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Right brained children tend to finish art creations and proudly show them to you, or get frustrated they are not turning out the way they want and throw them away. Yes He starts a drawing, it's not coming out the way he wants, abandons it and tries it again on the next page. He goes through a lot of pages practicing drawing dinosaurs (his main interest - which prompted the suspicion about Asperger).
My son does this as well and goes through a lot of paper and notebooks. Dinosaurs were also one of his main drawing interests for YEARS. It has now branched out to include friends and family as well as Star Wars and Indiana Jones.
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ADHD children might not even finish a drawing and leave it all behind to go on to the next thing, forgetting about it until they see it again. Not that I've noticed.
My son always finishes his drawing as well or if he needs to leave it, though it is a struggle to get him to do it sometimes, he comes back to it to finish.
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Right brained children would switch to other mediums while creating, like markers or paint, just to see how it is different. He does switch some, but often stays with the same medium.
My son prefers colored pencils, but occasionally uses markers or crayons.
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ADHD children are more prone to stick to what feels right in their hands or what they are used to using. He does that more than switching.
Again, he prefers colored pencils.
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Right brained children tend to want to show off what they are creating and may know exactly what it is they have made, but may not be able to explain it clearly. He shows it off, yes and he can clearly explain what he is doing. He is extremely verbal.
My son is very proud of his artwork and we bought him a tack board so he can hang up his work in the kitchen for all to see, he loves telling people about his pictures.
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ADHD children may have no clear idea of what they have drawn and begin to talk about something else entirely and leave it behind, unwanted. Not that I've noticed.
He always knows what he's drawing and what he wants to convey.
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When told to clean up, a right brained child may think putting the crayons on the desk is cleaning up and be done and off to their next activity. Yes, he has that tendency. He doesn't like to do any non-preferred activity judiciously, he just blasts through it to be done with it (again, another Asperger trait, supposedly).
My son hates cleaning up, but has gotten better at it over the years as we reinforced it as a wanted behavior. However, he still rushes through it as quick as possible to move on to something he likes.
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An ADHD child will put some of the crayons in the box, some of the paper back in the bin and then start to draw again, forgetting they are supposed to be cleaning up. He sometimes does that too. He's all over the GD place.
My son bounces around when he cleans up and can get distracted by his toys on occasion. However, a gentle nudge gets him moving again.
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If he is indeed left brained then he may:
- be left handed, put out left foot first when putting on shoes, or left arm in jacket first (did not notice, but he does not draw or eat with left hand).
My son bats left handed and plays hockey left handed. Other than that everything is right.
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- think out of the box often (use a kitchen spoon to dig in the dirt)
(did not notice...in fact the psych thought that he was slightly rigid in his thinking, which again...sent her to Aspergers).
My son is flexible in his thinking and gets creative with things. When he got into Indiana Jones, he assembled his own "costume" from various things around the house.
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- miss important details (letters make words)
no...but then again, he is just 5 1/2 and he naturally still makes a lot of spelling mistakes which I do correct every time.
Age wise he is developmentally on track.
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- have good intuition (knowing someone is sad) Yes (which points away from Aspergers; he's always picked on my most nuanced emotional states, facial expressions, etc. If he pays attention his intuition will detect it right away; but if his brains fly all over the wall in that moment, he obviously won't notice I am sad or whatever).
My son can be a little numb to feelings at times, but can certainly pick up when we are mad, sad, glad, etc.
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- have good instincts (good balance prevents him from falling). No. He is a clumsy child, constantly fidgets, constantly tips chair.
(that would point both to ADHD and Aspergers).
My son is a fidgeter, but is also very coordinated. At 5 he was clumsy, but seems to have grown into himself a bit over the past year or so.
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- mentally connect things in unconventional ways that are confusing to others until the connecting
factor is discovered(new walmart commercial reminds him of a college graduation many years ago
connecting factor being the air horn blowing) did not notice that
Not really, but he is a keen observer and can tell by the road we are on and the landmarks where we are heading.
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- might be very frustrated doing puzzles because they are logical, yet building with Legos can be a joy
because they are big picture creations He likes both
He loves both.
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- know the answer to a math problem, but not be able to explain how he got it
No.
