Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Not-really-brag-so-much-as-quirky- anecdote thread

Height of summer and they want to stay inside all day long, driving me batty! Anyway progress is good.

DD met a new friend (age 5) at a play structure. They decided to play tag.

NF: You can't tag me here.
DD: Why not?
NF: This is a safe zone.
DD: We are playing the ORIGINAL game of tag.
NF: What?
DD: Original, meaning no modifications or special rules.
NF: What?
DD: I can tag you anywhere since we didn't agree to having a safe zone prior to starting the game.
NF: I don't understand you.
DD: Is English not your first language?

Yup. DS3 has gotten so frustrated after trying to communicate with other children that he's come back to me and declared, "I don't think that child is ready to communicate with me yet." I feel your DD's pain.

Our son (DYS 6.5) got an Anna doll (from Frozen) for Christmas. He has changed her dress and now refers to her as Athena.

DD2 is very particular about her pull up diapers (the ones we get comes in variety packs, so it has her favorite princess mixed in with other characters not as interesting). The ones she abhors is the set that mixes in the monsters diapers. She goes through her favorites first, then next favorite and so on (her teachers have the children bring over their diapers at changing time)... until she only had the monster ones left.

Then she showed up with her favorite one instead of the despised monster one, and her teacher asked her where she got that one (her teacher knew she was down to the monster ones). Apparently she despised the monster ones so much that she was swapping those with her favorites from the cubbies of the other girls who have the same brand. (none of the other girls care at all about which diapers they have).

And I just found out that she is now calling the parents of the other children by their real names when they pick up their child, surprising them (I don't think I even know the real name of any other parent - they are all "XX's mom/dad" to me).

aquinas, I'm sure for your DS, it's truly a case of mismatch between him and other children he encounters but I'm starting to suspect that my DD might be doing some of this on purpose. I don't know if she is being sincere or putting on a performance.

Getting ready for bed in the bathroom. DS8, is picking on his toothbrush, complaining about an "invisible bit of thread" sticking to it.
DD4, in great indignation: "But DS, that is INCREDIBLE! The only thing in the world that is truly invisible is air!"
DS8, in even greater indignation: "DD, there are LOADS of things that aren't air that are invisible!" And he starts listing colourless gases. DD4 runs out oft he bathroom while he is still muttering about the density of sulfur hexafluoride.

I have had exactly one year of chemistry in school and most of these days I have no idea what he is talking about.

DS7 said something to DH last night that seemed so ... out there ... I just feel like he must be parroting something he heard. But I googled and can't find it.

He said, "Time is the most powerful thing of all because if there never was time, there could never have been anything." He went on to explain more about what he meant, and DH surreptitiously caught a little on a recording. So he wasn't ONLY repeating what he heard. But I wondered if somebody else gave him the idea.

Has anybody heard this idea in something a 7-year old might come across? In case it's relevant - we aren't religious at all, so that sort of text wouldn't have been his "source."

Sue, just a guess without more context, but I can imagine several places my DS might have found such concepts at that age, such as physics books, or some of the more conceptual science or science fiction. Has yours been reading the Stephen Hawking novels, perchance? Your DS is quite exceptional - I would imagine it wouldn't take a detailed prompt to get his brain spinning on such a concept!

Carl Sagan or NdG Tyson would be my guesses at the genesis of the commentary.

I recall DD doing similarly eerie, almost echolalic-like things at 2-5yo, with these full phrases/pronouncements that I just knew had come from somewhere-- though she would expand on them or use them completely appropriately. It was kind of fun to try to ferret out where they'd come from.