Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Playing sick maybe physicalizing

How normal is it for a 3:2 year old to "play sick"

What about physicalizing stress?

Is there a good way to tell the difference?

IM(very limited, second hand)E, not normal for them to play sick well enough to make you wonder. I certainly wouldn't rule out complicated mind-body connections confusing the picture, though. What's up? Something really worrying or just "do I keep this child home from nursery" stuff? If you still suspect playing sick, I'd set up a system that if you're too ill to [whatever] you stay quietly in bed and don't get to do exciting stuff. Hopefully this is a bad result in the case of playing sick, but a good one in the case the child is actually feeling sick for whatever reason.

My DD began complaining of "tummy aches" pretty regularly at about that age, the ped said it was stress and I remember asking him what on earth a 3yo could be stressed about.

The stomach pains seemed to correlate to chores such as having to clean her room or other things she didn't want to do, so I assumed she was faking it at least half the time. Now she is 18 and suffering from anxiety, looking back with what I know now, I can honestly say I think the tummy aches were a legitimate symptom of anxiety and she just felt overly anxious about things she imagined would be unpleasant experiences...

My son used to act like he was sick. He had only been really sick a few times and to him it meant staying in bed, room-service popsicles and a movie marathon.

Last year he was doing the pretend sick thing a lot and happened to pull the "I'm sick" sad face on the morning he already had a check-up with vaccinations scheduled. He didn't know about the appointment so he was really surprised when I said "Oh no, you are sick! Get in the car we need to go to the doctor. They can give you a shot and hopefully you'll be better soon"

He doesn't pretend to be sick much anymore. He is more honest now. He'll just ask for a cozy day at home.

It seems to be chore-avoidance and preschool avoidance. Uh. Yeah. Sh%*

I used to physicalize things as a kid, I remember figuring out what "guilt" meant when I was 12 and connected it to the throwing up I'd done virtually every day for 6 years.

He refuses to accept that, for example, when they tell him to go read (at preschool), they don't actually expect him to go read words off a page, and they use the phrase "have to" a lot, so he thinks he's breaking the rules if, for eg. I pick him up early and he doesn't play in the playground (that one's easy, I open teh gate, he runs around and moves everything once, then he comes out, obligation served)

Humph, you guys could have told me what I WANTED to hear.

I'd better figure out how to talk to him about this, eh?
Thanks, all.

-Mich