Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy DD is out of control- what's going on?

My DD6 has always been a firecracker. She is often sensitive, loud, argumentative and easily frustrated (mostly with family; she has no problems turning on the charm for other adults). However, in the last couple of months, she has become unbearable. Defiant in EVERY way. Screams that she has practiced a piano song 5 times, not 3 (as the rest of family points out). Has a massive fit when she can't figure a math problem out and will crumple it up, stomp out of the room and will only come back later when she has calmed down. She will often freak out when she thinks a problem is too difficult instead of just listening to a simple explanation from me. She covers her ears, screams and will tell me not to help her. She gets so upset that she is literally shaking and unable to breathe, then crashes out and falls asleep. She just cannot seem to respond without shouting and screaming!
I always ensure she meets her bedtime and she gets plenty of sleep. She normally is not a napper unless she has a massive tantrum.

She has also been snacking a lot too. She is tiny and cannot eat large meals but is constantly asking for snacks between meals lately. I am pretty strict with food so she eats healthy with little processed food and I am watchful of her sugar intake.

She also has massive sensory issues with clothing and I am in the process of getting her evaluated in the next couple of weeks. She also walks on her toes a lot.

I am wondering why she is just so over the top these last couple months. I literally am so stressed out from her behavior I am starting to feel the effects of depression. There is no therapist near us that has a lot experience with gifted children. The one time we met with a psych, he made her feel awful and so she is afraid to see anyone.

Could it possibly be from allergies? She has been suffering badly the last couple of months. She is highly allergic to grass.
Or could it be from school placement? Due to her WISC IV results (HG+), she was put in a 1st grade class after her half day kinder ends for the day, and is pulled for 2nd grade for reading. Aside from the writing, these placements are still too easy for her but she is not the type to complain of boredom. She loves it all, but I can see that she is fatigued at the end of school day due to the increase in writing.

I know every gifted child is different but hoping you all can shed a light or two. I need some help!!

First let me say, I am so sorry! This sounds like a very stressful situation.

Obviously there are a multitude of possibilities, and I wouldn't underestimate the effects of allergies/allergy meds. However, reading your description I'd look more toward fatigue (mental rather than physical) and control. When did she make the move to accelerated afternoons? How do these afternoons compare to the previous situation? It is possible that moving from afternoons of self-directed play to afternoons of prescribed academic activities is causing her a great deal of mental fatigue. Even if it is intellectually below her level, operating under someone else's directives, rather than your own, can be exhausting in it's own way. I know I can be easily exhausted when I have to be "on" for long stretches of time. It's also a big loss of control in that she's presumably having to follow someone else's lead for a much larger portion of the day.

Just some thoughts, but I could be way off base! I hope you get some good replies that help you out!

Thank Kathryn for your insight!! I tend to agree with you. She started going to 1st grade in March, which is around the time her behavior started to deteriorate.
She went from coming home at 11:15 to 1:50. She starts early kinder which means she is actually attending school 30 minutes longer than other 1st and 2nd graders. However, she is not like my introverted son who needs his down time. She always needs to be around people and stimulated when she is isn't occupied by reading.

I suppose I'm confused; isn't acceleration helpful to avoid frustrations like this? The educational psych and all the reading I have done suggest that she needed acceleration immediately. Perhaps this is due to the educational mismatch? Meaning she needs appropriate educational stimulation rather than, as you put it KathrynH, mental exertion from more self regulation for paying attention, following the teacher's lead and loss of self directed activities. I know she is having to write a lot more and she tires easily. But the 2nd grade teacher has told me that it is not an appropriate reading placement as she is so far ahead from the rest of the group.

This is throwing a wrench in the plans we are trying to hammer out for schooling next year. I know she needs at least 2nd grade math next year and quickly 3rd grade math shortly if she continues on the rate of learning she is exhibiting. But I am nervous about what it will do to her stress levels.

Slammie, just throwing out some ideas based on sudden change in behavior with dd4.5. We have had phases where she is just so stubborn, disobedient and destructive. Here is what has worked/were the causes:
1. Growth spurts
2. School fatigue/mismatch- she is in a play based preschool but she had a very bad phase in the beginning of the school year. I ran out of all options and one day, just sat her down when she was in a good mood, explained what I am observing (facts, no judgement) and how I miss my happy child. I then asked her what was bothering her. She hated going to school 4 full 6-hour days. She wanted more time with me in the homeschool. I changed my hours at work and she goes 3.5 days now. As soon as we both discussed and agreed to a plan, she transformed back to my delightful child. Like your dd, mine loves friends and school but she can only control herself for so long.
3. Need for more physical activity: my dd has to move, all the time. She twirls and jumps constantly when she talks about things she is passionate about. School tries to control that behavior as it is disruptive to the class. When she comes home, I let her jump on the couch and run around the house to her hearts content. Now that warmer weather is finally here, I take her out and let her ride her bike, climb a tree, etc. she just needs to let it out, she is much calmer child after that.
I hope at least some of this is relevant to your situation! Hugs and this too shall pass.

My DD9 is a major PITA to everyone in the family (me, DH, DD18 and DD16). She always has to be doing something and bugs the rest of us endlessly. She also can get frustrated if she doesn't understand something immediately. She is better with her older sisters explaining the homework than me. Perhaps another kid explaining (if one is available) would be better than Mom or Dad.

I don't even know if she is gifted. She doesn't have the sensory issues, though DD16 did at age six. We got tired of it and told her she was too old to do that stuff (clothing, food texture, etc.). She still has some issues but she hides them from others because that is what is socially acceptable. I know others might not like that technique, but she now outwardly appears normal in that respect.

