This is my second post on the five over-excitabilities described by Dabrowsky - psychomotor OE.
I have no idea why Dabrowsky called this one "Psycho"-Motor OE - but it certainly can make a parent go psycho, so maybe that's why. This is the one that keeps gifted kids MOVING... CONSTANTLY. Time and again people have told me my child has ADHD (but he doesn't have attention problems...??) simply because he never stops moving. Unless he's sleeping, and then you can't wake him.
I get it, though... when I was a child I had a lot of energy (why can't I have that much energy now??). I remember my mother telling me that people were saying I was hyperactive, "but you're not - you just have a lot of energy." I actually smashed a bone in my heel from bouncing when I was 6. Tigger was my favorite (he's bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy, fun fun fun fun fun!). I think I could appreciate how he felt. I actually sang that song and imitated Tigger in the halls of my high school a few times... bouncing and pouncing as my classmates dragged along to class.
So it's no surprise my child has a lot of energy. He runs, he jumps, he comes down the stairs on his knees (makes mine hurt every time!), he fidgets, and most nights during dinner he's up and away from the table at least once - drawn in by something in the next room or something going on in his head. He paces when he talks, as if the movement helps him center his thoughts. When he's working on the computer, he spins in the chair, or jumps out of it and does a little dance after he's typed out an especially thrilling thought on the screen.
But - and this is the part few people besides those of us living in our house ever see - he also sits for hours and reads, he lays on the floor to play with Legos, he cuddles with one or both of us (his parents) to watch TV or a movie. And this is how I know it's an over-excitability and not a chemical imbalance - because when the interest is there, the movement quiets. Sure, he still fidgets (I'm trying to teach him to wiggle his toes in his shoes instead of tapping on the table or clicking his pen when he's in a group), but there is a calmness that alights on him when he's thinking of something really interesting. And I know that's the look that will come at that "a-ha!" moment of discovery - the moment when whatever it is he chooses to do will change the world we live in.
And I can't wait to see that.
