Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Children who express the desire not to be children

I loathed being a child.

My DD doesn't mind it as much as I did.

It's just a personality difference, I suspect.

I could quite readily see how my life would be much, much better after I was no longer a minor (dysfunctional home), and I also have a high need for autonomy. I recall most of my childhood as being little more than a waiting game for being an adult.

My DD on the other hand, has nothing that she's looking forward to 'escaping' particularly, and she already possesses a fairly large degree of personal autonomy. She thoroughly enjoys being a child. Her 2nd E also means that she already has a world-weary understanding of the responsibilities and worries that come with autonomy, though. It's less appealing to her to be independent and responsible for it all.

On the other hand, she is looking forward to being old enough to drive. :gasp:

ultramarina,
your DD, in reading about her alot, really sounds like what I would call and "old soul". I would let her buy those tickets but teach her to indulge on herself "sometimes". And learn to think about what she thinks her emotional impulses "mean" in the big picture - where is it leading her? She sounds like a really special child. Does this even make any sense? It does to me...I hope it helps you!

We went to our local art gallery last year and there was an artwork that allowed you to write a wish and then take a ribbon with a wish on it eg seeing dinosaurs, being in your favorite book, being a superhero etc. DS(then 3) walked along reading all the ribbons then chose 'I wish I was older'.

My son (7) is more like this than my daughter. He is eager to run his own show and make his own decisions (except for his clothes - he still likes me to pick them out each morning, lol).

He insists on doing most things for himself, and likes to do things HIS way. This is sometimes a problem at school... for instance recently he got all the answers correct on a section of a math test but only got half marks because he didn't use the math strategies that the teacher had taught (he did it his own way!).

He questions authority often and insists on detailed explanations for rules (he kind of wears me out sometimes, actually, lol). I get the distinct impression he'd rather be the one making the rules than following them.

Sigh...at times I do think this is how she sees it. At least we are not a dysfunctional home...well, we try not to be, although we struggle with her. She is starting therapy soon and we are starting "parent management training" (I have mixed feelings about this!--but we'll see what it's like).

Old soul is seeming more accurate these days. She has been described that way a few times by people who know her in person, and for some reason I've resisted it, because in many ways she is whimsical--she still likes to pretend that there are fairies, etc. But she is becoming more self-aware, and then the old-soulness becomes more visible.

btw, I will add that my overwhelming sense about my DD had always been that if she can get through the teen years relatively unscathed, she is going to be a fantastic, fascinating young adult. DH feels the same way. In fact, this feeling is really, really strong. I have a very clear picture of her--passionate, artsy, quirky, with a circle of unusual friends--but I also have a picture of how things could go sideways, which I generally try not to look at too often.

I hope you are right, but books such as "Thinking, Fast and Slow" and "Rational Choice in an Uncertain World" tell me that impressionistic predictions of the future tend to be no better than chance. If you used statistical information about your daughter, say high school GPA, IQ score, and scores on a personality inventory, you may be able to make predictions slightly better than chance if they are fed into a prediction model.

My dd13 is this way as well. She isn't defiant, she just feels older than she is and wishes that she could be at times. I've wondered if some of this is related to grade placement (she'll be a high school sophomore in the fall), but I think that a lot of it is just who she is.

I recall a conversation we had a bit back in which I was reminding her that she is 13 and she told me that she wasn't really 13, she was just chronologically 13, but more like 16 or so in reality. She's been to two summer camps out of state this summer with other high schoolers, some of whom were 17, and came home with a new list of friends who she has been texting a lot.

The only real disagreement we've had in regard to this is her trying to convince dh and me that it would be a fine idea for her to take a road trip with three 16 y/o boys from one of these camps next summer to go visit one of her new female summer camp friends who lives in Wisconsin -- not happening even if she was 16 or 17! When I told her that aside from the fact that these are teenaged boys and there is no way that I'd put my then 14 y/o daughter in a car with them to drive that distance, she had an answer to all of my scenarios re lack of life knowledge and how she'd know how to handle them: flat tire, lost, hit an animal, car jacking...

It isn't a huge push from her in that I doubt that she really thought that we'd agree to something like that, but it is more that she feels a lot older than she is and wants to freedom to go do things that sound fun like that.

I think that another aspect that we've had to consider is that b/c she is placed with older kids most of the time and it is a better social fit for her, these other kids either assume that she is older than she is or treat her as an age peer b/c she is an emotional peer even if they know that she is younger. That may feed her belief that she is older than she is. OTOH, I wouldn't have had her going into 8th or 9th grade next year to head this off if it would b/c it would have been a truly poor fit for her academically and socially.

Let me guess-you tend towards the TJ end of things on the Meyers-Briggs scale?

Well, of course it's just an impression. But I'm pretty aware of her personality. (Though I'm not sure yet if she's ENFP or ENTP. I myself have swung from a fullblown INFP towards more of a INFJ, sometimes even testing INTJ).

Both my older two boys are like this.

Aiden truly believes he is 7 (he is 5.5 now) and Nathan believes he is turning 5, maybe 6 on his next birthday (poor kid is only turning 4)

Aiden's play therapist told us that this is not just an "I wish I was older" thing, but that he truly truly believes that he is a 7 year old trapped in a 5 year-old's body.

She also mentioned the autonomy thing and since we give him more personal choice he is a LOT better - calmer, happier and more content with the frustrations that a 5 year old has to face

I think that you can also do a lot of good for these kids to acknowledge their feelings, allow them to feel them, to explore them and let them know that you love them regardless of age, ability and anything else.

When I say to my kids that it's time to stop playing computers (for example) and they moan about it, I feed their wishes: "I bet when you are an adult you will play on the computer all day!" Sometimes they just need to know that you UNDERSTAND them and their desires and they then understand that its just not possible and they they are able to switch off the PC (or whatever else it is) quite happily.

Since we started doing it like this it makes all the difference, simply because they feel that they are heard and understood.