Is there something wrong or is it just the way he is?

[meredeux]

DS (aged 9 years) does everything slowly, starting with when he was a baby and continuing until today. When he was a baby he used to take hours to take his bottle. He took ages to potty train. He eats (very) slowly, drinks slowly. Writes slowly. Walks slowly.

I asked him to help me in the garden at the weekend and he was using the rake slowly. Its very frustrating when he takes 3x as long to finish any task (unless its dinner when he is much slower than just 1/3rd normal speed - he would be comfortable eating his main course for two hours!).

The thing is that he seems quite clever. He learned to read in three months to the level other children take years to attain. His spelling is better than many adults. His memory is good. His maths and logic is strong. His ability to construct an argument is good. His teacher last year said that he's very intelligent and the work he produces is high quality, its just there is very little of it. She said he has potential to really excel, if only he will speed up.

I was watching him on Saturday in the garden and I was just thinking "Why can't you use some of that intelligence to work out that the slower you do things, the longer they will take?!"".

Ok, rant over. Its made me wonder is there actually something wrong with him or is this just the way he is?

What happens if you tell him to hurry up?

Is he quicker when it suits him. e.g if he needed to finish his dinner / get dressed quickly in order to get to a party on time, would he?

I was like this too. Dinnerladies used to go crazy at me in the school canteen. I was reading and writing my name at 2yo so otherwise quite on the ball, but I dawdled, daydreamed and ate vvvvvveeeeeeerrrry slowly. It changed once I went to secondary school, where you have to be in class when the bell rings, clattering around with other kids in the corridors. I wouldn't worry.

When we put pressure on him to hurry up, he tries but he is still very slow and he just gets stressed. He's normally a very centred, easy going child but harassing him just reduces him to tears.

We've tried the carrot approach too and its not much more successful. He also gets stressed with this as if we've promised something wonderful but asked him to walk on water to earn it.

He's faster when eating things he really loves (i.e. pizza) but he is still slower than everyone else.

I knew a boy just like this when I was younger. Nothing in the whole world could speed him up, nothing. He went on to become an eye surgeon. Now, if someone was operating on your eyes would you want them to start hurrying because it was nearly dinner time? No.

Even annoying traits like this can be useful in some situations

my sister was exactly the same, it could take her hours just to eat a sandwich or a glass of milk, walked at a snails pace, she still don't hurry anything apart from giving birth at the rate of knots lol, she is a lovely laid back mummy and and wonderful TA in the local school, aggravating as it is im sure its just the way he is x

I was like this. I was so slow at school dinnertimes that they called my mum in and made her take me home for dinners, which was a real pain as she was a single mum and worked.
I'm still careful and considered about a lot of things, but not such an aggravating slowcoach any more.