Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Help with Anxious DS9

My DW and I are looking for a bit of guidance with our DS(9) who we think is (at least)2e.

First, we are very new to this. We always knew he was smart, sensitive and asked an endless number of questions but we recently had the psych-ed done (still awaiting the final report). His IQ came back as 119 with the psychologist noting he could tell when he would "slow down" on some of the subtests and referred to possible inattentive ADHD but no dyslexia or ASD. Don't remember the GAI. Of course, the final report will be more telling. I believe the IQ is higher than the results indicated as I have always been a gifted learner (MENSA, not Triple Nine Society :-)) and I believe he is more intelligent than me. DW and I have ordered a variety of books recommended on this forum and have read a bit about Dabrowski's theories on OE.

Other than being very similar to him when I was a kid, he is quite unique to us but may be quite common for others on this forum:
- He is an old soul
- From the time he was talking, he was putting sentences together
- He is usually very nice and thoughtful
- He has an advanced sense of humor (gets and delivers sarcasm)
- His teachers have all loved him (we have been lucky as they seem to "get" him)
- He seems to be well liked at school but does not have any close friends
- He has gravitated towards very soft things like blankets and pillows (has eczema and horrible environmental allergies (allergy shots from age 3-7)
- He loves to read non-school subjects
- He is fairly athletic and loves to ride his bike and fish
- He prefers talking with adults
- He has no problem walking up to adults to ask them questions (i.e. asked me for permission then walked up to a guy on a fishing pier to ask him the trick to using a cast-net (DS had one for a couple months and noticed the older guy was good at it))
- Very interested in trying new things (ex. Cast net, sleeping outside in his ENO hammock overnight, seeing how a telescope works, etc�)
- Good eater, not picky at all

The challenge:
- EXTREMELY negative self-talk (Ex. "I'm an idiot", "I suck", "I'm a loser" , "I'm so stupid", "I wish I were never born", "everybody hates me", "I don't belong in this family")
- Meltdowns that disrupt the entire family (DD(11) and DS(6)(usually at home, occasionally at soccer practice or basketball practice but never at school) (almost never in the summer time)
- Anything that does not go the way he planned in his head can cause a meltdown
- He HATES school (going to school, homework (writing / spelling), math facts and anything timed. Existing school is parochial and very structured. Some grades have fallen this year.
○ Not currently in TAG and not sure the schools TAG program would be the right challenge
- He always wants to do what he wants to do. Makes parenting a bit challenging.
- Seems to have anxiety in a variety of situations (years ago, he would stay attached to my leg at birthday parties, basketball practice with 30 kids and adults, etc�)
- Highly sensitive (high highs and low lows)

The questions:
- Approaches that others have tried for emotional sensitivity / anxiety
- How have others made the decision whether to medicate inattentive ADHD / Anxiety
- Any specific posts on this forum you would recommend we search.

We had considered moving him to an "experiential learning" school but hate to move him away from his existing support structure (teachers that know us, "get" him and can work with him).

Any help is appreciated.

First, I'd say that trusting your own judgement on your DS is probably the best way to go. You know your child better than anyone could, and you're coming at it from a very solid background yourself. I myself forecast my DD's RIAS score, and missed by just a few points.

If anyone has a better solution to the anxiety/negative self-talk sitution I'd love to hear it, as this has been a battle with my DD12 her entire life, and it's not getting any easier. However, these are the things that seem to help, at least temporarily:

1) Ensure you're building a growth mindset, because perfectionism can be at the root of the negative self-talk. Accept and encourage failure. Model that by taking on challenges yourself and struggling with it, and let him see you do it. Put him in some kind of activity where failure is expected and is a necessary part of the learning process - music, sports, etc. Laugh along with the failures while celebrating the successes, and remind him of the many failures that were necessary to achieve those successes.

2) When he makes an outrageous negative claim, help him build a more accurate process for self-assessment, by asking him, "What's your external evidence for that?" And when he struggles with that, begin offering evidence that is contrary to his hypothesis.

3) Recognize that sometimes it's not about the statement at all, it's just him expressing of a strong negative emotion, and help him cope with that as appropriate.

