I agree, but when you go from: “I don’t need to discipline my kid” to skip forward five years later: “Why is my kid such a drama queen?”
It’s really hard not to put those two things together.
But I’m reserving judgement, I hope Fry gets the help that he needs.
Please read The Explosive Child by Ross Greene. It will totally help you understand what is going on (it helped me with my son). There is an excerpt of the book on Amazon.
In case you’re not reading the new posts at that other thread, I’ve now explained what was going on.
I have fairly vitriolic feelings about the very idea that I should have to offer any such explanation, and I believe the need stems from a certain kind of stupidity in human nature that allows itself to be triggered by particular phrases without regard to probabilities or sensible charity, but I’ll just leave it at that as such feelings are best expressed in the pit and I just don’t have the heart for it right now.
If you want to talk about it the other thread is probably the best place for it.
Maybe it’s not (all) her. Maybe it’s the environment. I’ve read some of your threads over the years, and they give the impression that you’re very stressed out - to the point that you’ve wished you never had your last two kids. I’m not trying to find fault with you here, maybe you were just venting that day, but if you’re often that overwhelmed, maybe she is too, and this is the way she’s showing it.
It does sound like a sensory input issue. I know some children (I was one of them), who’s reaction to stimuli is somehow amplified. What should be mild discomfort becomes large amounts of pain, voices seem amplified especially in stressful or confusing situations and seem to surround the person.
As for lying, it sounds like she may be hearing what she wants to hear, and takes that as the message. Sometimes she actually may be correct as to what you said, as opposed to what you meant. This adds to the confusion on her part because she is following what she assumes you said and gets introuble for it. This is a very upsetting and frustrating situation for a child (or anyone) to be in and feels very unfair.
Yes I believe she will grow out of it as she learns how to process stimuli better, but till then she just can’t do those things till she develops that ability.
There’s a story about a child and his grandfather taking a journey with a donkey. Because they have a long way to go, they take turns riding the donkey. They pass through one town with the boy on the donkey, and the people in town gather around to hurl abuse at the boy. You spoiled brat! You force your grandfather to walk while you ride! For the next town, the grandfather is on the donkey, and people scream at him, too: you cruel old man! You force this boy to walk while you ride! They decide to cut down on this criticism by both riding the donkey as they enter the next town, and of course people yell at them for being cruel to the animal. So they come to another town and neither of them ride, and a crowd jeers because they are too stupid to use the donkey instead of walking. So finally they carry the donkey on their shoulders with predictable results.
Parenting is exactly like that. Whatever you do, busybodies will judge you. They don’t have to know you, or know your situation. They weren’t even there five minutes ago.
My own child has a lot of issues, he has that “sensory processing disorder,” someone cited above, and he gets one-on-one therapy for dealing with it, and the whole family gets therapy, and both have been invaluable. But I can’t think of a single bit of advice that was of any value that came from an observer just noticing us and shouting their expert opinion at us. It’s come from people who take time to know us and understand our child and our challenges.
In other words, don’t try to solve your family problems on a message board.
Thanks for the many helpful replies. To reply to some of the themes I’m seeing here:
I don’t have money for therapy, if therapy costs what I think it does–however I do think it may be covered on their insurance, so I’ll look into that.
I also don’t have time for therapy (our household schedule is such that, except on Sunday, we are basically two single-parent households that kind of alternate occupancy of the house…), but one makes time if necessary.
I’ll try to read as many of the books mentioned as I can. (I’ve read the love and logic stuff, and try to use what seems useful in it already.)
I do make concerted efforts to catch her in her good moments. But right now they either don’t exist or I’m not looking hard enough. (And I’m looking pretty hard.) Every action she undertakes, lately, is either neutral or self-defeating.
I have talked to her teacher in the past (over six months ago) and her teacher has said she sometimes has episodes similar to what I describe, though nothing seemingly out of control in the way I describe, and she just has her go recover alone by having her read at her desk or something. Of course we do something similar at home as well, trying to de-escalate and give her a way to face-savingly calm down. This works in the moment, but does nothing, it seems, to prevent the same thing from reoccurring later, and its getting worse and worse.
It is definitely true that in some instances I’ve raised my voice when lowering it would have been better. That is something I’m aware of and am always making a concerted effort to avoid. It is good to be reminded of that.
