Forums
New posts
Search forums
What's new
New posts
New profile posts
Latest activity
Internet Search
Members
Current visitors
New profile posts
Search profile posts
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
New posts
Search forums
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Forums
Parent Support Forums
General Parenting
I'm a newbie; opinions on books?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Diabolique" data-source="post: 170388" data-attributes="member: 5512"><p>Thanks again for all the replies...and for the explanation of what difficult child means! It's funny, while I was helping my son brush his teeth last night, all of a sudden '''Gift from God" came to me as a possible meaning for difficult child. Happy to see I was right! </p><p> </p><p>People say that a mother's instinct is so strong that she often knows when something is not right with her child even when others don't see it that way. I have had so many people, some of whom don't know my child <u>at all</u>, tell me "it's probably just a phase" and "he'll outgrow it." When people say these things to me, it hurts me because I feel like it minimizes the gravity of the problems I am having with him. I'm sure other people on here have experienced the same thing at times. Truly, I feel that if my son's behavior were in the "normal range," the human race would have ceased to exist because people would look at other people's children and think: <em>No way, I'm never having kids.</em> I know in my gut, in every fiber of my being, that something is just not right. </p><p> </p><p>Adrianne -- Thank you for the suggestions on how to rephrase the requests I make of my son. I have already tried to reduce the "negativity level" by not using "no", "not" and "don't" so frequently, and I'm trying very hard to resist the temptation to raise my voice unless he's doing something that puts him in danger. I will try to depersonalize my requests to make them more neutral to see if that helps. As it stands right now, Noah rarely does anything the first time I ask him, no matter how I phrase it. He usually waits until I'm upset and angry and doling out a time-out and THEN he will try to comply. By then, I'm already past the end of my rope because I've asked about 10 times. </p><p> </p><p>SRL-- I had never thought of AS as a possibility. I don't know that much about AS, so I'll have to do some reading up on this; thanks for the link. When my son was younger, he did do a lot of organizing and lining things up. I would come in the room and find all of his dinosaurs lined up perfectly in a row that extended all the way across the room. He would do the same thing with his cars. He doesn't do it as frequently as he used to maybe a year ago, but he does still do this occasionally. He will line up all his lizards (or cars, or dinos) all the way around the outside edge of his round play table; all will be facing the same direction outward. Or, sometimes he'll line things up in a pyramid type of formation, or using the lines on the tile floor as a guide. I haven't noticed him collecting sticks, strings, or rocks. However, he cannot get enough little "critters": play lizards, bugs, dinosaurs, and snakes. That seems normal to me? When I say that he speaks like a "short adult", I mean mostly that his vocabulary is outrageous for a child his age. He uses words that most kids his age don't seem to use and he uses them in the appropriate context. I have always attributed this to him being exposed to mostly adults. When I am at work, it is my mother who cares for him and we've always believed in not using "baby talk" with him, even when he was very young. We never used words like "ba ba" for "bottle" or did that thing where you add "-ie" to the end of a word (kissie, huggie, juicie, etc.); I honestly can't stand hearing that so I made sure not to model it. I have noticed, though, that my son has quite a memory for things he's heard other people say and I have heard whole chunks of other people's words (mine, my mom's, etc.) come out of his mouth. There have also been occasions where I've read him a book once, and the next night he'll "read" it to me -- he will turn through the pages and boggle my mind by reciting the book word-for-word. For the most part, though, most of what I hear him say are his own words rather than memorized speech; at least I <u>think</u> so. It has always just seemed to be that he has a extraordinary ability to pick up new words and use them correctly. Who knows, though...maybe this is really a sign of something else. </p><p> </p><p>What I know at this point is that the level of defiance is out of hand. Trying to describe it would take hours and hours. I feel like we're doing battle 24/7. I am amazed at how mouthy and hurtful my son can be. Just Saturday morning, I was watching him play on the slip-n-slide and smiling because he was having so much fun. You know how we do that, we smile to see our children smile. All of a sudden, he stopped dead in his tracks, glared at me with narrowed eyes, and put on his tough guy stance with balled up fists. He looked me in the eye and said, "Don't be happy, Mommy. You are not allowed to be happy." I was devastated. He has said plenty of awful things to me before, but there was just something about this comment that tore me up and I instantly dissolved into tears. I still get tears in my eyes when I think about him saying that to me. Happiness is a basic human desire, it is something we all want. All I want in the world right now is to be happy again and to see my son happy; apparently, I am not allowed to even have a momentary smile on my face at the sight of seeing my son have fun. And, what did my son do when he saw me crack and start crying? He laughed at me. He thought it was funny to break me like that. It was so completely out of the blue, we weren't arguing when he said it, I wasn't making any requests of him, I was just watching him and smiling.