To preface: I'm just using that term because I'm blanking another way to describe it! No offense intended to anyone!

My DS3 has been pretending not to know how to do recently gained skills. He's been making great strides on getting dressed himself and potty training, to the point where I am now just supervising with the exception of helping with a pullover shirt. He now even knows which shoe goes on which foot, but nearly every time he puts on his shoes, he puts one shoe on wrong and shows it to me asking if it's 'on the right foot'. He's consistently "wrong" every time, so I know it's a purposeful choice.

He's also started purposely saying random letters when I ask him how to spell his name, but only if we are in front of others. He's known how spell his name for a few months and we work on writing it pretty often. This week, we worked on a 'name rocket' activity at our preschool group and I was counting out a piece of paper for each letter. Each time I asked him to tell me the next letter of his name, he'd give me the wrong one; yet when it came to writing his name letter by letter onto the squares, he had no issue. So, again, I'm pretty sure it was a choice to 'not know'.

We've never really made a big deal out of him being advanced, so I'm not sure he knows he's ahead of others. I know full well that he might just be advanced right now, rather than truly gifted, so both DH and I are careful about what we say around him.

Is it possible that he's picked up on this anyway and started pretending like he doesn't know things while in front of other parents/kids? Has anyone else dealt with this in younger kids? And should we do anything or just ignore the behavior?

Around 18-24 mos, my DD started getting questions wrong on purpose, because she thought it was funny. You could tell she wasn't serious by the look she gave. We played along. This same kid, now 8, loves to try to provoke what we call "stupid arguments." For example, "That tree is orange." It's a personality thing, and it's just her being playful and silly, so we encourage it.

There are a number of other reasons why a kid might decide not to show what they know. For example:

1) Kids might feel like a performing animal, and decide they don't like the spotlight. In this case, it's best to stop asking them to perform in front of others.

2) Kids at age 3 often start to notice the transition from baby to big-kid, and feel insecure about it, which can lead to this behavior as an attempt to delay growing up. When our own DD started to express anxiety about getting older at this age, we dealt with it in a number of ways. One was to point out all the really cool stuff she can do now that she couldn't before. Another way we did it was to, on occasion, engage in an absurdly over-the-top performance in which we treated her as if she was a tiny, helpless baby. She LOVED that.

Ultimately, it's up to you to get inside your DS's head, to figure out why he's behaving the way he's behaving, before you can figure out the best way to deal with it.

I'll have to keep an eye on him to try to figure it out, but I don't think it could be the first example. If anything, I make sure he isn't being asked to perform simply to show off. We simply do the same projects along side the preschool mom/kid pairs. Since they are made for multiple levels of development (some kids are working on gluing, some on letter recognition, some on letter writing, etc), we are simply doing the activity on the level that is challenging for him. He's not even the most advanced in the room, as there is another little boy who is also very smart but is a year older than DS3. There is no showboating about it and certainly no attempt to draw attention to him for what he's doing. But it is a small room and it has been noticed by a few moms. Really, the only way to prevent that would be to not let him do any learning activities in public, which isn't a solution in my mind.

He might just be playing around. With his shoe thing, he seems to be because he's always grinning as he does it, but I don't give it a lot of extra attention and it still continues. I'm not sure if it's the same reason when we are with this preschool group.

Hmm... is it always his left shoe? Maybe he is just waiting to see how long it takes before you get his pun? Also, I've made the mistake sometimes about being really silly about providing him corrective feedback around that age, that he'd do things wrong to get the reaction.

And while I'm here, I'd like to celebrate the relization that it is less than once a week that I have to tell my seven year old his shoes are on the wrong feet!

I'd say it's highly likely in this case that he's picking up on negative reactions from the other moms, which makes this something of a toxic environment for him. It depends on how much of a problem this is for him, and whether you think there are other benefits here, but it might be worth thinking about another pre-K placement that doesn't involve other moms.


Oh yeah, I know that grin. That's how our DD always gives away that she's just being silly. I think you're right that it's not the same reason as in preschool. Of course, the other indicator would be if he's not grinning when he's getting his name wrong in preschool.

I started wondering if it's not a toxic environment too. We'll have to finish through late May since I actually run the program, but I might just let him play and do the activities beforehand at home or something.

And here I thought our biggest struggle was going to be next year when he attends a 3 year old preschool program where they will teach him things he's already mastered. He's actually halfway through what they'll teach him in the 4 year program already now, still several months out from starting. There are no advanced placement programs around here and I've had my head patted and assured that he'll be challenged enough by the social aspect of things. I hope so. Guess we'll try some after-schooling to help out too.

If he's gifted, he may be a perfectionist. This can lead children to intentionally do things wrong (or in a goofy way) rather than risk trying to do them right and then doing them wrong.

Try playing a game where you sometimes do things wrong, pretend to be confused and ask him if you did it right. If he laughs and sets you straight, you'll know he knows the skill.

Another possibility is that he's experimenting with social boundaries. (What will happen if I do this? How will mom react?)

Jolaine83 maybe your son is testing your reactions? I'm not sure what the developmental schedule is for that, but I'm guessing it's something they can grow into after they've learned some scholastic skills (if the scholastic skills are early).

