Can someone dig me out of a hole?

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Ok dug this one myself hand up.
Ds (4) was sitting in the car going I know everything, kids know everything. After 15mins of this I snapped and said ok so if you know everything then you know what the square root of 16 is.
quiet. What's square root.
Sigh in order to understand understand what a square root is you need to know what squaring a number is. When you square a number you times it by itself. Do you know 2 time 2 is.
4
Ok so 2 squared is 4 and 4 times 4 is 16, so 4 squared is 16. whats the square root of 16.
Silence
The square root of 16 is 4 because 4 times 4 is 16 and 4 squared is 16. Do you know what the square root of 4 is.
Silence.
What is 2 times 2
4
so 2 squared is 4. So the square root of 4 is ..

1. I know everything.

You ever heard of pyramid numbers? 1,3,6,10 they are pyramid numbers thats hard. Silence

Thing is he is a high input kid and I often get caught on hope. Was being flipant with my response to shut him up but ended up teaching him something he will probably pester me about again later.

Can anyone give me some more age appropriate discussion topics as I don't think great on the spot and need a VERY long list of bits.

Have tried the if you could do anything go any where what would you do thing. His answer "school". He hasn't started and going to be disappointed.

opps ment caught on hop.

Was he enjoying the explanation? Even if it was a bit meanspirited? If so, then it's age appropriate. In fact, ignore his age altogether and just go on the things he enjoys/wants to discuss.

Get some good loud music like ACDC for you both/all to listen to while you drive.

Ask him to spot things out of the window.

Play those dull alphabet games that go on forever.

Get him a gameboy.

Or, my choice, simply say "cool" and let him witter sweet nothings to himself while you concentrate on the driving. Or say "cool" and discuss what you're going to do for the rest of the day/ who his best mates are/ what his favourite songs/ superheroes/ books/ toys/ numbers/ whatever he likes are. Why do you care that he thinks he knows everything? He'll find out he doesn't in due course, I expect.

ACDC aint going to touch it he was shouting over pendulum (his current favourite). Thing is scummy he doesn't discuss things like books and toys (he doesn't really play with toys) and he is now bored with adding and taking away (something I have heard him practice in his bedroom) and i tried all of the normal tactics. The problem is he's asd/ocd and very difficult to shift when stuck on a topic and he often uses learning as a comfort thing to stop his brain thinking about something he doesn't want to (just had that insightful moment cheers) in this case the fact that i had picked him up from his weekend with daddy.

he is so desperate to learn that i am beginning to worry how much there is going to be left for school. He already knows the rules for capitals in sentances (a 3am will u please go back to bed I am too tired to think even if your brain is ready for the day slip)

He loves learning. And often takes more pleasure from learning and investigating then toys. As i am a scientist and he loves that aspect have encouraged his observation and investigative skills see post here

Is it worth bringing up with school - i have to go see them about something else?

I think you may be overthinking this, possibly. Encouraging his investigative skills is fab. But you don't have to encourage them when it's annoying you or you need to concentrate on something else- give him a book to look at or challenge him to a silence contest instead. Or start very gently telling him that it's not time to talk right now because you need some peace/need to make sure you don't crash the car and you will come back to him in a minute. I wouldn't worry about school. There are always many things for children to learn, children with ASD not least, ime. It may be that he finds it a breeze academically as he sounds v bright but if keeping shtum in the car is a problem I imagine that he'll find that there's plenty of social learning to be getting on with once he starts. It's my view that this can be the hardest bit for the majority of children (my far less academically interested boys were shell shocked by the expectation that there were moments that they had to sit still and shut up- the horror!) and early school is much more about getting them used to the new environment and social rules of school than teaching them anything particular in terms of abc and 123.

Have you had any advice on managing his behaviour from a learning difficulties paediatric psychologist? Some are very good. Sounds like you need some strategies for discouraging his investigative skills at certain times to me- e.g. 3am- poor poor you. He's obviously got an inquiring mind, which is wonderful but he will need to learn that many people don't like inquiry at 3am or when driving a car at some point, sadly. I would personally not go for a tactic of teaching a new academic rule when pestered at 3am. For a child who loves his mum and loves learning that is an extremely covetable reward for behaviour that is less than fantastic. Anyway, he does sound like a super-bright sweetie and you clearly think he's the bees knees and it's lovely that you are so anxious to please him, so sorry if this all sounds a bit blunt and mean.

my ds is also ASD and a mths kid but when he starts school there will be so much socially he wont know that what he does know academically he'll be behind the others socially and seeing that when they first start its based around play not so much learning they will need to learn this first

my ds has melatonin to help him settle otherwise he'd be up all night i would guess your under pediatrician they can give this to you
i wont teach ds anything above plus and minus as he needs help on social skills first and for most so instead of concentrating on academic skills could you role play life skills as these will be far more important to have

we have timers ds has to sit until timer goes off on set tasks whether its drawing or playing blocks etc

have also been told to script play so we both have same items and i teach him how to play by mimicking what i do with my items

must say i bought some great work books from whsmith and these are the rewards for doing other things he does social tasks first then his reward is 5 mins of math so he still gets his fix as such but he is benefiting from learning social skills

Nope its an outside view on the siutation. The only issue I have found that if i don't spend the 20mins or so at 3am he is literally up for the day at 3am. No more sleep required thank you. The only way i have found to get any sleep is to shove some info into his brain and shove back to bed - it took 3 years to discover this approach. Hav been knocking my head against the wall that is the medical proffession for the last 3 years and everyone says I am coping or he'll sleep when he gets to school. Doesn't help me now All I want is some consistant sleep. He sleep 13 hours straight for the second time in his life this week. Only issue was because he was in hospital with severe concusion and i couldn't sleep with the tests they had to do every hour.

