Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school developmental spread

Just hoping for some discussion about how to address what I guess is asynchronous development.

The range of "developmental stages" where DS's interests lie is now undeniably bigger than his chronological age is, and I'm throwing my hands up in despair. The pants are all to short and too wide, as it were.


-Mich.

I like the pants analogy.

<takes a bow>


-Mich

Get some breaks so you can deal with it all better, keep interesting things happening in your family life, be patient and try to focus on the positive. Get lots of exercise.

Hang in there. Hug.

Any specific interests that you'd like to discuss? It's harder without examples.

<whiny 6 yr old kinda voice>But it's EVERYTHING</voice>

Most of the toys he wants to play with are labeled 5+, but his fine motor skills aren't up to it. He likes to draw, but he wants to draw things like the shuttle, and is just getting to the "Can draw a line when he means to" stage. I wish I had a better question

-Mich.

Mich, I reckon I get what you are saying, because I think it's something I'm dealing with too. So is it about what do you do when parts of your child are at a level where the other parts are holding them back? For example, where they want to do 'more' but they don't have the maturity or experience to articulate what they want to do. Where they are sick of all the 'young children's' activities and not interested in them anymore, but to do the things the next level up requires a great deal of one-to-one assistance, and so they can't be done all the time, which leads to boredom, under-challenge-ment (yes, I know that isn't a real word, but it should be ), and misbehaviour.

Is that one the right track?

I've been asking it as "What am I supposed to do with this child?" but I'm getting less than satisfactory responses Mostly because people don't understand what I'm asking, I guess.

Teach him tracing. It isn't cheating. It's fun. I read somewhere you can make a cheap light box from a lamp and a clear plastic storage box.

Not sure if your little one is like mine, because many GT kids seem to do just fine at home, but my DD had to get out into the world to experience things first hand, even as a baby. Toys didn't do it for her, she had to touch a real sheep, see a real ship, and squish real mud between her toes.

DS has to get out, for sure. Actually, I've been working on staying IN more . It's getting to the point where I think he really needs the chance to be at home and working at something, (and I need the chance to get housework done), now he starts getting frustrated when he only gets to see as much of something as is available in the real world . This is going to be my excuse for getting an... well, I want an Ipad with internet... but that's another story

Anyway. <whistles>

The other day, we really did interpret the living H%$*@ out of the visible building infrastructure at the museum. He was in a bad mood, or we wouldn't have had to go quite as deep, I think. But it was still typical. He has these times, when he just WANTS MORE. At least if it's only explainations I can usually manage -- it's when he wants to accomplish something particular. He regularly drafts strangers to draw things or whatever for him. They tend to be more bemused than anything else, but I get kinda frustrated by being told to do a puzzle for him becasue he can't handle the pieces, or draw a whatever, or build exactly the right marble run, or whatever. It's like Geomamma said, I really get frustrated with the level of assistance he needs to do stuff. He won't just freakin' well play with the puzzles he CAN handle, or draw the stuff he CAN draw, or whatever. (Not that I really think it's fair to ask him to do the same puzzles over and over, but... there's LOTS of options ther than puzzles!!)

And even if many of the lagging skills are actually above age level, just asking everyone else to do it for him all the time has to end at some point, and when he's frustrated he wants help with the stuff he donsn't need help with, too.

But when you don't help him do all the difficult stuff, he just kinda collapses and wants to do nothing but nurse and get increasingly despondent and bossy and negative.

He's a good kid, and his behavior is often stellar, but at the cost of really following his lead more than is quite... ok... When you stop doing all that stuff, his behavior gets kinda impossible. But he's old enough I really should be able to reliably run the dishwasher and go pick up groceries. And he's interested in enough stuff, that it seems like he should be able to actually feed his own interests a little....

(It's always about getting the dishes done in the end, isn't it)

-Mich
Ug. I dont' feel like I've explained myself very well.