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Hi again,

Please forgive me if I sound a bit naive about this issue.

I have some friends with little ones, aged 2-4, who seem to be trying to implement setting gentle limits around interrupting. When my older son was that age, I didn't even think that that was something that could be achieved. I would have thought that it is too young to expect a child so young to use such self control around attention-getting. I also wonder whether it is fair and/or healthy to shut-out such young children from interacting, especially when they need something, whether emotional or physical. Maybe it is fine.

My younger son is now 2, and in the face of my friends' attempts with their children, I find myself wondering whether or not this is perhaps a good idea. The same goes for some other social behaviors, such as staying seated at the dinner table. My eight year-old interrupts all the time, and it's quite annoying. But since he's eight, I feel that I can have these conversations about this with him and expect that he show a little self-restraint.

As you all know, gifted kids are usually incredible INTENSE. This definitely goes for both my boys. And perhaps that's just the thing about parenting gifted kids - you can't always use the same techniques on them as you would with other non-gifted kids. They really want/need a constant audience and endless interaction, but makes it hard to have guests over for, say, dinner.

I'm learning that an easy way out is to hire babysitters (yes, two! One for each kid!) to play with the kids while we socialize. But is this wise?

I think it is reasonable to start teaching them not to interrupt by explaining what that means (especially in the 3-4 age range). I do not find that they can fully stop themselves at those ages. However, it is good for children to know that people should take turns speaking and wait until someone is done talking for their own turn.

I agree with connecting dots. You can certainly start teaching them around 3-4 years old, keeping in mind it may take awhile for them to be successful at not interrupting. I have a neighbor whose interrupting 3 year old is now an interrupting 6 1/2 year old... Every 3 minutes it seems.. And she still doesn't work on teaching her daughter not to interrupt. It's very frustrating to have a conversation with her.

I taught my girls to put their hand on my shoulder/arm and that was their sign or way of letting me know they wanted me or needed to say something while I was having a conversation with someone.

Yeah, I agree with pps. You parent the child you have, and barring any sort of reasons why they would have MORE challenges in learning social acumen, I see no reason to start gentle reminders as early as you want. It's basically just getting them used to the idea that certain settings have different rules and to be mindful of them. We have been asking dd to say please and thank you since about 18 mos, and shes two now and says it on her own about 10% of the time. I call that success!

You may use different techniques, but they can learn to be lovely social creatures. My own parents would indeed hire a baby sitter when their entertaining warranted it. We started teaching our children to indicate they were finished with dinner by saying "thank you for a lovely dinner" starting with their first bowl of rice cereal lol. No, it didn't sound like that, but started with a grunt, then "ku" and by 3 they charmed their hostess.

As for interrupting, ah, I WISH they had interrupted, especially when the toilet overflowed or the paint bottle tipped over.

I recently read/listened to "Bringing up Bebe" and there's a good section on just your topic.