Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Depression? Anxiety? Or just sensitivity?

Ah, yes--this rings a bell. DD is a natural auto-didact and likes to figure things out herself when possible. Teaching her to ride a bike was a complete nightmare until I just gave up and stopped talking. I try to stay as hands-off as I can when she is learning a new skill, but sometimes you do need instruction. Helping her with homework is quite a difficult balance. She also loves to fish, but this can be very frustrating for everyone, as the knots, etc are hard for her and adult guidance can be very useful if you want to actually catch something, whch she very much does. At the same time, she really wants to figure it out herself. (She will explicitly tell me this now--"No, don't tell me anything--I want to figure it out.")

(I'm depressing myself a little talking about this. Poor stubborn little thing--it's hard for her. You really see her old soul showing in this area.)

Whenever my DD7 is being especially touchy and sensitive with the little issues, I've found that it's a canary in the coalmine for some big issue (at least to her) that she's been reluctant to talk about, for one reason or another. The last time I watched her blow up all weekend, I finally coaxed her into a conversation, in which she revealed a boy had been harassing her constantly on the school bus. She hadn't bothered talking to us about it, because she thought we couldn't solve the problem. She went back to being a car rider (she only started riding the bus on her own request), problem solved.

If the "big issue" in this case is an ongoing pattern of problems with the teacher, threatening to punish him at home would have done more harm than good.

My dd6 is exactly this way, too. In piano, she explicitly told me: "Do NOT tell me something's good. Do NOT tell me how to do it." When asked what I should do when I notice her fingering needs correcting, she says, "Tell me later." !! We've had a few go-rounds on this. She's never liked praise-- I think it feels like pressure to her. And criticism while she's practicing seems unfair because she hasn't gotten it right yet.

She reacts appropriately to her piano teacher, though. When he corrects her, she does what he asks without saying anything. But when he praises her, she just nods her head. Sometimes he says, "you're so smart," and she looks over at me, like, "oh, brother."

OP-- You've probably tried this, but I would do a carrot and stick approach. In a calm time, I would tell your son you're concerned about how he over-reacts when people try to coach him. Explain that part of learning is getting pointers, and that he doesn't have to agree with what's said, but he must react appropriately. Then, I would give him examples of appropriate reactions, maybe even trying to be funny about it. I would also outline a consequence. In the case of taekwando, I would tell him that if he can't handle the critiques, he's going to have to quit. Period. Criticism is part of the sport and if he wants to do the sport, he needs to deal with it appropriately. I would make sure to praise him for any progress. But I would follow through on pulling him out.

Good luck with critiquing response to critique as a way to moderate response to critique. Not dismissing appeal to empathy, but wanted to write that sentence.

Given, I'm projecting from what I know of myself and my son and thus YMMV... For feedback, it's about providing top level information, standards to judge by, and resources. You can be Socratic and directional (i.e. sneaky) sometimes.

For the fishing example... I'd get a book with diagrams on how to put on a hook, etc. Provide examples, etc.

Possibly dialog about how to identify critique and extract their own meaningful information from that critique without a feeling an obligation to the specifics. If I write a story about a zombie fast food employee and someone responds that they think the zombie should be a ghoul, I could feel put out, upset, dismiss it, or more positively I think that I haven't fleshed out my zombie character enough.

Don't be too hard on yourself - I think this is the 'natural' kids are built to be. Or was that sarcasm? ((wink))
I do think that 6 hours a day of forcing oneself to be 'well enough' behaved while there is absolutely nothing to learn at school could easily create a cranky child who is cranky all the time - even could cause the lack of interest in afterschooling.

One thing to try is to jump up a grade level with the afterschooling - very gifted kids sometimes 'leap ahead.'

I would encourage you to get IQ and achievement testing and to sign up this week. There may be more going on, but you have to at least work on getting the basics right. Talking with the teacher is a great idea. Passing along the information that your son ASKED for a gradeskip is important. (Even if you decide you won't allow one for other reasons, it gets the ball rolling.) It is entirely possible to do a gradeskip at this point, or any point of the year. I would consider requesting that he get subject accelerations - in addition to a full skip - so that he can learn math at the level he is demonstrating at home. Other people sometimes win agreements to homeschool math and let the kid go to the library during gradelevel math.

