Stephen 126,
Welcome to the forum. This is a tricky one.
1) How much does it bother you, personally? Lots of gifted folks are 'worn out' by extra stimulus, such as florescent lights humming, music out of pitch, certian indoor lighting, clothing tags and seams on socks. It is postulated that the same 'supersentive' nerves that make a child great at learning, can cause them to be bothered by things that don't bother others. See OverExcitablities for more. I've made a few leapfrog assumtions - one of them is that you are gifted yourself and it's worth it to ask if you are extra sensitve as well. I say this because taking care of ourselves as parents is vitally important, even if we are extra-sensitive. After a few years of learning to accept my extra-sensitivities, I'm now using meditation to become less sensitive, and I love this new self confidence.
2) DS5 may be bored with school. Gifted kids tend to look 'immature' because they cry at sad things that other children don't even really percieve as sad in the first place - at least not deeply. This isn't really immaturity, as some of us never grow out of this, it's just taking him extra time to learn how to handle this 'larger than average' emotional sensitivity.
3) Is the humming a problem at school? If not I would try to enjoy it. There are lots of advantages. My son was a hummer and then a whistler - I always knew where he was, and when he was about to enter the room. He is very musical, messing around with several insturments. He was able to self-soothe and self - entertain when life wasn't giving him enough challenge. I would try and make sure that your son practices 'humming silently' - although I don't think this is possible to accomplish at age 5. If I could deliver the message with love and acceptance, I would try to have 'modulation challenges' so that DS gets lots of practice with humming softly.
((shrugs))
They can be quite odd little things, yes?
Love and More Love,
Grinity
