Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Child rejecting the dx

That's a challenge b/c she probably doesn't feel like she's working harder than the avg person but she does feel like she's working harder than the average gifted person. It is coupled with having a HG+ older sister who is grade accelerated and simply doesn't have to work hard at all at the things that dd10 struggles with.

She, like you mentioned, seems to be chalking it up to being not gifted b/c she isn't like the gifted people she knows -- me, dd12, other family members, a few other kids from school. What I worry, and see somewhat, is that she'll come to the same conclusion her dad has: that she is stupid. Dh constantly says things like, "why am I so *#%*#@! stupid?!" His self image sucks, he's terribly pessimistic and generally unpleasant to be around not infrequently.

We have and she has bought the line that she was fed by her 3rd grade teacher over and over that she is just a good guesser. She thinks that I am lying to her or being an elitist jerk who thinks that my kids are smart even if it isn't true.

She is rejecting both the ADD dx and the gifted label. She thinks that both are baloney. The problem with that is that she doesn't fit happily with average people either. She seems to be going the route of thinking that she is average but that there is also just something wrong with her b/c she doesn't fit with anyone. I really wish that I had other HG 2e people for her to know other than her dad, who isn't a good role model for dealing with that, and one other child who has totally different exceptionalities and who she would never want to ally herself with in her mind b/c he is very socially awkward whereas dd is a social butterfly -- a lonely in a crowd social butterfly, but one who knows how to work the crowd and is horrified by behaving in a manner that makes one stand out.

Just to clarify, she's not quite 11 yet. She'll be 11 in a little under two months. She's been a bit of a teenager in terms of what a challenge she is for some time though!

Oh Cricket
That just makes my heart hurt. ((hugs))
I wish I had some concrete advice, I have some understanding of being 2e and HG, and vividly remember not doing well at times and not be able to explain it and being overwhelmed with everyone's disappointment including my own. And the comparisons to a sib! But I can't say what would have helped me change my attitudes, beyond more support and understanding from my parents and you are already there

DeHe

I wanted to help, so I just looked in my bookshelf because I didn't know what to say.
How would she honestly describe herself in positive terms? �(an excersize in I found in a book)
Figure that out and reinforce that perception.
Build on success. �Support and reward small steps and progress. �Catch the child doing something right-frequently. �The frequency of re-enforcement is important. �In this case you're reinforcing the positive way you think she would see herself.
Can she distinguish between liking and being friends with someone?
(from the same book)

I don't have anything to add other than what DeHe said. And that I fear we will be facing similar issues with my eldest. Though she's not likely HG.

Cricket, feeling your pain here.

If you wanted to go this route (and if she were willing)-- either finding a cognitive-behavior therapist, or using CBT strategies with her, might be a good bet. CBT is all about changing thought patterns: if a person is thinking about something in an unproductive way, they can learn to re-frame it. It can help people see and accept "what is" and work optimistically with the limitations they're given.

But if she's heavily resisting you on this topic, you might not be the one who should work on it. Your DH perhaps could, though it sounds like he might need to work on his own reframing first and then teach her how?

Edited to add: a simple example of this sort of thing was used in teaching my DS about his dx: the guideline "it's not your fault, it's your challenge." Means you can't slap your head and call yourself stupid, you see about fixing what you can fix about your work. Of course, it takes some retraining to remember to apply this kind of thinking, and that's where the professional help is handy.

This is such a big job-- you have my sympathy.

DeeDee

My DS is a lot younger, but we have this fight with the O-3's too. He doesn't have an official dx, but responds favorably to the O-3's.


I would approach it from a health stand point. O-3's are good for everyone, I myself take them, on the suggestion of DS's psych, he said it would refill my brain of all the O3's I lost gestating and nursing twins.

anyways, I havent yet parented an older child yet, so I'm not sure that would even work, just thought I would throw it out there.

Could you also make a case that its better than taking an ADHD rx? (I'm not against ADHD medications at all, just in favor of trying other things first.)

Has she read anything about 2e? I wonder if presenting her with evidence that others go through this too would help?

Like I said, I only have a 5 year old, I dont pretend to know anything about parenting a "tween." (I hate that word. Anyone else? LOL)

Thanks for the continuing suggestions. I'll give them a try and see if we have any luck. I'm also not sure that I'm innately opposed to rx ADD meds either, we just tried other things first and they seemed to work. The main reason we didn't go with the rx version first was b/c dd also has anxiety and they can increase that and b/c she is extremely small and doesn't have the best appetite and stimulants can reduce appetite.

I know that you have said your husband has similar challenges. Do you have any other extended family who have similar issues and may be further along the path? My DD9 takes some comfort that she is from a family of gifted dyslexics -- my husband, her grandmother, a cousin, a great uncle. I think that talking to adults who have been through the experience make her feel like she is not the oddball. Sometimes they can talk to her about things that may be helpful, i.e. learning to keyboard this summer, in a way that I just can't. Coming from me it just doesn't have the same legitimacy. If you don't have any family members, is there anyone else that you know who could act as a mentor?

Ofen we say here - if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck - it's a duck!

But what if that duck throws up from eating grass roots that all the other ducks eat? Will that duck feel like a duck? Probably not.

Gifties are supposed to 'eat' learning, and your younger dd probably does 'eat' some kinds of learning, but reacts poorly to other kinds of learning food. It's enought to make a duck feel 'unduckly.'


It's my understanding that a 'tiny' amount of stimulents will - in general - cause less anxiety than enough caffeene to get the job done. Of course 'in general' doesn't say anything about any individual person.



As you can see, self-image can take a real beating from
a) not feeling like her brain is working right (it isn't) and
b) not finding a 'life's purpose' that can take advantage of this challenge.

Those two together can be very hard on people.

It's hard to know how agressively to persue chemical help, but if the teachers are happy and she still doesn't feel 'whole' inside, I would say that the current combination isn't working.

When I listen to folks who really like their stimulent medications, it reminds me of people talking about gender reassignment surgery - that without their medication they feel trapped in a body that is foreign.

I hate to be saying all this, because I hope that in 20 years there are better medications and techniques that make the current ones look 'barbaric' and we'll all sit around wondering how we could have done that. But for now - even with the misery of the medication merry-go-round - I think it's time to give serious consideration to medication.

Is DH fully diagnosed and medicated? If not, I think that whatever steps he takes to help himself will also help his family. Not your job to tell him, but you have my permission to drag him over the the computer monitor and let me tell him. ((wink))

Part of the problem is that the school isn't supporting your view that DDyounger is gifted. So the more other adults that you can get around your DD who do see her as gifted, the easier it will be. If your DH can be part of that team, so much the better. I'm hoping that next year's teacher get's 2E in her bones and will be a great help.

I used to ask for subject accelerations for DS from the point of view of 'well, he makes stupid mistakes with age-level material and isn't learning, why not let him make the same number of mistakes at plus-age-level and learn something?' The school never bought that argument, but I tried.

One of the great frustrations of ADHD is that even though the afflicted person might 'know what to do' they may not be able to apply that knowledge at the right time in a workable way. ADHD is a problem of output. This tends to make the person with ADHD insecure about their intelligence: "Why does eveyone always try and teach me what I already know? They must think I'm stupid, because they are always explaining the easy to understand stuff of life." Some kids think that if they have ADHD it means that they are like the intellectually challenged kids, or that if people know that they have ADHD that people will assume that they are like the intellecutally challenged kids.

Hope this helps - wish I could organize it better.

((hugs))
Grinity