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Obsessions

2K views 34 replies 28 participants last post by  fyrebloom 
#1 ·
deleted
 
#2 ·
Well, my three-year-old DS is doing the cars and trucks thing right now. My almost 6-yr-old DD is stuck on the Backyardigans. She has yards and yards of the dialogue memorized, and is always treating us to a line or six. She's also gotten back into her Magic Treehouse groove, and just bought six more of them.
 
#3 ·
Our 3.5yo's most recent obsessions include:

- Buzz Lightyear (of Toy Story fame), lasted one month and was replaced with...
- Tarzan (who she first called the "strong guy with brown hair" until she could remember his name)
- She is "obsessed" with cleaning her feet - I think it started on a recent camping trip to the desert, where sand just got everywhere (though it does not seem to bother her to have dirt/sand on other body parts)...
- she often gets obsessed with one type of cheese or other snack for weeks at a time until she tires of it and moves on to another food-related obsession
- "the small blue market" - a small grocery store near our house, where she picks out juice and/or snack on our way out or to home

Oh, the list could go on and on and on...
 
#5 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by sungod View Post
My 4 year old develops relationships with random objects. It could be a broken trinket from a birthday party or even a tiny piece of gravel from a parking lot. She will obsess over these objects for days until she finds a new piece of lint and forgets the old friends
My 5 year old sons obsessions are just as intense but are more mainstream. He will ONLY talk about Batman for a month and then we never hear about it again. Right now it's Speed Racer. He can only talk about speed racer...nothing else(well, not quite but you know what I mean).
As far back as I can remember dd1 has had strange object obsessions. When she was a babe it was a little blue maraca, I mean she ALWAYS had to have it with her. For at least a six month period, it can be seen in all her baby pictures, even her Christmas photo!

When she was 3 she found a tiny blue heart bead at the park. This was a huge obsession forever! She affectionately referred to it as "dirty blue heart" and would always have it with her, even taking it to bed. She became very upset when she thought about how sad the boy or girl must be, who lost this very special treasure.

These are the two biggest examples but there are many, many more. Right now, it's anything she can collect as a whole set. Like Curious George books, because on the back of most of them there is a small picture of each one in the set. They are not even very good books but she HAS to have every single one to match the picture. Also, she has been inundated with princess stuff from grandparents. So, of course, for her if she has one princess item she has to have the same thing in all the other princesses for a complete set. Right now she is waiting to earn her last crown so she can finally put them all together. (Oh, and they have an order they have to be stacked in too!)
 
#6 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by ejsmommy View Post
As far back as I can remember dd1 has had strange object obsessions. When she was a babe it was a little blue maraca, I mean she ALWAYS had to have it with her. For at least a six month period, it can be seen in all her baby pictures, even her Christmas photo!

When she was 3 she found a tiny blue heart bead at the park. This was a huge obsession forever! She affectionately referred to it as "dirty blue heart" and would always have it with her, even taking it to bed. She became very upset when she thought about how sad the boy or girl must be, who lost this very special treasure.

These are the two biggest examples but there are many, many more. Right now, it's anything she can collect as a whole set. Like Curious George books, because on the back of most of them there is a small picture of each one in the set. They are not even very good books but she HAS to have every single one to match the picture. Also, she has been inundated with princess stuff from grandparents. So, of course, for her if she has one princess item she has to have the same thing in all the other princesses for a complete set. Right now she is waiting to earn her last crown so she can finally put them all together. (Oh, and they have an order they have to be stacked in too!)
What's amazing to me is that they can carry around a little bead or tiny rock all day long and don't lose it. Most of the time I don't even know she has it with her. My daughter has sometimes brought a piece of gravel or lint to pre-school with her, managed to paint, go to the bathroom and eat lunch while holding this thing.
 
#7 ·
My daughter has has a wide array of obsessions... since I first started noticing that her behavior, was... well... obsessive.

Initially, it was Buzz Lightyear and Woody from Toy Story. When offered movie time, she would fixate on those movies over and over and over again. She would play with only Buzz Lightyear or Woody toys. (this was when she was 14-18 months).

She then moved her fixation/obsession to bull riding. She would watch them on tv (one channel we have has quite a bit of it on). She memorized all of the bull riders and bulls by face. That was when she was 2.

