Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Normal?

Help, please. I'm new here and I've been wanting to find someone/somewhere to ask this question. I'm a gifted granny worried about the behaviors I see in my gifted granddaughters. I was very close to them when they were small. Here's one of many questionable! behaviors: Still at age 6, one girl, when upset by something relatively minor, would start kicking her mother. Mom would hold her off at a distance and child would try to kick her. I've also seen child try to hit adults, even me. Mom says/said this is "normal" for age 6. I cannot conceive of it at any age. Mom is lazy when it comes to discipline; she has no routine; doesn't enforce any "rules"; doesn't have an overall "theory" that explains; makes it up as she goes along; she overlooks; avoids the issues; hasn't set any goals for her children except maybe that they be popular; and yes, when not actually at work, Mom spends a lot of time on phone. It scares me to think what will happen to this dear child when she gets older. Mom will not listen to [my] advice, of course. Also, two years later, this girl is now 8. She may still be kicking, hitting adults--I don't know. I think in classroom she acts OK. In her school, I know she'd be kicked out if she were hitting/kicking adults/teachers. Mom now divorced and Mom claims that social worker says to go very easy on kids for awhile. "Easy" translates into allowing and excusing rudeness to herself and other adults and other behaviors that will have a negative effect, I fear, in the future. Is it NOW considered NORMAL for a six year old girl to kick adults including Mom when she has an "issue"? Or is this just my daughter? If it's not just my daughter, if it's what modern parents believe, have things changed that much? If so, heaven help us all.

Here is a good resource to share:
Supporting the Emotional Needs of Gifted children

Great advice above.

Another resource which may be of interest is the book A Parent's Guide to Gifted Children.

Honestly, I don't think this is just specifically a gifted vs non-gifted difference. You mentioned a recent major stressor - divorce... so I would also recommend you look into resources for parents/family helping children with divorce too.

And, no, I don't think even all "modern" parents would consider this normal acceptable behavior... we have not changed that much. Although my kids are not that old, we watch a lot of the kids in our neighborhood (we are in an area with very high density of children) - and seen a lot of parenting "styles". And most parents I know with older kids would not tolerate this behavior without consequences and without serious attempts to get to the root of the kicking/hitting/biting and modifying it so that their children resort to more acceptable ways to handle their anger or disappointment.

What you're describing sounds like a combination of uninvolved and permissive parenting. Here are the Cliff's Notes versions:

Uninvolved Parenting
Permissive Parenting

I would say that uninvolved parenting has been around a while, but permissive parenting is a new fad, driven largely by misunderstanding what attachment parenting is all about. Attachment parenting is a new idea from a book published in 2001. Dr Sears has become this generation's Dr Spock.

Also, I've seen where permissive parenting is an overreaction to a parent's own experience with child abuse. Rather than repeat the cycle, they over-correct the other way.

Here's an interesting article which discusses how a mother lost custody of her kids just by being too permissive. It was in the UK though. I would not expect this to happen in the US, because the laws more strongly favor the parents than the children in these cases: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...tle-over-permissive-parenting-style.html

But to answer your original question, NO. It's definitely not normal. Things have changed, but they haven't changed that much.

Unfortunately, your daughter is perfectly within her parental rights to screw up her kids as much as she likes, up to the point where it puts your granddaughters or others at risk of physical harm.

This isn't specifically pertaining to gifted education so I am locking it. Thank you to all who posted replies.