Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Therapy success stories?

I am reading "Cinderella Ate My Daughter" by Peggy Orenstein. Along this subject line, Dude.

We don't have cable but when there is some image etc like that on a netflix DVD(or when she watches cable in a hotel) DH has a running commentary to counteract. It's a little over-the-top sometimes, but DD thinks it's hysterical and I think you need to go overboard sometimes due to the bombardment of messages they are sending. The culture is quite pervasive as you said.

Since my DD loves science so much it comes up alot. She even went to a LEGO workshop one time where you had to pre-register. They had waiting for her a screaming pink lego set. Anyway we've since found another group that doesn't "discriminate" as they say, where she is more comfortable.

We're always analyzing stuff. Sometimes we even discuss the messages to attract/retain girls in science beacause, though I respect the efforts, it's almost like people are afraid that if something's not pink or flowery or chemistry about perfume it's not acceptable to girls. Again, I respect the effort but sometimes it appears to be an either-or situation...either pink or not in. Anyway I'd better quit now!

She gets a lot of exercise, eats a varied diet (and like a horse--but she is 40th% for BMI), plays outside a ton, and sleeps well. Very little screentime; maybe an hour or two a week. Her only activites outside school are a couple of low-key afterschool clubs, with no commitments outside the hour or so a week she spends there. The one thing that I wish could change is the amount of homework she gets (too much), but there we are.

Plenty of sleep, too--we shoot for 11 hours. No sleep disturbances. She is often very enthusiastic, outgoing, and cheerful and does not seem at all withdrawn or "sad." But she also has a major temper, is argumentative and combative, and is perfectionist and low in self-esteem.

The more I think about this, the more I conclude that she still needs "more." She does better if kept mentally active. She really wants to take piano, but I've held off since the homework load is so heavy and she already expresses frustration about her limited afternoon playtime. I may try to do lessons this summer. Summer will be a good time to asses some other stuff, too.

I don't think this is the MAIN issue. I suspect she is wired this way to a large extent. While I think we are not parenting optimally, I don't blame us exactly--she really is TOUGH and we try really hard. The irony is that her actual behavior is really pretty good. It's the anger, attitude, rudeness, and stubbornnness that wear us down.

ETA that we are both poorer parents to DD than to my son, which is a hard thing to admit, but which clarifies things a little, IMO. I mostly feel that I am a good parent to my son, who has an easier temperament (though he is not "easy"). I screw up occasionally, of course, but to me it seems like it's totally within normal limits, and I do not get down on myself about my parenting when it comes to him. I--we--screw up much more with DD. The patterns we've developed are problematic. It's not that I think we are inclined to be bad parents generally, but she is challenging and we run out of strategies and just get burned out.

I hear you.

At one point I took a parenting class because I really thought that DS's behavior was somehow a result of my bad parenting. Nothing in the class worked at all: over the 10 weeks it became clear to me that normal strategies were not working, which also clarified that we needed something else. Of course, it was a class for parenting typical kids, and DS's neurology was working against us, but I didn't know that yet.

Extraordinary kids require parenting off the map. I don't think you should feel badly about being burned out, or about not being able to give enough. You'll do all you can, I'm sure.

DeeDee

We've had two of our kids go through therapy at relatively young ages, and we've actually tried a total of three times for our ds. I think whether or not therapy will be successful with young children depends on two things: I think the biggest issue is - is the therapy you're seeking targeted to the actual issue at the root of whatever challenges your child is having (I'll explain this relative to my own children's experience), and second, the personality of the child. I really think the personality of your child is secondary to the first thing though - understanding what exactly it is that you're trying to get help with and having a reasonable goal related to it.

My ds first had counseling when he was 6 years old, for suspected anxiety (he'd been suffering from stomach pain for months and been through every physical test under the sun before his ped referred him for counseling. He had a counselor that just didn't seem to get him at all - she talked to him as if he was a little kid, when he was used to talking to us and us responding to a much older-intellect kid (he's our EG kiddo). He went for several sessions, didn't seem to get anywhere, then his dad stopped *traveling* for work and voila, no more stomachaches... so we thought we were through, never went back and lived happily... for another few months or so lol. The next year he was back into full-on anxiety and that's when he had his first neuropsych eval and we learned he was 2e.

