Can being clever be a reason for bad behaviour?

[GooseyLoosey]

Question says it all really.

I am told that particularly clever children often have particularly challenging behaviour. Is their intelligence an acceptable reason for this or is it merely an excuse.

I don't think many adults like it much when they are challenged. Especially when the person challenging them is a. a child and b. has a point. And even more so when the adult is in a position of authority.

To be fair, sometimes adults just don't have time to give detailed explanations of why things are as they are. Or knows far more, of course, about the context and the shades of grey.

And, as everyone has said, there are social conventions that children just haven't learned yet, or don't have the depth of understanding to negotiate adult responses and the range of adult preferences.

I was considered a highly gifted child (hard to believe I know, given the way I type nonsense on here). I was extremely well behaved but that was because my mum was very strict, she said she had to come down hard on me to keep me in line or I would manipulate her.

The thing is, not reading isn't naughty. Answering back constantly and arguing is unrespectful though - and what may be cute and lovable in your own small child is a right pita in an older child or adult, so needs combating early on.

I have this stance as DH is v v intelligent and 'puts on the social face at the door', even though he struggles with the conventions (and was a right pita as a teen), and DS shows signs of being the same (he always has a complex arguement about why he is right for instance). We also have a couple of friends who are high fliers academically, but have no idea of conforming socially, and are very hard work to like

Goblin - you are right, the school (one teacher aside) do try hard with ds, but I have overheard so many comments from other parents and children that I tend to see it as him against the world.

Vive - yes it is peer relationships which suffer. Actually both his and mine as I am finding it all increasingly hard to deal with. How do you have polite chit chat with someone you know won't invite your child around to their house?

I am trying to determine though whether my bright beautiful boy can possibly be the monster which other parents and children seem to see. What are they seeing that I do not? I see loud and arrrogant (both of which we are addressing) and easily hurt and a bit stroppy but I do not see monster.

CMOT - you bring me back to my original question. I think that to ds, asking questions and not getting when to shut up is not being naughty - it is something he needs to learn in just the same way as another child struggles to learn to read. To me they are exactly the same, but I know that others see it quite differently.

Peer relationships is interesting. I was considered very bright and definitely stuck out at primary school. But had loads of friends and no social problems at all. Quite the reverse - I could protect people against bullying by befriending them and telling the bullies they were being unkind and stupid.

Very different at my first secondary, putting your hand up in class and being interested in learning was NOT a good thing and got me bullied. Fortunately I escaped to an academic secondary where life was much better. Was probably good for me being surrounded by lots of other clever kids so I wasn't particularly special.

Parents and children can be vicious, judgemental and monstrous. Sometimes you have to grit your teeth and accept that the life you thought your children would have is not going to happen. The trick is to help them develop something different, equal and positive instead. I have never met a child who was a monster.

Peer relationships are the biggest problem for us. I am told that all of his social issues are down to his intelligence, but I just cannot see how that can be. How can he understand complex stuff which other children struggle with but not get that it will really wind them up to run off with the ball in football?

How old is he?
Mine used to want interaction and saw that as having friends and being included. The fact that it was negative interaction took a while for him to work out.
Sometimes DD would do something to create a reaction and study the consequences. It amused her and annoyed others. Sometimes she did it as payback if she'd been left out, and pretended that she was playing.

But equally, to my DS (who is 4), grabbing the toy that someone else has just put down (and therefore isn't actually using at that moment in time) isn't naughty - but is totally not acceptable to the other child, or anyone else, in spite of his justification. So he gets told no, a detailed explanation of why it isn't acceptable and what the rules are. Further transgressions on the same type are not tolerated

The thing is you know your son, you know that although he comes across as loud and arrogant he's also easily hurt. Other people don't see that.

Just think of one person that you've probably judged for being loud, arrogant and a know-it-all, then ask yourself if you ever stopped to think about whether the loudness was covering something up, whether the attitude 'problem' was because you didn't want to admit they were actually right and whether the know-it-all was actually born from a genuine wish to put you right, espeically with subordinates.

