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]My DS1 was a difficult child. No diagnosed SNs and not unhappy but difficult to parent and teach. Basically was born thinking he was an adult and did not want to be told what to do. He is very bright, very confident, very comfortable in his own skin. Never cared what anyone thought of him. These are not bad qualities (in fact, they can be great qualities) in an adult. They are not easy to deal with in a child. For us, 3rd and 4th grade were especially difficult, but 7th and 8th were pretty bad too.

Things were easier once he got to high school and he had more freedom at school. We never worried about peer pressure driving him to bad behavior because he was impervious to it. But it was very hard to get him to focus on subjects that didn't interest him because he did not care about grades at all. But he wanted to go to college, so that was a motivator, and we were able to use that. (When he was a sophomore we had a conversation where I told him he needed to find an extracurricular activity and we argued about that--he maintained that there was nothing that interested him-- and I told him, "Colleges want to see that you will be a contributing member of the college community." He replied, "But I'm not going to be." And I said, "Then your job is to trick them into thinking you will be." And that actually got some traction lol.)

Anyway, he did go to college, where he eventually did get deeply involved in a campus club, and he took the classes here wanted to take, and did brilliantly. And though it took him a while, he made some good friends. And now he's out of school and working and seems to be doing very well there. He's very personable and curious and funny. No one would guess how hard it was raise him.

Raising my other kids has been a breeze in comparison.[/quote]

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