Then she moved onto NASCAR when she was 3. She memorized then entire field (40 some cars) she new their car numbers, the driver names and their sponsors.

She gave that up to move her focus to Hockey. At 4, she has now memorized the entire NHL, what city and state they play in (which has taken off on a side tangent of the capitals of every state) and she has now moved her focus to all their goalies.

Her fascinations/OCD tendencies seem to go in seasonal waves. Since hockey is over for the year, I suspect she will move onto something else very soon. I suspect it will be something with numbers, as that seems to be the common denominator in all of her fascinations. Her father is very much like this as well, so I've just learned to let them flow and work through it, topic by topic.

She also gets very obsessive about food, clothing, surroundings, etc. She doesn't adapt well to change. She's a very structured child.
 
#9 ·
these days oldest son:
Ship wrecks, especially the Titanic
Trains (huge, obsessive train guy!), engines, cars, rollercoasters
Kittens
Lists: he makes these crazy lists all year long
reads seemingly constantly


youngest son:
the brain
death
flowers, seeds
Mushrooms
Lichen (thank goodness for the Lichen Society of California!
)

baby:
she loves books
dogies
sunshine
eating the strawberries out of the pot on the porch (she checks it like 10 times a day)
 
#10 ·
Ooh, yes, we have obsessions here, too!


My oldest is now 6 and has been baseball-obsessed for years now. It's particularly noticeable now, as he knows more and notices more about baseball than 'most any adult would. He could easily sit and talk players, teams, ballparks, and play-by-plays with a seasoned adult aficionado. He pays close attention to when our home team is playing, where, and against whom (I did give him a calendar to keep on the fridge), and will ask questions like, tonight, "Mom, can you check and see if we swept the Cardinals tonight?" ... because he knows (and I don't!) that this was the third game of three and we won the first... And he can spend the Whole. Day. throwing and catching soft balls in the house. He was nearly in tears one day because I tried to tell him that at 6, he doesn't NEED to know how to throw a fastball, curveball, knuckleball, and slider. He'd seriously spent day after day throwing balls, "practicing my pitching," after reading in a DK book about baseball.

Anyhow, I adore baseball, but he's definitely obsessed!
Tomorrow he starts his first baseball summer camp. Last week when I told him it started Monday, he explained to his Grandma that he had to be there at 8:30, so he needed to leave at 8:15 and be ready by 8, so he'd have to get up at 7. (And while no one had previously discussed this with him, I hear it's the plan for tomorrow!)

So, he loves baseball... Though as someone else mentioned, when baseball isn't in season, he does get interested in other things, too, like Cars. Yup, the capital-C kind. I don't like "characters" and avoid them at most cost. Somehow we ended up with some of the Cars vehicles, anyway.
: They played with regular cars before that, but had quite a big Cars kick - both the 3yo and 5-6yo. Thankfully after what seems like ages that seems to be dying down a bit.

When my middle DS was a toddler he would carry things around forever! There was a little plastic hippo we got from someone's birthday party goody bag, and he had it in his hand for a full two-week cross-country road trip! He was about 20m at the time.

My 8mo is obsessed with strings.
If there's a string, or a string-like object, he'll find it... and chew on it, of course.
But I dunno if that's "normal" 8mo behavior or particular to him.
 
#11 ·
My DS(5) has been obsessed about airplanes since he's 18 months old, ever since he caught a glimpse of the B2-bomber flying overhead at the Rose Parade. Since then, he's been obsessed about airplanes (military and commercial) and aviation. When he's 4, he was briefly interested in dinosaurs for about 6 months. I thought then that he'd moved on from airplanes, but after dinosaurs he went back to aviation. He expanded that obsession to include space exploration (rockets, space shuttles, astronomy).
 
#12 ·
Your obsessions only last a month! Wow!

Age 18 months to about 4: Garbage trucks.
Age 4-5: Fire trucks
Age 5-6: Buses (city buses in particular) and bus schedules - I can't complain, it taught him to read.
Age 6-7: Playing school.
Age 7-?? I think he's in search of a new obsession.