There really are kids who NEED to be in challenging academic environments to be happy. It could be your kid.

I think that perfectionist behavior such as being unable to accept criticism or try new endeavors that they aren't a garenteed immediate success in can be caused by many reasons, but a common reason is spending hours and hours at schools where the material is severely below the child's readiness to learn level. In a healthy situation, there will be a range of acceptable challenge, from 'too easy but I can deal with it' to 'easy in a fun way' to 'hard in a good way' to 'too hard, but I can deal with it' but if a child has been too underchallenged for too long, they start to act as though that acceptable challenge range collapses into a skinny line - everything is boringly easy or impossible.

At 9 my son went through a sort of 'mental puberty' with some moodiness and some 'us v them' feeling toward adults. He didn't admit to being factually wrong about anything until age 11. If you are worried - get help, but check the 'normal' gifted problems as well, unfortunately you can't automatically rely on the local helpers to be well versed in what is normal for gifted kids.

Love and more love,
Grinity

I wonder what the dividing factor between stubborn-minded auto-didactic and perfectionism is; if there is one. There are so many ways negative response to critique can be rooted. I had some negative responses from having a father who could give no positive without an equal measure of negative. I had some from not being able to "explain your work." Some came from being forced to follow processes and having my more functional methods broken; such as I could divide pretty much any two numbers very quickly with no work to show, being forced to do "long" division and quickly lost that ability (almost 40 years later and still bitter about that.) Some from losing faith in "authority." Some from having exceptions I had no idea how to address (e.g. lack of depth perception, poor handwriting.)

I use past tense, but it is still a work in process.

sigh

Interesting and relevant for me to read this today. DD was complaining earlier in the year that math (she is accelerated a full grade this year) is too hard, impossible, etc. (She is getting As, but also is getting things wrong sometimes, which is new.) They've recently been doing some material she finds easier and now she's complaining that it's boring, too easy, etc. DD!! Two weeks ago you were sobbing about how you were no good at math!! WTH?

My Goodness, so much to respond to here! DS likes to "do it himself" as well. Basically he wants one quick explanation, but then he wants to do it with no help whatsoever. Often, that's enough for him. But when it's not, he struggles to deal with people who are trying to help him out. I've mentioned before that he frequently assumes that his teachers think he is stupid because they try to teach him things that he already knows.
Grinity - do you think upping the level will help? It seems insane for a nine year old to start learning algebra, which would be the next step. Then again, assumptions that he is too young for certain things may be the root of this problem in the first place.

No concrete suggestions, but we've been there. I agree that the problem is likely to be something unseen that is taking up his capacity to just deal with the world, rather than the incidents he's exploding over.

For whatever reason, I've noticed that around 9 (fourth when I was a kid, 3rd grade now) gifted kids seem to explode. Of the kids in my family, all but one had a really rough time that year, and the last was 2E enough that he always had a rough time. My mother and grandmother both report really terrible turning-9 years, where various problems required a dramatic change of scene - moving, changing schools, etc. In our private school, the younger kids are there as a preventative measure, but many 8 and 9's come because they had major problems.

My personal, completely unscientific explanation is that the social scene changes enough around that age that being intellectually different from your classmates seems like a less ignorable, temporary, and excusable condition. For me and my daughter, finding GT peers helped a lot. Just knowing that they exist and that we're part of a group helps even when they aren't around all the time. I think we also both felt ignored by the teachers before, and encountering a class where we weren't neglected in favor of the people who aren't able to keep up helped. For me, at least, it was less about the level than about being seen for who I was. My favorite teacher in the primary grades was one who privately acknowledged to me that she knew where I was but couldn't teach me more than the class. She reassured me with looks and the occasional comment that I wasn't completely off her radar.

So- with my family history, I would be looking for a chance to mingle socially with some other gifted kids. Along with dealing with the explosion of the moment, of course.

Exactly - try and find out. I promise that there exist nine year olds who are starting to learn Calculus - they just are rare.
Good luck!
Grinity