WOuld love some advice but caf said school to deal. Not due to start til sept. ARgh! Lack of sleep now kicking in as have been up all night. AGAIN!

Do I gather that you and his dad are not together? What pattern of behaviour (eg at 3am) does he have at his dad's?

Have you tried Cranial Therapy? I too have a boy who doesn't switch off easily/ sleep and is prone to middle of the night questioning. Mine sounds a lot less challenging than yours and is at school now and it has got better, but the lack of sleep thing is similar. Cranial seemed to help a bit and I know lots of people swear by it, so might be worth a shot?

• is he at nursery? What do they think? Does he fit in with other children/ enjoy being wiht them? Am only asking because obviously there's so much more to school than knowledge and social skills are a major part of what they concentrate on in reception. Do you think he'll find that okay? Last thing you want is him to start school with massive expectations only to find they just play - or that's how it may seem to him.

just buy him packets of top trumps. he can memorise all the really boring detail so that he can win when he finds someone to play with. car journeys are a breeze now. although the latest craze here is a hideously huge pokemon book for the same reason.

we've got tanks, aircraft, harry potter, high school musical (lol), about twelve packets - all sorts of trivial information that is being filed in those little heads.

as far as i see it - they provide new input, and a memorising experience, and aren't going to cause any angst as long as you but new ones frequently enough. (it takes ds1 about an hour to memorise a new pack, but then he uses them for another week or so until he gets bored). better if at some point he can find someone to beat challenge, but quite good alone for car journeys...

i do agree with the night time thing though. just say no. we taught ds1 to play chess (in about an hour lol) and he would wake us up in the night to ask questions about castling. just say no, not the time, goodnight.

for really long journeys, we break out the ds lite btw - brain training and chess (oh and battleships, bizarrely) keep him quiet for hours.

melatonin?

No longer under pead got discharged at CAF !

When he is at his dad's the problems are still there by he has a very short memory and doesn't retain the fact he has rung me between midnight and 6am to say ds won't sleep. He refuses to do edu thing in middle of night and thus get no sleep. He benefits also from the fact that ds is so knackered by the time he goes to visit he is easier to handle. I get the pre-visit anxiety and the post-visit anxiety. Its a fairly new routine and he has only recently discovered attachment so we're now suffering serious seperation anxiety. so its limited visits to daddy ie just weekend no longer. He doesn't do play at Daddy's due to the short visits and these generally filled with seeing his cousins, fishing and golf. with odd games of football and trampoline bounching. Not a toy little boy.

Would love to go down top trumps route but his reading is not good enough and daren't give him anything computer hand held wise. Daddy gave him an mp3 recently which got broken in less then 30mins. He also has a habit of taking things apart to find out how they work.

He is a play school and his school skills are and have improved greatly over the last month. still some socialisation issues.
Smee that is exactly one of my problems he thinks that school is going to be sit down lessons and learning. He doesn't like general play -not something that ever came naturally to him and he has always been working at a level above and gets very bored with toys and games quickly.

He is the kinda kid that had mastered guess who, naughts and crosses, dominos etc by 3- 3 1/2. I currently having been teaching him the principles behind battleships and rummikub for kids. That now grasped we shall be heading for those delights on games night. He has been working on his money skills (he wants pocket money) and shall get him playing pop to the shops soon.

was proactive this morning -one appoint with school for tomo aft, one with doc wed morning. Should really sort out hv one. but haven't got the guts to deal with her at mo

teach him chess too, mine are obsessed by it. i've also known a few kids who take very well to a rubik's cube - although of course once they have worked out how to do it, it takes less than a minute each time lol. but they still seem to enjoy. one lad used to have to do it before he could sit down at school - it was a real pita, but a coping strategy for him...

Can you go and visit school with him before he starts? Ask for another tour if they don't do induction. Talk to him about how they 'learn through play', as that it seems is what they do. Find out from the new teacher how the day will be structured and talk him through it. Be awful if his expectations put him off school from the start.
He does sound hard work but also completely fab. You need some help on the sleep front though don't you? Is there no help from the GP? Am behind on where you've been already. Must be crippling for you. Very, very hard to be a great parent if you're exhausted. I know that one all too well .

can you concentrate on teaching him to read? IME (no SN dc here) life is so much easier for very able and not needing much sleep children (2 different dc btw)

They can then read books by themself at night and learn stuff to satisfy their need to learn.

you can get the junior top trumps as well - same theory but less long words. as long as they can understand what the categories are, the rest is just numbers to memorise lol.

Just seen your proactive post. Yeay - be assertive..!

chess machine for one man play!!!

For my dd who hardly slept she saw a neuro developmental therapist which sorted it out - they help a lot of dc with ADHD, something to do with reducing their adrenalin levels. It was fab now she sleeps through the night and generally sleeps for longer - she's nearly 6 now.

here is a link about what it is about

www.brainandbehaviour.ie/

He has already had a 1 hour individual visit. He thought the sit down song activity was silly. like the outdoor play and stick and glue (two big passions). we are already talking about it. but he will have two more visits so will have to see if this changes his opinion

Would love to teach him chess but i only know loosing chess and part of his problem is he need reassurance and will often get up crawl into my bed/daddys bed and go to sleep lying on top of you. Those nights come with some sleep.

He likes to practice in secret and he generally reads to me every evening as part of his bedtime routine. Not so keen to let other people know he reads as well as he does. Am working on him reading by himself -he now gets 10 mins looking at books on his own just before lights out. Suspect it is a more usable tactic as he gets older and more confident.

Borrow some library books on subjects he is passionate about? Even if it's a look at the pictures what have you learnt for yourself type of thing?

I really feel for you, the constant need for your attention in that way is so so so wearing.