demand (either because we forgot or because it just wasn't practical).

Anyway, not sure if that will help with your guy but I feel for you. My DS is now 11 and I can still remember him around that age and the absolute fits that he threw. He can still have his moments but nothing like it used to be.

First things first - I strongly recommend that you read The Explosive Child (or really, any of Ross Greene's books).

Second, I think you should consider having him evaluated by an autism specialist. Don't think that the psychologist you have already seen would necessarily have picked up on it. Our eldest managed to conceal his autism from a neuropsychologist who specializes in 2e kids during a full evaluation, but a psychologist who specializes in autism saw it in the first fifteen minutes. My reasons for suggesting evaluation are mostly the rigid, black-and-white thinking that you describe from the park visit, but also the memorizing and reading aloud. Does he quote stuff that he has heard or read in almost eerily appropriate ways? Had he ever heard someone read Harry Potter aloud (even months before) when he read it aloud to you? These are the kind of things that we saw with my younger son, who was the first to be diagnosed.

But the beauty of Ross Greene's methods is that they work whether or not he has autism or some other diagnosable issue.

ETA: chay's post wasn't up yet when I wrote this, but we're both thinking the same way.