Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school not playing with peers?

My 3 year old is very social and shows interest in other kids her age but once they get together it quickly fizzles out and she becomes frustrated with them. You can tell they simply just do not get each other. She plays much better with 5 and 6 year olds. I was really worried about it until I spoke with her doctor and he said it is common for gifted children to not relate to kids their own age.

Ametrine, my son would have gladly followed yours around looking for numbers. To say my little guy is obsessed with finding numbers and letters is an understatement!

My son is almost 3 and I'm just wondering how you guys with the 3 year-olds know that you can use that 'gifted' label with your kids. I'm pretty sure my son is bright, but have you had your kids tested or anything or are you just assuming? Did you family doctor bring it up to you or did you have to ask questions about it? And as for the numbers thing, my son would be right there with the rest of them, hunting down numbers on the playground!

This sounds less like a gifted thing and more like a kid who hasn't had to negotiate playing with others much yet. It will come. They need a certain amount (not too much!) of this. He may also prefer parallel play for a while longer.

I notice that my second child has had a much easier time learning to play with others than my first did, surely in part because he has been negotiating in play from as soon as he COULD play.

I don't know, ultramarina, if the child is playing at concepts those children don't get the play could look like that. If the other children are at the push it along and make chug-chug noises while he is at the trains need fuel and stations, and a developing storyline, he is going to look bossy, and the other children are going to be a bit flabergasted. He might not even realise the other children can't play like he can, and think they won't play, something that could be very frustrating and upsetting for him.

There could be a little bit of both. Adults are more apt to go along with what the kid wants to do in terms of you be the coal manager, I'll be the engineer, etc. Even another gifted kid will balk at be told what to do, when. Which is probably one of the reasons little gifties like adults or older kids. But I think GeoMamma's point is the more significant, we dealt with this a lot in my DS 5's pre-k, the kids just didn't know what he was talking about, he used different vocabulary about different subjects and often the kids would just stare blankly. You could almost see them accessing their memory files, going this does not compute!! DS was more saddened by this than frustrated. He compensated by layering his imaginary world on top of the simpler games is
companions were playing.

I'm not saying there isn't a need to teach the social arts, we talk a lot with DS about
how playing is a give and take and he can't order people around but from his perspective, no one's games are as good as his. With his older cousins we saw much less of this behavior, as their play is much more complex also he is in with first graders for camp and there seems to be less of the "do it my way"

DeHe

Yes, sorry, I didn't mean that gifted children couldn't be controlling, or that all children shouldn't learn social skills.

Gifted and controlling is the state of being around here, with peers or without!!! LOL


DeHe

DeHe - you described my PG 5.5-year-old son to a T. I tried to take him to the library where they had a Legos for kids to play with today. My son lasted maybe two minutes. He looked around the room and the other kids and then promptly pulled on me to leave. Some of the kids were his age, but he didn't want to know or even attempt to interact with them.

This part - "we dealt with this a lot in my DS 5's pre-k, the kids just didn't know what he was talking about, he used different vocabulary about different subjects and often the kids would just stare blankly. You could almost see them accessing their memory files, going this does not compute!!" - I couldn't agree more. It's rather challenging when your ds is using words and talking over kids heads. The other kids just don't know what to make of him/them.

Control is the number one mode of operation. These kids seem to want maximum control over their environment and every situation - or at least that's how it is with my ds.

When it's not happening in the moment it's so interesting to analyze. In your Lego
Library event my DS would have stayed and just ignored all the other kids. Around 3-4 I found it so strange that he would still basically try to parallel play at other kids houses then I realized he had given up on the social side and preferred to focus on their stuff. But if kids came to our house, he totally ignored them, preferring to engage the parent!! The parent was what was new and interesting. the only upside was he never got worked up about kids playing with his stuff, although he hated the fact that his room looked like a bomb went off!

I got a lot of advice here about finding older kids to play with, it was hard while in pre-k but for camp he is in with first graders and it is SOOOO much better. He is still using words they don't know, but not as many or just don't worry about it as much, but they are so much more interested in imaginary stuff so they like him. Which after the year we had with him unable to fit in and 3 kids being so mean, it almost makes me cry!!! And he SOOO much less conrolling when the kids can keep up with him. When the fit is bad, he acts worse - and it's why I never understand why teachers like the, "he can teach them" approach.

DeHe

This was our experience when DD started preschool. She wasn't interested in the other kids (never mentioned a single other child) & the teachers asked us after a term if she had a speech impediment because she never spoke. But she loved to go, they had an enormous array of interesting materials to explore. It was quite a process to get her to engage in group time, follow instructions or do anything that interrupted her exploration of what she found interesting.