Well, I am definitely no expert. I've only been on this Gifted child road for the 2 years 9 months we've had my daughter. She too did EVERYTHING early. She has always gotten along only with kids older than her and has a fascination with academics. She's stubborn too but not about academics... i think she's shown us what she knows for the most part (but then how would I know?) :-) My 10 month old seems to be gifted too.. we're still figuring him out. He's a very early talker at least.
Anyway, all this to say: I don't have a ton of experience but it sounds to me like giftedness might be what you are dealing with. Refusing to do certain things like brush teeth and other routines could just be going through that INDEPENDANCE phase that most see at like 2-3 years old... but with gifted kids all that comes early and is often quite intense. Most of what you describe does sound at least advanced to me. And that can be hard to sort through.
Be patient, be firm. Since he does understand so much (emotion etc...) for his age don't be afraid to have slightly higher expectations of him. I got a lot of dirty looks for being "strict" with my daughter at a young age but I just tell people "I only expect from her what she has already shown me she can handle". That usually shuts them up. It's not the case for all gifted kids but in our case DD is socially advanced along with her giftedness... so holding her to a higher standard of behavior (of say a 4-5yo when she's not even 3) IS something she can handle and will only make her stronger and a more patient, well-behaved little person. And patience is something they'll always need because they're little brains go faster and deeper than most people around them and patience is key.
Good luck!
I have always wondered if he doesn't want to co-operate with me b/c he is bored. Just not sure. I hate to push him onto something harder and him not ready. I guess I will just have to wait and see how things go.
I feel like I have been fighting with him since he was 6 months. NO JOKE!!!!! I would tell him "no, do not go behind the entertainment center and pull at the cord". I would take him away and give him a toy and you could see the intensity in his eyes that he was headed back to the cord before you put him down. And sure enough...I would do this over and over and he would just start to scream bloody murder. Same with cabinets. We had to child proof them at 6 months...the day he started to crawl.
I would say I do treat him as an older child most of the time. But, he doesn't by any means listen to no, unless he understands why. It drives me insane. I just want to be able to say no and he listen!!!!!! Most people would see him and say he is badly behaved. But, it wasn't my parenting style...TRUST ME on that!!!! We started time-outs at 1 year old and needed to start earlier than that. It worked for a little while and he would actually go there himself. Then...ha ha ha ha ha!!!! Time-outs no longer worked. I did the repeating, repeating, and repeating. Let's just say it made life horrible. He would get out of time-out and go back to what he was doing to be put in there. He would be in timeout all day long. And the entire time screaming. Got to a point where I had to literally bear hug him while being in timeout. All the time he was kicking and hitting me. Let's just say we do not do time-out anymore. It was a very long year of going no where. Now, I do more explaining and it seems to work. Or if say he made a mess on purpose, he has to clean it. Or I make him stand there and watch me do it. And the whole time he is extremly sad. So, it looks like I found a winner for now. LOL!!!
