Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Impulse control and the strong willed child

-- and see, I'd chalk that up to "probably normal kid stuff, just staff mentioning it to us as part of regular communication."

My child is younger version of Loy58's. They are so similar! I don't have much advice for you I'm afraid but can commiserate. Like Howdy, many of the books I have read has not helped but I use a lot of the techniques she mentioned and they do help somewhat. The most effective for us is to try our absolute hardest not to react to nasty backtalk and get roped into a heated power struggle. Plus she can outwit me many times now. Also, praising directly and indirectly (mentioning in earshot to someone else) as loy58 mentioned works pretty well too.

I have noticed sleep/fatigue and hunger have huge effects (which is why I am worried about lack of sleep due to reading past bedtime - see my post).

Everyday is a struggle. It is so hard not take offense and stay calm! However, DD made major progress yesterday. In the midst of her intense attempt to make me change my mind, she abruptly stopped and counted to 5 seconds. Then told me that she used the technique we talked about to stop herself from calling me a "witch".

Ahhh-- so she's not yet determined that "with a b" is a nice add-on to that particular statement but one which retains "immunity" since it's not technically saying a curse word, I take it...



Let's just say that I feel all of your pain.

Ross Greene, The Explosive Child & www.livesinthebalance.org, Collaborative Problem Solving/Collaborative & Proactive Solutions.

Non-adversarial, non-punitive, respect-based approach.

experienced that one, did you?

Ah, I think my seven year old is living at your house. All your houses!
Apparently, the correlation between high iq and low impulse control is well established. I'll try to find the link of the Eides' neuroscience blog. No brakes In cognition equals no brakes in emotion...
I second the advice to keep blood sugar levels under control. Reactive hypoglycemia is so common for the HG+ population, too. DS7 is unable to regulate his eating himself, so we have to do it for him, making him eat enough at mealtimes to avoid crashes. They do not realize they are hungry, so you have to monitor this for them (DH still has to do it for me sometimes, he comes by it honestly...). Eating primal (high fat moderate protein low carb) has helped tremendously, and allowed us to go off the constant need for snacks pattern. Sugary and starchy breakfasts and snacks are the devil!

Edited to add links:
http://eideneurolearningblog.blogspot.de/2010/01/cognition-without-control-adhd-gifted.html
http://eideneurolearningblog.blogspot.de/2006/03/biology-of-late-bloomers-gifted-but.html

My biggest meltdowns with my 9 yo pg son are when he isn't happy and not willing to compromise with the meal plan or the choice of healthy snacks....but he is crashing so he is completely unreasonable. And he is unreasonable about the very thing that will make him feel better. It is so much easier to plan his meals to prevent hypoglycemic problems than to fix them after they start...I also have a history with hypoglycemia so know what he is going through your brain just isn't working right. Most of the time my so is mature beyond his years....when this happens...I am reminded he is 9.

Before we started to be absolutely rigorous about mealtimes and meals offered, DS7 might have such a bad freak out he'd just be raging at the table, unable to put even a bite in his mouth. I have put chocolate in front of him, yelling at him until he had a bite, then watched the transformation happen.

I kept thinking " if anyone saw me doing this..." LOL!

I still keep chocolate in the house at all times for emergencies. These days it might be DD3 who needs it to find her way out if an uncontrollable meltdown. People would tell me I'm training her to throw tantrums to get that chocolate, but I can so tell when they are completely out of control that chocolate us the last thing on their minds...

I wanted to add that I found the following, seemingly extremely disparate books helpful:
The explosive child, by Greene (already mentioned)
The kazdin method for parenting the defiant child

The second advises an extremely rigorous and consistent reward scheme, whereas the first advises to complete ditch these schemes and rather use the collaborative problem solving approach which it then teaches.

What they have in common:
Both explain extreme challenging behaviour as a lack in specific skills which can be taught and trained but which are not the child's fault in any way. Both advise to completely abstain from punishing. Kazdins reward scheme is framed not as a mindless behaviorist approach but as a support to help the child follow through with practicing the desired behaviour - might be the same thing in the end but that is how I described it to my children and they get it. I did not use the method as prescribed (which of course you are supposed to for guaranteed results) but simply offer rewards as the occasional motivator and have found that the promises kazdin makes are true - if you start with tiny bits of time (try not to bother your sister/try not to shriek when being bothered by your brother for one minute and that is one minute iPad time) helps shape better behaviour (suddenly they are even interacting nicely for ten minutes at a time!) and you can fade out the rewards quickly, even after a one off application, because they know what to do, know how to do it, know that they can do it and know that I know that they know.
KWIM?

We've taught our kids to check their physical needs first when they're feeling cranky. We process the return to ebullience after eating/sleeping/alone-time/etc. and draw explicit cause/effect connections each time. Around pre-teen/early teen age, it seems to click in to self-monitor. OTOH, my mother has been doing this for my 70+ yo father for years...