Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Does "Love and Logic" work with gifted children

Michaela
As awful as it sounds, isnt your undivided attention currency? Those walks/drives started for us around the same age. I learned to do a lot of uh huh, with a targeted question now and again but I just let him ramble and then when home, announced it was play by yourself time or tv time. And mommy needs quiet time now. He thought this was very strange but in retrospect my protecting of my sanity actually also taught him to play by himself and not depend completely on others for his amusement. Now, four years later he plays by himself quite well, and is more respectful that conversations are two way streets but still will have to negotiate the I want you to play with me, but I don't want to do that, but why not, and then the myriad ways he attempts to get me to do it because he is SURE that I will want to do if he just keeps talking, he thinks it's fun so others should too even when it means doing it exactly his way in a manner which makes one feel like a chess piece. I am so much less amenable to this than my DH and apparently along with the lay down the law, I am also the one who has to teach him that other people have free will which means the right to not do it his way, and the right to not have to listen to him all the time. I might be a little vigorous in my teaching of this lesson sometimes, especially when I have a headache .

The intense focus all of the time can spoil him for other people because everything less is less enjoyable but intense focus for periods of time coupled with him doing what you or others ask is appropriate and developmental. I think all the time of anything is spoiling, not the intensity of the focus

I think safety always has to be paramount. I hated those leash/backpack things untill watched a friends kid walk right into the street,over and over again - any chance she was free would make a beeline for it, it was insane, she stopped doing it after probably a year, but if there wasn't a fence, she was too dangerous to be out of the stroller or unleashed. So it's legitimate to start demanding more than 20% compliance. But he's a smart kid, he will resist that change, until as they say it's futile to not. But as hard as it is teaching him to get out of his head when he needs to, or you need him to, is really important.

I think it makes everything so much harder when your kid is the square peg everywhere else, it makes you want to make one place for him where he can be himself and get that well filled up -but that can't be at the expense of safety, yours or his, or your sanity.

DeHe

Michaela, I look at my first and my third and wonder if my first suffered from too much undivided attention. Or whether she is as she is because she has AS and she was always going to be as she is... My 2.5yr old noted I was cranky this afternoon and after her usual interrogation about my feelings "Are you feeling happy?" "Are you feeling x?" "Don't be cranky mummy" she suddenly moved on to "Mummy you have very lovely hair." "Oh I like your shirt mummy." Four or five direct compliments in quick succession, complete with gently stroking the mentioned feature as a clear and deliberate tactic to change my mood. I am not sure my 11 yr old has given me a compliment ever. She will give me a small cuddle and tell me she loves me when she's angling to get something... Did I fail to teach my 11yr old all these social skills and instead teach her to expect constant entertainment and 1:1 attention - or was she simply wired that way? How do you make sense of too much v. not enough attention resulting in expecting too much from peopl or not knowing how to interact? Certainly #3 is better at self entertaining and I think it's partly from being left to her own devices more, but she's also learned way more social skills with way less input and attention and I am pretty sure that part is NOT causal.

The choices never work with our (probably gifted or at least gifted-ish) four year-old. Never have. Interestingly, they work with our two year-old (no clue on giftedness; he's a hard one to read). You can see the wheels in his head spinning...
"Do you want X or Y?"
"NO! NO X! NO Y! MEAN MAMA!"
"OK, then I'll choose for you. Here's X."
*stops, thinks, calms down* "Y."

With the four year-old (and he's always been this way):
"Do you want X or Y?"
"I DON'T WANT X OR Y!"
"You need to make a choice. X or Y."
"I DON'T WANT X OR Y!"
"If you can't make a choice, I'll have to choose for you."
"I DON'T WANT X OR Y!"
"OK, I'll choose for you. Here's X."
*complete meltdown*

Why, yes, my two year-old is in many ways more emotionally mature than my four year-old, why do you ask?

A points system may be more effective with my older kid; I'll have to check that out. He likes to "win" things. I hate to go completely extrinsic with him, but he can't seem to shake himself out of the angry/disappointed stage when he can't do what he wants to do at any moment.

OMG. This IS my DD. I've been joking for a while that I should hire her out for Occupy demonstrations. She also is not extrinsically motivated. Is this where I confess that I'm considering getting her an iTouch for Xmas just to see if THAT would be an extrinsic motivator?

Right now she has lost all the Warriors books she checked out of the library (you probably know how traumatic this should be). She earned one back and gave up. She's reading other books instead. Oh, and she also slipped up and admitted she checked one out of the school library and is reading it there (I decided not to go Defcon 5 on this). Books were the one currency that seemed to work a little, but it isn't working this time. And yes, it goes against my deepest nature to take away BOOKS, but we are desperate.

