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Our DS (8.5) has difficulty controlling his voice and will tear up if he does not understand something nearly immediately. This has been ongoing and although has morphed into "merely" a high-pitched tight-voiced protest, is not resolving in what we think would be average for most kids of his age.

We've been working on pointing out to him when he's becoming out of control. Telling him he needs to give it a break. Sometimes it will work, but if it's something that he's perceived as being very desirable to understand, he will obsess over his inability to understand what is being said; sometimes bringing it up months later if we don't "work on it" with him.

I've heard of parents telling their child they are "spinning" when they get in a loop of sorts and can't seem to free themselves to gain a new perspective. Has anyone here a child that does this? Does maturing "cure" them, or is this something we will be working on like therapy?

DD9 is still in high-pitched, tight-voiced protest mode most of the time. I continually have to remind her to lower her voice from squeaky panic level when not everything in life is a dire emergency. I'm hoping she matures out of it, because the teen years are going to be hell on wheels otherwise.

DS13 (13 now!) will still tear up when he doesn't understand anything, or, for tonight's example, when it turns out I was right instead of him, in what we were going over for his algebra. Being wrong is instant cloud-mode. To be fair, I had the same problem at his age, and still do sometimes.

For our 10 year old daughter the best thing for her in terms of bucking up was seeing a CBT for a few sessions folowed by a grade skip which lasted a while. More recently, going to a 3 week CTY camp really helped her to bottle things up and discard a lot of outwardly negative or regressive behaviors.

She come back from that college campus so much more grown up - even to the point of moaning about some of the boys there being sexist ROTFL

Per our dr., I am working on some anger management stuff with my child, and one of the main things a person needs to do is identify (themselves) what are the triggers (thoughts, feelings, situations that are commonly problems, etc. ) ...then they themselves can begin to try to catch themselves before it gets bad. For anger management, there's probably few things that work worse than having someone else try to get you to calm down.

I know what you are describing isn't quite anger, but chagrin, at least, and similar self-control measures may work better than being told by others that they're loosing it... (probably there is a book somewhere for this!)

It's worth remembering that these kids experience emotions at a far greater intensity than their average peers, and so controlling them is a far greater effort.

I feel guilty for sometimes becoming impatient with him. I really don't want to add to his plate by making him feel he has displeased me.

It's more like tenacity of thought. (Gifted, much?)

He just can't seem to get off the "hamster wheel" of his obsession until he reaches a conclusion that is satisfactory. We've (DH and I) learned that if we don't reach resolution on a subject before bedtime, DS will bring it up again then and will not calm to go to sleep. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit to slipping him a half a Melatonin tablet in dinner when it's REALLY bad.

Reminds me of our #2, who used to have intense, lengthy, irrational tantrums, which sometimes resulted in falling asleep from exhaustion. Tantrum over, right? But wait, there's more! At the end of the nap--or even the next morning--the tantrum would pick up right where it left off. Same phenomenon with any dangling issue. They literally could not be put to bed until truly resolved. It really put a new spin on the old "don't let the sun go down on your anger" saying.

On the plus side, this forced us early on to deal consistently and persistently with learning to manage emotions, rather than being managed by emotions. And, though DC is still a work in progress (aren't we all?), it has really paid off in self-awareness and self-management/de-escalation.

Yes! This is DS. He will bring things up that happened years ago, even. Forbid we should accidentally touch upon a trigger-word that reminds him of an old "beef" he hasn't yet resolved. I've done a mental kick in my pants for those slip-ups.

It sounds a little like an aspect of overexcitabilities. There was a Hoagies blog hop this month on this topic. You might be interested in checking out some of the articles: http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/blog_hop_overexcitabilities.htm

I sympathize. My son speaks in three volumes: loud, shouting, and communicating with the deaf. The higher volumes seem to be associated with excitement and fatigue. We deal with this by increasing physical activity during the day and by providing a range of hyper stimulating discussion topics, so that any one glitch in the mental Matrix can be stemmed by dangling another appealing carrot. I hope he never ages out of this strategy, because I don't know that I have other ideas.

A little light at the end of the tunnel: though still a work in progress, it has become easier with increasing maturity.

This is totally my DS as well. He will be thinking of something at bedtime, and will pick up right where he left off the next morning. We try not to talk for the last 20 minutes before he goes to sleep. Helps him wind down for bedtime.

