I'm wondering if some of you have experience with this one. DS6 has always been quite fearful of trying new things, and we just don't know how to help him get past this.

One particular problem we have is that DH and I have always been an active couple (skiing, off-road mountain biking, canoe camping, triathlons, that sort of thing), and we can't seem to get DS6 started. DS4 would be ready to tackle lots of these activities, but DS6 pretty much panics whenever we try to introduce them.

Part of it is his perfectionism (he can't stand doing something if he's not good at it), but part of it is fear. A big one is that he's afraid of bears and of getting lost in the woods. For that matter, he gets concerned as soon as he realizes we might be momentarily lost in a new city.

Our approach with learning to swim was to get him private lessons (instead of in a group) and a lot of patience. But for skiing, he refuses to get out and freaks out when we mention it. We're really worried that we're never going to be an active family if we can't help him get past these mental blocks.

And the thing is, he is usually hooked once he gets into it. He now LOVES being in the pool. We've even got him hooked on his kid-sized kayak! Ok, so I guess we can be somewhat active already.

Any ideas, anyone?

I found private lessons for things like skiing lessons, and going slowly to build confidence, helped. My son was like that when he was younger and I was the same as a child. My dad was a firm believer in "throw them in the pool they will learn how to swim." I do not recommend this method for your child. I still have anxiety when I go skiing because my father thought I would get over my fear if he did (his version) of exposure therapy which was basically taking me to the top of a slope and telling me to get down on my own. He finally broke down and got me lessons (he was an avid skier so he thought why pay someone else to teach me what he could teach me, right? But he didn't know how to teach a terrified kid) but by that time I already had the fear ingrained and would become overwhelmed by anxiety at the idea of skiing.

Alternatively, find him a kid sitter and get out on the slopes on your own. I think he will get over it, but it may just require more maturity. He is only six, as time goes on he will get better at handling his fear of things. But I totally agree with Portia, if you don't have buy-in, and a way to get out quickly if things go south, I would not push him.

Mine is afraid of mountain lions on hiking trails, avalanches down ski slopes, tsunamis near beaches etc. So, I have a fair bit of experience with this. What I do is to take DS a couple of hours ahead to the ski slope and just let him watch kids younger than him hit the slopes enthusiastically and eventually ask him to try it. He usually does and his fears of great big avalanches like he sees in documentaries are gone by then. Same with beaches - we walk along the beach for a while and then, I head out to the water alone and eventually he follows me and he is fine with beaches after that. We are still working on the fear of mountain lion attacks during hikes - there were a few in our area, which does not help much - but, we had a park ranger talk to DS about how most of them avoid humans etc.

So, basically, I too recommend taking it slowly. I also recommend giving your DS a choice of whether he wants to do it or not so that he does not feel pressured. I always tell DS to observe and then decide if he wants to take up the activity. I also tell him that the rest of the family will do the activity while he waits and we will arrange for one of us to stay with him if he decided against going. Mostly, he wants to participate after he sees that other people are coming to no harm and that they are having a good time.

My experience as a parent of a teenager is this one. Six is still fairly young for many of these activities. Even though other kids do it. My experience is often that starting really young turns them off an activity rather than on, I did this with swim team. Really wish I had waiting to introduce my DS till he was 8 or 9 rather than 5. Go skiing as a family and find him a babysitter or put him in the onsite daycare. Expose him but don't push. And you will be surprised in a few years he may be very happy to joining you.

Sigh. I guess the message is quite clear. We'll have to expose/introduce him gently, give him an out, and be patient. It's just tough when we see friends and neighbours being so active with their kids (we live in a pretty active/outdoorsy community). And I was always an adventurous daredevil as a child, so I really can't relate. I hope we haven't pushed too hard with skiing already.

Thanks, all.

I wonder whether, as a family, you could try something new to all of you, such as cross-country skiing (if that's new) I wonder if he needs to see someone else learning how, learning technique. And XC you can go slow and have control that you may not have in water or on the slope. Or perhaps snowshoeing (our family enjoys it because we don't even have to get in the car, just stomp across the yards.)

Actually, I hadn't clarified yet that it's cross-country that we're trying to get him to do. In our world, XC is "skiing" and the other kind is "downhill". Anyway, he's not afraid of the skiing as much as he's afraid of the woods and the bears. We're trying to get him out in nature and aren't having much luck.

