Tell me it gets better? Or tell me to get him help? I dropped him off at preschool today in tears (me in tears, not him).
You said four, right? It will probably get a lot better. I recall our ped, who admittedly didn't see the way dd13 behaved at home, telling me that, if they were still throwing huge tantrums at five, they'd suggest looking into it further. Up until then, it was expected.
In our house, tantrums looked like:
* it took two strong adults to get dd buckled into her car seat b/c she was arching her back and screaming hysterically
* the neighbors thought that I was abusing the kid b/c she screamed so loud and for hours at a time (and often this happened multiple times/day)
* I felt like there was no warning; she's just blow up over things that were intense to her emotionally or when things just got to be too much
Other parents told me to watch for clues of when she was getting tired or burned out but there weren't any. She's just flip and be inconsolable. She bit me, tried to choke me, screamed that she was going to pee on the floor and then do it... (some of this was getting better by your ds' age and she was lovely at preschool, just difficult like this for me).
At 13.5, she is a truly wonderful kid. She's been a truly wonderful kid for quite some time actually. She's also very mature and is usually assumed to be quite a bit older than her age. I don't think that it is only b/c she is grade skipped and placed with older kids that others think that she is older, though. She just comes across like an adult in talking to her except with dh, with whom she is still a real pain.
eta: in reading other parts of the thread, I did want to say that the only reason we could surmise as to why our dd was so much more challenging at home than preschool was a safety issue in her mind. She felt safe enough with me to know that I wasn't going to beat her for acting like that. Around strangers, she was on her good behavior and then just let down her emotional barriers at home.
I did like the book, Raising Your Spirited Child, when she was younger too. It's been a long time, but I recall that it had good advice for challenging, intense kids. I didn't realize that gifted was part of the picture at the time.
