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Thursday, March 21, 2013

Anxiety and My Gifted Child: A Glass Half Full

My son has anxiety. He isn't even 9 and he has more worries than a 21 year old college student paying for their first apartment and living on Top Ramen. He thinks about all the different diseases he read about in Horrible Science books, he worries about poisonous spider bites and has a fear of heights (with zero incidents to cause it) and when I tell him that he can only go up to his ankles in the big waves breaking on shore, he deducts that if he isn’t careful, he’ll be pulled out into the ocean and never seen again.  Seriously.

This is not something I anticipated when I thoughtfully and passionately planned on having children and being a mother.  It is painful and scary (and oftentimes annoying) and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

In January we started therapy for a second time.  The first round a year ago was with a standard family therapist who looked at me with horror in her eyes at the story of being “pulled out to the ocean and never seen again.”  She believed that I said that to my 7 year old!  She didn’t understand what “GIFTED” means.  (And in case you, the reader, do not, here’s a perfect example of what the gifted mind does:  it is thinking far beyond the literal and drawing conclusions most wouldn’t even see; it is visionary and can sometimes be fantastical).
 
Our new Gifted therapist is guiding us to discover the root of the anxiety.  We have “play” sessions where T is creating and drawing and discussing.  We have very rich sessions and he seems to be making progress by identifying his anxieties and coping better with them. This week we created “worry boxes” and wrote down some of our worries and sealed them into our individual boxes.  We talked about how Mom and Dad’s worries are not for him to worry about and there is a difference between grown-up worries and what worries the kids should have to deal with.  He wrote about getting a spider bite and I said, “Well, would you like to hear what Mom would do about that?”  He wasn’t interested in hearing about going to the hospital to be treated.  He just wanted to worry about the possibility.

Does my son revel in the negative?  Does he enjoy the worry, in a way?  Today T realized his computer had to be wiped out and reloaded because he downloaded a virus. He was in tears because he felt that he would never get his computer back to the way he had it setup before. Through a painful exchange of my trying to explain that everything could be re-downloaded, I had to stop and take a breath (and raise my voice a little.) “Son! Listen to what is going on here! You are choosing to think the worst instead of listening to my telling you it can all be put back and fine!”  As he does so often, he was choosing to see a glass half empty and here I was, pulling my hair out trying to make it all better. We've discussed recently how you can either be part of the Problem or part of the Solution. I sent him to his room with paper and pen to write all the applications we needed to put back onto the computer once it was restored. He calmed right down and started to be part of the solution. Hells to the yeah.

There are a couple of lessons I have learned recently:

1.  I can't really make it all better, but I can provide empathy and comfort.  In all of my frustration, the loving comfort just disappears.  The therapist explained that it's okay to set the limits, but if you validate the feeling and offer comfort to them, the limit is alot more palatable.  I was immediately reminded of the toddler years.  "Toddlerese" is Harvey Karp's method of speaking to a frustrated toddler.  You learn to speak their cave-man language and you really can have "The Happiest Toddler on the Block" per his successful book.  I just have to pull those skills back into play with my 8 year old.  Cool.

2.  My anxious boy is trying to create a sense of fulfillment, similar to that of a comfort-eater or a shopaholic.  He's trying to fill a need



I told my son that I believe you have a choice in life:  You can be a Worrier or you can be a Warrior. I told him“Mom is a Warrior and I will do anything I can to protect you and your brother” which is why I think it’s important to be prepared.  That really seemed to resonate with him because, really, what boy doesn’t want to be a Warrior?  He lightened up immensely with this idea.

Maybe the anxiety is getting better?  God, I sure hope so.  Clearly, we are growing; we are getting it together.  I'm learning about triggers and how to keep his nosey self out of the grown-up worries.  He's learning that life doesn't have to be half-full and he doesn't need to worry about everything.  I'm thinking age 9 is going to be a lot better and will be happy to leave age 8 well behind us. 

Video Games and the Gifted Child

I stumbled out of bed this morning greeted by two bright-eyed and bushy-tailed boys, rearin' to get the day started.  They had already done all their chores and were playing happily with a chain of rubber bands, sharing with me Finn's latest trials on Adventure Time.  (cringe)  My eldest, nearing 9 years, announces to me "Be there no video games, be there no life."  I took this as a cue that he was ready for some gaming time.  It's 9am.


yet another attempt at a schedule
Popping in another dark blend K cup, I steel myself for the coming battle, "Okay Guys, let's get some learning done and then you can get to your video games."  Little PJ pipes up, "I already did my math, Mom! Three pages!" (seriously?) and the two of them start piping out with math problems.  PJ says "Mom, what's 15+15+15?" and I say "What do you think it is?" T says "45!" (I'm impressed because he really hated math for a long time.  I query "Wow, T, nice work!  How did you come up with the answer?" He replies, "Well, there are three 10s so that is 30 and then there are three 5s and that is 15 and you add them together."  I am smiling and thinking alrighty, we've definitely passed the 2nd grade. T spouts "See, I don't need to do math, I've got it down."  I reply, "But you're in 3rd grade and you need to master multiplication and division."  He smugly explains to me that multiplication is just addition and that "division is just multiplication backwards."  I am promptly put in my place.  I said, "So what you're telling me, boys, is that you are really quite ready for some gaming time."  Cheers and a one-hour window is assigned.

And this is a very happy house today.

I grabbed my cuppa and headed to the laptop.  I have to write this stuff down.  I've been struggled with the game/learning/life balance in this house, as I have written about before.  I think we found a pretty happy medium. A couple of weeks ago I had dinner with a mama friend, who is starting out her unschool adventure with her two boys, ages 6 and 4.  She explained that she hasn't restricted their gaming at all, because she is confident that it will run it's course and they will move on to new learning adventures and desires.  I had to agree there is logic to that, but my boys and their ability to play for hours on end without reaching boredom, scares the wits out of me.  We know that the T Man has some issues with anxiety and finds his escapes in television and games.  That is where the free-for-all may not work for us.  But what I did get out of that conversation (and numerous others with dad and gifted-mom cohort/coach Amy Harrington) was that perhaps it is just too long of a day to wait for some games, and tossing in an hour during the day might work out well.  It has.  So instead of having to work all day to get to 4:00 pm game time, the boys now have an hour or so thrown in early in the day which seems to satisfy that eternal craving. 
 
Buffalo Mama just posted this week with similar concerns for her son, titled "But What If All The Kid Wants to Do is Play Video Games?"  She has nailed it.  Video games can become everything to our gifted anxious children, but life simply is not one big game.  Life is full of obligations, such as brushing your teeth and washing dishes (or maybe even knowing how to write a decent English sentence so as to not embarass yourself in your professional future). My kids have to earn their screen time, just like their dad has to go to work all day before he can come home to play with them, and just like I have to clean, prepare food, do laundry, etc before I can sit down and enjoy my Kindle.  While allowing kids to follow their passions is very important and we should feed those passions, we do have to be the Parent and teach them the self-control and life skills they are going to need in the real world.  It ain't always easy, but I know in the long run it will be worth it.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, excuse me while I go do some parenting... which will for the next hour or so may look a lot like doing school work.... ;-)