Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy When is he just being plain old bad?

I just love this forum. I love that it's possible to have these thoughtful discussions with other parents who have a solid understanding of these types of issues.

syoblrig: I agree 100% that gifted kids need to behave as much as anyone else. To that end, we do sticker charts, positive reinforcement and consequences. We also have lots of chats about emotions, we try to incorporate a bit of yoga and meditation here and there, we read books about emotions, and invite them to go to their room if they need to calm down. We have had a parenting coach who was of great help, but has since retired. We're definitely doing what we can. I do like your concept of the Mitzvah, and will talk to DH to see if we want to incorporate that as another tool.

My question is more whether we need to be doing discipline "differently" with him, and to what extent. I can tell you with absolute certainty that when he isn't "buzzing", he is a kid with a huge heart. He also adores his little brother and they are wonderful friends. Bottom line is, I think he mostly has a hard time controlling his emotions. He is always "more" of everything, whether it's good or bad.

HJA: We may actually start sessions with a psychologist soon. As far as I'm concerned, it's just another tool to add to their toolbox for good mental health. If it's a good fit and he likes it, I'd like to continue for a while. I just see it as a great way to help him manage the big emotions. By the way, I sent you a PM about something else.

Ashley: I actually used the "Thank you for not doing X" trick a lot last night. Don't remember where we picked it up but yes, it seems to help.

howdy: That's exactly it. You just expressed it more accurately/succinctly than I did. Whenever he's acting out because he's anxious for example, we find that the most effective way to bring him around is to help him express his feelings. If instead he's acting out because he's in a bad mood, the best approach is probably a consequence. It's just hard to know which is which sometimes.

Generally, it seems that GC aren't simple to parent!

I have to say that the precious snowflake comment feels very judgmental. I am a parent whose child has trouble with all the things you listed. We - meaning both he AND his parents - work very hard on this. We have expectations and consequences and he probably works harder on this than most any kid in his class. He also suffers for it a ton, because he knows he fails and he wants so badly to succeed.

Judgment doesn't help him or me as his mom. I used to respond to judgment like this. I'd try to adopt the strategies offered by the folks making the judgment, and I firmly believed there was something wrong with both my parenting and my son. Over the years I came to realize that standard reward/punishment strategies were not only useless, they were harmful. Since much of my son's behavior was not volitional, the punishments and rewards were inherently arbitrary to him, and they actually became an obstacle to his growth because they confused him so.

Likewise, and for the same reason, public humiliation was incredibly harmful. You wouldn't berate a disabled child for failing to run fast, would you?

So - you won't ever SEE me castigating my son for his behavior, or otherwise embarrassing him in public for his behavioral failures. You won't hear about the things he loves being taken away, except when that's a natural (i.e., necessary) consequence. (I.e., "If you won't put the Magic cards away when you need to get to sleep, then I have to take them away." NOT - "You blurted answers in class and were disrespectful to your classmate, so I'm taking away your Magic cards."). You won't hear about sticker charts or red/yellow/green or any of the other strategies that work for so many kids. They don't do a d#$!ed bit of good, and I will no longer succumb to pressure to impose them. Net - if you were in our home, you would see him getting powerful, meaningful consequences that show him both what expectations are and why he should keep working to meet them. And he does.

You'll also never hear me saying that he "doesn't have to behave because he's gifted." That's ludicrous. But he is wired differently from other kids, and you will hear me defend him against the imposition of one-size-fits-all punishment/reward strategies and the attendant condemnation from teachers and other parents when they inevitably fail.

I'm sorry for my rant in response to your rant. But it just pushed every button for me as a mom. I'm sure you didn't mean it as a general condemnation of parents of kids (gifted or otherwise) who have behavior problems. It just sort of felt like it ....

Prior posters have offered good advice. In our case, it seems that time helped a great deal. At six, DS was an intense handful, to put it mildly. It seemed as if he was always on and often, if not fully occupied by something (which, fortunately, including reading at times) he was a mess. I look at photos of him at that age now and see a ball of energy who likely felt trapped all day doing things he'd already done or didn't care to do for the required time (very bad school year).

Many, many long conversations, punishments, a new school and nearly four years later, he is a much calmer child 80-90% of the time. He's always been kind to other children, but he is now a leader with others. He still is not an easy child, but the difference over that timespan is remarkable. I think time and growth is a big part of the difference. His EF perhaps has started to catch up a bit.

suevv, have you shared your methods of assigning consequences at home with your child's teachers? I am sure that all teachers know and accept that "one size fits all" punishment does not work and they also want what is best for the child - so, how can a teacher know what the right fit is? For e.g., running around and causing disruption in a classroom where the kid is expected to sit at his desk (in 4th grade, not K). What does the teacher do under those circumstances? My son was in such a situation and he just could not focus or concentrate when a boy used to noisily run around in circles and make funny noises, crack jokes etc. - especially during test taking. My son was not the only one in the class that got affected by that. The teacher followed the school handbook which has rules for these situations. I am curious to know what kind of consequences should be set for such incidents for such a kid. This kid is PG and has overexcitabilities. And we are close friends with this family. I am asking in the hope that I can offer some help to them, because I feel for the parents as well.

+1

My DS (grade 2) also struggles with sitting still and quiet - it doesn't seem to be something he can easily control - yet. (He's not the only one in his class, so I think some of it is age-appropriate behaviour)

We've worked with him and his teachers on strategies (allowing him to go to the hall when he needs to move around; using noise-cancelling headphones) and this has generally helped. I don't think 'consequences' would have helped. Sticker charts - useless with my kids!