Interestingly, dd (who I think is academically brighter than ds) has no obsessions. She has play themes, but not really obsessions.
 
#13 ·
My 5 yr old has been obsessed with dogs for about two years. She pretends to be a dog, she convinces her friends to play, ties them up in leashes and walks them. She loves to put leashes on all her stuffed animals. Everything becomes a leash. Shoelaces, scarves, belts, ropes, whatever. Oh and she asks me for a real live dog almost every single day.


She's also in love with the color "dark red". Not just regular red.

For a while it was drawing. She drew for an hour at a time when she was 3-4 yrs old, with tons of details. Earrings, eyebrows, fingernails, etc.

For a while it was counting. We had to stop to count many things. Shopping carts, birds, trees, etc.

My 2 yr old hasn't been obsessed with much yet. There was a baby doll she loved, for a couple months. Yesterday we found it at the bottom of a box and she was SO excited to see it again. She forgot about it by today though.

She is also obsessed with my breasts. Completely obsessed.
 
#14 ·
DS is only 2, so we have a fairly short list of obsessions.

The first would be finding fluff. It started with picking up odd bits of dust from the carpet that the vacuum missed or dust bunnies from behind chairs and giving them to grandma (who always said thankyou,) when he was around a year old. Then he discovered other sources of fluffy. He is very fond of the fluff that forms between toes when you wear socks. He loves to pull off his socks to find out what has collected. He even went through a period of putting socks on then pulling them off again in hopes of finding fluff, but he stopped that b/c it just took too long to accumulate. He has been known to look for fluff between DH's toes and mine, but it tickles like mad. He goes searching for fluff everywhere.

His other obsession would be buses, school buses in particular.

He went through a brief llama obsession, but that has mellowed into a simple love.
 
#15 ·
Oh my gosh... you want to talk obsessions!

My son is almost 6 and has had so many over the years.
The earliest ones were "baby Beethoven" from baby einstein, giraffes in general, the letter "U", the number "4", the colour blue.
He's also really into trains, transport trucks and has always been.
Right now he's into zebras and he has a little toy one he's named and it's his best friend, sleeps with him, the whole nine yards.
He also is very obsessed with the Presidents choice brand, logo, products etc. He can copy the logo very precisely. He has a cooking video on how to grill seafood made by president's choice that he found in his grandmother's basement. He watches it very often and is interested in making all of the recipes and drawing them and teaching them to others even though he doesn't particularly enjoy eating the food. He can also repeat or mimic the music from each segment very accurately (its like cheesey musak). The whole video is really quite lame but he loves it. Also his zebra loves to dance to the music on it and has a different dance for each score. His obessions can crossover each other.

Honestly, I could go on and on. He just gets so into a subject, movie, idea, character, object. He explores it from every possible angle, he draws it, talks about it, watches it, plays with it and then sometimes moves on never to talk about it again or it stays with him indefinitely. An example is the letter "U". I mean he doesn't talk about u's anymore or point them out but if you ask him his favourite letter he'll say "U" and he sometimes likes something because it starts with u or has a "u" in it.

Good to hear he's not alone.
 
#16 ·
Interesting thread.

I've never really noticed any obsessions in my oldest. I mean, she always has favorites, but I can't think of anything that has really been what I would call an obsession.

My son, who is currently 5, was obsessed with trains for a long time. As in from a year until within this past year. And he still really likes trains, just not quite as much as before. That was almost all he would play with. Oh, and blue. Even his teachers at church would always make sure there was a blue whatever because they knew he'd be asking for blue. My sister and mom tried to turn his interest to dinosaurs, but while he thought they were okay, he would still always head for trains. Oh, and Hot Wheels. Not just play cars, but Hot Wheels, specifically. He went through all his toy cars a got rid of all the ones that weren't Hot Wheels -- so no Matchbox cars in our house. And all he asked for at Christmas was Legos. He is also obsessive over order -- will line things up just so and if you move one even the teensiest bit it is just the most horrible thing.

The baby doesn't really show any obsessive tendencies yet.
 
