Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Reading, writing, spelling... or not?

Good for you Uppies! It is really hard to ask for assistance when you don't know what to ask for - AND - you doubt that they will have any more insight than you do!
Some of the folks on this list have found that they have to ask to have their child spend some of the time with an older age group. You did some wondeful 'facing reality' when you wrote that your son doesn't see his agemates as role models - go you!


This is such a hard thing, and yet, with a child who is 'unusually gifted' this is so often exactly what happens. Sometimes even by the spouce who spends less time doing hands on interacting - and that just hurts!

It did occur to me that if your child is melting down predictably after computer interactions that are aimed for older children, to ask what your life would be like if you removed the computer from your child's life entirely. I don't want to be put in the same catagory as people who blame you for his meltdowns, I am blaming his asynchronous development!!! But my son yearned for the computer as a way to get information in at a rate he wanted, and couldn't attain any other way. I went with it, but now wish I hadn't. It was just so great to see him so relieved to be getting that brain stim he was clearly yearning for. Knowing what I know now, I would have looked for older playmates to try and get that experience for him.

Exactly - particularly in light of the fact that other mom's have other mom's to commiserate with and all you get is blame. Parenting isn't easy, and kids of a certian personality are even harder to parent.

The best I can piece together from my son's preschool experience, is that he was 'shamed' by being placed with agemates who he yearned to interact with, but got very little from. As a female, and a fairly non-competitive one at that, I really had very little idea of to what degree some young males know themselves by looking into the mirror of their compainions. What my son saw in that mirror horrified him. Since that time, he has gone to great lengths to hide any insecurities or weaknesses.

BTW - thanks so much for sharing the image of how you handled your son's letter. Total victory that was! That was very excellent parenting, and brought a tear to my eye. I think your instincts are lovely. I grew up knowing I was smart by very full of self-doubt, since it was clear that I wasn't 'like everyone else' so it much be something wrong with me, right? It isn't your fault that there aren't 10 moms on your block that you could tell that story to and would stand up and applaud you - but that's what you deserve.

Love and More Love,
Grintiy

Dear Kory,

Hugs for you! This is a hard situation--if it's any help to you, around here at least, this kind of behaviour seemed very much tied to being 4. Four was really hard here, all three times (my youngest recently turned five, and my husband and I both breathed a big sigh of relief!) For our kids, anyway, four seemed to be the age when their reach most exceeded their grasp, and we had to find ways around (or through) that frustration.

It sounds like you're already finding these ways (your art solution sounds great!). Something that worked really well for one of our kids was tons and tons of outside time (he'd live outside if I let him!); all of them respond well to lots of exercise. Another idea: I wonder, does your son have a special teddy bear or anything? Maybe he could tell his bear some of what's bothering him? Or he could try to teach Teddy to write or read? Or write a letter to Teddy, where spelling won't matter, since Teds don't know how to spell anyway?

If you get to the point that you do want some help with teaching reading, Mona McNee's book "Step by Step Reading" was a wonderful help for one of mine--the other two were reading all by themselves very fluently very early, but reading was just an exercise in frustration for my outdoor lover--I would have been OK just leaving it be for a year or two, but he really didn't like being passed in reading ability by his younger brother, and the McNee book got him up to speed very efficiently (he's now reading several years past grade level). Being able to just pick up a book and read it whenever he wanted was a great pressure release valve for him, too--it was well worth it to us in the end to have sat down and worked our way through the reading lessons.

Hope some of that helps a little bit--

peace
minnie