Just turned 3 toddler has been saying factually untrue things and trying to get me to agree/repeat these things. They won’t let me just ignore their statements and push for an affirmation. Not affirming leads to tears and a tantrum. I’ve been just saying ‘ok’ or ‘I think you’re wrong but ok’ but mostly letting things go if they seem trivial like: ‘Ice cream is not cold!’, ‘It’s not dark yet!’, ‘Snow isn’t white’, etc… I’ve been mostly targetting statements they make about other people and their feelings or desires like ‘You’re not tired!’, ‘She doesn’t want to sing.’, ‘He’s not hungry.’, etc… and letting the meltdowns happen in those situations but my spouse is concerned that I’m making toddler believe they can have their own facts outside of reality and that I should push back every time something factually inaccurate comes up. I feel like this behavior is probably developmentally normal and like everything else, we need to target specific things to work on one at a time. Thoughts?
Lots of good answers here, but I have a slightly different interpretation. This may be something that catches some flack, but reserve judgement until I am done. Maybe your kid is actually a genius. Like a bonified genius, no sarcasm. He sounds a lot like I did when I was his age and it turned out that I am actually somewhere in the top 0.03% of the population. This is not a brag, having this means I have a lot of unique mental health and social issues I have to deal with.
What leads me to the thought are the specific examples he gave. Fundamentally, all of the observations are 100% true.
Even the issues they have with what is known as “sense of other” is an indication. Many geniuses struggle with the concept that other people do not share an identical physical, emotional, or mental condition with themselves. When he says “You’re not hungry” he is really saying “I’m not hungry, so that means you must not be either.” If they are a genius and has that affect, then this will be an uphill battle. Patience and getting them to understand that other people have their own separate thoughts and identities that are vastly different to the point of being incomparable will feel very surreal. It will also have the knock-on effect of making it very hard to directly relate to neurotypical people. My wife and I struggle constantly because I have such a different view of the world than anyone she has ever known.
The minimum age to be tested by Mensa is 4, so it might be worth reaching out to your local chapter and inquiring.
A. there is no other reason for you to bring it up and B. you’d think that someone that went through that themselves would at least have some insight in to the relationship between being “diagnosed” as “genius” at a young age and mental health issues, and recommend a parent keep their child as far away from that toxicity as possible, not have them assessed for fucking mensa (which is nothing but a hollow ego boost to those vain enough to join) at 3.
Never mind that this parent is describing textbook developmental milestones, but these tests you’ve probably been clinging to all your life are debunked pseudoscience at best and harmful eugenicist bullshit at worst.