Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Managing obsessions

DS (2.5) is obsessed with trains, and now wants to watch train videos every single day, all day, and cries approximately inconsolably when we don't let him.

This is not ok.

Please, please, please, anyone have any advice?

Thanks!
-Mich

Michaela, the best thing (although it feels hard) is to strictly limit access to them or get rid of them altogether. You're right that it's not OK; it lets him feel he "needs" them (which he doesn't), building the obsession. And it limits his play and learning with other things.

Hard stuff. I feel for you.

DeeDee

Perhaps it is time for the TV to be "broken" for a bit.

Sympathies from a mom with a train-obsessed three year old. He has been obsessed since he was 9 months old. Regardless of what we have done, his love of trains has not abated. It ebbs and flows at times. We restrict the Thomas shows and YouTube videos of train crossings. He just plays more with his train toys. He prefers train books over all others, but sometimes that darn library is just all out of train books for two months :-)

Currently, he has an interest in pirates. He watched an episode of Jake and the Neverland Pirates last week and is now asking to watch that and Peter Pan 24/7. He runs around with his pirate hat and sword and eye patch. Tonight, I distracted him from the damn pirates with his trains.

Me thinks my child is just obsessive in nature. I guess my job is to rotate the obsessions so they don't drive the rest of us crazy, too? LOL! If you ever figure out how to break the train obsession, please let me know. This Mommy is soooooo over it already.

We don't have a TV.

(I'm tempted to leave the post right there, but at the detriment of wry cripticism, I will point out that we do have smart-phones, computers, an Ipad, etc, and it would be very hard for them *all* to be broken)

We've been limiting it. Maybe we need a clearer rule. DH and I have a scheduled "train video discussion" tonight, we can work one out then.

Any tips on easing the pain? I'm thinkin' tylenol ain't the right approach here...

He's pretty good on rational discussion. It won't end a tantrum, but it will prevent them, and sometimes even in the heat of the moment. Good ways to present the issues here? I don't want to overblow anything with him, but it would be good to be clear about... things. I have at least two good, cool, moments per day to bring something like this up in, when his tradition is to ask me to "talk to [him] about something"

THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!
-Mich

"Sometimes people's brains get stuck and think about one thing too much. This isn't good for the brain because brains should think about many different things to keep learning and growing. Right now your brain is getting stuck on trains a lot. We need to make sure your brain learns about a lot of things, not just trains, so we will sometimes ask you to stop talking about trains and thinking about trains for a while."

Then you can propose the solution. "The trains will be available for 20 minutes a day" or "the trains will be back in November" or whatever you are choosing.

He will probably think it is the end of the world, but it won't be if you hang in there and stick to whatever plan you articulated.

Some people find the obsession ends faster and more thoroughly if the thing goes totally away for some months, rather than being a limited-availability item, which tends to increase its value.

I think in Michelle Garcia Winner's teaching materials she calls the stuck brain "rock brain." We like to call it "stuck" because it implies that a change of state is possible (getting "unstuck").

DeeDee

p.s. favorite enforcement phrase: "not available," as in "the trains are not available now." Nicely neutral, heads off some of the more personal lines of argument about mean parents, just states a fact.

Ok, operation minimize train obsession is in force. I will talk to him about it in the next couple of days, and we've decided on a characteristically complex rule about when and how long he's allowed to watch train videos. Not every day, and not for more than 20 minutes is the simple version, the complexities are really about parental issues like "is it ok to use it to distract him from something else." (no) We will not limit train toys except to go back to our orriginal rules about which ones are allowed to leave the house (we'd gotten a bit soft).

After the last couple of days, and a couple of things we put together while talking, we were on pretty much exactly the same page, which is good.

Interestingly, DH just discovered that DS has learned how to lie. Which apparently means I've just discovered that DS has learned how to lie EFFECTIVELY. Erm. Uh-oh.

Methinks perhaps the small one has gotten away from us a little bit lately. Crazy child.

Wish us luck, and any other hints greatly appreciated. I posted on a regular parenting forum as well, and, well. Apparently their kids aren't actually at the obsession stage yet. Sigh. I thought you guys would be more helpful, but lets just say I'm glad I've been hanging around here...

-Mich

I knew a 3-year-old in Asia that was obsessed with calendars (the tear-off-each-day variety) and octupi. I have often wondered whatever happened to that kid.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2011/09/sponge_bob_isnt_good_for_young.html

In spite of all that I still haven't limited the screen time. �And we don't really just watch the good shows either. �Wyatt's first sight word that I noticed was when he read Spongebob Squarepants off the tv guide channel. �Meanwhile when he did get demanding and crying over his turn on the tv, think it was also 2.5 yrs old as well, I locked all the cartoon channels on the tv for probably close to a month and told him what I was doing. �I'll quote the sticky on the gentle discipline forum here and say "simply insist."�
I'm probably wrong. �I'm unsure of a lot of my parenting choices and it goes against both modern parenting stuff I'm reading and agreeing with, and the old-fashioned parenting stuff I understand and most people I know agree with. �My dad said that's ok. �Make it up as you go along. �Correct him whenever he he does anything that bothers you. �Just make sure that he knows you mean what you say. �You have the right to change your mind. �You can also let him convince you, that's fine. �
Tell him, "if you're going to act like that I'm not going to let you watch it. �I don't want to see you act like that." Then don't let him see it until you see a change of attitude. �My dad physically showed me what a change of attitude looks like from a time out. �He said, look at his eyes (soften.) �That's what you're looking for. �After you see that you can finish the time-out and then talk about it. �Don't talk about it first. �
When I saw that in action I just thought that's what I think I was hearing in the nurtured heart approach cd, but wasn't getting by using a one-minute timer. �Use a short-time frames time-out to stop a spiral. �Use the same general idea also with long time frames, like the cartoons, or a trip to the mall or movie theater. �That's kind of like the reward system without the stickers and coupons. �You can expect good things, but not if you're going to act like that. �All the good things stop until you figure it out. �

I believe in asynchronousity, don't get me wrong. I wanted to answer in the Santa and Dolls thread when she asked if a late maturity wasn't "anti-gifted" that I don't think gifted means more advanced at a given age, I think it means a broader age range at a given age, you know, asynchronousity. �I used to call it agelessness because I didn't have a gifted forum to tell me the real words. �But I wasn't using my parental power. �My dad said, "you can't tell me he's learning 6yr old academics and only a 3yr old level of discipline expectations." �And he proved it and showed me how. �It looks a lot like 6 yr old discipline but the best of 3 yr life old remains. �It's noisy, all this cries of frustration and squeals of delight. �

Mr W was obsessed with all things Cars since he was 9 mos old. About a year ago he moved on to other things. He has had his various obsessions on TV - cars, handy manny, little einsteins, etc, etc and now jake.

He is becoming obsessed with reading - when we woke him up in the AM he had all his books laying around the bed and a flashlight that was dead.