Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Behavioral Quirks

DS needs to be "coached" a lot. Loud, energetic, blo-by-blow instructions, like what people were saying about the boring copying. "Get the soap, you can do it, reach for the water, both hands, both hands, both hands, ok, LATHER"

I kinda hate it, especially since we often get looks. But I'd rather look like a pushy fool than suffer the tantrums if I don't help him get throught this stuff. Interesting people are commenting on perfectionism connected to similar stuff. That might not be what I wanted to hear. Alas.

Is it a quirk that he mostly tantrums over stuff like which order to wash his hands in? hmmmmm. He won't put the soap on first, but he won't put his hands in the water unless I tell him too specifically, so if I start with soap, he tantrums, but then it's the other way round next time (so it's not inflexibility, it's just my failure at clairvoyance)

Since I'm on washing hands, he also insists on reading, interpreting, critiquing and following to the line any and all pictographic material. Woe to all if the Pictographs showing "proper toilet routine" fail to include the "pee" step. And don't get me started on the bathroom we often visit which has two *conflicting* pictos, nether of which include that step.

I love him, but man. I guess I didn't post before 'cause I didn't actually know where to start

I will say that our "handwriting freakout" (I'm not really proud of it) does seem to have worked. I have not seen the Horrible Handwriting since. What the hell WAS that? These kids! ("I'm truly excellent at this task. Let's try becoming intentionally bad at it, for kicks!")

My DD got mostly words she didn't know this past year. In fact, she mostly got words she had never come across, and was unfamiliar with the meaning of, or had never heard spoken aloud. Unfortunately, there were so many spelling lists among all the kids that there was no in-class instruction. And the spelling tests were administered by another kid, who sometimes mangled the pronunciation so badly that DD thought maybe she'd been pronouncing it wrong, and changed her spelling to match the other pronunciation.

We are on vacation so I am noticing a few more interesting quirks. He just seems to know so much about electronics and if he doesn't know something he figures it out really fast by using what he says is common sense and I think he gets a little irritated with me that I can't immediately remember all the steps to get to Netflix with his PS3 controller and his sister's television remote that is different from ours. He showed me how to do all of this last night and I did finally get it but I feel so old and slow next to him.

He can quickly tell me the position of all the letters on a qwerty keyboard and says he never tried to remember it. I have been able to type for many years and I have to imagine myself typing each letter to do it. He is very observant and remembers so much.

He is so much faster than I am at typing text messages on his iPhone even though he has fine motor issues and is supposed to have dyspraxia. I have listened to him type recently and I would not be surprised to find out that he is typing 80 wpm.