There is so much more I'd love to say on this thread but I must get some work accomplished today!
I'm playing sick today with a yucky cold, which is why I have so much time to devote here.
I love reading all your stories and I understand if you skip over this post. (I have way too much time on my hands today!)
I wrote earlier about weird stuff regarding our gifted daughter in the hopes that some of our �lurkers� or parents of younger kids could be reassured that the oddities their children display or will display are not a reason to panic. Here are some examples from our highly gifted son�s early years:
What a talker! I don�t really know when he started talking. I have heard parents refer to their children�s vocabulary in term of how many words they knew at a certain age how many words they used in a sentence. That practice could not have worked with our son because I don�t even remember a progression. He spoke conversationally while he was still an infant. He started preschool (part-time) when he was 14 months and the staff was literally stunned. They told me his speech was better than any Kindergartner they had ever seen (the school went thru K). I just assumed it was because he had a lot of one on one time with me and I never �baby talked� to my kids.
I was constantly exhausted for the first five years of his life I felt like the perpetual losing contestant on a never ending quiz show! Now that he is 10, I am the captive audience to constant lectures that are way above my level of interest and knowledge. We are both happy when my husband is available to participate. He finds the conversation engaging.
Not only could he say the alphabet and count to 20+ by 18 months, he could also IDENTIFY all the letters, numbers thru 20 and standard shapes and colors by that age. That is why I was so shocked when my daughter brought home her first report card from her second year of (public school) K where it listed all the objectives for the entire year which generally consisted of the above skills. There was no way that our son would have tolerated that level of remedial work at age six!
I hope this doesn�t come across a bragging. Considering the company I am in, I will assume that it doesn�t. I guess my point here is that sometimes even I (in my oblivion) sometimes considered my son�s early development as a bit �spooky�.
Here is something that is weird and spooky at any age: SLEEP ISSUES
INSOMNIA
When our son was 41/2 years old we consulted his pediatrician regarding the fact that he could not fall asleep at night. This had become a serious problem for us and my husband and I were extremely exhausted and had no time to ourselves. Our pediatrician suggested that our son may need more intellectual stimulation. We removed him from the excellent preschool that he had simply out-grown and put him in an academically intensive self study academy. Within a week, he was falling asleep by 8:15pm.
NIGHT TERRORS
DS10 went through a period of 11/2 years (approximately 7 to 81/2) were he would have night terrors 4 or 5 times per week. I researched the issue extensively on the internet, but nothing I found quite matched his behaviors. The pediatrician was proactive but inexperienced in this subject (apparently it is uncommon). He referred my son for brain wave graphing in a restful state (forgot the term) where nothing unusual was found. Essentially, he would sleep walk within 2 hours of falling asleep. He was looking for me (to crawl on my lap or get into my bed) and would appear awake but sleepy (at first). The telltale sign was that his teeth would by chattering and is body would be slightly rigid and convulsing. In half the instances, he would also being shrieking at some point. What made his case different from the information that I found, was that my touch calmed him rather than the opposite as described on medical pages. Also, he obeyed directives in this state. He was too big for me to carry safely (my husband was gone often), so I would direct him to walk back to his room and he complied. After further research, I began to direct him to use the bathroom (to urinate), after which he would easily be lead back to bed and fall asleep.
This probably bored most of you, but if it helped on family, I�m glad to have shared these experiences.
Diana
