Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion The Destroyer

I am loving this thread. Our DS6 has always had a penchant for ummm experimentation with ummmm chaos and he is so quick about it. My house is continously trashed. DS8 is HG+ I'm sure, and since DS6 is so different it's difficult for me to tell if he is, but if destruction is an attribute of being GT, well, DS6 is running strong!

What's funny is that DD2 loves to clean up- I wouldn't call her neat necessarily (she like to make a mess), but she enjoys when it's time to clean-up. She happily puts things back in order, especially sorting toys into their bins. Even at 16 months, she was helping me unload the dishwasher by getting the silverware and putting it in the correct drawer. The boys always see clean-up time as an end to their fun, she sees it as a new way to explore the mess and chaos she's created!

I'm like that, though I'm not a Destroyer. I think it's a hallmark of a visual person. If I can't see it, I forget it's there. It makes it hard to stay organized. Clutter is everywhere.

Well, mine's pretty bad... I'm sure it could be worse, but I don't want to think about how!

You can take things like old calculators, phones, etc. Remove the batteries and make sure there is no power source that can be plugged in when you aren't looking,, and let them take it apart.
We were at a kid's science function and they had a whole table just full of stuff that kids could take apart and look inside.

In fact, someone had actually bought a whole bunch of corded phones like we used to have back in the 70's brand new just to have kids take them apart to see what's inside.

This is absolutely DH and me. Give us about 2 minutes and our hotel room is covered in stuff. Sometimes we just look around and shake our heads--how much stuff did we bring? It isn't the same motivation as Kriston's (need to see everything) though, nor is it that we are creative. For me, it is a single-minded focus on the thing I am doing now to the exclusion of all else. If I want the jacket at the bottom of my suitcase, then everything else between me an it is an inconvenience, to be tossed aside. If my shoes are bothering me, then they need to be off my feet now and I don't care where they go. I never think about wanting to be able to find these things later.

I am just selfish; my motto is "I want what I want and I want it NOW!" Fortunately since DH is much the same way, we really have no conflict about this. The problem is that we had hoped that DS might be more organized, but instead he got a double-hit and no good role models!

Yes, yes, yes! After I posted this I thought, nobody is going to understand this one.
Thanks, mommaandmore and others. Your descriptions have hit the mark. I do think some of it is boredom; and some of it might be trying to check out things they can sort of intellectually 'get', but don't have the motor skills to deal with (rip, tear, shred).

DH and I will sometimes look up from reading, eating, whatever, and have one of those 'It's quiet. Too quiet.' moments.

One time I came into the dining room after literally only 4 minutes of being out and dd (1 at the time) had completely covered the dining room table with a pretty even coat of milk and cereal. And a good part of the floor. It was remarkable in both size and consistency - like she had been evening it out here and there...
Then there was the time she pulled out the noise-maker in a toy of ds's, she's completely shredded many books, and so on.
I think the books definitely end up in the category of 'oh, here's some cool stuff that I'd never see in a board book so let's check it out.' Then 'darn I've torn the page, wait...THIS PAPER REALLY SOUNDS COOL WHEN YOU TEAR IT!! '.

Asynchronous dev.?

Oh, and btw, we try to fit into the 'put that toy away before you take out another' camp, but it just does not seem to happen...we just sort of get out the bulldozers once a week and 'reset'.

My destroyers favorite medium is water, but she's also fond of whiteboard markers. My best destroyer story is when I passed her on the stairs, and all she said was "Water." I went into the bathroom to discover she'd taken the top off the liquid soap and wedged it under the faucet, and turned the water on. The bottle fit almost perfectly so that once it filled with water, water sprayed all over the bathroom like a sprinkler. My destroyer is not identified as gifted, but she has a huge imagination.

My identified-gifted ds was never a destroyer until recently. He's older than dd, but she's the one who taught him how to pretend. Now 8, he's become much more destructive. Last week, he found out what happens when you climb your dresser and sit in one of the drawers.

My ds is so obviously gifted (early reader, obscure interests, asynchronous), I keep trying not to discount dd. She seems so normal. Well, except for the destructiveness (we used to call her Destructo), the imagination (she had a whole family of imaginary friends), the perfection, her issues with smells... Okay, maybe she's not so normal. If I say gifted, I won't have to use the word strange.

DH just reminded me that he used to call DS4 "DS4, Destroyer of Worlds." I had forgotten that. He also tells me that he told a co-worker that if you left him alone in a padded room with an anvil, DS4 would break the anvil and not know how he had done it.

Shows what I remember...

Could you send the bulldozers my, way, Chris? I need them now! :p

My DS 5.5 loves to take electronic items apart. He is quite adept with a screwdriver. He recently told me that he is collecting parts to build his own robot.