My DD10 "forgot" how to read when she started preschool (she was about 3.5 yrs at the time). I was new to this phenomenon, so I actually believed that she had forgotten. She had been reading at about a grade 2-3 level, and once she started preschool and became exposed to other kids her age, she just suddenly forgot how.. even forgot the sounds the letters made, etc etc.

I actually thought that maybe she was being so socially stimulated that the reading area of her brain was resting to compensate! Then my Dad (wise ol' grandpa ) tricked her into reading one day (pretended to read something wrong and DD corrected him). LOL-busted!

I suspect with her it was because she realized that other kids her age couldn't, and she didn't want to be different.

My 3 year old does that sort of thing too. He will answer about 3 questions then he just gives stupid answers and laughs madly. He also puts his shoes on the wrong feet nearly all the time.

My 3yr ok thinks is hysterical to count incorrectly, along with various other deliberate mistakes.

My son (3.5) seems to think that wrong answers are more interesting than right ones, especially if he gets a reaction. I notice it too when he's playing games on the iPad. He plays correctly for awhile, but then he wants to see what happens when he picks the wrong answer or does the wrong thing. He likes to explores all the possibilities, and doesn't care at all about being "right" or winning. I wonder sometimes if this will change once he starts school.

MumOfThree, I have a funny story to relate along those humor lines...

When my son (now 8) was in Kindergarten, his teacher pulled me aside at pickup one day and said she was having a problem with him. She was clearly distressed to be telling me this, since she loved my son and didn't understand his "misbehavior" in this case. She said he was laughing at kids who got the answers to her questions wrong (e.g., 2+2=5), and it was so unlike him to tease. I knew right away what was happening, though. I told her that most likely, he thought the kids were joking! To him, it was unthinkable that anyone wouldn't know that 2+2=4, so OF COURSE the kid was trying to be funny! And, like your child, he thought this was the best form of humor EVER! I had a talk with him that night about different ability levels and it never happened again.

DD absolutely does this. For her it's because she has an obsession with finding things that are funny and it's a way of testing out humor.

I will say, though, that once she started preschool she started neglecting certain activities more. I think a big part of it is that she's an extremely social kid and was very focused on the social aspect (and this was shown too because she really wanted to do pretend play, barbies, etc). Sometimes she'll purposely make mistakes and I think it's more to get us to participate in whatever she's doing (counting, spelling etc) because she really wants social interaction at all times.

DD9 still does this sometimes - not as much as she did when she was younger, however.

When we sat down with the people that were going to do the psychoeducational testing with her when she was 7 we tried to explain this to them. She had a habit of giving off the wall answers and do the grin thing and watch to see if anyone would catch it. If no one did she would just move on. I recall one question she told us about where they asked about something that was hot and dry during the day, but could get cold at night. We asked her what she answered and she told us she couldn't remember what she told the testers, but that the correct answer was a desert. She thought it was funny and laughed about it - much to our chagrin. We don't know if they caught her in the act or not and took that into consideration. The report we got didn't say anything about it.

My mother took my brother and me in for testing on the same day. My test took quite a bit longer than predicted, so my brother had to sit in the waiting room for a long time waiting for me before his test started. He got out much faster. On the way home, he told my mother, "Mommy, I tricked that lady!" She asked how, and he said, "If I gave her an answer that was wrong, she stopped and asked me questions about something else!"

He still squeaked into the gifted program, which was the only reason we were tested, so she didn't follow up on it.

It could be him being 'funny' too. And he is very interested in reactions and feelings right now. One of his favorite questions is 'Is Mommy happy?' It might just be part of developing emotionally. He's always been a sensitive type child, but his previous way of making others feel better was a cuddle or a quick hug.

We actually tested him this weekend on the whole 'forgetting how to spell his name' thing. DH couldn't get him to do it either, but I know he wrote his name for me both Thursday and Friday at different activities. So, he's choosing to 'forget' for some reason. I know a lot of the kids in his group are still learning their letters, so he might have noticed that, caught on to the comments or it could just be him testing boundaries and reactions.

I'm glad to know that this seems fairly common for his age/stage of development. I don't know if it's gifted related or if I just haven't heard of his friends around here doing it yet.

He's also purposely calling attention so he gets caught doing things he gets a timeout for. I'm going to guess this is all related. LOL

Thanks everyone for your responses! It is nice to hear about other kids like him having similar responses. It makes me feel better, especially since this whole gifted thing is a very big unknown path for us. It's always hard to know if things are a normal developmental thing or a challenge because of his intelligence.

When DD was 2.5-3.5, her questions were, "Are you happy? Are you happy and proud?" This would usually come out of her mouth immediately after we corrected a behavior, so it was her way of asking how serious the issue was.

Oh yes, Dd5 does this. I'll take the blame, as I used to use it as a way to test him. I.e., "Mom, what is 25+34?" Then I give an answer off but close to see if he corrects me. But he has turned the tables on me, and now I get that big smirk every time I try to ask him something, accompanied with an outlandish answer. He just finds it hilarious. I think I can tell every time he is doing it..but I have probably ruined him for testing at this age;)