Side note on the perfectionism point - let him see other eminent people failing, too. For example, my DD loves cooking shows, and I brought this to her attention when I saw it earlier this week:

https://www.popsugar.com/food/Gordon-Ramsay-Scrambled-Eggs-Recipe-Pictures-40523893

Welcome to the forum, FC2!

My first advice to you is that the final report from the psych-ed will most likely be helpful in addressing some of your questions. Have you already seen a draft copy? If you have, and could share whether or not there was any variation in subtest scores on the IQ test, or any observations or other notes re test results from the psych that might be helpful for getting ideas/suggestions here.

Also, fwiw, it was really helpful to me to schedule a follow-up meeting with our neuropsych *after* I'd had a chance for the first meeting with the neuropsych where they presented the report, and then had a few days to re-read the final report and let what I'd heard at the first meeting sink in. I found that I had a ton of questions that didn't come up until I'd had a few days to think through what the evaluator had found and recommended... plus naturally I googled the heck out of all the new info I had, which in turn led to more questions

Re emotional sensitivity and anxiety - for two of my kids, this was tied to undiagnosed challenges, and once the underlying cause was identified and dealt with the anxiety receded. For my 2e ds anxiety was more of an issue than sensitivity, and just knowing that he had a diagnosis/name to put with the struggle he was experiencing (and an adult - parent - who cared enough to get him help for it) made a noticeably huge difference in reducing anxiety. My oldest dd was extremely sensitive in early elementary - and also worried a lot but didn't share her worries with anyone. We found out she had a severe vision issue when she was in 2nd grade, and working through that helped reduce the extreme sensitivities.... as well as helped her start to open up and talk about her anxieties that she hadn't shared previously. She's still an anxious kid, but she shares her worries with us and we deal with them one by one based on what the worry is. My youngest dd has a lot of extreme sensitivities.... in her case it's more of an inborn personality, and we deal with it in many different ways, not sure that specifics would be helpful for another child that we don't know well. In general she needs time to process her thoughts independently and away from other people when she's first upset, this helps her calm down and see things more rationally, and then after either an hour or so or sometimes a full day, she wants to talk it through.

Re whether to medicate for ADHD - that's a really personal, individual decision. My only advice is to first get the report from the psych-ed evaluator, and be sure it's ADHD that your child is dealing with, and also consider the impact on your child's functioning. Both of my older kids were thought to have ADHD when they were in early elementary - for ds we found out the real issue was his 2e challenge (not ADHD-related), for dd most ADHD-ish symptoms seemed to disappear once her vision challenges were remediated... but as she entered middle school she began to wonder if she had ADHD. She's in high school now and we're still trying to figure it out! Sometimes, with some kids, it's easy and direct to get to the root of challenges, other times it's not. Read all you can about medicating or not medicating, but remember to listen to your own instincts re you child.


Our 2e ds had fairly severe anxiety prior to his initial diagnosis at 8... and one of the recommendations made by our neuropsych was to move him to a different school. We really thought that we had him in the "right" school because we thought we had teachers who provided a good support structure and had what I thought was a good working relationship with those teachers, also thought we had a great learning environment for our ds... and considered that moving schools would mean he'd have to start over socially etc. We even talked to our ds about it and he didn't want to change schools - so we thought keeping him in the school he was at was the right choice at that point in time. We didn't move him for another 3 years.. at which point in time he told *us* he was not going back to the school he was in. What we found out when we made the switch (we went to the school the neuropsych originally recommended) was that we weren't seeing the forest because we were surrounded by the trees. Changing the school environment made a huge difference not only in our ds' life but in our lives as parents who were advocating for him. The first school he was in is a great school - but it wasn't the right school for ds, wasn't where he was going to have his best shot at being successful. I just couldn't see as a parent how the first situation was a part of the driver behind ds' anxiety until ds was older and could understand it somewhat himself, and until I'd had a chance to experience a different situation. I don't know what the answer is for your ds, but I'd suggest asking the psych-ed evaluator for their recommendation re schools (both what school might work best for your ds as well as how to accommodate/make school work best).

If you have further questions etc after you've received the psych-ed report, let us know.

