Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school 3yo needs so. much. input.

Hi everyone,

I've been lurking here for a while, but this is my first post. I have one child, a boy who recently turned three.

First, I don't know if he's gifted or not. It seems to me that he has a lot of traits that also show up in kids who have been identified as gifted, but of course I'm just a layperson - and obviously everyone thinks their kid is an amazing genius. So I try to be cautious about any assumptions I have about him. But I am feeling pretty wrung out and could use some insight from those who've been there.

My son is a sweet, funny boy who I also find pretty hard to cope with at times. I SAH with him. (I used to work at home, but recently quit. I just couldn't make it work any longer. Because of everything below.) He is just a very high-intensity person is so many ways:

*He needs constant input. He wants to talk to you all the time. And it isn't smalltalk, it's his weird theories, things he wants real attention paid to, questions he wants answered, etc.

*He can't really entertain himself. That is, he can - especially with sensory play - but he always invents a lot of interesting/destructive things to do if he isn't supervised. So he isn't really a kid who can be given a bunch of playdough and a work surface and then left alone. (Because of how you will come back to find that all your books now have sheets of playdough inside of them or something like that.)

*He's increasingly interested in being social, playing with friends, etc., but his language use outstrips his social development by quite a lot. So it seems to me that some of the time he is baffled by children his age, and other times he just doesn't know how to play with them. But he loves to play with adults. A lot of his play with adults revolves around talking-while-doing (which I assume is the appeal of grownup play partners?) - narrating the play, role-playing, and so on.

*I take him outside as much as I can, but he is prone to daring/horrifying feats, and he's pretty interested in leaving to go look at this interesting truck he just found. So outside is great, but like everything, requires fairly close supervision. (And we live in a dense urban area, so there are no backyards, and there's lots of traffic, etc.)

*He is simultaneously kind of emotionally restrained (people who don't know him well often describe him as "laid-back") and also explosive and intense within the family sphere.

*He is extremely persistent.

*He is very driven to do the things he's interested in. I don't know how else to describe this. If he wants to do something (take out the window screen, say) nothing my husband and I say or do will deter him.

*He is quite cautious in new spaces, and sensitive to sensory input. (And emotionally sensitive in general.) So my attempts to take him to things like group classes haven't really worked out.

*I think my husband and I often get tricked by our son's use of language. I notice how often we talk to him as though he were a reasonable adult (when really he's a toddler with a thesaurus implant). I think this often leads us to expect more of him, behaviorally, than is realistic for his stage of development. I'm interested in changing this dynamic, but I don't know how.

Like I said, I feel pretty lost. I am semi-introverted, and I need to spend quite a bit of time being quiet and inside my own mind to feel sane. But my son wants/needs constant contact, constant talk about how clouds work, and this is a special rescue truck he made out of cheese, and so on and so forth. He is funny and great and I love him, but I also find him so, so exhausting.

I feel like he is just not very much like the other kids his age we know, and the parents we know don't seem to be dealing with issues quite like this. But then I second-guess myself and think "Maybe every kid is exactly like this and I am just weak" (which is totally possible. I may be grasping at straws!)

Anyway, I am very interested in any reading recommendations, etc. I've been reading Raising Your Spirited Child, but find it only so-so in terms of helpfulness. Are there any books you can recommend specifically for parents of very young children of this type?

Thanks so much!

Whooooooo-boy.

I can definitely relate. My DD(now13) was very much like this.

She talked-talked-talked-talked CONSTANTLY if she wasn't fixated on doing something else.

And just for comparison, she took scissors to the cat in an effort to make a working Polyjuice Potion when she was four.

Similarly, it was very difficult to remember that she was only {chronological age} because she reasoned and talked SO. MUCH. LIKE. AN. ADULT.

(Still fighting that battle, by the way)

My suggestions to you, from one introvert to another?

* establish boundaries and QUIET TIME daily. If you're going to survive and nurture your child, you must make your own sensory/emotional needs a priority.

* we went with "not-nap" time, during which DD was allowed to sit in her bed with a stuffed animal, books, etc. She listened to music or a book on tape. But "the rule" was that she stayed in that bed. Sometimes she napped, and sometimes not. This may not work for a child who is not a rule-follower. Mine was. Frankly, SHE needed the down time, too.

* NO-- not everyone else has a child like this. Not even close. Holy cow, my friends seriously could not believe the things that my DD did when she was two and three. She was angelic-- except when one of us crossed her, and then... Even my husband could hardly believe some of it.