But we are just now starting to work on additions and subtractions. However, my instincts right now say he won't be a math genius but he'll be able to stay on top of it with hard work. I was the same.
My son seems to be more comfortable with math than say reading.
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- be rather dramatic in reactions in ways that seem unreasonable because he doesn't see the close up issue but instead sees the long term problem Yes - a million times. He can be very emotional and sink into a meltdown when things don't go as he had expected them to.
My son used to be this way, but we have helped him be managing his expectations.
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So, I don't know what the conclusion would be.
He is probably a bit of every psych "affliction" we have around today.
Oh, well.
IMO, he's a normal kid. I only posted the above to show as a comparative that my son illustrates many of the same behaviors especially at age 5, again he is now 6 1/2. We never assumed there was anything wrong with him and his excellent perfromance in school and sports have reinforced to us that he has no issues. What we would do is find constructive ways to compel him to correct some of the things that were annoying, like leaving messes and teaching him to manage his expectations.
I hate to say it, but I think you are looking for symptoms to fit a diagnosis.
I have practiced all of the above with him - consistently.
But he allows too much mess to pile up at "quiet/down" time even though he doesn't even have that many toyus/things in his room (try to keep them manageable). but he literally forgets about them and they end up on the floor somehow. He also like to cut things out (crafts) and makes a mess
on the floow with cut out paper all the tiem.
He is just not naturally neat and self-contained. It takes an enormous amount of energy on my part to constantly remind him to either not drop things on the floor in the first place, or pick them up after the deed is done anyway. Also, if I don't tell him 'pick them up', he would leave them there the end of eternity.
What is frustrating is that lessons, methods, consequences, you name it do not seem to work. His brain can't keep up.
But we're still grasping at straws now in the hope that we will be able to avoid meds in the future.
What consequences have you tried? Have you tried taking away his beloved paper, crayons and scissors when he leaves a mess? He sounds a lot like my son and that was the most effective thing. If he keeps it up, take everything out of his room and slowly introduce things back one at a time until he understands he needs to clean up when he is done.
The day we did that was a major turning point with my son. We took EVERYTHING away for one day. The next day he got to pick one bin of his toys to have. If that bin wasn't cleaned up it went away and we started over. If he was responsible with it, he got to pick another bin. It took a couple MONTHS to get to the point where he had all the toys and could remember to clean up.
Oh, I always do that - make him clean up the mess he's made.
However, he generally gets frustrated that he has to deal with a big mess after that, and starts whining about cleaning up. Don't get me wrong, he still does it THROUGH the whining, as I NEVER give in to his whining and I expect him to complete the clean up task come H or H water; but the very fact that he whines about it every time gets on my nerves.
I am now trying to explain to him that if he remembers to put something he's used or played with away as soon as he's done with it, there won't be any mess to clean after that.
It is onlyvery recently that he seems to have warmed up to this idea and has started to find it attractive, intellectually speaking.
Yet, it is not at all apparent that his working attention can follow the intellectual desire to have things this way.
I really have to ask this. Are you one of those people who always wants everything super clean? Everything in its place? The more I read, the more it sounds like he is a completely normal kid. Kids are messy. They don't like to clean up after themselves. They don't realize they are making the mess to begin with. All of the things you are describing are things he will improve on with age. He is young. He will be messy. You just have to keep reminding him to clean up. At his age he may still need direction when it comes to cleaning too as a big mess may look overwhelming to him.
I really have to ask this. Are you one of those people who always wants everything super clean? Everything in its place? The more I read, the more it sounds like he is a completely normal kid. Kids are messy. They don't like to clean up after themselves. They don't realize they are making the mess to begin with. All of the things you are describing are things he will improve on with age. He is young. He will be messy. You just have to keep reminding him to clean up. At his age he may still need direction when it comes to cleaning too as a big mess may look overwhelming to him.
Ha, that's me. I can walk into the house from work and it looks like the kids have lit off a toy, shoes, clothes, etc. bomb and I immediately get a little tense and overwhelmed. I look at the mess and can't even envision where to start. To me it looks like it will take FOREVER to clean up. We always clean up before dinner, BTW...there's those "transition" times I mentioned earlier.