#17 ·
I wonder about using the word obsession. I mean, there's using it loosely and then there's using it clinically. I would, if were really wanting to accurately, describe my son's behaviour as strong preferences or interests. His teacher early this year talked to me about his "unusual obsession" with the colour blue as well as a certain truck at school but to her "obsession" meant that he'd always prefer a blue cup at snack time and get mad at her if she didn't give it to him. To me that's not an obsession. I mean, he wears clothes that aren't blue, colours with crayons that aren't blue, likes to use toys that aren't blue, eats things that aren't blue (well what foods are really blue anyway?). If you said to him "want to wear the blue shirt or the red?" he'd probably always pick blue but if you said "here put on the red shirt" he'd be fine. KWIM? And as far as the toy truck he always wanted it at free play time but he didn't talk about, think about, obsess about it during math or recess or spelling. Like it was his preference at free play. A strong preference, yes, but is that an obsession? So I get what you're saying tallanvor. I think most of us are using the word "obsession" to describe these really strong and deep interests. At least I am anyway.
 
#18 ·
My four year old daughter has been very, very interested and focused on the human body and all things medical for more than two years. This is a strong, and unwavering, interest. Obsession? Not sure...

My seven year old son has OCD and so does truly have obsessions. They, however, change very quickly from one topic to another. Whatever captivates his interest at the moment becomes an intense focus of concentration for as long as anyone will listen about it (and longer...) But the next day, or after lunch, or when it's time to go to school, that interest can switch instantly to another topic. On which he also obsesses. Until the next one comes along. His mind is the kind that needs always to be very occupied with something interesting to think/read/talk about. Thus, the obsessive tendency, I think.
 
#19 ·
Augusta, I would assume your son's teacher was trying to be helpful in mentioning the "obsessions". It is very difficult to approach a parent with a concern like that. It can't be fun to hear that your child's behavior isn't "normal" though.
However, from your previous post, it does sound like he may have obsessions and not merely a strong interest in certain things.

I'm only saying this because I used to work in Head Start and there were a couple kids that really really showed signs of being on the spectrum. In retrospect, I'm almost sure one had Asperger's. At the time, I didn't even know what that was, but I went on to work with children with autism afterwards. I'm not saying that is the case with your son, but a few of the things you mentioned raised a red flag for me. Maybe that is why the teacher wanted to say something. Sorry if I'm overstepping here...
 
#20 ·
DD has strong interests that change frequently. We've had phases with:

frogs (an interest since she was 8 months old!)
birds (this one has been coming and going since age 1)
insects
flags
geography
drawing
playing War (the card game)
certain elaborate games played with "imaginary pets" (this has gone on the longest)

When she was about 18 months old she was obsessed with ibises for a while. That was probably the weirdest one.
 
#21 ·
LucyRev... I really appreciate your concern and we don't take the observations of teachers or other professionals lightly. I have a really good and open relationship with his teacher. We've consulted with our GP and a developmental pediatrician about the concerns of his teacher and in her discussions with us as well as evaluating him she doesn't see any indication for an further assessment for diagnosis. She sees us every 6 months as she and I both feel that it appeases the school that he is being monitored. She does report that she suspects giftedness (he hasn't been formally tested). I really don't think you can read a paragraph about a child and know anything about him. I've known my son wasn't average or "normal" since he just a little tiny boy. But I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. Although it seems particularly in school or other institutions of that type its often looked at in that light. I did reread my post and I can see how it sounded to you. I forgot how careful your have to be about how you word things here. But thanks again for your concern.

Loraxc... I forgot to mention flags and geography for us too and drawing. I bet they'd get on well with each other!
 
#22 ·
Augusta, I'm really sorry if my post upset you. I wasn't trying to insinuate that I knew anything about your son or that there was something wrong with him. I don't think being "normal" and sitting quietly in school is anything to be proud of either. It just sounded like you were upset with the teacher and I felt some need to defend her since I've been in her shoes.
 
#23 ·
My child will turn 3 in a few days and he just learned the letter "W". He LOVES W. Since he's just now getting into letters, I purchased him letter fridge magnets, and he likes to play with the W and the M. He just trips out over them. He said the M goes "upside down".

He reads letters to me, but he reads them from right to left. Like, we'll pull up to walmart (I know!! don't flame me
and then he'll spell it, l-a-w. He loves that part because that W is in there.

He loves any truck or car toy, but especially monster trucks.