Hmm. Will he XC in the yard, or down the street? We sometimes just go to the park, even the golf course allows XC. At least by the time he gets over his fear of bears, he will be accomplished enough to hit the trail?

I think outdoor activities are wonderful for children mentally and physically and gentle encouragement seems appropriate at this point. But as someone who never enjoyed the same activities as my mother, as he grows older it may be worth thinking about what your family dynamics will be if he simply isn't outdoorsy? In my case, the mismatch did lead to some feelings of alienation because I never got a parental signal that it was ok to be different. I have no idea where the right balance is between pushing and accepting, but it something I ruminate about quite a bit as a parent.

It was fairly hard to get DS to try new things as a kid but it is getting better. We're also a pretty adventurous family and love to get out and do stuff and travel. Some things we've tried to various degrees of success

- bribery - want to go for a bike ride? No, ahhhh but what if we bike to the bookstore and you can pick out a new book or we bike to get ice cream (oh the things I thought I'd never do as a parent...)

- baby steps - canoe camping is too much? maybe start with sleeping in a tent in your backyard, then car camping at one of those crazy campgrounds that have a million activities/toys/etc, then camping at a provincial park and then finally back-country

- brainstorm together to list a bunch of activities and let them help pick - you can start with some of the baby step ideas. We did this a couple summers ago and did a couple new things a month. Not all of them were crazy but we had a lot of fun.

- be active in the city and/or local parks - so many options where you can be active and build the confidence to maybe venture out of the city eventually. We've had a blast geocaching in our neighbourhood which is pretty low risk for bears

- recruit friends - DS never ever wanted to skate until we asked him if he wanted to sign up for skating with his favourite cousin and then he was all for it. We then used that success to build on and try other new things.

The other thing to think about is if it is better or worse for him to have the younger more daring sibling learning something in parallel. Sometimes it has been good to have our DD who is far more daring doing it because DS then does it to compete but I can also see it easily backfiring if DD were to catch onto something quicker and he wasn't.

Good luck! We've now managed to do some pretty cool things but it definitely didn't happen overnight.

Thanks for your perspective, Ocelot. I must confess that the possibility hadn't even occurred to me. But yes, if that ends up being the case, I guess we'll accept it (and him!) and work around it. We've accepted that he isn't into team sports (at least not at this point), but that one was much easier for us. He does love nature though, so I'm hopeful. In fact, he once said that it was his "greatest wish" to go to a rainforest one day.

Thanks for the great suggestions, Chay! We've tried a few of those but I'm looking forward to some more experimenting...

RRD, you've received great suggestions already, so I have just one thing to add. My family is very active and enjoys the out of doors immensely. My kids are older than yours now, and we live in huge wild animal country When my kids were younger, one of my dds in particular was freaked out by two of the types of large animals that live around here (and sometimes show up in our yard).

Have you talked to your ds to attempt to figure out the source of his fears? Is it just a general childhood fear, or is it possible he's heard reports of people being injured by bears? Or do kids where you live get instructions on what to do if lost in the woods or how to react if they encounter a bear? Does your family wear bear bells or purposely make noise when skiing or hiking in bear country? Have you seen bears etc on trails when you've been out together? These were all things that helped lead to my dd being completely freaked out - but if you know that they've scared your child you can talk about it and turn the conversation around to how to prepare and avoid trouble with bears.

My other small piece of advice is patience. I had no idea at your ds' age what my childrens' favorite activities would be that would take them into their teens and adult years, but fwiw, the one that turned into an avid skier and mountain biker is also the kid who was scared to death of the big wild animals. She is still scared silly by them, but she loves to bike and ski so much that while she's actively doing so, she doesn't worry about the other. It took a few more years than where you're at though, with a lot of talks about the logic of her fears, how to protect herself, and the relative risk of injury from a wild animal, for her to get to that point. If we'd pushed her, I think it might have backfired.

One thing that may have helped was that she participated in local children's groups for both skiing and mountain biking (groups that were very large - over 100 kids in each, skiing and biking 2-3 times per week). What was scary with our family was a bit less scary when shared with lots of people she didn't know as well and with other kids she did know who she knew she'd have fun with She *did* run into large wild animals on several occasions over the years with these groups, but didn't freak out in response, and learned how to deal with the situations through having adults other than mom and dad lead her and the group of kids through what to do.

