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Just to caveat -- my daughter is actually are really good kid and exceeds my expectations much of the time. But the times when discipline is required -- oh my, it's like preparing for battle: Read on.

Do you find it more and more difficult to discipline your gifted children? Sometimes, I feel like I'm parenting a teenager and my daughter is only 6 1/2! Every time I give her an answer of "no" she wants an explanation and "because I said so" never works. Usually, we have a good discussion and she gains understanding.

But every once and again, she explodes. My DH & I have read the book "The Explosive Child" and felt like we were reading a description of our life. We have incorporated much of the advice from that book into our lives. But the combination of giftedness & "explosiveness" sure can be draining.

Anyone else out there in my shoes?

Ha Ha! Yes... that's "normal" here. Oh, those OEs!

Yes, we are raising little lawyers...

Ditto, all of the above!

The running joke in our house is that DS6 is a Diplomat in Training.

Gosh! the arguments sometimes really drain me.. DD4 is a master of "How about 5 and a half minutes".. "But...but..but. but you cannot start counting till I ...."

Yes, my goodness yes! DD3 is so much easier to discipline than DS5, even while she's going through the pushing of buttons stage (right now... fun)!

Yep you are not alone.
I feel my DS6 turns it around trying to punish me.
Just before he told me "we are going to discuss it later when I get home"
It is like where did you come from, lately I say a lot "you are not in charge I am, you don't tell me what to do, you don't make the rules etc".
Last night for dinner he wouldn't eat so I said "we are not millionnaires so you are not getting anythign else" he says "you are not a millionnaire because you don't believe in yourself" There is always something else to say. Then all of a sudden I was in this philisophical debate.

DS is the logic king and always full of debate. I'm not sure if this will help others but we have found it very useful! Essentially, we have taught him how to argue and when an argument is over! It's not flawless and we certainly had to add in provisions for safety- but overall, it works!

http://wondertime.go.com/parent-to-parent/article/why-kids-should-talk-back.html

My 2.5 yr old already negotiates so I really dread when she is older. Playground time can either go smoothly or become a big battle with lines drawn.

I rarely have to discipline my son because he knows he would be grounded from the computer. But the few times I have done this he thought I treated him unfairly. When he thinks he is treated unfairly he doesn't react right away and he doesn't forget about it either. He waits until he finds the perfect opportunity to get even with me by pointing out things I do. He tries to catch me doing something that might be seen as similar in some way to what he got in trouble for. He doesn't come right out as say Mom, you are a big hypocrite, he just remembers word for word what I said to him and gladly repeats these words and then compares what he and I did and then says something like "Do you think that maybe that is just a little hypocritical?"

And he picks up on the fact that I feel kind of mean when I make him work on handwriting issues that he has difficulty with and that I am making him work on "endurance" when it comes to writing. He was very quick to point out that he heard me complain that it was wrong for the school to not offer any accommodations for his mild motor learning disability, but then make him work so much on this in our homeschooling. Today he told me he was getting a bad headache but he probably shouldn't bother asking me for Tylenol because I would just want him to work on his endurance and insist that he just learn to "endure" the headaches. The OT he saw only six times last year nicknamed him Mr. Drama.

Ah, that's IT! That's what we have here at our house. It's the DRAMA! Ack!

Me too!!!!

Me three. I say to DD 26 mos., "I am the mama and you are the baby. The mama makes the rules, the baby follows the rules." You mean it gets worse?

Me four!

Recently my brother, a confirmed batchelor came to stay and
had a nasty shock when ds talked back, argued and negotiated his point of view incessantly. Finally in exasperation he turned to ds who was in mid rant and said, "one adult, one vote. Zip it!"

I have now adopted this. Makes me feel better anyway.

I often ask ds when he in the midst of some emotional outburst,
"When you get your Oscar, can I sit in the front row?"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Love that! I may steal it for use with DS4, my drama king!

Yes big on the drama here as well. I'll borrow that one as well!

This is so reassuring that others have little lawyers in their homes. I love it when the grandparents tell me that I let him "argue" way too much as if this is something I foster here at home. I have adopted the saying, "Now is not the time for an explanation. Remind me when we get home/later and I will explain it." Sometimes he forgets and I don't have to explain it. I use it very sparingly and it really has helped eliminate the bartering. I like to use the whole "trust-guilt" thing too. "You just need to trust me on this one."

