Hi All,
I have searched the archives and have not been able to find any in-depth posts about gifted children and sports. I'm hoping that someone can educate me. This is long and rambling, so I beg your pardon.
My ds is six and though he did almost everything way ahead of schedule, he seems to be behind on physical skills. I don't mind that he's behind, per se, but am rather confused about it all. My husband and I were very, very athletic young people, playing and excelling at any sport we played. Our son shows an interest in physical activities, but he simply cannot 'get' how to do things. He's very (VERY) slow to be able to get his body to do what it needs to do, and he really doesn't seem to care whether he can do it or not. We don't have TV or video games, so it's not that he's parked inside all the time. He's very much an outdoorsy type.
We spent two days per week, for four months, at a university swim club trying to teach him how to swim. We finally gave up because he simply didn't progress...at all. A few months later we tried lessons at the YMCA because our ds loved swimming and we really wanted him to learn to swim. We pretty much got the same result.
The YMCA was also the first time we were able to see him in a gym setting playing games with other children. Honestly, at first I wanted to run away and hide. He was SO different and out of sync. It was very obvious that he was just not where the other children were when it came to coordination or understanding how to do these things. He almost seemed at times to be interacting like a child with a mental handicap might act. By that I mean that he was very happy to be there, but in his own little world, not really caring whether or not he was a part of the group. He tried to engage with these kids, but for the most part was ignored (and this has been the case since he was two).
He is also very slow to understand instructions for these games and activities. Other children just seem to know very quickly what's going on, but he isn't like that. It takes him several exposures to even begin to integrate the rules and how-to. He is PG and is NOT like this when it comes to anything else in his life.
We're now encountering the same sort of issues with soccer that we had with swimming. He desperately wanted to play soccer, so we signed up this fall. Now that he's there, he is more interested in talking to the coaches and other adults on the sidelines as he passes them while trotting down the field. He has no desire to compete with others for the ball. He insists that he loves playing the game, but to us it seems that he's more interested in the social aspect of it. And by 'social' I don't mean peers; they don't really talk to him... and he seems okay with that too! He just likes "being there" and talking with the adults who will talk with him.
The available outside activities are very limited due to our rural location. We had to drive over an hour just to do the swimming and YMCA. Locally, we only have sports available. So, joining a chess club, book club, Lego team, etc. is simply not an option, unless we try to find others with those interests --which hasn't been successful thus far.
I guess what I would like to know is if it is common for gifted children on the higher end of the scale to be uncoordinated and unable to focus when it comes to sports. My son just seems SO out of sync with his peers, though again, he doesn't seem to care. He isn't aggressive or driven at all in this area. Do we let him play until he requests to stop (or they no longer allow him to be on the team!
)? Do we try to push him and give him extra help to learn these skills? Do we let it go before bullying becomes a bigger issue (we've had a little) and direct him to music and other more solitary activities? He has no siblings, no regular playmates, and is home educated; yet, *he* seems to be as happy as can be and never asks for friends or comments on his situation at all. *I suppose I'm concerned about how this might impact him in the future, and if this is common in these children.* I was much like this myself, though not as gifted, and I did have two younger siblings. I would simply like input from those who have been in a similar place. What worked and what didn't? What were the outcomes when they were older?
Thanks for reading,
Mom2MrQ
