| Sylvia Rimm Q: My 6-year-old son is very smart but has never been one to follow rules, and it's causing problems in school. At age 3, he was so excited about learning, loved to do educational workbooks and asked lots of questions. After he started preschool, he stopped enjoying learning. Every teacher tells me they thought he wasn't paying attention, but then he answers the questions when called upon. He doesn't volunteer to participate. He constantly makes noises from Star Wars in class and teachers find it's disruptive. He doesn't sit still in class, but he can build things with Legos and tinker toys for long periods of time. He gets frustrated easily and puts himself down, despite my efforts to encourage and teach him it's OK to not be perfect.
He's different than his peers and has no friends in his class. His peers have labeled him as the bad kid. I need to know what to do. I tried a social worker, but I don't trust that he diagnosed ADHD in our first visit. I went to a counselor to get help in parenting, but he started seeing my son without me, so I discontinued it after three sessions. I don't even know what to ask anymore. I need help, but I want someone who's familiar with gifted kids. Maybe I should get him tested? Help!
A: While I can't tell you that your son is gifted, there are risks with early giftedness that can cause the behavioral characteristics you're describing. Children who are very verbal early and use adult-sounding vocabulary attract extreme praise and attention from parents, grandparents and even strangers on the street. They receive so much attention that they learn to depend on it. The attention fosters their extreme love of learning that you witnessed earlier.
The dependence on attention can cause them to feel attention-deprived when they enter school and have to share attention with 25 children. They sometimes talk out of turn to get attention, withdraw, or hum or sing to themselves. Those behaviors bring reprimands. For a child feeling needy, attracting negative attention can become a bad habit, but at least causes him to feel noticed. He could look exactly like a child with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and the negative attention identifies him among young peers as a troublemaker, keeping other children away from him. While it is possible that he does have ADHD, it's also possible that he isn't sufficiently challenged or has lost confidence.
My usual approach is to suggest that the teacher set up a private signal with the child to notice his positive behaviors and his good attention. Also, if he's an especially good reader or math student, in addition to providing him with challenging individual work, he can also be selected to help other children or to do some special jobs for the teacher. A little positive attention goes a long way in changing the child's persona and helping him feel a little special as he learns to share attention with his classmates. You can also ask the teacher to send notes home letting you know both your son's good and bad daily accomplishments, so that you can praise him for the good and help him improve his problem areas.
If you have your son tested by a child psychologist who specializes in gifted children, she could communicate to your son's teacher and make some recommendations for creating challenge and setting behavioral limits. She could also help you at home to be sure your son continues to love to learn.
For free newsletters about the books, "Keys To Parenting The Gifted Child" or "Why Bright Kids Get Poor Grades," or discipline, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to the address below.
Dr. Sylvia B. Rimm is the director of the Family Achievement Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, a clinical professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and the author of many books on parenting. More information on raising kids is available at www.sylviarimm.com. Please send questions to: Sylvia B. Rimm on Raising Kids, P.O. Box 32, Watertown, WI 53094 or srimm@sylviarimm.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
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