* If you have another parent in the home? Make time immediately upon that person's return so that you can decompress somewhere quiet. I found that exercise with music on was an excellent way to de-stress.

* Don't let your child talk to you while you're doing something that requires your (true) full attention. Find a way to defer chatter that your child will agree to abide by-- you're going to need it. You need to enforce this now-- because if you don't, you'll rip the side mirror off of your brand-new minivan while you're backing out of a parking garage and trying to avoid the children who may/may not be chasing a ball that they are bouncing behind your vehicle. Hypothetically, I mean.


* He may not be an extrovert so much as if he's not yet reading for himself, he's using YOU as his source of information about all the things he's interested in. That's fine-- but it is exhausting beyond words. I can't tell you what a relief it was when my 4yo finally learned to read on her own. Suddenly I could at least some of the time have the kind of peace that I had been desperate for!!

My first and third children are various combinations of this, my first was harder in many ways (not necessarily do with being first, she has Aspergers), but my 3rd... Oy... She's an amazing astonishing little person but she does.not.stop.talking (including in her sleep some days)... And for the most part she's not asking deep quetions about how things work but instead about how people think and feel, which I actually find harder a lot of the time... "Why is the sky blue?" can be easier than "Are you feeling Angry now?"

HK's advice is very sound. And no, not everyone's kids are like this.... The number of times recently I have had friends with kids a bit younger say "WOW what a difference x more months make!" And I really don't know how to respond to that because the truth is "Well no actually, she was not that different from this x months ago..." Yes she is growing and changing all the time, but the non stop talking has been going on a LONG time now.

Mine's three-almost four, and I just started a "hyperspeed" thread.

Suffice it to say, this sounds... familial (ok, I meant to say familiar, but that particular typo is too good to fix)

If I drove I would fear for my side mirrors.

But I can't get quiet time to stick.

I can't really get "quiet until we're on the train" to stick, either.

I've been trying a REALLY long time.

HOW HOW HOW HOW HOW?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!

-Mich

I have a 3 yo dd and I could have written most of your post. Unsupervised, she is a hurricane. All our walls have crayons, markers and paint jobs. Our floors have stickers that won't peel easily. She spent an entire afternoon peeling the wallpaper in her room when I thought she was taking a nap. We hardly have any furniture as she devised a way to use any and each piece dangerously. Even when we are supervising her and ask her to stop, she either bombards you with a million why nots or sweet talks you or shows anger. The only thing that has helped me keep my sanity is going to work everyday outside the house. She goes to preschool in the am and we have a nanny watch her in the pm. She behaves very differently with them and actually follows their rules. I joke that I go to work to relax. Weekends, I am a dead zombie by Sunday night.:) I am really hoping it would get better as she becomes older. You have my sympathy.

Lovemydd, my 2nd child was incredibly difficult to keep safe (and everything else safe from her) from 6m - 2.5yrs, maybe even 3yrs. Work would totally have been a holiday. She did improve markedly with her approach to investigating the world between 2.5-3yrs. Funnily enough she was less exhausting to me because although she required constant supervision she didn't talk quite as incessantly as #1 and #3, she talked precociously, she just didn't require (or provide) a running commentary on every moment of every day. She's my introvert...

The problem is mine talks incessantly. It is when she is quiet and out of sight that I worry the most as I know she is up to some mischief. Lol!

It's funny, my 3rd child, on the few occasions she is silent and out of sight, is generally being exceptionally well behaved. She has common sense beyond her years. Just an extreme need to communicate about all things ALL the time. #2 though, was miss re-arrange the furniture to make a ladder, within moments of entering a new space. I lost track of the "Wow, no kid's ever done/found THAT before!" comments... Silence was always dangerous with her.

I'm sorry I have no advice, just empathy. I'm dealing with similar issues with my daughter (2y9mo). (sigh)

See, this is why I *GO* to work...... I have three kids who are HG or EG. If I didn't' get time out I would be a very cranky person indeed.
In fact this came up today, my boss, said TGIF (Thank God it's Friday, does that work in American english?) and I said, well weekends are not less work than work for me, really.
My kids don't' need much sleep. Two of them talk all the time.
My youngest was just early entered to school two weeks ago after testing at 99.9th. She is not tired at all and she has after school activities 4 days a week. It's insane....
My only helpful advice is, you really really need some time out and if you don't get it it won't' be nice. For me, work is time out from kids and kids is time out from work. But it's still very draining.
Also and I am aware of how bad this sounds, my 4 year old watches a lot of TV. SHe is 4 and her favourite shows are the simpsons, big bang theory and horrible histories.