The kids will start cleaning their toys and here I go bouncing from one thing to the next, putting the shoes in the closet, putting mail in the "mail spot", putting a cup in the dishwasher, back to the closet with another pair of shoes, help the kids put something on a shelf, look more dishes, straighten up the book shelf, clothes in the laundry, some more shoes, etc.
When all is said and done, it takes about a grand total of 10 minutes to clean up. On days when I look really flustered as my wife is making dinner, we'll switch off and it takes her only about 5 minutes.
I read in another thread that you believe in spanking. If your child has issues such as ADHD or PDD then you better think twice about it. You sound like a bright person, surely you can come up with something better than hitting a child with some issues. That's just wrong.
I really have to ask this. Are you one of those people who always wants everything super clean? Everything in its place? The more I read, the more it sounds like he is a completely normal kid. Kids are messy. They don't like to clean up after themselves. They don't realize they are making the mess to begin with. All of the things you are describing are things he will improve on with age. He is young. He will be messy. You just have to keep reminding him to clean up. At his age he may still need direction when it comes to cleaning too as a big mess may look overwhelming to him.
I'm wondering the exact same thing. Why is it so necessary, and so important, for a kid to keep his desk clean while he's working?
Kids are messy. Kids obsess about dinosaurs. (I'm looking at a dinosaur mug of my son's. He comes here to visit? That's his mug. He's in his 20's.)
We had dinosaurs obsessions, Star Wars obsessions. One slept with his autographed football and a picture of Joe Montana over his head. (Want to know Joe Montana's stats for his rookie year? Give him a call.)
I read in another thread that you believe in spanking. If your child has issues such as ADHD or PDD then you better think twice about it. You sound like a bright person, surely you can come up with something better than hitting a child with some issues. That's just wrong.
I spanked, yes. I don't do it anymore because, the vast majority of times is not necessary anymore. With my younger one, 3 yo girl, I don't because I never had to. She is an easy, malleable child and she is simply not asking for it.
With my son...oh, Lordy. Those were some really terrible 2-s, or rather 3's and 4's. It is better now.
I really have to ask this. Are you one of those people who always wants everything super clean? Everything in its place? The more I read, the more it sounds like he is a completely normal kid. Kids are messy. They don't like to clean up after themselves. They don't realize they are making the mess to begin with. All of the things you are describing are things he will improve on with age. He is young. He will be messy. You just have to keep reminding him to clean up. At his age he may still need direction when it comes to cleaning too as a big mess may look overwhelming to him.
Not a clean freak, no. In fact, my house is usually messy and needs vacuuming almost at all times simply because I cannot stay on top of it.
But I do prefer some order, neat-ness and no chaos.
My kids spend a lot of time playing indoors (don't ask me about my many failed efforts to make them go in the yard) - so they end up making a mess at all times.
I really do hope that he will improve with age, as you say. Nobody hopes it harder than we do.
But I do prefer some order, neat-ness and no chaos.
You may just have to adust to the fact that you have a child who is (to you) messy. Some people are neat. Some people are messy. It's the way of the world. And the universe very often gives a neat parent a messy child. It's a cosmic "Gotcha!"
Actually, no. He does not take them and drops them on the floor, definitely not on purpose.
He simply goes through several of them, leaves them on the desk but the surface is somewhat small (as he often piles up other things there too) - so he simply doesn't notice when they drop. He is not careful to at least push the crayons he went through further in the middle. As such, they end up towards the edge and drop, without him noticing it.
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Originally Posted by syracusa
But he allows too much mess to pile up at "quiet/down" time even though he doesn't even have that many toyus/things in his room (try to keep them manageable). but he literally forgets about them and they end up on the floor somehow. He also like to cut things out (crafts) and makes a mess on the floow with cut out paper all the tiem.
He is just not naturally neat and self-contained. It takes an enormous amount of energy on my part to constantly remind him to either not drop things on the floor in the first place, or pick them up after the deed is done anyway. Also, if I don't tell him 'pick them up', he would leave them there the end of eternity.
What is frustrating is that lessons, methods, consequences, you name it do not seem to work. His brain can't keep up.
Your son sounds absolutely normal to me!
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Originally Posted by syracusa
But we're still grasping at straws now in the hope that we will be able to avoid meds in the future.
Crayons and paper on the floor after "down time" don't sound like reasons to consider meds. Many young children are messy.
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