Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion The Destroyer

I was 5 when I got into models - the plastic kind you glue together.

It was a T-bird that brought the wrath of mom onto me.

I needed headlight lenses and could not find them in the kit.

But my mom had contact lenses.....

I gave up on the one in/ one out rule when DS6 was a toddler. Their most interesting and intense playing comes from combining toys. The 3 kids will spend an hour + upstairs and call me up to see what they've made. The legos will be sheds for the trains and buildings along the tracks, the k'nex are the Ferris Wheel and merry-go-round at the fair, the little people are the people in the town, books aren't books they're caves for the stuffed animals, cardboard boxes are tunnels for cars and on and on. None of it would have been possible with just 1 kind of toy.

The only rule we have is that all the toys have to be upstairs before bed time and we probably clean their rooms 2x a week (mostly for safety). As long as I get my living room back every night, I'm mostly ok with it! And not to get too misty-eyed, but I also know that one day everything will stay in one place and be nice and neat and it will be because the kids have grown. So, I figure, what's a little mess in the grand scheme of things?

This thread reminded me of this article I ran across a year ago. It suggests that neatness might not be so great. I have taken great comfort from this, since I live with moderate choas in my office.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/Careers/04/30/cb.mess/index.html

Oh, the water and the contact lenses!!! LOL!!

Kriston, I see you have good company in the denial dept. with keet! Except on this board, I only whisper the idea of dd2.5 being gifted, and only to DH (to make him feel better when he's surveying the living room). Without some kind of 'official' test or id from a school, and even with something official, fully accepting that idea is just not in me.

Virtual bulldozers coming your way

acs - that is a good article; might have to hang it over my desk at work! Actually, for security they don't let us have stuff piled on our desks, so I compromise on a clear desk and one file drawer full of a pile of stuff which am actually working on in various stages of completion. I save the files for stuff I won't have to touch again for months.

I just found this thread and nearly fell out of my chair laughing!!!
Thanks Everyone for starting my day off with a smile. Now I know that I am not alone.

DS definitely falls into this category, although it is not willful destruction for the sake of exerting his power or dominance over the universe. It is rather just a brain that is constantly asking "why", mixed with a complete lack of fear, and a dash of impulse-control/judgement deficiency that would normally make a child stop and wonder if this sudden idea was really a good one or not. Maybe he is just too curious to stop and think of the possible outcomes. Note, at eight, he has mostly out-grown this... or at least he has moved on to bigger and better projects that take a little bit more planning to see an effect and are easier to spot and defuse... such as with a wonderful book he has now entitled Whoosh Boom Splat: The Garage Warrior's Guide to Building Projectile Shooters by William Gurstelle. Warning... they never outgrow this. Their projects just grown to scale with them.

I remember leaving the kitchen for about 4 or 5 minutes when DS was barely 2. He was happily sitting on the floor playing with pots and measuring cups. By the time that I came back in, he had completely disassembled the dishwasher, taking out the shelves, unscrewing the spinning water dispensor, and was actively trying to get to the motor!

Everyone in our families (both mine and DH's) have decided that having a child like DS was just punishment for what we put our parents through as children. My mom tells a story of trying to wash the outside storm windows when I was just over a year old. She was 20 feet up on a ladder (over a walkout basement, first floor, and up to the second floor) and my 8-year old brother was suppose to be watching me. She turned around to find me on the rung just below her. She had no way of getting to me, and she was terrified that I was going to fall if she started yelling for help and scared me. She was trapped and I was stuck. So we just hung out together, 20 feet off the ground, until either my brother or dad happened by and could come and rescue me.

And my mother loves to described how I learned to walk. I would crawl over to a chair or table, pull myself up, and with a look of sheer determination hurl myself into space and move my legs as fast as possible, with the predictable results of repeatedly crashing. I crawled only briefly, never walked, and never stopped running once I had mastered it.

There has to be a gene sequence for intensity, stubbornness, lack of fear, and sheer trouble.

LOL.

Jr is doing a varation on this. He will crawl until he gets close enough to reach an object, then he will launch himself towards it with both hands outstretched and grunt when his chest hits the floor.

Oh thank you all for this post!

DS is definately a destroyer! Water is probably the biggest temptation. We too have experienced the spray effect in the bathroom, kitchen, and laundry room. The latest stunt was to plug up the walk in shower drain so that the water couldn't drain out and instead flooded the bathroom floor. I really should have known there was a problem when he was taking a 20 minute shower...

My mother cannot understand at all but I gave up on the 1 toy out at a time rule. Now I have a plastic bin under an end table in the living room. Everything gets put in it at night. Once it is full, DS has to put it all away to start over again. That part still takes supervision or I find it emptied in a corner of his bedroom. Of course my mother just thinks I'm encouraging him to be a slob and irresponsible. However, with the 1 toy out rule, DS just stopped playing with his toys and all he wanted to do was screens.

Thanks for all the great stories.

What's the deal with the water! Little C always goes back to doing stuff with water.