Hi - new here. I have an almost 7 year old son.
He exhibits lots of troubling behaviors and there is a desire to label him as ADHD although this label seems to go through phases. If he is behaving well, then people like teachers, leaders at his after school program, etc think he is great, but when he is in a bad cycle, he is quickly labeled with ADHD.
We are stuck. Our son has always been different, not normal. We are alienated socially because my son is a wild card - not sure who he is going to get along with at the party, etc so a lot of times, we just avoid.
He is a major sensory seeking kid. He has to smell everything. Like once he put a twig in his ear and we got it out with a tweezer and he grabbed it and put it in his hands and all he could was just smell it with these long deep breaths as if it was his way of understanding what just happened to him.
He still uses a taggy blanket for the sensual feeling of tag and sucks his thumb while rubbing tag. He also puts anything in his mouth and will eat food out of the trashcan and from the floor despite his peers telling him he is gross. I know this sound like aspbergers or autism tendencies, but he definitely is not that and no one has ever suggested that.
He is youngest boy in his class and he is about to complete first grade. He does third grade math or higher and can do puzzles for hours. When he was 2, he was doing 100 piece puzzles with little help. Then when he was 3, he was doing 200 piece puzzles by himself. He can do any puzzle he wants, but when started 1000 piece puzzles, which he can do by himself, he just gets overwhelmed and then walks away from it.
He didn't learn how to read until he was taught in kindergarten, but he quickly caught on and is now reading at second/third grade level.
He is major perfectionist. Like if he has a puzzle and only matched 10 pieces in 10 mins, he will say I am the worst puzzler in the world and be almost in tears with frustration.
When I try to explain my son to people, all that comes to mind is intense. Like when he was 20 months, he used to put his hand on my work laptop. I would say you can't touch mom's computer as its not a toy. He would then run to it several times a day and just put his hand on it to test me. This has been persistent personality trait.
He is not bothered by death at all. When he talks about cremation and burials, he speaks very non-chalantly. I asked him if it makes him sad to talk about things like that and he gave me a look that said "don't be ridiculous".
He has a very good memory too.
I am thinking of getting him tested for giftedness as I don't have another diagnosis. I don't know if his IQ is so high as rather the other 5 excitabilities of giftedness is what I think applies to him and I am not sure there is really a way to assess for that.