'Correcting' authority figures is something that it took me a long time to learn as a child. I never actually told them they were wrong before but I probably seethed and was sullen and vividly remember telling my parents about the catalogue of mistakes my teachers made. There are socially acceptable ways to do it, which results in your child being labelled clever, and socially unacceptable ways which results in a child coming across as arrogant and know-it-all-sih

You see a bit stroppy when not handled correctly, but other people haven't had the benefit of your experience in knowing how to handle him and probably see very stroppy! That said the world is not going to handle him carefully so really it's down to you and him to work on why he's stropping, why he's perceived the way he is and find strategies to mitigate it.

DH, who has excellent people skills, once said to me he struggled with the same thing as a child until he started seeing people as the kind of puzzles where you have to press the buttons in the right sequence to get them to do what you want. A lot of trial and error later and he's got all the buttons worked out, despite (so he says) not having been born knowing how people tick.

Ds is 7 and I am not sure that he sees the difference between positive and negative interactions either. I am just stuggling to understand why not. Goblin - you sound so calm about such things - I am in awe.

CMOT - I absolutely agree with you and at home that is what would and does happen. However, what other people see at school and in their houses is a child doing something that they should know is wrong and they act accordingly. Ds does not appreciate that what he is doing is not acceptable to other people and when I am not there, I simply do not know how to deal with this.

ViveLaFrak - you are of course right, but that is not so easily said as done. I have been working hard for 3 years to address the issues which ds has - with ds, the school and even other parents.

They however do not address their children's behaviour towards ds and this is very, very difficult to deal with.

Interesting.
My friends think thta ds1's behaviour is becaue he is "too bright and a bit too savvy".
He is naughty is minor way, stroppy, answering back etc. I have found no way to deal with him, as yet.

Unfortunately parents can't interfere in the relationships children have with their peers.

Forgive me if I'm making assumptions but are you giving your DS space to make his own mistakes whilst being willing to talk them through with him afterwards? Or are you jumping in to prevent/correct? The trial/error approach, like Goblin's DD creating situations to observe, is a really valuable way that children learn.

Please don't give up hope, because social skills can be learned even if it takes a long time. It can be absolutely heartbreaking when a child doesn't 'get' that the things which seem to come naturally to other people and are treated as lepers because of it. Unfortunately it's also very difficult to get other parents to shake their preconceptions.

In fact I have a whole catalogue of posts on here under one of my old names, including the football situation, and got some fab advice, inclduing a couple of books - the unwritten rules of friendship was one I found particularly useful. Another good strategy was role-playing with understanding and not-so-understanding responses. Briefing parents before playdates about your DS's coping strategies that you've taught him, like retreating from the situation physically if he feels out of control if necessary.

Other very wise people told me that next time he ran off with a football I should ask him to think about the reaction and what he could have done differently. So I did and we didn't have the same problem. He said, logically, that they didn't want him to play even when he tried nicely, so he ran off with the football so no-one could play until they let him play too. I had to explain to him the alternative line of logic that maybe there were rules about when he could start playing, that running off with the ball made them upset and maybe next time he wants to play they'll remember that he ran off with the ball so they won't want him to join in and that he should return the ball and ask to join in when it was okay.

Can you identify what it is that he struggles with?

It is interesting. Mine wouldn't do hardly anything I asked when little. e.g getting dressed, coming away from somewhere she was having fun. Used to have to resort to dragging away. Wouldn't sit still at all, in a cafe she would be trying climb on the tables or happily play under it after she'd eaten etc etc. I somehow managed to muddle through it all.

I remember looking at other children the same age and felt something was different. Often was made to feel like an inadequate parent.

I do think that it had something to do with being intelligent. Quite baffling if children are hiding their light under a bushel too which mine did at a younger age.

