A problem child or just eccentric? As Lucinda Schmidt discovers, your "unusual" child is perfectly normal.
A problem child or just eccentric? As Lucinda Schmidt discovers, your "unusual" child is perfectly normal.
Marina Copley vividly remembers taking her son, Lachlan, to the playground when he was about three, where he would grill other parents about their children's names and ages. "I'm 999 days older than your baby," he confidently announced to one startled mum, having instantly done the calculation. "It impresses the parents but not the other children," says Copley.
Parenting a child who is a bit different - eccentric even - can be challenging.
In Lachlan's case, he has been assessed as intellectually gifted; other kids might be highly individual thinkers or extraordinarily creative non-conformists.
For parents, it's a difficult line between celebrating their idiosyncratic child and helping them fit into a world that pushes conformity.
"There's a tension between being supportive and also being aware that the world can be a cruel place," says Copley, a teacher and artist from Melbourne's inner east. She and her husband, Roland, a music teacher, have known Lachlan was different since he was forming complicated sentences at age two and teaching himself to read and write at age three. Now, at eight, he's emotionally intense, and it's hard for him to find peers who communicate at his level and share his interests in computer games, music, reading and fantasy play.
"He thinks he's a master of the universe and ought to be in control of everything - and that can produce obnoxious behaviour, like lording it over others when he can do something and they can't," says Copley. "We're constantly trying to teach him what could be obnoxious to other children."
Part of the Copleys' strategy has been to send Lachlan to Preshil, an alternative private school in Melbourne's east, where he skipped grade 2 because he relates better to older children.
"We're the school that attracts these eccentric kids," says principal Frank Moore. "They're interesting, thoughtful and way ahead of their time, and have often been bullied [at their previous school]. At a formal grammar school with strict regulations, that pressure for uniformity is unbearable for them."
Psychologist Andrew Fuller, the author of Tricky Kids, says there is huge pressure for eccentric kids to conform to mainstream expectations. "I've seen parents who are worried their kid is not fitting in and who feel guilty about their own parenting," he says. "Because the world has a narrow band of acceptable behaviour, the eccentric child is often seen as a problem child, and that's not true."
Fuller says parents sometimes want to "correct" the very thing that is likely to set their child up for success as an adult. "Parents might expect a football/netball- playing gung-ho type, but they get a bookworm who likes to be alone most of the time - and that's fine," he says. "It's important for parents to be broad-minded."
Michael Carr-Gregg, a child and adolescent psychologist, says parents typically come to see him when their unusual child - usually a boy - is in late primary school and has no friends, or in year 9 when high school is proving no better. He does diagnostic tests to eliminate issues such as Asperger's syndrome, then advises parents to rejoice in their eccentric child.
"Parents are often ambivalent about an eccentric kid - they're not sure if it's a good thing or not," he says. "A lot of parents bring me eccentric kids because they're worried their kids are mentally ill. You have to be very careful to distinguish between the two. A lot of the behaviour is aberrant, but they're not nuts."
One boy, for example, was fascinated by insects (and has gone on to become an entomologist) and another was obsessed with trains. "At the heart of eccentricity is creativity," explains Carr-Gregg. "Some parents, especially if they're artists or scientists, are a lot more comfortable with kids like this."
When parents come to him looking for a diagnostic label to explain their child's unusual behaviour, he urges them to focus on the positives. "These children are less likely to be addicted to consumer culture, they're very unlikely to abuse alcohol or drugs, and a lot of them are very happy; they use their solitude constructively," he says. "I tell them, 'Your kid's different, that's cool, celebrate it.'"
For Belinda and her husband Chris (surnames withheld), celebrating and supporting their son Xavier's differentness has been important to them since he was at kindergarten. "The other little boys liked wrestling, cars, trucks and balls," says Belinda, an artist and art teacher. "He loved dress-ups, reading and stories." His inner-city kindergarten embraced Xavier's strong sense of dramatic play and got the other boys to dress up, too, but when the family moved to Melbourne's outer east he was bullied at his new kinder by a group of girls.
"He withdrew into himself and didn't really come out of it until grade 6," says Belinda, describing a very bright bookworm and shy loner who doesn't like sport or small talk, speaks like a young adult and often talks to himself. "What worried me most were the social relationships. You just want your child to be happy and have friends."
Each year through primary school, she and Chris, who worked in theatre for years, would organise extravagant themed birthday parties for Xavier, requiring all participants to dress up and act out scenes. The themes matched Xavier's reading interests at the time: Harry Potter in grade 2, for example, and The Lord of the Rings in grade 5.
"That's what we did to support him," says Belinda, who also started a chess club at the school to give Xavier something to do at lunchtimes when the other boys were playing football. They've never pushed him into sport, instead enrolling him in tap-dancing classes from prep to grade 5, as well as piano lessons. Recently, they've been driving him to an outer-Melbourne suburb on weekends so he can try archery.
This year, the family (the couple have another son, 10, and a daughter, 8) have moved back to their old inner-city stomping ground so that Xavier, now 13, can attend a medium-sized high school with a strong accelerated academic program. Belinda says they've guided his choices into things he's likely to enjoy, such as drama and debating - and she's stopped trying to force him to make eye contact with people because it makes him stressed and anxious.
"He's always had a strong sense of self, and always dressed differently and loved musicals," she says. "He's confident, he'll give anything a go, he's a happy child, positive and caring. And that's the most important thing - for him to be happy."
Chris, who works for Arts Victoria, says he's more relaxed than Belinda about Xavier being different. "If he was 'normal' - by that I mean bland - I'd be more concerned," he says. "The strength of him is that he's never felt cowed into hiding his character."
Chris describes a child who gets deeply interested in things (at present it's tarot cards), believes in magic and plans to invent a time machine so he can travel through time. "His innocence, his purity of vision - I don't want to see that sullied so early."
The eccentric child
Michael Carr-Gregg says eccentric children typically are:
- eldest or only children
- boys
- opinionated and outspoken
- highly intelligent
- intensely curious
- creative
- idealistic
- non-conformist
- not good at small talk
- not interested in personal grooming
- poor spellers
- fussy eaters
How to help your eccentric child
Psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg says eccentric children often have poor social skills, with anger management and conflict resolution particularly difficult for many of them.
He says parents can help these children to relate better to their peers by:
- talking to them about the importance of being tolerant of others
- emphasising listening skills and learning to sit quietly and talk about topics that may not interest them
- encouraging them to try the Inspire Foundation's online game, which teaches young people coping skills (reachoutcentral.com.au)
Carr-Gregg advises parents to:
- share and nurture their child's curiosity and joy
- do more listening than talking
- not compare them with siblings
- not be hung up if they're not interested in sport
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