Someone remarked that we must be paying her too much attention when she goes into histrionics over minor incidents like the broom-tapping one. Of course we don’t. We do our best to ignore it. Two problems with this are, we do at least have to check to see whether she’s really hurt when we hear her screaming–we couldn’t just literally ignore things like that. But we check very briefly and calmly, and go back to our business. Second, her screaming is intolerable. We at least need her to go to another room to do it, usually. Yes, we’ve tried just bearing it and literally paying no attention to her after the initial check but she’s smart enough to know that game and just escalates. So yeah, we gotta at least tell her to go to another room until she can calm down–and that in itself provides the seed for a struggle.
Comments about my “attitude” are uncalled for and exhibit a vicious lack of charity.
I agree with this. 
You may find everything is covered by insurance except a copay – that was the case for us. That was following a diagnosis (SPD) but there were four weeks of support leading up to that. I also know (from being in the waiting room and eavesdropping) that at least our clinic will, er, help the parent find the diagnosis they need for insurance to pay for the support the child needs. And here the refusal to do homework might be an asset, especially if you let her opt her way into a failing grade – a lot of those diagnoses rely upon the condition being so severe it disrupts ordinary life and progress.
I was the same rotten kid. I had zero coping skills and anxiety. It was awful and it wasn’t a happy life. Fits are what I had to release the anxiety. My son had a bit of it too, so when he began to fall apart, I told him to stop and think. Good luck to you.
My daughter went thru phases like this too, I just laughed it off and played along with her. Broom hits her on the head? Pretend to call an ambulance. Starts acting melodramatic, roll your eyes and inform her that yes the world is set up against her so get used to it, about time you learned the truth. Eventually she will figure out that you are a butthead and stop because it’s no fun when both people are buttheads.
Nor does propping them up and badgering them to do their work. Some people are just not going to “achieve” as much as we parents would like them to, no matter what we do. The more we do for them, the more they know it is important to us and the more their defiance will manifest as failure to do what we want.
Stepping back and letting things happen is more likely to have a positive effect on the behaviors and is more conducive to a good relationship with the child, plus it frees up your time to do something that is not soul-drainingly tedious and unpleasant, possibly even enjoying your life for a minute or two.
One relevant piece of information here is that she is in the local High Ability program. (Aka “gifted kids” as it is called in some places.) Failing her courses would mean the worst that can happen isn’t even just being held back a grade or something, but literally being kicked out of the program she’s in. It’s not so much that we’re snobs about her being “gifted”*, as that the consequences of her being out of the program while her siblings are all still in would be… well, she already has enough issues and a constantly-under-the-surface inferiority complex. Something like that would be devastating. And she really actually is a certified super-genius (not a technical term, but I’m talking about the fact that she had the second highest placement scores for the gifted program in the school district’s entire history. I’m not supposed to know that…) so for many many reasons it would seem to not be the right thing to do to let her fail out of it.
There, Frylock, that’s praise, that sounds like something good to hold onto!
Except the problem with the whole giftedness thing is, we try to downplay it! And focus not on how “smart” our kids may be (at least when talking to them) but instead on how hard they work and how interesting things are and things like that. And of course, as you can imagine from what I’ve said so far, part of her behavior pattern is she gives up on things the second they start to seem a little difficult. Sure, she’s “smart,” but I can’t praise her for that, it’s not something she’s doing. Rather, she’s (as much is possible for an eight-year-old, don’t let the wording make you think I am ascribing more to this than I should) squandering it. So even one of the few “good things” as mentioned abovethread has backfired here.
ETA: Some more relevant background info. I myself was always told how super-smart I was back in elementary through high school, and always coasted by on little effort. And this has been part of what led to me being a lazy, unaccomplished sumvabitch today. This, in turn, causes me to try, maybe too hard, to keep the same thing from happening to my kids. Not that I’m a tiger mom–I’m too lazy!–but I try to always emphasize dedication and hard work etc over smarts.
If she doesn’t do her assigned work without intense extra attention, then providing the attention is contributing to the problem. Providing her with a place to work, assigning an age-appropriate span of time (perhaps 30 minutes at her age), and answering specific questions are all good. Parking yourself next to her, repeatedly reminding her to get back on task, interpreting directions for her, and correcting every error, are not.
Allowing her to fail at her homework will not result in instant ejection from this program, but should trigger school-imposed consequences for her behavior–a talking-to from her teacher at the very least. She seems to respond better to her teacher’s instructions, plus it saves you a lot of trouble. Let her own her schoolwork and she may rise to this challenge. It’s definitely not going to happen with you micromanaging.
Sometimes, for some people, sometimes, neutral is the best you’re going to get. Praise that. It’s going to feel unfair and ridiculous (“Why does my sister get praised for sitting quietly watching TV?!”) but it’s where you have to start. Classical conditioning starts with rewarding the first broken down *step *of the desired behavior. You start by giving the pigeon a food pellet when he just touches the ping-pong ball. Only later will he learn to play ping-pong.
