Developmental Ages

JJJ

Active Member
How do you deal with your children's developmental ages being out of wack with their chronological ages?

Piglet is 12 but she is my "oldest". Tigger is 10 and developmentally about 6. Eeyore is 14 but developmentally about 4. He is livid that he does not has the same freedoms that the other kids have but we have tried to give him more age-appropriate freedoms and he has either injured himself, broken something or put others in danger. Eeyore has noticed that he is more supervised than the others and it bothers him. He has hit both Piglet and Tigger in response.

It is so frustrating because I am beginning to believe that it isn't that he won't do what is expected but that he can't do it :(
 

gcvmom

Here we go again!
It is challenging. easy child is my youngest, but she is the most mature and responsible by far at age 10 1/2 than her brothers are at ages 15 and 13. There are things I'd love to let her do or have because she's ready for them (like a phone or her own computer), but because we didn't let the boys at this age, we don't dare (they've proven even at older ages they still aren't ready for free reign with a lot of things).

I try to just tell myself that the difficult child's are on a different schedule than easy child, and they'll all get to where they need to be eventually. I'm fairly confident easy child will go the 4-year university route and likely will get scholarships, yet the difficult child's, despite their high intelligence, will no doubt have to go the community college route first and will probably take much longer to graduate than her. And they'll probably be the last to leave home because of their immaturity. It is what it is. You can't really speed it up any easier than you can speed up the hatching of an egg or the baking of a cake. They're done when they're done.
 

Shari

IsItFridayYet?
I learned with difficult child 1 to ditch the whole "year's old" thing. It bit me in the butt to try to let him do something because he was "old enuf". He wasn't.

We talk about everything on the grounds of "show me you can handle it..." instead of "you can have it when you're XX".

Licenses were earned; you didn't just get one at 16. Cell phones? Same thing. Show me a need, and show me you are responsible. Show me you can abide by time limits on the computer and tv without being monitored and told. Show me you can surf appropriate internet sites without having a net nanny to keep you out of the bad ones, etc.

A couple of years ago, when husband got a puppy, wee helped in the day to day care of the puppy, including cleaning up after it, feeding and watering it, etc, even when the "new" wore off, where as easy child wasn't about to touch doggie doo, even when the pup was brand new. If the dog made a mess, wee would clean it up if he saw it. easy child would pretend she didn't see it. Still does. Wee feeds and waters both dogs about half the time without being told, and almost never argues if he's asked. He feeds the cats every morning (too much, actually, the cat knows to ask him for food...) So a year or so ago when he asked for a dog and his therapist was recommending one, we said sure, he'd already demonstrated he would take care of it. Does he take care of the dog every single day all by himself without ever a reminder? No. But he was just 6 when he got the dog and I knew that. He does do a darned good job for his age, tho.
 

Wiped Out

Well-Known Member
Staff member
JJJ,
We deal with this my difficult child. He is developmentally several years younger than his 12 years. He wants to do things he can't; gets very upset with us. I haven't figured out anything that's great for dealing with this but wanted you to know you are not alone.
 

Marguerite

Active Member
I've said for years, including on this site, that with difficult children you have to ignore the calendar. It is very much a case of judging each child by what they are ready for, according to their capability. Nothing else.

Marg
 

timer lady

Queen of Hearts
Like Marg & gcvmom, we've had to ditch the calendar for kt & wm. wm is 15 going on 6; kt is a bit more mature but at 15 she is more of a 10/11 y/o.

JJJ, it's the way of our kids; whether it's autism, asperger's, emotional or mental illness, the physical age doesn't come into play until our difficult children catch up to it.

I, personally, find it very hard to watch as wm struggles to find friends. He's rebuffed time & again because of his emotional/developmental age. kt, not so much, because she is learning to fit in to her peer group (that being the Residential Treatment Center (RTC) kids & the day treatment kids).

All I know to do is to nudge, especially wm, gently forward.


 
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