Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy managing vs. denying OEs - advice?

DS9 has begun 4th grade with renewed hope and plans for a much better year. Since first grade he has had behavioral struggles, largely from lack of challenging work but also (I now understand) due to OEs, particularly psychomotor and imaginational.

In the past, we had various reward systems based on his behavior; this year, I'm not sure it's the right way to go. It seems to me to send this message: "Sure, I'll give you five bucks a week; all you have to do is not be who you are." I know that's not what I want to present, but I don't know what I *do* want to present.

The boy, of course, is asking about rewards and what our "deal" will be this year. I don't know what to tell him. How do I support him and teach him to manage appropriate expression of OEs without making him swallow his soul? What are some ways your OE kids have managed them?

What is an OE?

I have strong feelings about this one, since I have a son with Asperger's. Our family's policy is that no matter how gifted and/or eccentric you are, you have to learn to function in polite society and be a considerate person to live with.

Most of us want our kids to be challenged academically-- why should we not challenge them also to do the social learning that will make their lives easier later on? If you work on difficult behaviors with calm consistency, many of them can become easier to manage or even just go away, including behaviors usually attributed to sensory issues or other "built-in" features. They are not as immutable as some people assume.

At least in our DS's case, we do not think those behaviors constitute his soul: we think they constitute a great challenge to him, presented by his own "wiring," and one that he must manage.

For us, this work has meant quite a bit of operation with reward systems, but being careful about how the rewards are set up to ensure that he's always working hard on very specifically chosen skills that are truly difficult for him. (Not working on every skill at once, but on a few key ones at a time.) He has made enormous strides on this kind of plan.

Do you have support at school to address the behaviors you're concerned about? If it's happening at school, the consequences (positive or negative) should ideally happen there rather than at home. If the teacher is willing to work with you on positive reinforcement delivered on the spot when he does something right, you may see better results. They may also have good advice about what skills to target.

HTH,
DeeDee

OEs=overexcitabilities.

from Hoagies wesbsite Dabrowski's Over-excitabilities, A Layman's Explanation by Stephanie Tolan
The title pretty much says it all... but read on!


http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10102.aspx
http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/dabrowski.htm

Supposedly yoga and/or karate helps balance some OE's. Not quite sure how that works or if that would help, but I believe it since yoga's supposed to bring everything about yourself into balance. And it would be a balancing, not a denying or trying to stifle. I really don't know at all about karate.

MDM, here's some OE quotes and summaries:
http://talentdevelop.com/Dabrowski.html

I agree, DeeDee, that his "challenge" is to learn to manage himself. I guess I lost perspective.

No one at school so far has understood OEs, and just look at him as "a bright troublemaker." They began a Response to Intervention program last spring, but have not administered it properly, so it was useless then; assuming they will include him in it again, I will try to be more diligent. In spring, they focused on three items: staying in his seat, talking, and staying on task.

May I ask for specific examples of skills you've addressed and how you've addressed them? It feels like we've "tried everything" - squishy ball, yoga (which he just doesn't "get" yet, and I haven't found a kids' yoga class that fits our schedule/his age), deep breathing (another one he just doesn't "get") - I think he has improved somewhat, but it leaves him feeling terrible about himself.

I think we're going to continue the rewards, but I'm going to explain - and try to keep hammering it home - that it isn't about changing who he is, but rather about appropriate timing, and then in a few weeks I'll try to check in with his teacher and see what she observes and what ideas she has.

All in all, I'm feeling very discouraged about this year, and we're only in the first week!

My son has all of the OEs but he seemed to understand there is front stage behavior and back stage behavior even before he read about dramaturgy. He even seemed to know this before he joined the community musical theater group at age 4. He always knew he could be himself back stage, but then he was homeschooled and I don't know if he could have taken a whole day of being "front stage" in school. At 12, I still am not sure he would be ready for that big an acting job.

I just enrolled my son in two homeschool co-op classes. According to the enrollment paperwork I had to sign, kids are not allowed to bring things like Yu-Gi-Oh cards or Pokemon games to play at lunch so they don't "offend" other homeschoolers. My son used to play these games. I think two classes will be about all he can handle with this group. He wouldn't even think of mentioning that he saw the movie Avatar. He knows he has to watch what he says around them and he has always been good about this. He really doesn't want to offend anyone.

Hi, Bonusmom.

I should confess (this won't be popular here, I guess) that I don't really believe in OEs. I haven't yet seen much science to back up Dabrowski's theory. I do understand that gifted kids can be misdiagnosed as having a variety of disorders when it's just giftedness, but I also think the reverse is true: parents and doctors can write off issues that need to be addressed as "quirks" of the gifted. This delayed DS's diagnosis and access to help by some years, to our great detriment.

That said, I have to ask: with the persistence of these struggles in school, have you asked the school to do an evaluation? That could get you an IEP, and put an action plan in place that the teacher would be required to implement properly. Only the most excellent classroom teacher will be equipped to help your DS without some kind of direction from an expert.

We have gotten NO mileage at all with OT-type strategies, sensory, wiggle seat, all of that.

We are in the behaviorist camp: we have gotten results by making it worth DS's while to do things the right way, and having him notice the payoff when he does it right. Our best mileage has been through behavioral therapies (ABA, CBT).

For sitting, talking, staying on task: DS is made aware of a goal (like "sit for 5 minutes on the floor with the class at circle time without violating anyone else's personal space")-- if he makes this goal the teacher rewards him ASAP after circle, telling him what he did correctly and giving him a token. Likewise for on-task behavior, likewise for participating appropriately (not talking out of turn). We set small goals he can achieve at first, then ratchet them up.

DS is good at delayed gratification, so he accumulates tokens toward short- and long-term goals (100 tokens= big reward).

Yes, it's less than ideal to have all the peers around him know what he's working on-- but on the other hand, they already knew something was up, because he was disruptive. Once he started meeting the goals, he felt so good about himself. He is very motivated because he knows that he is gaining mastery over his challenges, and he knows his teachers and even some peers admire his efforts.

The goal has to be clear to all parties, with a well-defined, measurable standard of success; token has to be delivered ASAP after the successful execution of the desired behavior; and the reward has to be something he genuinely values. If these conditions don't hold, it doesn't work, in our experience. Rewards or punishments delivered at home for in-school performance are simply confusing and vague; they have no effect.

This sort of thing is easier to execute if the teacher is very well informed; or if you have an IEP that gets the teacher extra support in the classroom so she can make the extra effort.

HTH,
DeeDee

Because DH and I both work full time, the boy has an 11-hour day at school. They are allowed some time in the gym both before and after school, but I don't think the kids spend very much time being active (they also get their snack in the gym right after school, so I think there's a lot of time spent sitting at the table, chewing the fat while they're chewing their pretzels). I just don't think a Saturday-only martial arts class would be enough. He *loves* swimming, too, but for the same scheduling reasons I just don't see how it could work. I've even thought about giving him a calisthenics routine to do before we leave the house every morning, but he seems to find that a little awkward and resists it. Maybe it's time to try that again.

OOH! Maybe I can make a calisthenics routine part of the reward program - a quarter for every morning he does 25 jumping jacks or something. Hmmm....