Yeah, I mean I honestly am pretty sure he has some form of ADHD tbd on whether it’s ever something that needs to be treated or just aware of and supported. Because its on both sides of his family.
And also my mom says he’s exactly like I was at his age. I remember being locked out of daycare once because everyone went in for recess and they were mad at me for purposefully ignoring them. But I wasn’t ignoring them. I was just daydreaming and in my own world and didn’t hear them.
Also, like, from what I’ve heard from other people, if there’s a chance you could get in for some kind of support in teaching him this stuff, like early intervention or whatever it is at this age, get on some of that! Help with parenting? Not having to figure it out by yourselves? Gold! Even if you think he will learn it over time, if he does happen to have ADHD or whatever, you’re already ahead of the game and getting a diagnosis may be faster and easier (my friends kid same age as Duckling just received his recently, so presumably Meowlet is the right age for checking that sort of thing), and if he doesn’t, you got some bonus parenting help where someone else did some of the thinking for you!
The last time I was chatting at a kids birthday party, people started bringing up their kid’s issues (starting off about how their child sometimes get overwhelmed with a lot of people, in the context of the party) and it seemed like every parent was like “Yup” with various flavors of not neurotypical. Very accepting and supportive.
I don’t think you’re raising a sociopath. He’ll just need extra support to grow in these areas. That’s kinda why I think public school is usually a better setting for kids who need some extra support and understanding than private school. Because the people who have training for that are working in public schools and we have all sorts of laws that require that we’re meeting the needs of students, whatever those needs are. And private school can be a bit of a self-selected set of the population that doesn’t really represent all that is actually our population. Meaning, they are not necessarily used to having kids who might have different support needs. So they aren’t staffed for it and they can’t always afford to pay experts and yes, officially the laws still apply but then it’s more like a consult model, where the public school district has to provide services for the kids who are in private schools who qualify. So then you get a very hacked-up model of support which doesn’t really do much good.
Anyway, I don’t mean to make it all sound scary and terrible, more that I want to let you know that public schools are prepared for kids who need extra support in whatever areas they need extra support in. Public schools see it all, get it all, and have laws and funding and staffing to make sure they are addressing it all. Private schools are a little more hit or miss. And also, public school as you (the general you) knew it as a kid is not what it is today. The changes I’ve seen just since I started teaching are incredible, especially in supporting kids who need extra support.
Oh, and yes, definitely start with your doctor because a doctor’s diagnosis or referral can be the basis for getting Meowlet what he needs. It’s the quickest means to an end is what I’m trying to say.
Thank you for this! I am feeling much better about it all. I just think my kid is awesome (without any bias obviously lol). Like last night at bedtime he told me that the radio signals from his little Yoto player were going to “transform the bad germs into good germs.” I feel like speaking in terms of transformation is a quirky but cognitively advanced attitude based on my limited experience of small children.
But it’s pretty clear he DOES need more emotional learning support and I feel like that is such an area I excel in and am ready to go ham on.
Oooh, yes, this is a thing. My kid likes to build sets and keep them as models and it’s becoming a problem, especially because he’s a bit of a hoarder and his room is like nine by twelve. But, like, his favorite kind of present is a big Lego set that he can really concentrate on and those are cool to keep. An Apollo lander, for instance.
If y’all think Legos infiltrating the house is bad enough, let me tell you about the erector set
@LadyDuck - just a funny about your mildly elaborate system. I visited an old friend whose kids were at the time I think middle school aged, a boy and a girl. They had tons of Legos. They store the Lego people in pieces. And not just head, legs, body. They had a little bin of Lego arms. They are collectively by FAR the smartest family I know (my friend is an MD/PHD who graduated early from MIT, got married that year at age 20, had her first kid at 23 and her 4th at 40, and works as a medical journal editor), just, you know, a little off.
Y’all actually gave me some great words to use to explain to Ponder my need to cut down the Lego and now we have an agreed plan. Useful phrases/concepts were “we can become more elaborate when Duckling is 10”, “you may start st this level of complexity, 3 categories and then we can add a level IF it makes sense”. I think we will be able to remove a third of the legos.
We already have a couple of bags with string and stuff like that or I would probably have cried a lot by now.
Haha. Yes, they call those directions. In reality they are teeny tiny tiny mysterious diagrams which I can barely see and the 6yo is not very experienced at putting things together, and we are making quite the team!
I’m not sure if this is the right place for this question but I figure y’all will have good answers.
I’m looking for Christmas gift ideas for a 7 year old boy who is into dinosaurs. I’ve already picked out a dinosaur-themed deck of cards (we played a bunch of Go Fish)
I’d like to find perhaps a book about dinosaurs. He’s struggling with basic reading, so I’d like something that will encourage an interest in books, not be too hard but also not clearly be targeted for much younger kids… Is that too fine a line to walk?
He also really enjoyed the hike we did when I visited. I’m thinking of a compass but I’m open to other hiking-adjacent ideas…
a Daypack suitable to his size. I prefer with a hip strap even though he probably isn’t carrying enough weight to warrant it, just because most adult packs do have a hip strap so it ‘looks like a grown ups’
An emergency whistle, but this is kid dependent. My children have emergency whistles that are for emergency only, and they are tools not toys. But not all kids would respect that
I like your compass idea, I’d suggest on a lanyard though.
They have fossil dig kits that are pretty cool:
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC Mega Fossil Dig Kit - Excavate 15 Prehistoric Fossils Including Dinosaur Bones & Shark Teeth, Educational Toys, Great Science Kit Gift for Girls and Boys (Amazon Exclusive) https://a.co/d/03tafr4
I’ll check on books when I get home for the ones we’ve read.
thank god its not that bad.