Best wishes,

polarbear

DS10 has some similar traits and something that seems to have helped is reading about people who have overcome obstacles. It seems to have given him some perspective.

He read dozens and dozens of those biographies with the people with big heads on the cover, the Who Was? series, over the summer. They’re really easy to read and each one took about an hour. He was trying to reach a goal of 100 hours of reading over the summer so he read a lot of them.

I’ve noticed he has a better attitude about mishaps. I’ve also noticed him referring to them when his little brother is being negative.

My middle son (age 11) has an anxiety diagnosis. He has some of the traits you describe: very independent (strong ideas about what he wants to do), hates school, high high and low lows (and can shift suddenly between high and low), big family-halting meltdowns, hyperbolically negative self talk, can be quite rigid at times, thoughtful, funny, creative, active, and seeks novelty and adventure. He's helpful around the house and is loving and sweet. He has always been very inattentive and spacey in school and his teachers have suggested various diagnoses since Kindergarten (autism, ADD, language problems). We've never had a full evaluation for him, but he did get tested for the gifted program a few years ago and his cognitive scores ranged from like 85th%ile to 99th%ile. On achievement tests from year to year he can go from scoring 2nd (seriously) to 95th. His brothers (and parents) are all 99.9%ile, so it's a little unusual that he scores so (relatively) low. I strongly believe that he has significantly slow processing. I don't know if this causes the anxiety or is caused by the anxiety or both or neither. It doesn't sound like that's what's going on with your son, since it sounds like his performance varied from section to section, but it's interesting how other difficulties (like slow processing and attention problems) can interact with anxiety/sensitivity.

He had counseling for a few months last year which was helpful because it gave us all some vocabulary to use when talking things through. Not a magic bullet but helpful. Our general approach to his anxiety and meltdowns is to give him space to calm down and then talk things through with him (letting him do most of the talking and being accepting). I kind of feel like he's doing most of the figuring out how to be him by himself and we're just there to support him. I do wish we could be more helpful in making life easier for him! But as long as things seem to be heading in the right direction, I wouldn't consider medication.

He just started middle school this year, a big normal public middle school, which I thought would be a disaster (he went to a small, project-based public elementary school), but actually he's doing surprisingly well. Well his grades are bad and he hates school more than ever, but he's generally happy and gaining confidence in himself. I think the more independence he has, the happier he is.

Thanks for all of the responses! I think there were some great points there. Some things we currently try and others that we will try.

Portia - I do 'want' him to be intelligent but my gut is also telling me his IQ is higher. I am not sure of the experience his evaluator had with gifted and 2e. The day he finished the evaluation DW and I had a brief conversation with him about the result. The initial feedback sounded like the common misdiagnoses of gifted. Ultimately, we don't care what the number is so we will likely not pursue that any more. Our goal was been to identify the cause of the meltdowns and determine what accommodations may be appropriate to help DS in the classroom. I like the idea of the journal. We have not yet done this and will give it a try. Also a good point about your DS post-school behavior. That could be in play for us, too.

I have a fairly technical degree but I was in my early 30s before I realized how I learn (If I don't understand something end to end, I don't understand it at all). I also had unrealistic expectations of myself and others. I joke with my DW that 10 years ago when she was beating he chest about how she "fixed" me, God said "Hold my beer." I think helping our kids know themselves and how they learn would be a great gift to give each of them. They are all great kids.

Over the past couple of years, we have tried to get a lot better about giving our kids choices (ex. Do you want to brush your teeth upstairs or downstairs?) and setting expectations (we will try to do this but if we can't, what are some other things we can try?, What would you differently next time?, etc�) We still have quite a bit of work to do.

Dude/ KJP - I like your points on perfectionism / negative self-talk. I know DS has read some of the books in the Who Was? Series. It also reminds me that years ago, I read My American Journey by Colin Powell. Seeing some of his Leadership Rules and the situations that led to them helped me quite a bit. I think these books can help our DS set more realistic expectations for himself and others.