I have found that being very clear about when discussion is allowed and when a decision is already made and discussion is closed helps.

I'm a big fan of the "tell me why you think that will work" sort of conversation BEFORE I make a decision. But I get very cranky if debate is pressed on me after I've made the decision. My usual response: "I heard you. You had your chance to make your case. The decision has been made and discussion time is over." If he were to keep talking, there would be consequences.

My little lawyer is generally quite good at letting it go once he has been heard, even if I decide against him because he knows that if his argument is a good one, I will sometimes decide his way. I think that's rewarding logical thought and civil discourse, and I'm okay with that.

But I don't decide first and then discuss. Not ever! That's problematic!

BeckyC, we have a copy of "The Explosive Child" because our preschool counselor recommended it last year. I haven't read it yet, because once it came and I read some of the intro I wasn't sure it really fit our son. And it kind of scared me . . . but maybe we could find some tools that would work. Sounds like you all did!

Ditto all the above here. Our son is a little lawyer also and WILL NOT STOP! We took Love and Logic classes but it didn't work well for us. What has worked better is 1-2-3 Magic. If I get tired of the negotiating. I just say, "We're not talking about it anymore." If he keeps it up then I count 1-2-3 and he's off to his room. Sometimes I have to physically carry him there though b/c he's pitching a fit! I DO wonder what's going to happen when he gets older and bigger! Yikes!

He fortunately does not have meltdowns in public anymore. He just saves them for us at home!

Thank you CAMom!

I totally agree. If I make a decision and it is clear, I don't change my mind about it because then he will argue about things all the time. I make it very clear to him that that is the decision and it will not change and if he continues on he needs to leave the room because I don't want to hear it. If he won't, I will leave the room. Usually he gets it because he knows I don't change my mind about things like that. If I haven't said no or yes yet, there is some room for negotiation. My DS4 can be dramatic as well at times. Oddly enough when he was littler he was much better. He was great until 3. In fact, at 2 he would put himself in time out all the time. It was quite strange. I wish it was still like that sometimes.

Yes, Shelly. Learning NOT to say yes or no immediately was the hardest part of this for me. Once I got that down, I just dug in my heels on my decisions. I'm stubborn, so that part was easy.

There's a GT neighbor boy whose mom apparently allows debate after the decision, and he is EXHAUSTING to be around. I wind up barking at him a lot when he's over to play because he behaves in a manner that I find to be very disrespectful. My kids don't do that, and I'm now convinced it's because we don't allow discussion after a decision is made.

Best parenting decision EVER!

You either train your kids to respect you or you train them not to. There's no other option, really!

I wonder if my special ed teacher friend thinks my son is disrespectful to me. She probably does and maybe he is, sometimes, but he does it in a joking manner that makes me even laugh sometimes and I can't yell at him if I am laughing. When he disagrees with things I do he finds ways to point out to me that I am either wrong or too hard on him. He did it again. We were eating lunch at a scouting event Saturday with my special ed teacher friend when my son noticed a grammatical error on something he was reading. He asked me to look at it and tell him how it should have been written. He knows that I am self conscious around teachers. I looked at it and told him that I was having trouble reading it because the print was too small. He didn't believe I couldn't read it and said "Well Mom, just try harder. If you just try a little harder I know you can do it." Then he told my friend that's what I tell him all the time. Later, at home, he teased me about stretching the truth and little white lies, and my husband joined in because he thought it was funny.

We have just come home from dinner at a restaurant that took 45 minutes to get us our food! (we had our dd6 and dd1 with us). They were amazingly well behaved until the food came. Then dd6 spilt her apple sauce all over herself (don't ask how) and started crying about it. She tried really hard to control it and covered her mouth so she wouldn't be too loud and everything. Well, we made it through the meal, got them home and all _____ broke out. Now, I know that the wait was long and we'd reached melt down time but the show DD6 put on tonight almost seems to have become a habit, and I don't know who's going to loose it first - DH or me.
Those of you with OE emotional ones, how do you handle the hysterical crying and wailing and drama over the littlest things (like brushing teeth and hair) when the child is tired? We are ready to tear our own hair out and nothing seems to work to calm her down when she gets like this. In fact it's almost like trying to calm her down makes it worse.
Like many of you it does seem to be getting worse as she gets older.

