Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion OOPS-- miscalculation!

Thanks, I needed that.

And, I know what you mean about fish, although with DS7, he thinks eating fish is OK, but has trouble with chicken and beef. I find it odd, because he's completely OK with going fishing, and both cleaning and eating what he catches, or going to the fish market and picking out something to eat that still looks like a fish. I would think THAT would be troublesome. Somehow, though, he thinks that killing chickens and cows for food is evil, while fishing is OK.

Frankly, I've not been willing to question it, because I don't want his aversion to affect his willingness to at least eat fish. He has food allergies, so getting protein in him is challenging as it is.

I second the hugs Mama22gs and elh0706 - we had the same issue with Disney - we don't do any Disney movies - even toy Story for DS5 because of talking him to the live musical version of Finding Nemo at Disney World - beautiful sets, music, I figured DS at 3 would love it - OMG - 5 minutes into it - "what happened to the mommy, what happened to the mommy" It was awful, I felt like an idiot for forgetting about it. Nowadays DS knows that some stuff is too scary for him and some other stuff just makes him think too much before bed so its for earlier in the day.

The problem we have now is not with Disney since we don't do movies - but all the older mysteries, magic, sci fi books which he would love but all seem to have orphans!!! I am not ready to have another conversation about where the parents went!!!

DeHe

Oh boy, we have had a ton of oops - you would think we would learn.
Disney films, books, Santa and pals, classical music concerts - you name it I think we've had it.

When DD8 was 5 we were at a town band concert and they had a handbell chior. I use to conduct a chior when we lived overseas so she was pretty excited to see one again. Well, then they did a duet - it was a lovely piece, but before they were 1/4 of the way through it she had crawled into my lap and was sobbing hystericaly into my shoulder about how could anyone write such sad music and how could they play this without crying. It tooks a few days for her to calm down over it - she kept hearing it in her mind.

We avoided the "Bridge" issue because the day we were supposed to go see it a friend called as we were walking out the door and warned us not to go - thank goodness. Since then she has been given the book twice! We haven't let her read it because I think she will identify with the girl too much and not be able to handle it either.

She now acts as the "emotional police" for DD3 and makes DH shut things off if she thinks it is going to get too "bad" for her. She also snuggles with her through parts of movies that she remembers scaring her or bothering her.

When we've moved she has been known to take parts of the house with her! One time she took a small piece of leftover carpet, another time it was some dirt from the backyard and leaves from her favorite tree. She then claims that there will be no other house for her in her whole life. And it has taken her upwards of a month to accept the new place as home.

DD3 also seems to have attachments to our houses - she still, after 8 months claims to hate our new house and loves our other house and wants to move back.

The first few times we had cases of this we were so shocked I'm sure we didn't react well, but I have gotten much better at recognizing them for what they are and giving lots of hugs and empathy to her to help her overcome them.

I think that I jinxed myself on this one. After saying that DD11 seems to have outgrown this stuff, we had a scene last night. We went to a relative's house yesterday and had a couple hours in the car up and back. We listened to an audio recording of "A Wind in the Door." DD has read this book a couple times but for some reason listening to it being read by someone else really got to her. She was sobbing because she was so upset about Charles Wallace being sick and how horrible she would feel if one of her siblings were ill. Then she went into a diatribe on being part of a gifted family and how they have to stick together because no one else understands them. I was stunned.

We recently spent time with several families in a vacation house. Someone kept putting in dvds of "kids" movies, of the monsters inc, kung fu panda variety. My DS5, who doesn't watch tv or movies, watched about 10 min of monsters inc and asked me if we could turn it off because it was "too scary". We couldn't do that with 8 other kids watching the movie, so he and I went a few feet away and started working on origami.

At home we do watch some sports on tv, and used to make him turn away for gory, violent commercials (which he did without minding). Recently we've told him he can decide what he doesn't want to watch/finds too scary, and look away. we still keep an eye out for particularly graphic ones and confirm that he's not looking.

anyway, this last movie incident got me thinking about my father's assertion that DS is living a too sheltered life. My view has been that I'd rather he use his excellent imagination and books we read to drive his play, rather than the (mostly) crappola that's on tv and in movies. But is there anything to the too sheltered life argument?

