Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Children who 'push'

Grateful, this sounds so distressing. I was struck by your post and wanted to encourage you to seek some help, only because your DS's brain is still young so this would be a good time for early intervention. The tracks are being laid and could be rerouted to more positive thinking. Self harm and ideation of self harm should always be investigated. I'm not sure what the intervention would be (maybe cognitive behavioral therapy, and/or mindfulness training?), but the outcome could be that your DS thinks less in black and white, as in "if I did something wrong, then I am a bad person." For some, it's hard to accept the thinking, "I can do something wrong - even intentionally - and still be loveable, good, etc."

Kids can definitely come into the world preloaded with a nasty inner critic.

All the best to you.

This came up on a different google search
Here's the link that goes with it
http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10062.aspx

I'd like to add that a therapist sounds like a lovely idea. Supposedly modern therapists are super positive. Like, originally professional therapists made the world a less unhappy place. Modern therapists make the world a happier place.
I stumbled across CBT google-fishing for a discipline plan the hubby and I could both believe in. I liked something I saw about CBT, but I looked in the yellow pages for a family CBT therapist and the only thing locally available is to rehabilitate abused welfare children. If even testing gifted kid's takes someone more specialized, I'm sure someone pre-emptively coping with gifted existential issues and developing a family structural discipline that works effectively and fairly for a pretty gifted kid might be outside the scope of the local clinic's scope or purpose.
I've exchanged numbers and requested info after I found out that someone I know works there, is writing a book collaboratively about CBT practice. So now I have access to info and can tailor something out of it, maybe learn something I can use for my family.

This was in that article I just linked to. I wanted to say something like this earlier in this thread, but not so elogently. I was going to say it's like my kid looks like he's having fun pretending to be a kid, but not even he believes it. But I thought that was too weird to say. The point was-maybe that's why there's the stubborn defiance that really isnt "bad" but still isn't ok because it causes problems IRL.
This is part of the root of the stubborn perfectionist gifted problem, I think.

"Professionals can document and advocate that parents are not being pushy; but are probably concerned with getting obstacles out of the way so that their child can run at his own speed. Parents also need support paving the way for their pushy child.
Establishing a professionally guided, ongoing support group for parents of the exceptionally gifted is one of the most effective and comprehensive means to encourage their children and facilitate their development. These groups can easily accommodate parents with children from preschool into adolescence. In this format, parents of older children may receive confirmation and serve as resources to parents of younger children."

Same article. Lol. Is that describing this forum?

Haha - yes I read it... I would be a Taurus, I think, if I followed that way. I suppose that would explain my stubborness, especially with DS!

This really works for DS7 too! He HATES it if he thinks for one second I am not paying attention to his feelings or what he's saying.

Interestingly enough, my mother was the one to tell me to do this with him, since she had to do it with me too.

Good morning,

Thank you so much, SeaBlue and everyone else, for sharing your experiences and for encouraging us to go ahead and look at counseling. In many ways it's reassuring to see that other HG/PG children this age are feeling the same ways. I'm also so glad to have the encouragement to go forward w/ outside help, though....As a 6 year old, he has absolutely nothing in his life that should normally be bringing him such self-loathing. I cringe to think about the teenage years, though, when meaner peers and social pressures, girlfriend angst, and job pressures come into his life.

Texan, thank you too for posting up the DI article. As a YS family ourselves, I should've looked there! I forget how many great resources are on that main website!!

Well done your mother! I learned to do it because of how strongly I remembered hating it when people told me the whole time to stop overreacting and taking everything so personally :-/

GGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Having another day of this right now. With both of them actually.

If anyone needs me I'll be in the dark corner of the bedroom. Slowly going insane. mutter mutter mutter....

Hi Geomamma,
I hope you have a chance to take some time for yourself. My dd5 had a period of about 2 months at 4 where frankly, I didn't like her. I really stuggled, as did my husband. I can't offer any advice - we seemed to wheel through a range of ways to deal with it and then eventually found it just ended. But boy, it was rough while it happened. We're at a similar, but at the same time, very different point at the moment - it seems to happen when she has brain spurts (as in have a big development in her level of understanding) - she becomes a ball of frustration and obnoxiousness until we have both worked out her new brain.

I wish I could offer more advice - all I can really say is look after yourself. I found there is nothing better I can do for dd than to be as patient as I can be and I can only do that my being extra selfish in taking 'me' time. Much easier said than done, I know (lol, I feel like the previous comment makes it sound like I was living it up - but the reality it just meant going for a walk on my OWN!!)