My advice to anyone going through it now is to look at the bigger picture and let a lot of it go, only try and change the big behavioural issues, if there are any. Your child might never jump when you say. In our case it all turned around in the teens and I was the one with the model DD when everyone else was tearing their hair out.

vivelafrak you said "Unfortunately parents can't interfere in the relationships children have with their peers". How I wish that were true. I spent the first few years, taking a very softly, softly approach, talking to ds and going over situations with him afterwards. Sadly other parents did not do this and were very keen to intervene and blame ds for a great deal. I still can not objectively determine in my own mind what I think was his fault and what was not. I accept that because it was a case of many against one that he must have instigated much of what went on, but he has a very different perspective.

School say he is a lovely, out going bright child with issues keeping quiet and a desire to dominate. I think this too. Other parents and children think something very different

Oblomov - I am glad that I am not the only one who does not know what to do!

Abouteve - I know about feeling like an inadequate parent. This thread was really about me trying to work out whether there are reasons for the way ds is or whether I should accept the consensus view that he is horrible and a product of bad parenting. Sorry - sounding a bit bitter there, clearly I would never do that.

I'd say that a very bright child is less likely to conform and more likely to question teachers/adults because they can see that there are several rules that are just plain stupid. Ds (for example) doesn't get the child:adult relationship, he see's himself as an equal and wishes to be treated as such, he is very offended when he is asked to be quiet because (how he see's it) it's one rule for adults and one rule for children. He picked up quite early on that children are seen as a lesser being (we've had more then a few discussions about this). He can come across as abrupt and rude, he's learnt all of this from the adults around him though.

Thanks Belle. Actually I am surprised that so many of you do link intelligence with behavioural problems. I expected more scepticism.

The gist appears to be that where you have a highly intelligent child, they can struggle in their relationships with their peers and this causes wider problems.

I still struggle to see why this is so common in bright children. The potential reasons I can see are that (a) they are regarded and therefore treated as odd by their peers which leads to stresses in their relationships (b) they don't intuit things about the world as they have too strong a tendancy to rationalise and analyse or (c) they are hard-wired differently and will never be able to get what comes naturally to others, although they can learn to mask their differences.

I was extremely clever as a child and an absolute angel. Not typical though as I was beaten/hit/kicked if I was naughty so I never did it more than once.

DD is very bright too, very naughty, stubborn, has an answer for everything..

I guess that sometimes it is better to have a loud out going child than a quiet good one CG.

Goosey, try to imagine being at work, your 'peers' (people at your level) constantly tell you to be quiet and tell you what to do, you have no friends at your level as you are either bossed about or have to make friends with others who can only talk about their favourite TV programme rather then something that interests you (like the transit of venus). I know it would drive me nuts.

I do, however, think there's a huge difference between an intelligent frustrated child and a violent/bullying child. I can understand why ds used to shout out the answers, he knows it's not acceptable and it's stopped. I don't think intelligence can be a get out for all behavioural problems.

I think there is also the link between what we consider intelligence - which is generally very male things like maths, problem solving and abstract puzzle type things ( i.e the IQ test) and the link between those sorts of things and those on the autistic spectrum - no I am not saying that intelligent folk are autistic, however there is research that shows that many many scientists are more on the autistic side than people, for example, who are nurses.

And autism is generally associated with poorer social skills, hence the thread with all the observations

So, many 'intelligent' children are considered intelligent because of what is traditionally the measure of intelligence, but those things are specifically shown to be more prevalent in those higher up the autistic spectrum.

Just IMO.

This tread rings so true for me. DS is intelligent, questioning and very, very naughty in quite an adult way sometimes! Everything is logical and reasoned , he will never accept aurthority unless he has an explanation of why.

However he is starting to realise that not everybodies brain works quite like his and is starting describe grown up whom he disagrees with as "a bit funny about that" or "fussy about the way things are done". Sometimes he plays along and sometimes he dosen't. However he is lovely with younger children and will patiently explain things to his sister, I just wish he could do the same with some adults in his life !

We are lucky in that he gets on well with his teacher and his peers,so school is not a problem ,mainly the extended family in our case . He is 6 BTW

GL I love the fact my kids aren't living in fear but tbh I have let them off too much so are trying to sort that out. Letting them get away with things because I was beaten, etc isn't going to help them. Shame I didn't work this out years ago.