He loves Lightning Mcqueen. ADORES him.

He was into trains, but that past. I checked out this one train book from the library and he nearly memorized the book based on the pictures.

I don't know if he's gifted or not, but he definitely has his obsessions...
 
#24 ·
Where's the divide between deep interest and obsession? At what point should you worry?

Quote:

Originally Posted by eepster View Post
The first would be finding fluff.
.......

His other obsession would be buses, school buses in particular.

He went through a brief llama obsession, but that has mellowed into a simple love.
We had the fluff thing going around 2, too. She called them "boats" for some reason. She'd get one tiny bit in each hand, and carry them around. If she dropped one, she'd get upset, and if you tried to fob some bit off that was the wrong color, watch out!

She was deeply in love with her stuffed llama for about 6 months, too.

Other obsessions. Purple. She will frequently refuse to wear non-purple things. One night she woke up crying in the middle of the night. To make a long story short, getting her something purple to hold was all she needed.

Grow capsules. Now, she just loves them. For about a week, though, she grew 2 packs of 12 capsules a day, and it was the first thing she asked for each morning.
 
#25 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by HeatherB View Post
Ooh, yes, we have obsessions here, too!


My oldest is now 6 and has been baseball-obsessed for years now. It's particularly noticeable now, as he knows more and notices more about baseball than 'most any adult would. He could easily sit and talk players, teams, ballparks, and play-by-plays with a seasoned adult aficionado. He pays close attention to when our home team is playing, where, and against whom (I did give him a calendar to keep on the fridge), and will ask questions like, tonight, "Mom, can you check and see if we swept the Cardinals tonight?" ... because he knows (and I don't!) that this was the third game of three and we won the first... And he can spend the Whole. Day. throwing and catching soft balls in the house. He was nearly in tears one day because I tried to tell him that at 6, he doesn't NEED to know how to throw a fastball, curveball, knuckleball, and slider. He'd seriously spent day after day throwing balls, "practicing my pitching," after reading in a DK book about baseball.

Anyhow, I adore baseball, but he's definitely obsessed!
Tomorrow he starts his first baseball summer camp. Last week when I told him it started Monday, he explained to his Grandma that he had to be there at 8:30, so he needed to leave at 8:15 and be ready by 8, so he'd have to get up at 7. (And while no one had previously discussed this with him, I hear it's the plan for tomorrow!)

So, he loves baseball... Though as someone else mentioned, when baseball isn't in season, he does get interested in other things, too, like Cars. Yup, the capital-C kind. I don't like "characters" and avoid them at most cost. Somehow we ended up with some of the Cars vehicles, anyway.
: They played with regular cars before that, but had quite a big Cars kick - both the 3yo and 5-6yo. Thankfully after what seems like ages that seems to be dying down a bit.

When my middle DS was a toddler he would carry things around forever! There was a little plastic hippo we got from someone's birthday party goody bag, and he had it in his hand for a full two-week cross-country road trip! He was about 20m at the time.

My 8mo is obsessed with strings.
If there's a string, or a string-like object, he'll find it... and chew on it, of course.
But I dunno if that's "normal" 8mo behavior or particular to him.

My 6 year old Son is OBSESSED with baseball. The New York Yankees are his obsession. Especially Alex Rodriguez. He names everything A-Rod, his stuffed animals, his goldfish, and now his lizard. He is obsessed with the number 13 (because it's A-Rod's number) even to the point of turing his tv volume to 13 and flipping out if I try to turn it down. I bought him an A-Rod jersey for his Birthday and he insisted on wearing it everyday. He knows all of the current Yankees players with a major interest in Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. I took him to a Yankees game and he had a chance to go up to where A-Rod was practicing and he wouldn't go near him.
I put him in T-Ball and that's all he talked about (and still does even though the season is over).
His other obsession is freshwater fish. He spends all day fishing by the pond, drawing pictures of them. Writing down their weights, lengths, etc. That's all I hear about all day long Muskies, Pike, Walleye, Catfish and Koi.
Of course as he sits and draws pictures heis constantly erasing because they aren't "perfect". Now I'm being forced to draw the fish also and if I don't do it the way he does he fixes it for me.
 
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