DS3 is driving me and my husband crazy! Latly he is never himself, and neither are we! Today my son says I'm Ms. Frizzle, he is Carlos, our DS20mo. is Arnold, and my husband is Carlos; from The Magic School Bus. It would be fun maybe if it wasn't every day! For 2 days last week i was "Quack" he was "Chirp" and our other son was "Peep" from Peep and the Big WIde World, this morning we were all characters from the "Backyardigans" , other days we've been told we're "the wiggles". Then he's like in this other world and doesn't stop for hours, and sometimes all day. He wants me to constantly play along! He's constantly in another world! and sometimes the world lasts till the next day and he wakes up calling us some character again. Did your kids do this??!! Is it distructive to make them stop? I'm not sure how i should handel it.

Yes my son did this a lot. It made me nuts, too. And like you, I felt guilty about squelching it because I really wanted him to feed his imagination. I would explain to him that I wasn't very good at imagination games and that I could play the game for, say, 10 minutes but then I would have to stop and go back to being myself. He accepted that.

We were lucky in that we had several friends who had kids who were similarly imaginative and we would arrange for them to spend a lot of time together. He is 12 now and he will engage in day long imagination games with the younger neighbor boys, but he totally leaves us out of them, which is fine with us.

Yup. Lately my DS3 is heavy into pretending to be Spiderman/Transformers/Ninja Turtles/other assorted superheroes. (And no, we watch NONE of the shows or movies! He got it all through osmosis or books.)

Actually, I didn't really think DS3 was gifted until he hit this phase, though knowledgeable friends thought he was. DS3 definitely has never been as academically obvious about it as DS6 has always been (early reading, math, book-writing, drawing, intense interests, etc.). DS3 was always very verbal and very social/emotionally precocious. But it was the imaginative stuff that drove the point home for me.

My favorite is when he wears a red cape, a bicycle helmet, red winter gloves, sunglasses, and his yellow rain boots. I think that makes him Spiderman. He shoots "web" made of a broken strand of Mardi Gras beads. It's HILARIOUS!

He wants me to play along, but he doesn't expect me to dress up, so I usually go with it. I generally get to be Catwoman, too, and what woman in her right mind would argue against being Catwoman?! LOL!

Oh, and he was the first one in our family to use those long, rectangular 12-pack soda boxes for Transformer arms. Now DS6 is painting them and using them for his arms for his Halloween costume...as a Transformer that actually transforms from robot to truck. Thanks, DS3! Your creativity is paying off!

Perhaps you'll find a use for your DS3's imagination, too, Jenafur. We're all about the practicality 'round here!

Well, I'm glad my son's not the only one! I didn't realize it was a gifted thing. Thanks for the advice to tell him I'll just play for a set time limit, it works well! Feeling more sane already!