DH and I have been wondering - what is it like to parent a child like this in the teenage years? I have some experience parenting a NT teenager (complicated story). She is pretty well behaved, goes to school, sees her friends. The drama is minimal. Um... congratulations?
er-- or maybe that is "don't gloat," I'm not sure.
I have an HG+ teen (14yo) and I can honestly say that I don't think it's THAT much worse (and in some ways better) than what other parents are up against with NT or MG kids.
They're themselves and they all have the problems associated with that condition.
I'll also say that at 7yo, you really don't have any way of knowing what the teen years will hold.
The only thing that I
can see being true is that if you have a child at this LOG who goes bad, they can go
REALLY bad. In a hurry-- some of them seem to have the motto "Go big or go home."
On the other hand, a good one tends to be very, very good. And very mature/rational-- considering their chronological age, I mean.
My DD has impressed me with her thoughtfulness and maturity. Of course in the next moment, she also infuriates me with her typical teen antics, so it's a mixed bag. But my friends all seem to have the same problem with more NT teens.
So I'm thinking that the things associated with HG+ teens in terms of parenting and the concerns that you have are more along the lines of
extraordinary expenses-- THAT, I can assure you
IS the case. I wish that we'd been considerably FIRMER with our financial planner, for example, on the notion that our then-4yo was probably NOT going to be heading into college in 14 years... but in 8-10.
It was that or a very pricey boarding school that could keep her busy and happy, which rather would have defeated the 'savings' part of things.
KWIM?
But other parents don't get a guarantee, either. My personal feeling is that your family is complete when it FEELS complete to you... or when you think that you simply can't handle any more on your plate than you have. For different people, that's a different litmus test. For us, one PG child (with a disability) was more than enough. But her PG characteristics weren't the determining factor, really-- it was the disability, truthfully.