ETA: yesterday she spent two hours procrastinating over a sheet of math that she knows perfectly well how to do but dislikes (3-digit x 3-digit multiplication; she's annoyed by how laborious it is).

When DS was 4, we were moving cross country in the car. Direct consequences got meltdowns; so we did a point system that ranged from -5 to 5. And it could range back and forth based on our views of things he'd do. If it got to -5 then there would be an unspecified consequence. The one time we hit -5, he didn't get to choose his lunch at the next stop. (and +5 got a reward)

We've also used mystery choices for things. Typically the mystery being a better option. Like dessert, do you want chocolate ice cream, two cookies, or a mystery? (and mystery ends up being chocolate ice cream with sprinkles)

We also pulled choice back to make it about us as much as him: I'm willing to get you two cookies or ice cream. Would you like me to do either of those?

He has a strong sense of justice and framing things into mutual fairness really seems to work. At almost seven now, I'm really happy with his overall progress and character.

I have to admit...I'm not always good at "picking my battles" and typically I will look back and wonder why I made such a big deal out of whatever it was. At the time it seems like it is important and something very doable for a 7 & 8 year old; like lately we have been trying to get both girls to just do what we ask of them, when we ask them. To us this sounds very simple, we say go wash your hands and come eat and they should be able to comply. Very seldom is it that easy and both DH and I get very frustrated at having to repeat ourselves over and over. That is where we had hoped maybe the L&L would come in handy...we ask them to wash there hands and come eat and if they do it great, but if not then we eat without them or later when they ask something of us we give one of the L&L sympathetic responses and let them know since they didn't do what we asked then we aren't going to do what they asked of us. Like I said previously, it sounds easy enough, but I'm just not sure it will work for our types of situations. I now understand some of DD7 & DD8's issues are because our girls are gifted, but to me that doesn't give them a free pass in life to not do what they are told, when they are told. I don't see them as any different from any other child in that respect. Maybe I'm wrong...I don't know. Are we asking too much?

Philosophically, I come from another world. Not judging your point of view, but I don't believe children (gifted or not) need to do what they are told when they are told. I believe even my own child is just another human being who deserves dignity, respect, fairness, and communication. I have a responsibility to keep him safe and help him make good decisions when he has inadequate skills to make them on his own and to contribute to his learning those skills.

I think gifted children are fully capable of learning basic courtesy, no mater how recalcitrant or wilful they are. Giftedness is no excuse. One comes to dinner with the family (unless one is sick, etc.) because to do otherwise is an insult to the cook and possibly also an inconvenience to the parent who will later be asked to reheat something. We see it a social obligation to eat with others and share the day; in our family, it is what's done. Other families have other norms, but if you find your kids' behavior outside your family's norm, then you are very reasonable to correct it.

In our family's opinion, it is important for kids to learn the norms of our wider society, and be corrected when they aren't following those norms. (Acid test: when they go out on a job interview, will they be able to present themselves as polite and engaging? Refusing to eat when the others do would be a nonstarter in that context.)

Things we correct, in order of urgency:

1. Unsafe
2. Unkind or immoral
3. Inconsiderate or substantially inconvenient for others

DeeDee

Zen Scanner...I would love to just let things go, but that is just not in me! Please tell me then, how do you get your child to do things you want done? Maybe I'm going about this all wrong.
I think if my girls weren't ever told to put their clothes away, take a shower, pick up their rooms, do their homework, etc, I honestly don't think they would ever do it on their own and I'm not their maid, I'm their mother!

By continuously instilling and pointing to the values behind the things we ask him to do. With a very similar sequence of priorities as DeeDee outlined.

I don't know if it is uniquely gifted or a subset of gifted, but I have to function in a top-down manner. I have problems with details and specific rules etc. So, for me personally, I always drive towards the principle behind something. There is a reasonable chance that your kids are the same.

Typical childhood learning is that one keeps encountering small cases and eventually the brain on its own slowly reasons out to broader nuanced cases. With a lot of internal control + awareness + intrinsic motivation and a need for a top-down understanding, I think a lot of gifted kids need to understand the principle guiding things. Without it, they are encountering a large unconnected amount of individual rules that want to be rote learned, but aren't obviously generalized out to to other rules because they see too many what ifs, etc.

So, rather than remembering a 100 special cases, they can ask themselves: "If I do this, am I being kind? Is it safe?" etc. Over time, they improve their skills in making those judgement calls. As a parent you aren't explaining or justifying yourself, your child isn't questioning your judgement, they are trying to learn these larger principles in life and you are formally and directly teaching them rather than the more intuitive path a neuro-typical child usually needs to follow.

Downside, there is a lot of questioning and pushing. Upside, they formalize it sooner and apply it better and deeper.