6 y.o. Emotionally and Socially Immature- any strategies to help him 'grow up'?

[Easy]

Oh Blimey, this might be long, sorry in advance. Just been to school harvest festival. Ds was pleased to see me there(on the front row), but before it all started he started to pout, and once it got under way, just didn't participate, sat cross legged in his spot, didn't sing or anything. I have no Idea why.

At the end the head (I'm getting to know her well now I'm a governor) said to me she had no idea why either. but she commented that they do find him 'socially and emotionally immature' which will be discussed when we have parents evening after half term. But we were told at the end of last term that he has little empathy with the other children. I think he's pretty ego-centric.

Intellectually he's very able (reading age 9-ish, no problem with numbers, well ahead in maths etc).

I know that he is still capable of really toddler style strops (like on Sunday. I asked him to get his armbands to put in his swimming bag. he didn't want to get them cos he'd decided there are spiders in that room, had a 30 minute tantrum, net result no swimming)and I'm trying to use Tanya Byron tactics to solve it at home. I feel like I'm winning the battle but VERY slowly.

He's an only child, but I don't think he's coddled. I was a SAHM from his birth, but put him in nursery one day per week just after 1 year to help socialise him. When he was 3 I had 2 long spells in hospital and then ages in a wheelchair, and he was cared for during that time by my dh, my mum and additional nursery time. I do wonder whether that caused him some emotional probs.

I've worked part time some of the last year, I'm helped by a childminder. DH has spells when he works away mon-fri, we're going thru one of those now until next March.

Any Idea what we've done/are doing wrong? How can we undo it.
I'd like to have a strategy in place before parent's evening, apart from which, it might help me deal with him.

Yes, it's quite true that, easy! But at the same time one of ds's swimming teachers did say something quite persuasive about there being a lag in motor neurone development in children who grow unusually fast, which certainly makes for clumsiness (he was saying that doing co-ordination sports like swimming have been shown to help). Remember "outgrowing your strength" as our grannies used to say? So maybe "outgrowing your self-control"?

Dino, the only thing that ever got commented on with ds was that though he was so big (97th percentile) his head was only sort of 80th. So I have the reverse child.

My ds does have a large head, when he got his bike last year we had to buy an adults helmet.
I also say it's cos of his brain capacity.

Coming home from school yesterday he was asking me 'why do the vapour trails that the jets make dissipate like that?' Hmm, everyone comments on his wide vocabulary.

I think that the "in common" thing is being bright (my ds could easily have said that!), and I do think there is something about the brain growing in one way and neglecting another. But I'm not sure if ds will ever be quite like other kids. There are a lot of academics in my family (although not me!), and I think he has just inherited a different way of looking at the world than his peers. It seems that he has two modes, very grown up and almost intellectual, or just plain silly and out of control. He is learning how to stay in control, and now makes friends easily, but it clearly took him longer to learn the rules. We have found that structured sport (currently gymnastics and swimming) are helping, and we have been recommended karate too. Mostly I am very proud of him, but sometimes he still drives me around the bend!

Nooka - what an excellent post. Your comment about "two modes" fits so closely with ds1, who is now 8 and has made loads of progress over the last 3 years and learned many of the rules, even some of the unwritten one about appropriate social behaviour.

We too were told by experienced teachers, and Ed Psych, that much of the behaviour was related to his 'brightness'; and that whilst he might well always be somewhat unusual (I like the term eccentric) and never quite "fit in" - his behaviour would not be unacceptable/inappropriate for long. I had my doubts at the time, but it has proved to be the case.

It's interesting too that ds2, who has always been far more socially adept that ds1 and always judged by us to be 100% "normal", is atm having some social/behavioural issues with his peers as his abilities/interests are beginning to diverge so far from theirs. (He is 6 and has a reading age of 11, and his friends are simply not interested in the same things as him.) He has recently developed the disconcerting habit of quacking like a duck when he is bored or tired!

DS1 found things became much easier in yr3 - when the curriculum seems a bit more flexible (freed from the straitjacket of SATs), and also when extra-curric opportunities broaden immensely.

Nooka, I don't think I've come across you before, and I should apologise for posting "in shorthand" about height. I have "known" several people on this thread for ages - frogs, binkie, Easy, Wedgiesmum (here in spirit though she hasn't posted this time) - and I'm well aware of the startling similarities between our children' but I hadn't known about the height similarities.

Anyway, sometimes teachers and so on react to ds1 as though they have never come across a child "like this" before, and it has been a HUGE comfort and support to me to find through mumsnet a group of people who share so many of our experiences. From your posts it is very clear that your ds is very similar in many ways too.

Maybe we should all have a meet-up one day

That's OK roisin, not sure why you are apologising, and in fact ds is also tall, just not as tall as his sister (who is relatively "normal", apart from looking about two years older than she really is) oh, and although his head is, as far as I am aware, normal sized, it is a bit squiffy. Meeting up might be scary - not sure I could cope with multiple dss! and I do agree about mnet support, gives you another idea of both how incredibly diverse, and the many similarities between our children.

Thank you Nooka and Roisin for your reassurances. I'm more confident now that ds can 'grow out of it' as long as we and school can support him in that.

The bit about 2 modes of behaviour is very true, I just wish I could predict when each mode would kick-in.

I think I might show this thread to ds's teacher when our discussion takes place.

I have been thinking about ds trying Beavers for a while, but don't know if perhaps he's not ready yet, or if some structured after school activity would be helpful. Roisin, I know your ds1 dropped out. Do you have any thoughts?

Thanks again

I like all these clever but immature boys! I always say ds is eccentric.

If I had a pound for every time I've heard "in all my 25 [or whatever it is] years of teaching I have never come across a [ds]" ...

But it sounds like there are others out there! I think a Science Museum meet-up might be good ... or maybe the Faraday Institute, for those who leap out of bed to do a sum they thought of in the night?

Binkie, in that case dh should attend. He keeps a notepad at the side of the bed to write down his solution to software problems, which often come to him in the middle of the night (the solutions that is).

Oh at last last, a thread almost designed for my ds! He has the large head - is average height but as my dh and I are very short, ds being average height makes him relatively tall. He is socially immature - not so sure about being particularly bright in any one subject area but is fine with reading and better with mental arithmetic than when he has to write stuff down.

Binkie, until a couple of days ago, I thought your ds was a few months older than ds but ds will be seven in November and is probably older of the two!