My 4.5 year old, highly gifted son, has been in pre-school since he turned three. His school is half days, three days a week. Since he has been attending, he has yet to make any real connections with his age peers at school. He will generally play by himself or parallel play with the other children, but never initiates play or enters play with others. He is well behaved and his teachers have said they often "forget about him." He really likes school when they are learning new things, circle time, organized activities, but never can decide what to do during free play. He is always saying that the activities are boring and that he doesn't like them. He also prefers to play alone on the playground. When I take him on play dates with age peers, he usually will find some things he likes and will just play with them by himself, or he will go into his room and read. However, when he is at home and playing with me or his younger brother, he has absolutely no problem playing and will talk non-stop about anything and is so energetic and enthusiastic about learning new things, gets into imaginary play, loves our swing set, etc. He also is perfectly social with older children and adults, especially his older cousins who will play card games, board games, etc. He also has no problem talking with adult strangers are a restaurant, doctors office, etc. It's almost like he has two different personalities. Has anyone else experienced this? His pre school teacher recommended him to early intervention for social issues, and he is now in a social pragmatics group twice a week. The people who evaluated him for this, as well as his preschool teachers, have no knowledge on giftedness - they didn't even know what the WISC test was! He has also participated in sports at the YMCA, and did a summer camp last year. He followed directions and enjoyed his time with these programs, but did not form any connections or even really speak with the other kids.
I'm hoping that some of you can shed some light on this. The psych. that tested him with the WISC, thought he was perfectly social, made eye contact, etc, and think it may be that he just can't relate to the other kids at school and doesn't know how to communicate with them. She thinks that if we found him some intellectual peers, he would be more social. I have tried to find other gifted kids his age, but have not had any success. Has anyone had this problem? My biggest fear is that he won't have any true friends and will have low self esteem once he enters kindergarten. Please help! So sorry for the long post!
Last edited by sunshine4; 03/02/11 08:30 PM.
