Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Overwhelmed by the idiosyncratic interests

If it wouldn't cause other issues, have you considered introducing him to genealogy? That could keep him going for a long time and there are plenty of online resources.

Bless you for sitting through everything with him. We gave up on watching most of the documentaries when DS was about five. :-o Although DH will watch the ancient aliens shows with him.

He might like genealogy but our other kid is not genetically related and we have no access to information for her, so it might cause bad feelings on her part. We don't even have ethnicity info, we just know she is caucasian. So I'm trying to avoid going there.

Now we are watching a documentary series about World War II. It is actually fairly interesting so far, although I'm not sure how much I'll be willing to sit through.

Very valid reason to stay away from that for now.

Glad that he picked something more interesting for you this time!

FWIW, we have this same situation in our family... and much to my surprise my dd who has no information and most likely never will.. became extremely interested in our family's genealogy. We had purposely avoided it, but she was assigned one of those school projects in early elementary that made me want to have a nice long passionate chat with the teacher about how there are kids in her classroom that have no idea about family history... but instead my dd leapt into it with excitement and informed me she had no issues with it.... so... it's all so individual.. some people will be bothered by it and not want to think about it, other kids just roll with it.

The one thing that has been really interesting for my dds, and might be interesting to your dd and ds as well... but unfortunately costs $... is family history DNA testing. My other dd isn't really interested at all in my family history (she also has no genetic ties to us and no knowledge of her family history)... but both dds have been fascinated by seeing the results of the testing. To be honest, their results don't make a lot of sense to me. I had my own tested just out of curiosity, and it came up a bit strange too... but it's all made for fascinating conversations!

polarbear

FWIW, we have this same situation in our family... and much to my surprise my dd who has no information and most likely never will.. became extremely interested in our family's genealogy. We had purposely avoided it, but she was assigned one of those school projects in early elementary that made me want to have a nice long passionate chat with the teacher about how there are kids in her classroom that have no idea about family history... but instead my dd leapt into it with excitement and informed me she had no issues with it.... so... it's all so individual.. some people will be bothered by it and not want to think about it, other kids just roll with it.

The one thing that has been really interesting for my dds, and might be interesting to your dd and ds as well... but unfortunately costs $... is family history DNA testing. My other dd isn't really interested at all in my family history (she also has no genetic ties to us and no knowledge of her family history)... but both dds have been fascinated by seeing the results of the testing. To be honest, their results don't make a lot of sense to me. I had my own tested just out of curiosity, and it came up a bit strange too... but it's all made for fascinating conversations!

polarbear

ps - the one thing about my dd who is into researching my family history - she sees it as more of a history project than a project with personal connections.

How much does that cost? I do think it would be interesting, but on the other hand sometimes I feel like downplaying the whole thing and never talking about it at all. Unless we can somehow find the genetic parents in the future there are never going to be any clear answers. As far as I know, they don't want to be found.

My father was adopted by his father (he was illegitimate and there was a marriage later on), and when I was a kid in girl scouts and did my family tree we just included the info of the adoptive grandfather. I guess I didn't really have any opinions on it one way or the other. It did give me more insight into my grandfather and where "he" came from, but that's about it. Just a few years ago, my dad was going through some old papers and he and his wife came across an old photo, and his wife said "Hey, this person looks just like you." And my dad said "That's probably because he's my birth father." But he had no interest in looking at the picture or finding out more about the person, claiming that his adoptive father is his father, and that's all there is to it (my grandmother had been very hush-hush about the topic, never even saying a name). Interesting how different people approach the same topic. DD knows her basic background, but doesn't seem to care and never talks about it.

I agree about it being quite individual to the adoptee. It's worth pointing out stories of how families functioned in the past, and how they've changed. I think it would have helped me to understand how common it was for a family to include the extended family children of those who passed away, or children who were sent to another family due to extenuating circumstances. As it was, there remains that little feeling that technically I don't belong to the genetic tree, yet I remain fascinated with the history of my adoptive family. When you think about the family tree in that social context, you can focus on the culture of your family history and how the family evolved over time, not the biology.

PS. As a fairly private person (with, what is it, a deep inner world?), I rarely discussed with my parents the feelings and questions I had about being adopted while growing up, even though I wanted to. I played along, and didn't want to rock the boat by asking questions; always balancing their feelings against my own (something I later recognized as part of my emotional sensitivity). My point is simply to be aware if it does come up, even casually, an open door now can help later. :-)

Blackcat, my kids don't really like history, so this suggestion is third-hand, but have you looked into things like history bee, and national history day? I know kids around here really like both. I'm not sure of the target ages for history day, but the bee has team and individual things for several age ranges. It sounds like it might be more factoid- oriented (aren't most bees?) but it might be a way to connect with other kids, teachers, resources, etc. If I remember correctly, the history day is more of an in-depth research/writing activity about a chosen topic- might be a good way to channel or focus some of that intensity.

My younger son has a best friend adopted from a South American country. He had to do project after project on geneology, heritage, family. The program he was in celebrated diversity and all cultures but heavy study in Hispanic culture because it was Spanish immersion school. Every year he was really into the projects and his unique family and heritage and he embraces it all...his birth information (what they know) as well as the family heritage of both his dads. And all his friends just grew up knowing he had two dads and 4 different branches on his tree for parents (adoptive and birth).