Personally, I think it's not a parent's job to crush a child's fantasies. Now that doesn't mean you can't say things like "Well, you'll need to figure out a lot of things that no one has ever been able to figure out before. What do you think you'll have to learn? That's not 'going along with it' just to humor him, but it is taking his ideas seriously. I think the suggestion of helping him learn more about his area of passion is a good one. Between the kids at school and his gradual understanding of how hard it is, he'll figure this out. You don't have to crush his dreams.
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Originally Posted by
katiecatÂ
He's very into dinosaurs right now so he talks a lot about inventing a time machine and going back to dinosaur times. <snip> But what I specifically wanted to ask about is...he talks about these things at school and is getting teased and the other children flat out tell him it's not possible. I have kept my reaction low key and sometimes say things like well what do they know and well you'll show them when you do it won't you? I've also said that if the teasing bothers him (it seems to a little but is not a huge deal to him) then he might just not want to talk about those things to the people who tease him.
A couple of thoughts on this: First, as odd as it seems, 9 is a little 'old' for a dinosaur fascination. No, there's nothing that says you can't be interested in dinosaurs at age 9, but many kids go through a dinosaur stage in preschool/kindergarten and they've moved on. So, they might be reacting as much to the reason for him wanting to time travel. They've moved on, he hasn't, and in the somewhat cruel world of children, they're letting him know.Â
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Ds had some issues in 3rd grade because his passion -- buses and bus routes -- were clearly not cool, but he wasn't interested in the other things that the kids were interested in. Ds is a quiet introvert, so no one outside the family actually knew about his passion, and he didn't get teased. But I could tell that he was a bit adrift in terms of how to interact with other kids. Thankfully, my parents came to visit and introduced him to the wonderful world of being a sports fan (because they were talking about it a lot and looking up scores on the internet), and that has been his life saver during 4th grade, and will probably carry him through adulthood. Ds is always going to be a bit geeky, but he can talk about sports. (In excruciating detail. For better or worse, he mostly shares those details at home.)
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There's not much you can do about the fact that other kids aren't interested in dinosaurs, but you might look for a summer class or something on that topic to give him an outlet among similarly minded kids. Reading about famous inventors and the things they went through might also be helpful -- the Wright Brothers, Thomas Edison, the Curies, etc.
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Second, have you read "How to Talk So Children Will Listen"? (Faber & Mazlish) It gives some really nice ways to talk about emotions and issues like this. When he tells you about kids teasing him, instead of saying "well, you'll show them," a more neutral response would be "What do you think about that?" "How do you feel about that?" Asking questions about his perception might help you understand whether he's bothered or not. The phrase "we'll you'll show them when you do it" strikes me as precisely the kind of reaction that seemed to bother you when you got older. It also doesn't give him any new tools for talking about his emotions/ideas surrounding the issue. Questions that he has to respond to just might.
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Finally, how does he do with social interactions in general? Our son has done a couple of 'social skills' groups at school that I think have really helped. His social skills aren't delayed enough to warrant intervention on more intense scale (he's not on the autism spectrum, for example), but he does benefit from some specific instruction and practice. Would such a thing be possible at your school? Do you have a school counselor you could talk to?