Same here. They don't work for my DS7 (work better on non-PG DS9). PG or not, my DS7 is different and we'll need to find other ways to correct his misbehaves and temper issues. That's why I want to read the recommended books to see if we can find causes of his behavior issues and use some of the suggested solutions.

suevv, I can definitely understand how you feel. It's not to the same extent at this point, but I do feel your pain. I too feel like we (DH, DS6 and I) have to work so much harder at it than most, and it can be exhausting for the whole family. And we also often feel judged anytime he acts out in public. Though we're sort of lucky on that front for the time being - he seems to save his bad behaviour for us at home, which makes it easier because there aren't extra sets of eyes.

You seem to be referring to a time in the past, so I hope he's doing better. In any case, you are not alone. ((hugs))

Thank you for writing this. It is so true that parents make excuses for their gifted kids. Ever since bad behavior has been on the check list for giftedness I think parents subconsciously encourage it or ignore it. I run an enrichment club with many highly gifted kids and I have to say that they are well behaved, as are my kids, more than the mildly gifted kids. I think the worst behaved are the ones who know their kids are only above average and I often hear their parents call them "free thinkers"-- it's not free thinking when you encourage them to be that way!

There was an article published about gifted kids, saying how stressed and anxious they are at such young ages because they get tested young and feel the pressure. In my opinion it's when the parents get the results and then start treating their children differently. I've seen a lot of sad parents try to get their kids onto the club and I see how they her their children behave, compared to the ones who are actually gifted.

That feels better to have unbottled that. I'd like to see a ban on psychologists giving out IQ results, other than gifted or not gifted. The parents whose kids are 120-135 are the worst (they either desperately wish their child was gifted, or if they are gifted they desperately wish their child was profoundly gifted).

It's not OK for a kid to be disrupting the class, even if he can't seem to help himself.

Each year, I talk to DS's teachers to let them know what strategies have worked. Unfortunately, they always need to first work through their favorite one-size-fits-all strategy. Usually some sort of positive reinforcement check-off thing. I'll let them know that these generally fail, but it's their classroom, and they always want to try it first.

The better teachers - and he had a good one this year - pretty quickly see that the strategy has no impact. Then we talk about what to do. Here are some things that have worked. DS is not "all better." But he had a great year of growth and improvement. I'd say we had 3 types of strategies - prevention, mitigation and rehabilitation, if you will.

Prevention. DS struggles with being crowded, overwhelmed with noise/exciting behavior by another child, and impatient (which is a better way to say "bored" I think). For crowding and noise, DS - and others in the class who need it - have an escape hatch. The ability to remove to a quiet corner or a bench outside the classroom instead of working at a group table. To NOT sit on the carpet for the class meeting. He is also allowed to request to switch to a different small group, provided he can articulate a respectful reason ("Her voice is very high and loud and it hurts my ear" as opposed to "She's stupid and I hate her.") For the impatience - he can finish his work, even in a cursory fashion, and then move on to something he finds more engaging, provided it's at least tangentially related. So when the class had to write poetry, which he found to be awful, once he wrote a crappy 4-line poem, he was permitted to return to writing his novel about WW III. For pair work and seating assignments - he gets paired with other "quick" kids, and specifically NOT paired with kids that tend to spin up - even when those kids are also quick.

Mitigation. There are consequences for failure. But the consequence has to make sense. If he's blurting or disrupting, he is asked to take a break away from the class. Sit at the bench outside the classroom for a few minutes. Take some books back to the library. If he's having trouble on the playground - he is asked to go back in the classroom or into the library or office. He might lose part of recess if a problem was big enough. But not to stay to write punishment sentences, but rather to chat quietly with teacher about what happened, why it was not OK, and what alternatives would have been better. Sometimes, being given a chore can derail an escalating problem - like doing prep work for an upcoming project or sorting crayons or some such thing. This is delicate, because it's critical not to reinforce the behavior. But if the actions weren't within his control, it's not reward OR punishment to provide a re-direct. It's just a necessary means to address the problem and help him manage better in the future.

Rehabilitation. This is possibly the most important thing. Once DS is back on the rails, it helps so much for him to hear respect for his best efforts, and a reminder that he is still a worthwhile human being even though he failed this time. His teacher this year was a genius at this. He still cherishes the note she sent him while he was on the bench in the office: "DS, if you feel calm and ready to learn, you are welcome to return to our classroom. Love, Mrs. Teacher." And she really did welcome him and let him know he was loved. She also worked hard to remind him what he did well - "It was so great when you knew you were having trouble, and asked for a break in the quiet area." I was a tiny bit disappointed that she never did talk to him positively about his huge strength areas in academics, because I think this might have also helped. But that wasn't her style, and I can respect that.

This all requires a lot of effort and sincere care by the teacher, AND a super-humanly calm disposition to boot. I'm deeply grateful that 2 of his 3 teachers so far have been willing and able.

Hope this wasn't TL;DR!

Sue

suevv - love your last two posts.

This isn't about giving gifted kids a free pass and/or not disciplining them. It is about building their skills so that they are able to handle their sometimes intense emotions.

All of the discipline, consequences, sticker charts and rewards aren't going to help if the child doesn't have the needed skills. My DD figured this stuff out mostly on her own while for DS we have had to work really, really, really hard at it with him - they are very different kids. I know we've been judged (and likely still will be) when he hasn't been at his best but I also know that he's come a long way and that the meltdowns are much less frequent and far less spectacular than they would have been without the work.