Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Advice on grade skip

I am glad the competitive thing on Candyland is a passing phase.

How about someting else. When Wila was about 18 months, she saw these twins in the playground. The boy was disabled physically and mentally. Although she didn't play with him (due to physical limitations) she always went out of her way to greet him. She didn't play with the sister who was always vying for attention and developed annoying habits.

The boy became quite attached to Wila since she was about the only child who was friendly with him. And I heard the compassion part was a characteristic. Anyone else had this kind of weird experience?

Ren

Yup. That's very common. It goes hand-in-hand with the social justice thing. I think it has something to do with a greater empathy because of a precocious ability to put themselves in the place of other people.

Not all GT kids do this, of course. And certain developmental issues or 2E-type problems (like Asperger's Syndrome, for example) naturally preclude this sort of empathy. But it seems to be relatively widespread among GT kids.

Not a lot of evil geniuses out there, IRL, despite what the James Bond movies would have us believe. (And that's a shout out to you, Grinity! In case you didn't catch it there. )

Hello all i am a newbie to this site . i am a single mum to a nearly 7 yr old boy whom is GT with adhd . This boy has been one hell of a handfull... He sympathises with autistic kidz in a profound way all young children. i think he does feel exceptional and quite different to his peers in many aspects. He is precocious and also very musical (pitch perfect and remembers every line) He loves maths and factual info. All this as it is, he is very immature in many ways. I am thrilled to have found this group Heidi

Hi Heidik,
Welcome!
I'm so glad you found us!
Hee Hee "quite a handfull" was the best discriptor of my son up to age 6.

I think that many gifted kids to have the intellectual ability to feel different even age age three!

It's funny that word "immature" - like gifted it means something different to everyone who uses it.

My son was judged to be immature because he clung to the teachers a daycare. In retrospect I can see that he didn't have much in common with his 'agemates' and just wanted to have a 'normal' conversation. He also had different fears than ND (normally developing)) kids. I also think he clung hard to me, in a way that looked immature to others, because he had such a strong need to understand the world, and I could 'translate' for him.


Hey, maybe your kid is immature, but I'll love to hear more about it. Perhaps they just have a 'different' developmental path, ((shrug))

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Grinity You have made me feel so welcome . thank you for your reply. Have been reading recent posts and feel like ive "come home" in a sense because raising a child whom is so different than his peers can be so draining and having adhd on top of that-- oh boy!! His brain likes constant stimulation and if hes not thinking and concentrating he touches , mouths everything in sight.How old is your son now? By "immature" i meant his behaviour-- his brain is so advanced i think he gets fustrated that things dont move fast enough for him so he acts out like a much younger child. Love from London (which is grey and wet n windy today !)

Welcome! Welcome home!
so it ISN'T that we aren't good mothers! Although it feels that way in public sometimes! My son is 11.5 now, in 7th grade. I have to say that the wonderful thing about Middle School is that all the kids are 'falling apart' behaviorally due to trying to handle all the changing bodies, and he fits right in! Who would have thought. For my son, having a school which doesn't let anyone get away with anything is very helpful. He got detention for wearing white socks on Friday after repeated warnings! Yippee! It just eats into him watching kids 'do wrong' and not get caught or punished, so this school is really good for him because they have a punishment and they aren't afraid to use it.

At 7 he might have hit or pushed another kids when totally stressed, but that's about over now. He is making progress on his "Goldilocks Problem" - that is, needing more challenging material, but not having the patience to sit and do it if it seems one bit difficult. I think that's due to the gradeskip and finally having the experience of actually struggling on a weekly basis. Yes my son wiggles and chews. His school demands that they wear Memory Devices for the Computer to keep their work on, and he fingers, chews the cord, breaks them, disects pen, writes on his fingers.

I have heard that ADHD kids do tend to be less mature. I liked to say that my son may be acting out, but that, especially when he was unnacommidated around age 7 (his worst year, 2nd grade) he was actually mature, because the challenges he was facing were like 3 times larger than the ND child. Well I did like to say that, but I'm not sure how many people believed me!

Heidik,
I don't know if subject accelerations are allowed in your schools, but I hate to see a kid potentially miss a 'good-fit' school situation because of their behavior when the behavior may be caused by the 'poor-fit' of the school in the first place. KWIM? What are the details of your son's school situation?

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Hello again just logged in and read your reply- thanks! Aden has just changed school mid year. I had been on the waiting list for 2 1?/2 yrs so feel like ive won a mini lottery! This is a fab school and he has a IEP for behaviour but they know his abilities too and provide extended lessons in proven topics! There are alot of Japanese kids in this school and they tend to be advanced so the whole level of expectation should be quite high. So relieved to here of your DS and his chewing antics..Ha ha. By the by although i live in London i am Canadian by birth..another reason why i feel ive "come home"..Heidi xx

Had to comment on this one. My DS9 is a "chewer". All the cuffs of his shirts are Ruined! (and they're supposed to be handed down to younger brother some day). Clothes that survived 2 older brothers intact, destroyed.

He is also hyper focussed on some things (like video games) and I believe it makes him irritable. Does anyone else find technology time, even limited, creates a monster? This morning he played Rune Scape for maybe 20 minutes or less and he ended up fighting with DS6 and being disrespectful to me.

Heidi -
Yippee! Good luck with the new school. So nice to have hope!

Cym-
I do have a soft spot for RuneScape, as that is where he got his typing skills up to speed (110 wpm for a few months) after I had bribed him to learn the basics on Mavis Beacon. For us the whole point of letting them play video games is to have something to 'take away' when the behavior gets out of hand. So yes they make good behavior both harder and easier to achieve!

Grins,
Grinity