Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy do GT kids talk more than ND?

How about when watching a movie? Mine simply cannot sit quietly and watch a movie. He talks the whole way through - asking questions, making commentary, pointing out things that look like other things, making connections and comparisons. It makes my DH absolutely crazy! His GT teacher at school last year told me it is a trait of giftedness, but I'm not so sure.

I swear I am a dunce sometimes. I knew this and when I read it I had to kick myself. (a sight I am sure was worth witnessing!) And on top of this I asked my mom do you think DD is an intra or extra without even going into it. DM stated with no uncertain terms that she is neither and is pretty middle of the road. So there you have it.

LOL. I love it when they are self-aware. When DS was 4, I was resting next to him as he was supposed to be going to sleep, but he was talking about his favorite computer game. He had been talking for about 5 minutes. I had tuned him out and was planning menus for the week in my head. Suddenly there was a pause in his monologue and then he said, "Just listen to me, going on and on about something you don't even care about."

Um, I am the worst for this.

And acs:



ROFL! Hilarious!

My DS8 is a strange mixture of the two sides of the coin. When he was younger, he was a non-stop talker. He babbled constantly about everything, and would follow me into the bathroom to keep talking. The difference then was that he was constantly asking insatiable questions about the world around him. He wanted to know "why" about everything. Now that he is older, he still chatters about things constantly, but it seems different. Now he chatters to himself a lot, particularly when he sits and plays legos. There is a lot of space and battle noises and some dialogue between mini-figures. But he can also disappear behind a book for hours at a time and be completely silent and absorbed. It is almost as if he needs the extra sensory input that is missing from a quiet room. When reading a book, his mind is stimulated by the story and he doesn't need the extra sensory input.

But the flip side of the coin is to ask DS8 how his day was. Silence. Or at best, one word answers. Trying to info out of him is painful. And trying to get him to focus on answering my questions is just as bad. The "do you want a pretzel?" remark really hit home for me!! It is almost as if he will talk about abstract concepts much more readily than run of the mill/everyday events. Ask him about dark matter, DNA, or currently WW II battles and the moral issues that accompany them, and he will talk forever. Ask him about what he had for lunch or his day at school, and you will get no response.

Not only does my ten year old son talk a lot, he can easily switch to a different accent just for fun. When we went to the base commissary today, he spent the entire time talking in a British accent. We noticed a woman smiling at him every time she saw him and she finally asked my husband if our son was from England. She had grown up in England and she said he sounded just like some of the kids there. All the world's a stage.

It sounds like you have a little actor on your hands.

This thread is cracking me up! FWIW, my nickname as a toddler was Running Mouth. My father had to work so hard to get me to learn to stop talking and let others have a turn (I'm the youngest of 5) it wasn't until I was 3 years into graduate skool that I found my "voice" again. I literally did not participate in class discussions until I was 34 years old. I was trying to be a good girl! Not my parent's fault, but being silent surely hurt me immensely in class.

My DS is a man of few words. ((Don't ask about humming, whistling, pen clicking, and other noisy habits. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was using echo location.)) As was mentioned, he, too, might occasionally give you a 45 minute lecture on the parenting habits of Pengins (2nd grade) but one is lucky to get a one word answer to 'personal questions.'

However, if I ever start to miss his voice, I can start watching a movie, lecture or podcast. Then he'll fill my ear with questions and commentary. I've tried to teach him to be able to sit quietly during plays after a wearing experience attending the play '1776.' He wanted to 'get' the reference every time the audience laughed, which was usually a 'double entendre.'

He has improved with age, but my worst experience was sitting on a tram in Key West, while the tour guide squaked barely intelligible local history while DS (5?) teetered on the edge of a tantrum, getting more and more tense, trying to catch every bit of information. I had no clue that DS was gifted at the time, but now I understand that he actually feels anxious when he doesn't understand the words around him.

Is this a sign of gifteness? I think it's a sign of his Intensity, which is probably related to his giftedness. I know that not all gifted kids are talkitive, but I know that whatever my son does, he does with gusto, even if it's sitting on the couch zoning out. I used to worry that he was having slight seziures.

Love and more Love,
Grinity

Sounds like Madonna!