I would read "The Explosive Child". It has great insight into how to look at kids, especially ones who have that tendency for small things to become huge issues. The book uses no labels and just discusses the traits that cause children to blow up and how to work with the child to teach him/her the skills needed to ensure that it becomes less.

ADDED: If you do decide to read the book, don't put it down just because the case studies seem much more extreme than your child. I did that the first time I started to read it. Now that I'm getting past that point, I'm realizing it's good information for any child who has those issues to any degree.

**jots this one down**

We use "and the Oscar goes to..."

**jotting this one down as well**

The "because I am the parent and I say so" doesn't work with DS5. Maybe this will. It's rare that we have issues, but when we do, they are HUGE, and he has to know the reason I have made the decision(s) I have.

Ugh. DS5 just had a major meltdown today when he discovered that he left one of his favorite toys at our friend's house, and they live an hour away and i'm not going there today. When the crying went on for more than 10 minutes, I said, "very impressive! how much longer do you think you can cry?" I'll have to tell him about the oscars so i can try the oscars line on him next time.

I finally got him to stop by having him look in a mirror and said, "now, whatever you do don't laugh. The sad face in the mirror will help you to keep crying, but if you laugh, it's all over."

I am signing up for "The explosive child" on my library list. Thanks for the resource!

I have to add when we are in the throws of a meltdown with DS6, it is often enough to just acknowledge his feelings or to help him put words to his feelings. For example when he was having all his issues in PS, coming home crying every day over little things, I said to him, "I am sorry you are feeling so frustrated. It must be really hard to have all these overwhelming feelings about things others don't see as "big deals". This took my perspective of 'his overreactions over little things' out of the equation and gave him the sense that no matter what I was here for him. We had to deal with the emotions at the time. Later we discussed how we could deal with it better next time. Today at the table he said about his little sister having a meltdown, "I remember feeling overwhelmed a few months ago. It felt like a giant volcano building inside me and all of a sudden it would blow. I couldn't stop it. Now I know I need to let out the steam once in a while to keep it from blowing." Talk about insight....

Wow - that's great! I might have to use your DS's meltdown advice on my DS. Yes, i do try to aknowledge that he's feeling disappointed or sad or whatever, but that wasn't working today.

Oh I didn't mean you personally SPG! Sometimes the "lava flow" is just too great here too and I can't say anything that doesn't make it worse. Now that I know he can relate his feelings to a volcano I will be using it as a barometer when I see him getting worked up and hopefully start heading off the meltdowns. Will need to brush up on my volcano jargon as he knows way about this topic than me.

We have found the key to meltdowns is to find out what caused it. In the beginning this was really hard, because it's hard to explain things in the middle of a "hissy fit". But we've gotten better at translating between sobs.... As soon as I rectify the problem or explain why it can't be fixed, DS seems ok with that.

He is something of a control freak and situations that are out of his control are the hardest for him, generally causing the biggest blow.

It is the Volcano Explosivity index (VEI ).

Check it out.

http://www.sizes.com/units/volcanic_explosivity_index.htm

You could do a spoof on it with tantrums!!

I tried something from one of the books recommended on this site...it worked great to tame some of the tantrums...

Make 2 lines marked 1 thru 10.

On one line, label ways to handle anger/disappointment from quiet sadness (#1), to full blown tantrums at the 10 mark.

On the other line, label some common life problems from something like brother takes your toy(#1) to losing your home/someone you love (#10).

Now, discuss with the child some of their recent problems and where they fall on the problem line. Most will come out as a 1 or 2 level problem. Now, show the child their reactions on the second line. Most will come out a 9 or 10.

My son was shocked when he saw his emotions were so out of whack with his responses. Now, when the emotions start to flow, I ask him to rate his problem, and he automatically starts thinking about the level of reaction he should have. It sounds kind of crazy, but it's been working.

Can't remember what book it was in or I would give the author credit.

I have to agree with the raising little lawyers comment.....my DS6 could talk his way out of anything. The other day he was running around the house and we had some music on in the background...he banged into a chair and started bumping it around and banged it into the wall. My husband said to stop banging the chair into the wall. My son's response was that the chair was dancing. My husband responded that chairs don't dance into walls and son's response so matter-of-factly was "duh daddy, this chair obviously doesn't have any eyes, so it can't see the wall." I mean how can you argue with that?