Best wishes,

polarbear

I'm back to this one because I had to come back and read some of the encouragement... DS6 is now afraid of ANTS. You heard it folks, ants. Just when I think it's getting better, he comes up with the ants.

Polarbear, I had missed your response. I think ultimately, it's not really anything in particular relating to bears. If it weren't bears, it would be ants. Or getting lost. Or a meteorite hitting the planet. Or a freak tornado. Or the sun going supernova. Or drowning. Or volcanoes. Yes, he usually has a few fears going at once. Although bears are usually a favourite. We were at a cottage this weekend and he whispered to me that he was worried about ants because he heard that fire ant bites really hurt and bears, because we were being too quiet to scare away the bears.

I guess it could be related to OEs? After all, he also cried for at least an hour because he was devastated that he had to leave his new goose friend behind. He now feels that the goose is sort of our pet because it spent the whole weekend hanging around the dock. He is now in love with the goose.

Anyone else feeling exhausted because of their DC lately?

Yes. I am exhausted by mine.

I have read some of your previous posts and your son sounds eerily similar to my DD7. She has mellowed out a little this year. We did have her in therapy for a while, mostly after she was exhibiting some germaphobia and laying in bed sobbing about the possibility of hand sanitizer killing all of the good germs that her body needed. Oy.

She read a book from the library about the Loch Ness monster and decided she didn't want to vacation by the local lake this summer. She has since agreed to vacation by another lake, though, with no mention of any monsters. She is willing to hike and canoe and camp, but I know she'd be nowhere near ready for skiing. Swim lessons have been really tough for us (maybe I put it off too long, but I've been picking my battles for years.) She has stuck with the swimming though, and I make sure to praise her tenacity and when she overcomes the fear of trying.

Anyway, you are not alone. And it's nice to hear that I'm not.

It really is very comforting to know.

And it's not just the fears with DS6, it's also the general intensity and the stuff that pops up, seemingly out of nowhere. Lately, he has taken to getting attached to every object he has ever owned. He has actually asked that we keep dried out markers and worn-out shoes as "souvenirs" because he can't bear to part with them. Has anyone else ever dealt with that one? I can see hoarding problems in his future if we don't deal with that one soon...

Thing is, we don't even have a diagnosis of giftedness yet! Where does he fall if he has the OEs but isn't gifted? Do we look into anxiety and OCD and ADHD and ???

Packaging, tags, old clothes, every page ever scribbled on..... oh yeah.

Surreptitious dumping is your friend. Just make sure the recycling truck has been by before the kids come home from school! Mine did slowly outgrow this - well the extremes of it anyways. But when his grandfather was invited to a bowling fundraiser and immediately pulled out the bowling shoes he'd last worn at 18, well, I knew I didn't stand a chance.

The biggest help for me when when my children acquired much younger cousins. Getting rid of anything was anathema, but sharing it with the younger cousins was a delight. Got any siblings you can put on the job?!

Sadly, DH and I are the last to have kids so ours are the youngest. Worse yet, DS wants to keep the stuff to pass along to his own future children!!

As for the recycling truck, I can only use that option selectively. Once he has paid more than passing attention to the fact that an item should be kept as a souvenir, he will NOT forget its existence and will ask for it from time to time. Sigh.

I saw this quote once, "Hell hath no fury like your kid catching you throwing away anything, EVER. I smuggle out broken crayons like a Mexican drug lord."

My husband and I now whisper "M.D.L." to each other about anything that we are going to have to smuggle out of the house after DD goes to sleep.

This is such a beautiful thought! And so eloquently expressed. The concept of keeping the value of something intact when it may no longer serve our own current personal needs is great for character development.

In regard to the OP's dilemma of having a younger son ready to try new activities and an elder son who tends to panic when new things are introduced, have you tried familiarizing him with new activities, places, and concepts by reading about them in books, watching videos, etc?

Actually, we also already have a very active cycling of hand-me-downs (and even hand-me-ups, whereby we receive items about 3 sizes too big from one friend and give them to another friend whose son is 2 sizes bigger than DS6 so that he can wear it until it is passed back to us) going on in our house. And he doesn't seem to mind when items are outgrown and given to someone who will use it. We also have a box for keepsakes.