I had to laugh at this one because my son was the same. Except instead of saying "shirt wet" he would scream, "It burrrrnnnnnsss" and sounded just like Gollum from Lord of the Rings.


As for the oops and making life sheltered, it comes naturally for me because I myself have problems in most movies. If in a theater, I will leave if it gets too sad. I am EXTREMELY careful with what DS watches because of how I feel. Depite that, DS also was very scared with Monsters, Inc. and Polar Express. Nan

We have some oops moments - I have never shown DS(4) the beginning of Nemo. he will not cope with it. When he saw UP he kept asking where the lady was. When I told him, he was close to tears for her. So now we always skip past the early movie bits. And he ALWAYS asks me to switch off movies that are too violent/scary for him. I like to think he has learnt his limits here. but still if he sees something that worries him on tv, he always turns to me for reassurance and says "its not real, it's just on tv hey mom?" was a bit of a problem with the recent floods in Australia when he walked in as I was watching the footage of this.

His hamster died last year and since he knows that my father died when I was little he is convinced that his hamster is with his grandpa. he knows about death and its finality, but kept asking when they will come back. To me it's sad when he says "I wish my grandfather was here to see my beautiful bedroom and my precious things" - it breaks my heart and brings back the pain of his death. BUT for others who hear my 4 year old talk confidently about his grandfather and hamster being dead - they are totally freaked out by it. lol

Two big oops moments that I had as a child that my mother reminds me of often: when I was about 14 someone at church had just had a baby and apparently told us all about childbirth, how painful it is blah blah. I don't recall that part but I do remember going home and sobbing about how much pain my mother went through to have me and how terrible I felt for being a typical teenager earlier that week. She said that I sobbed for nearly an hour in her arms about that.

The other, also as a youth group we went to a baby haven to do a service project. I came home sobbing at these little babies that had no one to love them and asked my mom if we could adopt or foster one. My mom was already at this stage in her mid 50's and a single mom.. so it was not an option, but she says that she was overwhelmed at how emotional I was about all this hurt in the world and how UNFAIR life seemed.

I am also totally moved by movies and books - I cried like a baby in brother bear. And Beyond Borders (Angelina Jolie) - had me sobbing and sad for months! When I read Harry Potter 6 after I finished the book, late at night in bed, I lay down, put my arm over DH's sleeping body and cried. He woke up stressed that something had happened and all I could say was "he died!! I cant believe he died!" he was a bit ticked off when he realised I was talking about a book and not our child sleeping in the next room...

so it's definitely a big thing to learn to deal with all this emotion when viewed with a mind so much older than our kids are.

Myself:
On a road trip, I must have been around 6. My parents checked into the motel and were probably very happy that a Peanuts special was on--Snoopy Come Home. I became hysterical because I identified with the little girl and thought Snoopy should have stayed with her. I sobbed for hours. My parents still talk about it!

DD9--the Shrek movie/ride thing at Universal Studios when she was around 6. It was 3D and she freaked out. We had to leave. Other than that no issues with her b/c we are a lot alike and I was pretty sensitive to her sensitivities.

dd3--seeing Tangled. She is adopted. If you saw the movie you know why this could be an issue for gifted 3-yr. old. I was kicking myself for bringing her.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one! I vividly remember being inconsolable when Snoopy was told, "No Dogs Allowed!"

DS5 watched Toy Story 1 on a plane ride by himself and really enjoyed it. So we took him and DS3 as a special treat to see Toy Story 3 at a movie theater. Both got so scared of the 'bad' toys that we had to leave half way through the movie.

We were given some front row tickets to a musical performance only to realize that the noise level completely overwhelmed both kids. Within 5-10 mins they wanted to leave - once we moved to the 'cheap' places in the very back they were fine.

Thank you for posting as it helps to realize that there are many of us out there dealing with these issues.