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Diabolique, post: 170388, member: 5512"] Thanks again for all the replies...and for the explanation of what difficult child means! It's funny, while I was helping my son brush his teeth last night, all of a sudden '''Gift from God" came to me as a possible meaning for difficult child. Happy to see I was right! People say that a mother's instinct is so strong that she often knows when something is not right with her child even when others don't see it that way. I have had so many people, some of whom don't know my child [U]at all[/U], tell me "it's probably just a phase" and "he'll outgrow it." When people say these things to me, it hurts me because I feel like it minimizes the gravity of the problems I am having with him. I'm sure other people on here have experienced the same thing at times. Truly, I feel that if my son's behavior were in the "normal range," the human race would have ceased to exist because people would look at other people's children and think: [I]No way, I'm never having kids.[/I] I know in my gut, in every fiber of my being, that something is just not right. Adrianne -- Thank you for the suggestions on how to rephrase the requests I make of my son. I have already tried to reduce the "negativity level" by not using "no", "not" and "don't" so frequently, and I'm trying very hard to resist the temptation to raise my voice unless he's doing something that puts him in danger. I will try to depersonalize my requests to make them more neutral to see if that helps. As it stands right now, Noah rarely does anything the first time I ask him, no matter how I phrase it. He usually waits until I'm upset and angry and doling out a time-out and THEN he will try to comply. By then, I'm already past the end of my rope because I've asked about 10 times. SRL-- I had never thought of AS as a possibility. I don't know that much about AS, so I'll have to do some reading up on this; thanks for the link. When my son was younger, he did do a lot of organizing and lining things up. I would come in the room and find all of his dinosaurs lined up perfectly in a row that extended all the way across the room. He would do the same thing with his cars. He doesn't do it as frequently as he used to maybe a year ago, but he does still do this occasionally. He will line up all his lizards (or cars, or dinos) all the way around the outside edge of his round play table; all will be facing the same direction outward. Or, sometimes he'll line things up in a pyramid type of formation, or using the lines on the tile floor as a guide. I haven't noticed him collecting sticks, strings, or rocks. However, he cannot get enough little "critters": play lizards, bugs, dinosaurs, and snakes. That seems normal to me? When I say that he speaks like a "short adult", I mean mostly that his vocabulary is outrageous for a child his age. He uses words that most kids his age don't seem to use and he uses them in the appropriate context. I have always attributed this to him being exposed to mostly adults. When I am at work, it is my mother who cares for him and we've always believed in not using "baby talk" with him, even when he was very young. We never used words like "ba ba" for "bottle" or did that thing where you add "-ie" to the end of a word (kissie, huggie, juicie, etc.); I honestly can't stand hearing that so I made sure not to model it. I have noticed, though, that my son has quite a memory for things he's heard other people say and I have heard whole chunks of other people's words (mine, my mom's, etc.) come out of his mouth. There have also been occasions where I've read him a book once, and the next night he'll "read" it to me -- he will turn through the pages and boggle my mind by reciting the book word-for-word. For the most part, though, most of what I hear him say are his own words rather than memorized speech; at least I [U]think[/U] so. It has always just seemed to be that he has a extraordinary ability to pick up new words and use them correctly. Who knows, though...maybe this is really a sign of something else. What I know at this point is that the level of defiance is out of hand. Trying to describe it would take hours and hours. I feel like we're doing battle 24/7. I am amazed at how mouthy and hurtful my son can be. Just Saturday morning, I was watching him play on the slip-n-slide and smiling because he was having so much fun. You know how we do that, we smile to see our children smile. All of a sudden, he stopped dead in his tracks, glared at me with narrowed eyes, and put on his tough guy stance with balled up fists. He looked me in the eye and said, "Don't be happy, Mommy. You are not allowed to be happy." I was devastated. He has said plenty of awful things to me before, but there was just something about this comment that tore me up and I instantly dissolved into tears. I still get tears in my eyes when I think about him saying that to me. Happiness is a basic human desire, it is something we all want. All I want in the world right now is to be happy again and to see my son happy; apparently, I am not allowed to even have a momentary smile on my face at the sight of seeing my son have fun. And, what did my son do when he saw me crack and start crying? He laughed at me. He thought it was funny to break me like that. It was so completely out of the blue, we weren't arguing when he said it, I wasn't making any requests of him, I was just watching him and smiling. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Forums
Parent Support Forums
General Parenting
I'm a newbie; opinions on books?
Top