Have you asked her, in a quiet nonjudgmental moment, if she wants to be in this program? You and I have enough perspective to understand why this is an awesome program that’s setting her up for a shining academic future…maybe she sees it as a trap, branding her a “nerd” and giving her work that she isn’t really ready for (as evidenced by, she’s not capable of doing it herself.) Kids have different priorities. I’m not saying she should be allowed to drop the program; I certainly don’t know her well enough to advise that. But I do know that some of the things my mother thought would “devastate” me to lose were actually dreadful burdens from my perspective. Simply having the opportunity to express - and be believed - that my throat clenched up and I had to fight tears every time I had to leave my friends to go to my accelerated math class would have helped a lot. I might not have dropped it if I were given the choice, if I had only felt my anxiety was heard and understood.
At this age, lying can be a complicated diagnosis. For instance, a child may deny having done something you both know she just did. That’s because the process in her head is not just
“X happened, report X” but,
"IF I had done X THEN I would be a bad person.
I am NOT a bad person, so clearly I can NOT have done X."
Laughter and hugs would help you too then. I would strongly recommend that you make a point of trying to make each child laugh at least once per day. Here’s a good site for silly jokes to get you started: Mix and Match Jokes: Funology Jokes and Riddles
Also, a good solid hug for each child either first thing in the morning, or when you get back to them after work. Sounds like you and the SO are on different shifts, so try to divide up the day and each do it.
Having a gifted child is often like having a disabled child, only you get shamed if you try to talk about it. It’s very difficult to find a forum in which parents of gifted children can discuss the challenges without a slew of competitive twits jumping in to assure us that our kids aren’t really special and we are just sneak-bragging. The hurdles are many and unpredictable. Just the sheer mental exhaustion of keeping up with their questions and advanced schoolwork will do you in, without even including the daily work of caring for the needs of a child and running a household.
Celtling is also gifted, and around the same age. The trouble with being gifted is that you can figure out things that you are not emotionally ready to deal with. Like if money is tight - something most kids will be oblivious to above a certain basic level of need fulfillment. Smart kids know what’s up, and can figure out possible ramifications but are still emotionally childlike. In a child with a tendency toward anxiety, or an overactive amygdala (causes the adrenaline overload I mentioned) this makes them constantly wary and stressed out. After a while, this feeling becomes “normal”, and the child will create situations to induce the adrenaline rush.
None of this is purposeful on the part of the child. They do not know what is happening, or why they do these things, or, indeed, what to do instead. It doesn’t help to tell them “Stop doing that!” you have to give them a replacement behavior.
Encourage her to name her fears. With Celtling I try to help her differentiate between kid problems and grown-up problems, and let her know that I will handle the grown-up ones, and support her problem-solving on the kid ones.
I agree with praising diligence and hard work, but don’t be afraid to acknowledge the things that are hard about being smarter than the average bear. Talk it through and let her know you understand.
This touches on my beef with gifted education. From the sound of it, your daughter is not performing at a gifted level but you see taking her out of gifted classes as a form of punishment–even though she’s not displaying any strong affinity to it through her behavior. The way I see it, you’d be taking her out of an environment that she’s performing poorly under and placing her in one where she might thrive. Your daughter isn’t a test score. Her intellect is just as much a function of her emotional maturity as it is her cognition. If she’s not fulfilling her potential in an accelerated environment, that means that environment may be too accelerated for her.
If her test scores are truly exceptional, she would be eligible to re-enroll in the gifted program later, correct?
The function of a gifted program isn’t about giving smart kids super high self-esteem. If your daughter’s self-esteem suffers because she’s forced to rub shoulders with the “normals”, then I have to wonder just what the hell she’s been taught to value in herself. But I’m guessing she probably doesn’t put as much stock in being a “smart kid” as you think she does, as evidenced by her current lack of care about school. If she’s not upset by bad grades, why would she be especially upset that she doesn’t go to the same school as her siblings?
If this daughter in the “middle” of your big family? If so, that’s all the more reason to be extra hungry for attention.
What makes you think she’s going to start doing her homework if she’s put in a different class?
If you think she’s not doing it because she can’t, I’ll clarify that this is definitely not the problem.
“Can’t” encompasses more than ability to to understand and produce the work. “Can’t” includes emotional readiness, organizational skills and the will to do the work. Most of us have something that, if we wanted to/tried to, we could, but in reality, we just can’t even. Y’know?