Reply to Do you have a difficult child and how do you define one? Not special needs. Just difficult.

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Big emotions about little things. Example: me: it’s cold outside; you need to wear a sweater. My son: Starts crying and screaming, says “this is the most horrible day ever” stomps off to his room and slams drawers looking for a sweater.

Very hard on himself/a perfectionist. Me: wow I really like your drawing. You added so many nice details and colors. Him: I did a terrible job see this [stray mark] here? It’s one of my worst drawings ever.

Very competitive to the point he won’t even participate in competitions bc he hates losing/not being the best so much. So he refuses to even try to participate in sports or most games. He also refuses to even attempt to learn new skills like pump his own legs and swing himself on the swings or try riding his bike without training wheels, etc. He’s definitely strong and coordinated enough to do these things he just flat refuses to try.

Very smart and has hard time relating to kids his own age. He’s 6 and in kindergarten but reads at a 3rd grade level and reads anything he can get his hands on including a lot about science and history so he knows a lot for his age but doesn’t have the maturity to process it and will just talk and talk about things to the point another kid (and most adults too) isn’t interested. analyzes and questions everything, takes nothing at face value. Always has to know the “why” and doesn’t comply easily w requests/instructions.

Is highly sensitive and has a great/long memory. At 6 he will still bring up things that happened when he was 2 completely on his own and take himself back to that moment to rehash how he felt at the time. His feelings are intense. He gets his feelings hurt extremely easily. There’s no joking around or being silly w him. He’s a serious sensitive kid pretty much all the time which can be exhausting.

He’s just complicated. Things aren’t simple w him. I worry about if he’s happy because he often doesn’t seem like he is though he has a good life w 2 loving parents, loving and involved grandparents and a younger sister who adores him (and he adores her too) but struggles socially w his peers. We love him so much but it’s just pretty draining and exhausting sometimes to know how to best parent him when it feels like many things w him are an uphill battle.

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He sounds a lot like my son, who has both ASD and bipolar disorder, and is gifted so twice exceptional (and I’m not the parent calling gifted for no reason - his IQ is in the 91st percentile according to a neuropsych evaluation). Yours doesn’t sound as violent as my son (and my sons dad doesn’t live with us and there’s definitely been a lot of “your mom doesn’t love you” coming from dad which hurts and makes it harder to treat), but you may think about an ASD eval. We weren’t told to look into one until things got to the nightmare stage, and didn’t get a diagnosis until 11 - which was terrible. [/quote]

Thank you for your response. I’m sorry you’re dealing with that as it sounds difficult and especially the part about your sons dad telling your son his mom doesn’t love him :(. It does make me think about my own son. We've thought before he may have something more going on that just being a difficult child. He was a very easy baby and toddler and the challenging behavior didn’t start til about age 3. He has always done well in school settings but then this year due to the pandemic he’s been homeschooled and I think that has caused some significant setbacks. We are hoping once he’s able us go back to “regular school” he will be a happier kid. But I am worried about him. Can you tell me a little more about your son’s “nightmare stage” that led you to diagnosis?

My son is not violent with people but he does things like slam doors, drawers, rip up papers that he has drawn, stomp around that show a somewhat violent side of him. Generally he’s harder on himself than on other people. He is compassionate and caring toward others, wants to please others, is very thoughtful and kind (most of the time), and is very loving and affectionate (loves cuddling and when he’s upset what he needs most is usually a hug). So I had thought that thoughtfulness and affectionate part of him is perhaps a sign that he doesn’t have ASD but I admit I don’t know a lot about ASD so I shouldn’t be so sure. I’ll look more into it. Thanks again.[/quote]

My son didn’t used to be violent with people - that started around 10, and got progressively worse and continues now. He can be very empathetic - he LOVES animals, and he’s very physically affectionate. He does often ask for hugs, and we’ve started noticing that some of his affection is a sensory input need. He really likes having weight on him (doesn’t love his weighted blanket, but loves the cats sitting on his lap because of the weight).

The ripping up papers sounds like  a sensory thing, my son does it constantly and it makes me crazy (it’s harmless but messy). You might also look into sensory or fidget toys - my son likes some and doesn’t like others, which is fine, but we just get packs of multiple types and don’t worry about it.

My son is also hard on himself, very rigid in how he thinks - things are black and white there is no such thing as gray in his world - and really struggles with transitions. He has always done well in school, and his teachers LOVE him. School is structured in a way that makes sense to him, and as I said above he is academically gifted so he has done very well - but in the higher elementary and middle school grades he is struggling with executive functioning and has a hard time answering more abstract or complex questions, and completing assignments that have multiple related parts just doesn’t make sense to him. He does very well in subjects like math where there is only one answer. His affinity in school is one reason his diagnosis was delayed - all his doctors asked about was “how’s school?” I said Great, and they told me his outbursts and meltdowns were my fault because I had too high expectations or didn’t understand childhood development.

He also struggled with certain things when he was younger that I didn’t think anything of until we started looking into a diagnosis, like he still struggles with the concept of time. “We’ll eat a cookie after dinner” has always been something he struggles to either understand or wait for. “Just a few minutes” is another one. Or, “we’re leaving in a few hours”.

However, the difference that stands out is that my son has never been easy. He was hell as a baby starting at 12 weeks old. He didn’t cry much, but I couldn’t put him down ever, he never slept and bedtimes until he was 3.5yo took 3-4 hours. [/quote]

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