Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Exhausted and glad I found this place...

I'm the mom of a 9.5 year old daughter. Never had her formally tested. She goes to small, private school that we love, and all of her teachers have referred to her as "gifted" over the years, and every checklist or criteria for giftedness I have seen is a fit for her...the good, bad and the ugly

Essentially, I come to you now because I am at my wit's end parenting her. She exhausts me. She wears me down. I'm a special education teacher,with two masters' degrees, so I am not without skills and strategies, but I am often finding myself at the end of my rope in dealing with her. Her language and reasoning is sophisticated beyond her years, she is relentless when she wants something (or doesn't want something) bordering on obsessive. Her "smart" remarks, or way of "beating us at our own game" when we try to reason and negotiate with her are unnerving. You can't even punish the child, or take away privileges, because she reasons and rationalizes about why it doesn't matter.

At this point, I am fearful for my relationship with her as she approaches her teen years. As I said to my husband, at this age she stomps upstairs and locks herself in her room when furious; in 6 or 8 years she could be stomping out of the house and jumping into a boyfriends car. I worry that if I can't manage her effectively now, things are only going to get worse as we enter the teens.

I also worry for her, because she often just doesn't seem happy I wonder if it's too much negativity from us at home (she does classic things like know exactly how to complete the entire unit in math with the teacher barely covering it, but forgetting to bring her math book home to complete her homework 3 days a week; her room is a disaster area and we can never get her to keep it remotely neat, but then she loses everything; she is so absorbed in what she is reading or playing or watching or imagining that she doesn't do half of what she's supposed to, and doesn't hear us trying to gain her attention). She has had issues with serious anxiety in the past, though that seems to be in check lately. She is seeming to have more trouble fitting in with her peers (classic, again) though her teacher's don't seem to see it. She is very hard on herself with perfectionist tendancies, but at the same time careless bordering on lazy about her assignments and tasks at home.

I love her dearly and just want her to be happy and confident and feel comfortable in her own skin. My husband and I have always said life is going to be hard on her, smart as she is, because she analyzes things so deeply, thinks so hard about everything, and can never just "roll with it".

How can we help her? What can help us help and parent her productively???

I don't have an answer for you, but wanted to send you some *hugs*! I'm sure others will have more insight than me, but hang in there!

I want to send you commiseration too--it all sounds VERY familiar, and yes, I too am thinking "If she is this hard at 8...." quite often. My DD is also incredibly relentless, has an astounding memory for things I said once 5 years ago when I was half-asleep, and can beat almost anyone at their own game. She used to explode a lot, but recently she's moving towards "Fine, whatever" with no show of emotion at all--and she will not fold.

I am working towards reaching her and trying to acknowledge her pain and anger rather than disciplining more.

I can relate! My DS8 gets out of control sometimes in his rudeness to his family, and it slowly creeps up so I don't notice how bad it's gotten. I find that the only thing that really gets him to respond is to make his bedtime earlier in 15 minute increments for infractions. This deprives him of whatever it is he wants to do, since he just has to go to bed. This also seems to be helpful in getting him extra sleep, which makes him more pleasant anyway.

I have heard great things about this book, and I keep meaning to check it out at the library: Transforming the Difficult Child or wait, was it this book? Living with Intensity

Get her in a sport that challenges herself against her own best, that has high standards, and gets her physically exhausted.

My two older kids were very much like this, and once they started climbing, things were much better for everyone. They were happier, and so was I.

All that intensity that used to be directed at whatever roadblock I'd put up in front of their unrelenting pursuit of the moment instead went into challenging themselves to do better on the next route on the wall. Both were national contenders for several years, and it was all self-driven.

The other was having to deal with teammates and a coach who dealt on a much more basic level. Want to argue? Do 20 more pushups. Want to challenge my idea? Run another lap.

Now I'm not saying it was happily ever after or that I got to sit around a drink mint juleps in the afternoon while they were perfect children. Far from it. But at least I didn't spend most days wondering how I was going to get through the constant demands.

Hope this helps.

