Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Suspected gifted 4 year old...what do I do?

And socially I have a question for you all...he seems to have trouble making friends also. What kind of social issues have you had over the years? Does what I describe sound familiar at all or what could be going on here? He LOVES other kids, talks about them and obsesses about them a little bit even. But when he interacts with them he has a hard time following social cues and gets alienated. The other kids seem to be able to tell he is "different." Sometimes he wants to play but ends up hitting another child just for the hell of it...or spitting at them. The other kids run away and don't want to play with him and he wonders why. It seems simple to us, we tell him don't hit anyone or spit at anyone, they don't want to play with you if you act that way! When he talks with us he rarely does things like that. He particularly does this with very young kids.

An instance recently...there is a trampoline with a net at his school...which is AMAZING for his energy. He randomly out of nowhere hit a 1 year old little girl in the face. For no apparent reason. He wasn't allowed to jump the rest of the day. The next day he goes on the trampoline and does it again! Same thing...you talk to him, explain why that is not ok. He apologizes, says "I'm sorry, I won't do it again...sorry to the other child, hugs her, acts ok..." Then he did it one more time! Do these kids sometimes have a hard time learning from their mistakes socially? When asked why he keeps doing this his response "I just like making other people feel bad..." I don't like that response, I don't like that anger in a child....we don't spank him, we realized quickly that we could not do that to such a child...not sure where the anger comes form, it seems internal...frustration possibly? should we be concerned about this or could it be part of being gifted in some way? He is always sweet with this other child while indoors or playing, only in the trampoline setting does he get violent. He can jump with older kids and he respects them, doesn't try to hit them...it's only younger kids. I can't let him play with kids his age or younger kids, it's always a disaster...

It makes me sad for him that he was bullied at his old montessori school. The other kids called him "the bad guy" and wouldn't play with him because he got in trouble a lot. He points to their pictures in his yearbook and still remembers who told him he couldn't play with them and this was a year ago at age 3!! Bullying starts so young...