D.,
Oh my gosh!! You are so right. I wish they had another name for it than "gifted" because it sure doesn't feel that way sometimes. I have a 9-year-old girl who is highly gifted and has the same problem. You're right. Time outs don't work. In fact, there are very few punishments that do. Our daughter has been in therapy as well. I have an unfortunate tendency of lecturing her, which really just gives her more opportunity to argue. I find it's actually the arguing that's worse than anything else. We've started three things lately that have actually helped. First, some books I read "Parenting Gifted Kids" by James R. Delisle, "The Survival Guide for Parents of Gifted Kids" and "Parenting with Love and Logic", by Fay and Cline. I also got her a book called "Survival Guide for Gifted Kids." There's one suggestion from Love and Logic for arguing. You simply say to your child "I love you too much to argue with you." Which my daughter alternately hated because it frustrated her and thought was exceedling clever of us because she knew she couldn't argue with a statement like that! We also started a "marble jar". Marble in for behavior acceptable behavior, marble out for unacceptable behavior. We are extremely specific about exactly what she does that causes her to either earn or lose a marble. No arguing allowed. You lose marbles when you argue. In our case, marbles are traded in for cash. We make it more interesting by having different sized marbles. She gets a large marble for treating people really nicely, or not starting an argument when she could have. At the end of the week, small marbles are worth 25 cents and she rolls a dice to determine how much we pay for the large marbles ($1 - $6). It's the only money she gets--we don't buy her anything except necessities, so if she wants something more she has to buy it herself. We do a lot of positive reinforcement (Wow, look how many marbles you got today!). We also had a process for behavior at school. She wanted a fish really badly and we worked with her teachers to earn points. It was a struggle for her, but she finally did it. These are the only reward systems that's ever worked for us for more than a week (and we've been struggling with behavior issues for the last 6 years). You are exactly right--these children don't do these things out of willfulness, they really don't get it. One of the reasons they argue is that they think if you can see their side of things you will agree with them because they are so very logical. What they don't understand is that intelligence is wonderful, but they lack enough life experience to make sound decisions--especially where others are concerned. As far as the Asperger's, we had my daughter tested as many of the behaviors of gifted (particularly highly gifted) are the same as those of Asperger's. So I wouldn't say don't have her evaluated, but understand that there's a good chance this is all about giftedness. Also, if you haven't had her evaluated for highly gifted, you may want to do that as well. Highly gifted kids are as different from gifted kids as gifted kids are from typical kids. I really, really wish the label was different. I don't know what your experience is, but most of the people in our life really don't get it. They think my daughter should be the model of perfect behavior because "she's smart enough to know better." I even have family members who think so. I wish we could get services the way parents of children with disabilities can. Anyway, if you want to talk further, please email me. I notice we both live in Henderson...