I have a similar one, but he is generally very postiive and happy and does not have too much anxiety but he can be defiant and struggles with impulse control, focus, etc. I agree with the sports suggetion too. My DS is the best when he has had the exact right amount of physical and mental stimulation each day. Figuring that out is sometimes the hard part.

I would also consider getting a full neuropsych eval, IQ testing, other issues (EF disorder, anxiety) preferable with someone that has experience with gifted kids that may have other exceptionalities. It may give you a better picture of exactly what is going on with her. I would also recommend Transforming the Difficult Child - it does work if you stick with it. Finally, Smart But Scattered is a great book for helping with the organization stuff - bringing stuff home, cleaning room, etc. Others here have suggested Late, Lost and Unprepared too.

LOL, I just logged on and was thinking how exhausted I was managing my DS6 to get him to bed when "I just want to read a little more Mom!" turns into a 20 min argument (and darnit his reasoning is good!). Hang in there! I usually take a lot of comfort from reading other parents' posts, especially on overwhelming days!

Has anyone read a book called "The Highly Sensitive Child?" My DD7 really struggled with anger and some of the same kinds of issues mentioned here (although perhaps to a lesser degree). Anyway, this book helped me to find new strategies for dealing with her explosions. I realized that the way I responded made things worse.

Anyway, it really helped us. Maybe it might be helpful for you, too.

We feel your pain and concern! This describes DD8 almost exactly, although her intellectual prowess has devolved into a double-barrel blast of denial and stubbornness. Her poker face is so good I often wonder whether I said what I said, or heard what I heard. For at least a year we've been asking that "How will we handle her in five years?" question.

She is "smart but scattered" to such a degree that we are planning to pursue the neuropsych eval, and because she just never quite seems comfortable in her own skin for very long.

Things we've tried with varying success:

- Moved her from regular into gifted class (HUGE success in terms of reducing anxiety)
- Piano lessons (easy to progress yet infinite room to improve)
- More sleep (DD melts down often and easily without enough sleep...)
- DHA/fish oil pills (seems to stabilize her mood when given consistently)
- Sports (we found DD thrived under a "mean" gymanstics coach from Eastern Europe...the only coach who could convince her to excel..we need to get her back into sports)
- Giving her a break from her younger sibling

Thanks so much, everyone. I appreciate the advice and commiserating! It's glad to know this is similar to what others experience.

With regard to sports- I have made it a point to keep her in a team sport every season since kindergarten (she's in 3rd grade now). Several reasons for this...she would be perfectly happy reading a book in her room for hours at a time and I want her to get out and be physically fit; I hope she will find a sport she really likes and want to continue into the upper grades; I have felt, particularly in our community, that it is important for her socially. She has played on teams with the same group of girls from school pretty much every season. I feel like this keeps her engaged in something all the kids can relate to, instead of her unique pursuits, like Greek mythology. It gives them a common bond. She is also more motivated to join a team right now if she knows her friends are playing. However, as I see more of a gap developing with her and her agemates, I wonder how long this will be a factor.

The problem we have with most team sports is she can really take it or leave it, and just doesn't try that hard. She's had the same soccer coach for years who has said that, when she tries, she's as good as any girl out there. BUT she is too lost in her head most of the time to really focus and care. Same with basketball and lacrosse. I put her on the swim team last summer. She's a good swimmer and I thought that was a nice mix of team and individual sport. However, that is not to her liking...as she says, she likes to swim, but not have people tell her what stroke to swim when...or how many laps...and she doesn't like the pressure of everyone watching and cheering for her during her heats Right now she is in volleyball, which she likes a lot, for the first time that I remember, so that's great. She has mentioned karate/ martial arts several times. Maybe that would be worth checking out.

I will look for some of the books mentioned. Also, I am curious, Pru, about your connecting gifted programs to reduced anxiety...could you tell me more about that? In her private school, there is no gifted program. But as a teacher in the public school system, I'm not sure that her options there (twice weekly curriculum extention unit, math 2 yrs above grade level) would be worth what we would give up leaving her current school.