Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional DS8 calls himself a freak of nature

I would suggest 2 things:
1. don't let him dwell on his feelings when he gets into such a mood - divert and distract to break the spell. You can do this by drawing him into conversations that are so unexpected that his brain jumps from one track on to the next. My DS who cannot sleep because of whirling thoughts gets very frustrated when he tries for hours and still cannot fall asleep. I tell him stories that are funny or weird that he loses track of what was going on in his mind.
2. Please tire him out physically. Take him outside and go walking, biking, trekking etc. When they are physically very active, their moods improve - and preferably to a place far from where there is any team sport activity. Can you find a martial arts class with a demanding instructor who also mentors your son? It is not a team sport and he will get multiple benefits - a thorough work out, self esteem, self control and discipline in both mind and body and overall motor control improvement.

So sorry, I really hope that he feels better soon.

Hi Tigerle. Sorry you and DS are having a tough time. It does sound as though it is more than just sporting prowess causing distress but maybe that is one way for him to articulate that life isn't going how he would like it right now. Sounds like he may be having some hassles and being picked on? Is it possible that being teased for being good academically has morphed into, if I was good at sports I wouldn't be a target for teasing?

You have had some great advice and I think many of us sympathise from personal experience that not everyone is athletic. My DD has major hypermobility issues and has dislocated various joints trying to be a participant in sport. Like your DS she likes to ski, although we have to be careful with it now we know the extent of her Hypermobility. She attends a physiotherapist who runs classes for hypermobile kids once a week. The classes are part physio, part pilates, part yoga. Some of the kids are sporty despite their hypermobility and are working to build up their strength and protect joints. Our DD does special exercises before we go skiing for the same reason.

Is there a Physiotherapist involved in your DS's care who could help? Can you use skiing as a reason to do exercise and improve strength and fitness so he enjoys it more when winter rolls around? That way he is "in training" and doing a sport but it's his sport's off season!

I would also look a bit more closely at why he thinks he has to be good at a sport. Maybe in a calm moment he might tell you more about what is troubling him and you can address any other issues. Stay firm with the Internet boundaries. They are always a challenge! And good luck.

I was wondering about teasing/bullying too. Sending lots of love and peace your way...this is tough stuff.

A counselor with CBT approach (or even better--DBT) might be really helpful. It sounds like he is feeling hopeless about being able to change things that make him unhappy. DBT is really good to address identifying emotions, acceptance/mindfulness, and changing negative thinking.

edited to add: I don't think it's about athleticism, per se. Sounds more like he is suffering from self-loathing. Poor guy, poor mom having to navigate this.

Hugs to you and your son. I am so very sorry that you are going through this.

Excellent suggestions here. With boys possibly more so than with girls, sports can seem all-too-important and for some boys at least, it seems difficult to separate self-esteem and athletic ability. This is completely unfair of course to boys with other talents, but it can be so hard to see outside of peer groups, especially when one is young.

I would agree with the suggestions above about an animal companion for exercise. A dog with an outstanding temperament (if he is not allergic, although there are breeds with lower allergens) can offer unconditional love and companionship, as well as serve as a motivator for exercise. Dog sports such as agility or obedience offer a sense of athleticism and teamwork that can build a sense of well-being and joy.

Please continue to let us know how your DS is doing.

I think some kids are poor at sports, but if it's to the level that you are describing, and it's affecting his self-image, it could be developmental coordination disorder/dyspraxia. If that is the case, you could try private physical therapy. I don't know how it works with special needs kids in the schools where you are located, but DS has an IEP in the "physically impaired" category and gets "adapted phy ed" in school as well as regular phy ed with his classmates. They work on things like core strength, ball catching and throwing, jumping jacks and other coordination exercises, etc. so that he is better able to participate in the regular phy ed curriculum. I want DS to be able to keep up with the other kids in gym and on the playground (or at least not look like a fool), but I don't push sports with DS at all. Luckily he likes swimming and I keep signing him up for lessons to at least get him proficient with a few different strokes, but I don't think there is any point in pushing team sports if he doesn't want to do them. He also really likes riding his bike up and down the street. As long as a person exercises in some way (even if it's just walking), I think that's enough. Not everyone has to have a sport that they are good at. I also keep emphasizing the activities that he IS good at, so that he can focus on that and have something to feel good about, rather than dwell on being so poor at sports.

Hugs to you and your DS. I remember being poor at sports in school and feeling miserable about it. And now I can see my own kids struggling with the same thing - it's hard.

My own DS7 also has developmental coordination disorder (blackcat mentioned it - and I'm in agreement with what she said above). In school they've been pulling him out of class with a couple of other kids to do 'body break' exercises - they work on core strength and balance. At first he didn't want to but by the end of school he was enjoying them.

He's also just now started to get into swimming - he also really struggled with putting his head in the water - but just recently he decided to do it and worked at it until he got used to it. Now he asks to go swimming every day! Unfortunately, I can't tell you any tricks to make that happen - no swim instructors were able to persuade him, he just decided and that was it.