I am open to all suggestions. My older two were not like this at age nine - they could entertain themselves. Perhaps being close in age helped. The problem with physical activities is if she doesn't get it immediately - riding a bike, hitting a ball, etc. - she quits. She will be doing just fine in a physical activity/sport for a few months, then faces some sort of "failure" and quits. We've made her continue to a logical stopping point (e.g. earning a belt in karate), but we have trouble having her stick with anything. Never even went to the next karate class to receive her belt after she passed the test - she didn't even care. Middle kid has some perfectionist issues with sports, but not to the degree that she expects she will never strike out, never make an error, etc. While the older two were sometimes balking at going to practice or a game, they would go (and were happy once they got there). Youngest will yell, scream, cry that she doesn't want to go, will not get dressed in her uniform, and sometimes locks herself in a room. We have had punishments, but doesn't seem to work. I sympathize with your situation.

My two kids had two different causes for this sort of issue.

#2 looks like this when her perfectionism starts to come to the fore. The solution is to pick something she feels stuck on and help her make actual progress in that skill. Suddenly she is ready to work harder on all skills then and make progress on them, mood improves, all fixed until the next time.

#1 was in the early stages of a major health issue. It's probably worth a checkup to see if your doctor can see if anything is wrong. I'll send you a PM on our exact situation.

A few random thoughts for you -

I have a dd with environmental allergies and absolutely yes, they can and do impact her behavior in a huge way when it's allergy season. If your dd has allergies that are bothering her, I'd look into giving her a daily antihistamine if you aren't doing that already - I wouldn't do it without consulting her dr, but that is one thing that our dr recommends for our dd and it does help.

Second thing - when I see a change in behavior with children, I think it's always important to try and see what else changed in the child's life around the same time (if there was anything that changed). Since this change in behavior took place at the same time your dd was moved into new pullouts at school, absolutely I'd look closely at that to see if that's the root of the frustration.

One thing I wondered about was the difference in your dd's GAI vs FSIQ - because a lot of the behaviors you are describing happened with my previously very mellow 2e ds when he hit 1st grade... but we didn't realize it was due to the 2nd e until he was most of the way through 2nd grade. I took a quick look back at your previous posts but didn't see anything huge that stands out in your dd's test scores that might indicate a second "e" - but just curious - were her scores on the subtests in PSI and WM on the WISC similar ranges or did you see any large discrepancies? If there is a tiny second "e" challenge going on, it might show up when higher demands are placed in academics - even though from the surface to a parent it looks like there shouldn't be any reason your child isn't able to do the work. Not sure that makes sense, but for example, we knew our ds was really smart, yet he was throwing fits when it was time to do his homework. Didn't make sense. Our initial reaction as parents was to assume the work was to easy because it was very simple math and he knew how to add/subtract/etc already and he was working on issues like figuring out how to operate a rudder on an airplane to maximize airspeed etc - in his head. The gotcha was the math homework was supposed to be written down on paper and he has a challenge with handwriting and written expression. The clue to the challenge was in uneven WISC subtest scores. So that's my long way of explaining why I asked about the subtest scores and why I looked back through for scores when I saw the difference in FSIQ vs GAI . I also have a dd who had an undiagnosed vision issue, which also first showed up in a huge discrepancy on WISC subtests - totally unrelated to IQ, and totally out of line with her other scores - in her case, it was the symbol search under PSI. My guess though, is that the psych who tested your dd would have noted anything very out-of-range if she saw something. OTOH, my ds had his first WISC at 6 with a dip in processing speed subtests, and it was perceived to be "methodical pace" and "perfectionism" and "not concerned with timed tests due to age" by the psych who tested him.

It's also possible it's age-related - kids go through a growth spurt (emotionally) around 6-7 years old where they start to define themselves as individuals outside of their parents - prior to this age they see themselves somewhat as extensions of their parents, so as they mature in this way it's a time when they may start to argue/etc at home.

Last thought - I have one dd who is simply "like this" - it's her nature. It's exhausting to parent lol! We were told by the psych who tested her that she simply needed much more of a challenge than she was getting in school. DD agreed with that too - but she is in a position where she can't accelerate without completing a certain level of work first, and she just refuses to do it. She's also a 2e kid, but her firecracker-ness is just a part of who she is that is unrelated to her intelligence. At the moment she's jumping up and down the stairs ignoring the vocab lessons she's behind on in school. She doesn't like to do vocab. It's not the easiest work ever for her - she does have a challenge that impacts reading, and she's much more of a math/stem type personality. But this is work she *can* do, and it's not so out-there-easy that it's boring her to tears - she just doesn't want to do it. I am basically holding out hope that once she's middle-school age she'll find her motivation (it happened for both of her older siblings so there's hope!)

Best wishes,

polarbear

ps - fwiw, I suggested several different things, but in your case, I'd really *really* be looking at what's up with the pullouts because of the timing and the change in behavior.

Have you met her new teacher?

The pattern rings with threads in the past here where a kid is mixed with a completely incompatible teacher, notably of the strict authoritarian sort. Worse if the teacher doesn't believe that gifted is a real thing.

Perfect wording! I'd really focus on this, but if the issues all began in March it might be the mental exertion in combination with seasonal allergies. Throw in a growth spurt, which it sounds like her eating habits might suggest, and you could have a storm of issues brewing. There might not be a silver bullet here.

Has she ever been assessed for an autism-spectrum disorder? The sensory sensitivities, walking on toes, emotional volatility, etc., are common in kids with Asperger's syndrome.