Thanks for the link. I especially liked the one by Gail Post. Her suggestion to try mindfulness was something I wasn't aware of. It seems to be a way to calm down after the initial reaction instead of stopping it altogether, though. I think like aeh said, more maturing will help.

An example of this is something that happened last night at bedtime. DS was using the toilet and found a fly on his countertop staggering around. He allowed it to climb unto his finger and came out to show us. He said he saw it flying around earlier just fine and was wanting to know why it was acting strangely now. We knee-jerk reacted to a fly crawling on his hand and told him to flush it down the toilet and wash his hands; that flies are dirty. He didn't want to put it in the toilet, but did with tears in his eyes. He refused to flush it and told me he just couldn't do it. I looked into the toilet and the darned thing was crawling back out, so I flushed it down.
When he was in bed, with tears running down his cheeks, he wanted to know where the fly would go, if it felt any pain, etc. I told him it was just dead and it happened so fast he felt no pain. Then I had to explain he had had a long life and was feeling poorly, so flushing him was putting him out of his misery. *eye roll*

I can see how this sort of emotional concern for a bug may eventually give him grief with the guys. Which reminds me: has anyone seen the commercial for Kleenex where a boy is on a bus and speaks to a girl crying? This is like my little guy!

We regularly provide safe passage for insects and spiders out of the house, where they can be free. I do draw the line at mosquitoes though, which my DS objected to my swatting.

I shared this phrase with DD and it's been helpful for both of us.

Thank you for sharing.

We have the bug issue here, as well. If it's of any comfort, I'm pretty sure DS12 would not exhibit any concern about this around his peers. He's not the world's most socially aware child (understatement), but he would understand this would be socially awkward. He lets his sensitive side show a lot more at home than out in the world.

That compassion is a positive trait, IMO. I'd rather have that than a child who pulls wings off the fly! It is a bit overwhelming for all involved at times, though.

We have the bug issue here also, so I am taking some real comfort from these posts. DD6 had trouble sleeping for days after seeing a monarch butterfly die. She kept sobbing that it needed to finish migrating before it was supposed to die. In her mind, the loss of one monarch, too soon, was throwing off the entire balance of the universe.

Yes, sounds just like our son - same age of 8.5 years old. Speaking loud is his style, whether he is physically far from a listener, or just an inch away. I believe it is his will to want to be heard and taken seriously at all times. He gets in trouble at school sometimes, in afterschool, when all are to work quietly and he is not the quiet one. As to sleep, it is a whole different chapter in our home. In his view, he does not need much sleep. He quotes famous and accomplished people like Napoleon or Thatcher who slept for 3-4 hours a night and he feels it should apply to him, too (at his age :)). He always has too much to learn to go to sleep even at midnight. I will not even mention the books, IPads, flashlights I find in his bed in the morning. Yet, how can I complain about his thirst for knowledge? Good luck and I wish you lots of patience. They grow and change (thankfully) and give us different challenges then.

My kids both cry from frustration or things they view as unfair. It did improve for our oldest, but our youngest is a work in progress.

He told me a few weeks ago that he was playing kickball at school and felt that the kid who rolled the ball rolled it bouncy instead of smooth on purpose. He got out and he said instead of crying in front of everyone, he went somewhere else to do it.

His gifted math teacher told us she has more than a few criers in their class. He's in good company, at least. But she said the kids just accept it. They don't make fun or look at them differently. They just get it done, sniff it up, and move on.

As for bugs... my son doesn't worry about bug life at all. He freaks out at anything that creeps or crawls or flies with legs. I am the spider slayer in my house. He is very sensitive about death or animal abuse, though. That week between Christmas and New Years with all of the abused animal commercials really upset him.

I try hard to recognize early signs of frustration and strongly encourage a break from what he's doing before we have a melt down.

You made me smile with recognition. Our DS hasn't mastered his "library voice" at all. I'm constantly reminding him to turn down the volume at restaurants. It's a bit concerting when your child's voice is squeezed tight and high-pitched as they try to get to the nth degree of what is being said.

As for the flashlight and books (etc.!!) found in bed the next morning, well...our kids could do a sleep-over in perfect harmony.

She has a soft heart like our DS. It's both wonderful and awful, isn't it?