One other thing I thought I'd mention - my DD10 doesn't have DCD but she is very sedentary by nature. It is hard to even convince her to go for a walk with me. We recently gave geo-caching a try, and I think the game aspect of it was appealing. She quite happily went on a long hike with me to find a cache, when normally it would be like pulling teeth. One caveat - my DCD DS does not really enjoy hiking as he tends to trip on rocks and fall down a lot. He's a bit better now - but something to keep in mind with kids with balance and coordination issues. Don't know if geo-caching is a thing in Europe, but in Canada there are lots of urban caches as well as ones in natural areas.

Some bigger cities have indoor playgrounds/playscapes (think "Chutes and Ladders" but in real life). They can be huge and are a great workout for kids and parents alike. We go once in a while to a local one and I think the kids get a lot out it in terms of fun and overall strengthening/fitness.

Thank you so much everyone, it does so help when people GET it.

To clarify, I totally agree with everyone who points out there must be more issues at play than just sports, there is self loathing and general discontent with his life and w are trying to address that as well. It's just that there is not much I can do on the schooling front - those weeks of revision before summer vacation drove him nuts, and there is another year to go before the highly acclaimed gifted program in middle school starts, but once we agreed that he was not ready to start middle school at eight, that was it for more accommodation at this point. I guess his teacher (looped for next year as well) does what she can, but to's not enough, never will be. But: he does like his school and his teacher, does have friends, does play dates, gets invited to the occasional birthday party and the teacher assures me is not an outsider, merely socially somewhat on the fringes.

He does not get teased for being good at maths, I think he does get some grudging respect even, sort of an acceptance of the absent minded professor type. I do not think he is actually being bullied. But he did complain that no one would ever get any grief from others for being bad at maths, maths always happening in tightly controlled situations in the classroom, whereas sports happens at recess and during PE class and apparently kids find space to be mean in these settings. I think he is spot on, really - wonder what would have happened if he'd tried to refuse to "team up and play" with the kid he was forced to do a science project with for being useless, the way kids get to reject others for sports teams during recess and PE...

Talking about PE, none of his difficulties have ever warranted a real honest to god diagnosis, it's always been an also ran in an otherwise clean bill of health. He's been evaluated by a neurologist, an orthopedist, a PT, an OT. I have insisted on both PT and OT sessions, got them paid by insurance, too, that's not the issue. It's all borderline, low end of normal, blah blah, we cold keep going, can't hurt, but probably won't help...He's fully functional after all, does great on school except for PE, swims, bikes, runs...
I am convinced it's the combination of all these borderline physical issues that kills him.

Gotta go, but will be back and address more of your wonderful posts!

I really feel for your son. I was very very bad at PE. I remember really wishing for rain or snow so that PE would be cancelled. I am not good at anything sports related. Luckily I grew up in China where being good at academics was way more important than being good at sports. Plus I was a girl as I believe it is much harder for boys to be so bad at sports. As an adult I often wondered whether I had a disability of sorts. I never pursued a formal diagnosis but I do have a lot of joints and ligament and muscle pain now in my forties. I have no idea whether any of these are related though. But it is also likely that I simply was in the bottom 5% of abilities or whatever the low end of normal for physical abilities may be.
Also our PE was mostly testing about speed and skills and left me with nothing I can fall back on as a preferred physical activity.

I won't lie that it was really hard for me to be the last in everything in PE every year. But I have also always said that it was the one thing that grounded me so that I won't be too prideful. I wish our PE was less about testing and competition and more about teaching me a skill that I wasn't so turned off by it.

It was really hard I won't lie. I think the most important thing is to make him proud of other things that he is good at, which I am sure are many. Just know that as an adult, it has not really impact me much. Although I do wish I can run so that I can go out jogging with colleagues at conference or just keep up with my son.

I've never really dealt with the pure horror and shame of being not only picked "last" for PE team activities, but-- worse, being dealt as a "trade" when the sporty kids were doing the picking.

Yes, as in;

"Well, since you got SportyDude, I think that you should take Howler and DisabledGirl as a handicap for your team..."




Yes, I also had/have highly hypermobile joints, and dislocations were a regular thing in playing soccer, but I guess the good news is that I never tore any ligaments, nor have I ever broken any bones-- and this in spite of considerable klutziness. My balance and proprioception were always excellent, by the way-- so I think that was the key to avoiding injury for me personally.

I do like walking and hiking, and enjoy dancing as well. In my younger years, I enjoyed tumbling, gymnastics and marching band a lot. But most sport is simply not for me and never has been. Anything with a bat, ball, or racquet is a recipe for humiliation and frustration (at a minimum).

My current spouse didn't believe that ANYONE could be "that bad" at softball. He and another sporty friend tried desperately to teach me some measure of proficiency when we were graduate students (I was 22 at the time)-- and while I was delighted because I finally seemed to be able to CATCH a ball in a mitt-- and actually make contact when swinging a bat at a slow pitch...


it was clear from their response that my "massive improvement" was still leaving me at a place of such horrifying ineptitude relative to "normal" people that I should, um-- cheer from the sidelines. Period. It was hard to realize that my best-- improvement I'd been thrilled with, actually-- still left me so bad at something other people do for leisure. I joke that I'm not "non-athletic" but more like "anti-sport-- like anti-matter, but different." Still, I was pretty ashamed, and I was 22. Golf, rowing, and sailing I'm okay at. I was also decent at skiing (both alpine and Nordic) last I checked.



I was good with animals, too. Horseback riding, perhaps? I couldn't, being too allergic, but it's a good thing for some non-athletic kids.