The real problem is with stuff that truly is garbage - the stuff like dried out markers, stickers full of dirt, and shoes with holes. At some point, items truly are no longer useful. And ultimately, I also want to teach the boys that it's the people and experiences that matter, not the stuff. I'm ok with the fact that it'll take a while, but it can sometimes be quite exasperating. Like the time when I had to go fish into the garbage can to retrieve the dried up marker...

One thing that helped at our house was to watch some "Hoarders" excerpts on YouTube and explain (with sympathy for the real mental issues those folks are facing) that you really can't keep all the things, because then this is what your space ends up looking like. (Visiting our hoarder uncle really brought the message home.)

Good suggestion, thanks!

Hi there! I'm new here but have been reading threads on this board for a while. I had to join up to comment on this thread in particular. Our DS5 is not tested but is very bright. He has several "activity" fears as well like skating (ice is too slippery according to him) and some playground activities like climbing etc. He refers to these things as his "green eggs and ham" because he recognizes that he may actually like it if he can be courageous enough to try. We took him to a psychologist last summer and that was helpful for getting him to recognize when he has fallen into a "thinking trap".

As far as the attachment to things is concerned he is the most sentimental person I know. We recently ran into problems with our old, very ugly, blue toilet. When we told him we might have to replace it he actually cried. He worried what would happen to it and begged that we keep it in the storage room. He felt particularly attached to this special toilet because of all the "firsts" he had accomplished on it. Talking about strategies for saying goodbye to a toilet was unexpected! As it turns out the old thing could be fixed with a new hose so he can still do his daily business in his old friend. Can't wait until we decide to remodel the whole bathroom!

Nobody's mentioned this yet (I don't think)--but the phobias and attachments to unusual things are associated with anxiety. The clinical kind. Have you considered that?

DS13 here was fearful of similar things (we've done butterflies,bees, wasps, tornadoes, childhood cancer) during young childhood. It was exhausting and worrisome. He has grown out of most of it, but we do have to reacclimatize to the bees/wasps thing every summer. He still has clinical anxiety, though--it's just changed.

He despaired when we sold a car and bought a new one around that age, too. He truly grieved--took me totally by surprise. His reaction was just like what you describe with your DS re: the goose. All five stages of grief over a car.

At the intensity level you are describing, I wouldn't just decide it's part of his personality. It sounds like something worth investigating, potentially limiting his life experience He may need to learn some coping skills that he's not picking up intuitively.

Yes.

P.S. Evidently w-a-s-p-s is a [SPAM] word.

Yes. Hoarding tendencies here, too. She has been diagnosed with anxiety and OCD. She has Asperger's characteristics but no diagnosis (though we were told to "be careful with this as not all doctors will agree.") But we've also been told by her current teacher that in 20 years of teaching, many in gifted ed, she is the "most gifted" child she has met. Blessing and a curse, I guess?

I loved the fetching a dried marker story. Too familiar.

Yes eco21268, we do suspect that he will possibly/probably be diagnosed with anxiety. In fact, we've already had a child behavioural specialist work with us and him to help provide him with some good coping skills. It helped a great deal but sadly, she retired 6 months ago and we haven't found anyone else yet.

We're getting a full psychoeducational assessment done in a few weeks, and we'll definitely be sharing the anxiety concerns with the psych. At this point, the behavioural quirks are the main reasons we're having him evaluated. We're keeping our fingers crossed that she'll be a good fit and maybe she can also provide some counselling/coaching.

Though I strongly suspect that there is a strong link between his possible giftedness and everything else that is going on. And that seems to be supported by the number of responses from parents sharing their similar experiences with DC who also have/had several fears and the inability to let go of objects. Actually, I would love to know the stats. And I definitely wonder to what extent it is all tied to the OEs. I would be curious to get aeh's views on this...

Though regardless of the cause, we obviously want to help him learn some good reasoning and coping skills so that he can work through all of this and enjoy everything that life has to offer.

The main reason I'm sharing on this forum is because I need support too! It really helps to be able to commiserate with each other.

And THAT is exactly why I am on this forum. How on earth do you explain to anyone else that your DC can't let go of an old blue toilet?? You just can't. Thanks for sharing. It makes me feel better about the old marker, busted up shoes and broken down treadmill. And I know there will be more.

lol we've BTDT. We replaced all of the shiny gold doorknobs in the house with nickle lever ones and it was traumatic. DS had to keep his in his closet for a few months before he was fully ready to give them up. We took them to Habitat For Humanity so they could go to a new home.