Dude - I agree that in many cases, DS is expressing a strong emotion and does not mean what he says. We do try not to react or get upset with some of these statements. It's not always easy but we are working on it.

polarbear - I will add the scores as a response here once we have them. We do plan to have a follow up with the psychologist after we have time to review the report. When we decided to do the psych-ed for DS9, we really wanted to know learning differences, IQ and school recommendations. Based on the initial meeting with the psychologist, we wonder if the inattentive ADHD is caused by anxiety. We certainly have more facts to collect prior to making any decisions on school or medication.

Thank you for the notes on changing schools. Our journey for DS9(this post is about him) started when DS6 teachers noticed he had many characteristics consistent with dyslexia. In scheduling the psych-ed for DS6 and starting to visit specialized schools, we started to think a lot about DS9, his meltdowns that only happen during the school year and what the right academic environment would be for him. It is always a challenge to get DS9 to school. We have been talking fairly openly with DS9, DS6 and DD11 about the psych-ed for DS6 and the possibility he will be going to a school that will teach the way his brain works. DS9, of course, knew he was taking the psych-ed, too. He started telling people at school he was going to a different school for dyslexia before he even had the psych-ed�.turns out DS9 is not dyslexic. :-)

jckdw - your DS11 and my DS9 sound quite similar. It will be interesting to see our full psych-ed results and anything around processing speed and executive function. We did have DS9 in counselling for a little while. Not sure how much benefit he received from it. I think he just saw it as one on one time with an adult and enjoyed chatting (he could do this forever with an adult). One other note on "ideas about what he wants to do"�a few months back, we were on a road trip and were returning home the next day. He asked to stop at a specific restaurant on the way home. When I asked questions about why he wanted to stop there, it turned out it was because they had a large candy selection and he wanted candy (didn't care about the restaurant at all). We had the conversation that it is better for him to ask more about what he really wants (explain his vision) as opposed to asking for it in steps (what would have happened if we would have made it to the restaurant and we decided we didn't need any more sweets today?). He has gotten much better at it. He always keeps us on our toes.

My DS9 is highly sensitive and anxious too. He possibly has ASD and/or anxiety disorder. One thing we have tried is keeping a "positive" only daily journal. He writes three things positve about himself and we write three things positive. Everyday must be something different. We have been doing this for several months and the negative statements about himself have decreased. We also focus on a growth mindset.
We have decided to go without medications so far.
DS is very sensitive and things just impact him on a deeper level. I used to tell him to stop overreacting and get over it which did not help at all. I have found that having more empathy, understanding and giving him space when he is upset or melting down works best. He seems to recover faster after being upset and move on more quickly. We are still learning how to help our DS but this is what has helped some so far.

You've received great replies above.
I'll just add a few thoughts that popped into mind while reading your post.

1. Being an old soul comes with a bit of difficulty, as described in this 2015 article 21 Struggles of being an old soul trapped in a young body. Hoagies' Gifted Education Page hosted a September 2017 Blog Hop on a related topic: Spiritual/Philosophical Anxiety. This SENG article from 2011 by Deborah Fraser, Supporting Spiritual Giftedness, may be of interest... as might this 2012 SENG article by Joy Navan on Touching the Mystery: Spiritually Gifted Children.

2. When kiddo is engaging in negative self-talk, do you help him to dissect and examine the cause(s) of his disappointment? He may need more specialized vocabulary to do this. Help in analyzing what he anticipated, what decisions he made, what actions he took, what the results were, what he learned from this experience, and what he might do differently next time... may cause him to realize that trial-and-error are a natural path of learning and any failures do not negatively impact his intrinsic worth as a human being. A paraphrased thought from the book on growth mindset by Carol Dweck: change "I don't know this" to "I don't know this... yet."

3. Anxiety is a frequent topic on these forums and this brief roundup of past threads mention books/articles which may be of interest:
- Thomas Greenspon article on perfectionism and anxiety
- post on perfectionsim
- another post
- post on anxiety

Just one point to ponder on. The teachers all love him and get him. He hates school. If the first statement is true then the teachers should be taking actions to prevent the second. Is it possible he just doesn't cause trouble at school and the teachers just tell you what you want to hear to make things easy. I was told at parent teacher interveiws that ds8 was a good kid and doing well - 2 months later he was expelled. Can you visit the other school with your son for a few days?