Do you find reasoning with your gifted learner to be more difficult?
Do you have more trouble reasoning with your child than you think you should? Do THEY try harder to use their own reasoning on you?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Sandy Fleming on -
Oooo, this is a funny question! Over the years, I've found my girls more able to reason, most of the time, than most their age. But from time to time, that just flies right out the window. I remember one conversation with my eldest who had just gotten her driver's license a few weeks before. She wanted to solo several hours away to go to a big amusement park by herself and I was against the idea. She asked why and I gave her a few reasons-inexperienced, poor sense of direction. She said, "But WHY?" I responded with a few more reasons, like long to time to get to her if rescue was needed and dangers of young women traveling alone at night. She yelled, "BUT WHY????" I shifted gears at that point, and asked her what she said to a 2 year old who wanted to run into the street. This distracted her and she said "I tell them no, of course." I asked her how she explained it to the toddler. She replied that she'd try to talk about the dangers. "But what if the baby just kept asking you why, even when you gave them all the best reasons in the world?" I asked. She said (and I quote!), "I guess I'd just say, 'because I said so,' then, because maybe the baby wasn't mature enough to reason like that." I said, "OK, you can't go to the amusement park because I said so." She fled in tears!!
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Permalink Reply by The Mother on
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Arguing with g/t kids is a challenge. "Because I said so" doesn't work. They are smart, but they're still immature. It's really fun to watch them get caught in a circular logic pattern (they grow out of this, of course), then get frustrated when you point it out.
It's pretty much the only way to win arguments until they get old enough to understand logic.
Then they go off to college, become engineers, and win all the arguments with "because I said so."
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Permalink Reply by Sandy Fleming on
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Too funny, but exactly true! Fortunately, so far my eldest has sprouted considerable respect for my experience points if not my brain power, and she now requests advice. It's really nice to begin to relate to her as an adult.
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Permalink Reply by Chris Morgan on -
This questions bring back so many memories, some very funny but it continues as they're older.
Yes, it's hard to argue with yourself, lol . . . my kids used my own words to reason with me and they still do. The rule in my house was that I couldn't say "Because I said so!" The kids were allowed to debate with me why they should be allowed to do something or get something and I in turn did the same. We started this at a very early age. We had discussions, but when they learned to use my words against me it became harder to prove my point. Often times, with my youngest Katie, I would throw my hands up in the air and ask her Dad to take over, this started when she was two years old. See there was no yelling, no screaming, just simple discussions, which allowed my kids to grow intellectually and learn to use their minds to speak out their thoughts in a more productive way.
Now that they're older, I can say because I said so and they know it's usually because I'm too tired to discuss it with them. This is their signal that they should try me when I'm in a better mood, lol . . .
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Permalink Reply by Michelle on
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Very interesting question. I don't know if my daughter is "gifted" but she is quite bright & precocious. I am good about 85% of the time in explaining things and working her brain, but the rest of the time I lose patience due to lack of sleep or not feeling well, etc. She also is throwing those wonderfully dramatic 3 yr old tantrums that can happen with strong willed independent children (of course, I encourage those traits, so...)! lol.
My siblings and I were gifted kids, so I can relate. I think most of my nephews are also. Yet there are some subtle learning challenges in there (ADHD, maybe some LD...) and combined with immature reactivity can make for challenging "discussions"!
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Permalink Reply by JJ Blum on -
Thank you thank you thank you for writing this!!
My MIL is a GT advocate and has tons of books and articles! One day when she dumped a bunch on my table I said " oh good, do any of these deal with stress?" She replied "definitely! that's extremely important!" As I flipped through I found chapter after chapter about handling the child's stress but nothing about parents. I turned and said " what about my stress?" "Your stress isn't important!!!"
She also maintains that it is "so nice having bright children, because you can reason with them!"
Yes but they want to apply their own sense of logic to the situation and they are excellent arguers. Also because they always want to know how something works or why something happens, it seems natural to apply these same questions to a discussion with parents.
We have often had the discussion that we are the parents and there fore do get to make the lion's share of the decisions around here. Trust us you don't want to make all the decisions we have to make!
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