While my child is not afraid of outdoor activities (maybe because we are very outdoorsy?) other things here sound familiar (we're about to sell our car and DD is NOT happy!) and she too has anxiety. I agree that it is something to consider.

As far as the hoarding thing, DD got extremely mad at me about smuggling things to the trash, and I get it. She now has a plastic box under her bed for papers/keepsakes. If she wants to keep it, it goes in the box. If the box gets too full, she must sort the box and discard some items. (I have told her that as she gets older, we MAY eventually get another box.) It is NOT a big box! This has helped a lot, as she has to make the call on what is worth the space, but she no longer worries that I will throw things out on the sly.

Love this chay!

Oh boy, our primary car was in an accident earlier this year, and my then-6-year-old cried when we dropped it off at the shop, was okay in the rental car, cried when had to give the rental car back, then our primary car wasn't acting right and she cried when we had to give it back to the shop and get back into our same rental car, but I think she finally accepted the final switch when the primary car was done for real. Oh, the emotions over change! We had to keep any conversations about the car private; she couldn't bear the thought of maybe selling it.

I really appreciate everyone's input. Just curious: What are everyone's thoughts on the link with OEs/giftedness? Or is this just a regular (albeit anxiety-related thing) that happens a lot with kids? Maybe it's not that unusual?

Here is a link to an article from SENG, citing a belief that there is a correlation: http://sengifted.org/archives/articles/overexcitability-and-the-gifted

It is reassuring to know that other people have children who experience things so intensely as well. Our son's reaction to some things --- like the potential loss of an ugly blue toilet -- have come as a surprise to us. However, they are very real emotions to him and we try our best not to dismiss or discount them, which isn't always easy when my first instinct is to laugh at the absurdity of it all! I love the last paragraph of this article, though: "Remember the Joy" and try to keep that in mind when dealing with toilet and other issues!

I think that some kids also grow out of this resistance to change. My dd at 6 refused to even think about moving to a different house. It was actually funny. We went to several open houses and she might have even liked some things about the new houses but she would insist that we were not going to move. Now at 12 she's much more open to moving to a new house, even a new city! Same thing with trying new foods. And I can remember crying if my mother wanted to throw away old beloved shoes, but now I'm great about getting rid of things that are no longer useful. Maybe it's just developmental so "Remember the Joy" is a helpful phrase.

I started down this "figure out what's going on with my kid" road by reading The Highly Sensitive Child and it helped me sympathize with my daughter and realize she wasn't unique in her sensitivity. Going down this gifted road has given me a further understanding, and I can't help but think the two are related somehow--maybe not for everyone, but in my observations of my kid and others it seems to ring true.

Thanks, all! It sure helps to hear the stories.

ultramarina, I love the box idea.

HJA, we also respect his emotions and help him work through them. Now that we're used to it, it's quite easy to see that it's all perfectly real to him. I had to laugh when my in-laws just could not fathom why he was devastated about having to say goodbye to the goose. They must have asked why he was crying at least 10 times. It was like they just couldn't process the notion.

And yes, it's pretty easy to "Remember the Joy". He gives us plenty of reasons to smile as well, like when he talks about all the "life lessons" he has learned from a book we just finished reading, or when he starts explaining grammar rules and reading strategies to DS4.

I want to second MomC and say that kids do grow out of the resistance to new things. My son was okay to take skating lessons, go through the Men's locker room at the pool by himself, and in general more open to try new sports since he turned 7. Now he blames me for not signing him up for skating when he was younger. I didn't try then but I knew I would not have even been able to put skates on him when he was younger. Heck, he was even afraid of the Easter egg hunt and we said at the sideline of many a birthday parties. Turning 7 brought a lot of positive changes in this aspect.

That is the best!!!

BREAKING NEWS: We may have had a breakthrough!

We were talking about foxes this morning at breakfast (I forget the context), when I described to DS6 and DS4 how I once encountered a fox and was so mesmerized by it. DS6 got very pouty when I told him that I hadn't taken a picture, so I explained that I hadn't wanted to scare the fox and besides, you really need to experience these things for yourself because they are so magical. And then he said: "Let's go hiking this weekend!"

DS6 who normally cries whenever we suggest an outdoorsy activity said "Let's go hiking this weekend." I can't stop smiling this morning.

That's great news