Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Giftedness and Behavior?

hi hboy. I can totally relate to you and I can remember searching for answers as well. My story is quite similar to yours in that I am a therapist as well that specializes in little kids and mental health. I always knew that my DS5 didn't meet criteria for anything, but I felt like things weren't quite normal. I always knew he was extremely advanced from a young age but didn't know that could be causing the behaviors I was seeing. He actually was a great easy going kid until about 3 or 3 1/2....he started acting out a bunch when I put him in a preschool. I never could understand it. After doing some research the whole Dabrowski's excitabilities totally fit. About 5 months ago we had testing done and determined that he is a PG and how different his mind works. He still gets annoyed at things and started to become agitated just this morning when his cereal bar was crumbled upon opening it. He almost didn't eat it since it wasn't whole. I could go on and on. We definitely have had our issues. I can't really explain the behaviors but can say that we had those issues with DS and worried that it would never go away. He got in trouble at most of his schools until we put him a Montessori school and he was actually challenged. He had another period of behavior issues about 2 months ago and it lasted a couple weeks. But overall he has matured in a lot of ways and temper tantrums have decreased and aren't as big at all. He will occasionally say his things when he is mad that usually include things like "mom, I am never going to speak to you again for at least 65 minutes because you are saying things that so mean and rude to me" when tell him to go to his room for doing something really wrong....and will stomp all the way up there. But like I said, he is doing much better and some days he doesn't even go to time out at all and has no discipline issues all day. I agree with CathyA that we would often see major behavior issues, followed by some new skill or big leap. It's crazy. I wish you the best, stick around here more and you will see how similar others are as well.

Advice?
Well...lots of patience. Don't bother talking to him about what is bothering him when he is in the middle of a fit and let him (and you) settle down before talking. I found that I tried to be logical about things a little too much. It wouldn't work for me to say "it's just a cereal bar, get over it" when he was 3...although I am able to say more things like that now at times thankfully. Anyhow, I could go on and on...but you know all this stuff. LOL, I have taught parenting classes and it is still difficult sometimes when you are in the middle of it.

That was my dd at 3.5-4.5 - even with the cereal bar. She'd even get cranked if I opened up the bar packaging "too much" and then refuse to eat it. Lots of times her expectations didn't match up to reality and she'd flip out a bit. Some of it was sensory related, and we worked on sensory therapy at home and I enrolled her in ballet too.

After much searching online I came up with enough material to create a kid's problem solving binder to help identify feelings and emotion coach my dd. One of our favorites was "I can use my words".

Just thought I'd throw this out there because it really did help her.

This is my Bear's behavior from maybe around 3 months? The pediatrician says that he on the extreme end of normal and might grow out of it by 3. Well that's 6 months away and I'm not holding my breath.

How do we deal with it? LOTS of patience. Also lots of preparation. I try to avoid taking him places that I know will set him off unless I have to. When we do it is always with a lot of forewarning. Transitions also get a lot of forewarning. I carefully went through the Overexcitabilities and made a list of everything that fits Bear. We've also sent him to our chiropractor and (surprisingly enough) that has helped with the tantrums.

However if this is a new development I would try to figure out when it started and if there was any sort of trigger to it.

I also have a 3.5 yo that sounds very much like yours. He is very intense and has strong reactions to his feelings, usually anger.
I think that our case, our sons intensity is magnified because of his intelligence. Like most 3yo, he has a hard time accepting things that he cannot control, but unlike most 3yo he carries that aggravation with him for hours and sometimes days.
I think it hard to be stuck in the body of a 3yo when your brain tells you that you are no different than your older siblings.
If you find out the magic secret to helping them through this phase, please share it!

Do you have problems with people understanding that he is STILL mad about something that happened hours ago? Bear stuns people with that... "Oh he can't still be mad about that. He's only 2. He's forgotten about it by now." Yah right...

So kids freaking out because you open their wrapper too much when they wanted to do it themselves or because their graham cracker broke and isn't a perfect rectangle or you closed their automatic door on the mini-van or you buckled their seat belt or you wiped their bottom when they wanted to do it or you gave them an understanding look when they were upset and they really wanted you to look the other way or you put the wrong chair up to the sink because they had to have the chair in the other room... I could go on and on and on... so that's not normal????

It's my normal - pretty much all the time. I think some of that is just normal behavior for my 3 year old. ds5.9 is in K and I am really concerned about how he can possibly make it through a full day at school when he is so sensitive to things being not the way he thinks they should be. He is now telling me he doesn't want to be himself, he doesn't like how he looks and he wants to be a spider (he loves spiders so that is his escape). I have asked the teacher if the counselor can visit with ds. I haven't heard an update yet. When I went to visit the classroom for the first time last week, I was alarmed at how unfocused he was. He seemed unfocused and not paying much attention to the teacher. I tried to get him to complete the task assigned however he only partially completed it because he is a perfectionist and kept starting over and used up all his time.

He is very intelligent - can tell you all about the human body and many of it's functions. He'll tell you in great detail everything you would want to know about spiders and insects. He is always describing new inventions he has come up with.

However in K, he is asked to do things he dislikes... he doesn't like to write. It is a struggle for him. He was asked to draw a picture of himself. He goofed around and didn't complete it so he had to come in during recess. That's when he told me he didn't want to draw himself because he didn't like the way he looked. If I was a teacher, I'm not sure that I would see his intelligence in a class of 25 kids. I might just see a kid that doesn't really pay attention and has trouble focusing. What's a mom to do?

That is definitly my normal. DD 2.5 will flip and lose it if things are not done the exact way she wants them. I mean down to the minute detail. Luckily she is extreamly verbal (communicates on a 5-6 year old level) so she is able to tell me exactly wha she wants once I can get her to calm down. The other day she lost it at Dad because she wanted him to be the surgeon, and aparently he was not performing surgery correctly. It is like that with everything. I just try to be patient, and she if I can accomedate but when I can't watch out.

And she definitly remebers things. She can stay mad for months. Seriously we moved and sent 2 of our 3 dogs to my mom's, well she cosistently for months told me she was mad, didn't love nana anymore, and even told us that nana didn't love the dogs anymore, because in her mind if nana didn't love them then they would have to come home. People don't understand that even over little things she can still be angry hours and days later.

I so wish I'd found this site when DS was 2.5+ it would have been great to know all this stuff was normal! It would have been good to share with others who knew, instead of getting all those strange looks as you tried to explain to people you were justing starting to meet at play groups etc.

Good news is it does all get better but after the day we've had today I wonder if we are having one of those developmental leap periods or maybe its just end of term week and he really needs a break?