Soooo... his neuropsych recommended counseling for him to help learn how to deal with frustrating situations, since he was bound to run into them on his journey through the world of 2e. She recommended a male counselor that she had a lot of great feedback on from other clients of young children. DS was 8 at the time. The counselor wanted to meet with ds alone so ds could talk openly about feelings, and that freaked ds out - he didn't want to be alone with him and didn't really want to be there at all, so it didn't work and we gave up on it after a few sessions. At the same time, we were making accommodations and changes at school and ds' anxiety disappeared - especially when school let out for the summer, so we didn't pursue any further counseling. Later on we realized that part of the challenge with talking to the counselors had been that ds has an expressive language disorder that no one was aware of at the time. So then - a few years later, when he was 10 and on the verge of middle school plus having a tough time with accepting that he needed to use accommodations at school we sought out a counselor again, and had a much better success - I think partly because we had a clear goal in counseling and we understood what was going on with him. A few years worth of maturity also undoubtedly helped.

So that was our ds - counseling didn't work at all for him until we really understood what was causing his anxieties. Once we had that, it worked - a bit. He's still not a kid who responds well to counseling - he prefers to talk it out and figure things out with his parents, and for the most part, that works ok.

Our second experience has been with our dd7. She's a kid who is all about accomplishing accomplishing accomplishing - very driven. She's also all about control and began going through some very severe temper tantrums around 5-6 years old. They got to the point that we had to have some kind of help, and our ped recommended counseling before neuropsych, which we thought was the right way to go (at the time). She has just started counseling recently and it's going relatively well - because she is so keyed into being in control, it's been much more effective to have a third party adult who has is in a position of "authority" make suggestions re how to cope with her feelings than having the same type of advice come from a parent. She's also put in a position where she can perform for this person to a certain extent, ie, the counselor gives her techniques to practice during the week, then we go back and I and she both have a chance to tell the counselor how it went - kinda like a report card for a kid who is all about getting straight As. I don't know if it will work for the long run, but it's been *very* helpful in helping her feel calm, and to identify and own her feelings - and she's clearly coping much better with far fewer tantrums than she was before counseling. So - for her, it seems to be working. The irony is - we're kinda in a relatively small town.... and the counselor she's seeing... is the counselor who our ds saw at 6 and just seemed to be such a poor match.

So that's our very limited experience, fwiw.

polarbear

That's consistent with my impression that one of the more important aspects of therapy is just being a good "match" with the therapist because therapy is more personal and less mechanical that standard medical diagnosis and treatment.

[quote]She has just started counseling recently and it's going relatively well - because she is so keyed into being in control, it's been much more effective to have a third party adult who has is in a position of "authority" make suggestions re how to cope with her feelings than having the same type of advice come from a parent. She's also put in a position where she can perform for this person to a certain extent, ie, the counselor gives her techniques to practice during the week, then we go back and I and she both have a chance to tell the counselor how it went - kinda like a report card for a kid who is all about getting straight As. I[/quot]

This sounds a LOT like my kid. I hope we have a positive experience as well.

Yes, it has been incredibly helpful for our family. Life changing really. It sounds like what you are saying is that her disposition heads toward anxious. If that's the case those traits are not usually outgrown, but instead they need to learn to be managed. The earlier - the better. She can learn habits of the mind that will last her into adult life. So, if later she resurfaces in adult life with more anxiety, she will have a foundation for dealing with it.

The key is getting a good match with a therapist. I would encourage you to interview therapists and be choosy if you can. You want someone you both can feel comfortable with. I agree with the suggestion to look for someone who is directed and results oriented and who will provide specific homework assignments.

We haven't started counseling yet because we're fighting our insurance company to have them cover it, the only one they're willing to cover is a religion based therapist which does not sit with us (and frankly I think it's unconstitutional and possibly illegal).

But I have to say that getting the clinical psych evaluation was the best $1500 we ever spent (insurance didn't cover that either). The dr we went to was recommended by our school district as being very experienced with gifted children, and told us things about our daughter that we never would have known, things that she does need help with, both psychologically and in school. They were able to recommend therapists that they know to be specialized in the areas she needs help with, rather than us going to a general counselor and hoping for the best.

While we love our pediatricians, both past and present, neither of them were even inclined to suggest she was gifted, in fact one of them went so far as to tell us we were delusional for thinking it a possibility. Both pediatricians have been fantastic on the physical medicine side, picking up on medical conditions that are easy to miss but detrimental if not caught, and I'll be forever grateful to both of them. But they're not trained psychologists and I wouldn't expect them to be able to deliver the same level of expertise in this area.