My Almost 6 Year Old Boy Is a Space Cadet - Tips?

Okay, so you might not like my answer, but here goes...

I had an almost 6 year old space cadet.
Then our little Space Cadet hit six.... and now seven...

AND he is still a space cadet. I think he's earning stripes and soon to be promoted in rank!:)

Really, what you might not want to hear is that I think we've figured out what's going on with our kid, likely a central auditory processing issue. We will have to take him to an audiologist for further information, but using good online checklists and asking his teacher to fill out her checklists of what she sees in class, he's hitting over half of the checkpoints just in listening alone.

I think things are harder for a kid with CAPD (central auditory processing disorder). I think team sports are hard because a person has to track a lot of communication and information very quickly. When a person has a hard time processing verbal information, social situations can become overwhelming fairly easily.

For what it's worth, in uncovering my son's challenges, I am identifying some of my own. :) For example, I cannot visualize abstract ideas unless I have a printed example. If you start talking to my about the hypothetical, I sort of glaze over. I want a concrete example instead of a description for anything of detail.

Regarding television-- in my long experience of working with a variety of kids, I have seen children who had a lot of television exposure usually had a harder time settling into play activities, but could generally sustain play and were still relatively present during group instruction or while being addressed. My son, conversely, often has very little media time (it's not uncommon that he doesn't watch tv all week) and is still Lost In Space when you ask him to do something like unpack his backpack or put on his jacket. So, that's my two cents... it may be that he's just not absorbing the verbal part of the instruction as much as any visual props or cues that might give him something more concrete to focus on.

Nervy girl might be on target, as she usually is but...

That said, I've known lots of kindergarten space cadets. My boys are in college/grad school. Most all of the cadets graduated. One of the most spacey kids in grade school is a very successful music major in college right now.
If he's having problems with direct questions but demonstrating his knowledge in other ways, I say, quit asking him. Quit focusing on what he is not and focus on what he is.

Right now he is a socially isolated little boy who could use one on one time to learn to connect with the here and now. And his mom could use some time with other kids to learn to be accepting of a range of child behaviors and get some down time herself. I don't care if he watches TV. I do care if he gets to be around another kid at least once or twice a week for a play date for even an hour or so after school. You need to find a way to make that work. You are a smart lady. This needs to be a priority.

Yes, it's probably normal. It's his personality. He's shy, and he's not a performer or a sports star. There's nothing wrong with that.

I don't understand what being "in his own bubble" means, and I'm not sure why we so desperately "need to bring him back." Can I remind you that he's only 5? And that boys are less mature than girls?

Yes, it will be good for him to reduce the amount of tv watching. Not because it will bring him out of "his bubble," but because that's too much tv for any child.

Make sure you read to him a lot.

My younger daughter is a lot like that. Turns out she has ADHD-Combined. Did you know that there is such a thing as ADHD-Inattentive? Kids who have that are not hyperactive, but they share the same processing issues as kids who are ADHD-Hyperactive or -Combined, which is why all three are called ADHD. Here's a great blog post about what it's like - when I read this, it gave me a great insight into what my daughter goes through: http://www.tickld.com/x/if-your-friends-ever-say-they-hav...

For whatever it's worth, cutting down on TV doesn't help solve this issue for us, because ADHD is a brain structure/wiring issue.

Very normal six year old. Give him time. Trust me he is not the only space cadet.

mmm.....a good number of kids who space out could be hypoglycemic. Lookup the symptoms online. My girl used to do that....she would stare out the window while sitting on the beanbag...I thought to myself, look how introspective she is! When she got older and health issues appeared more and more, I realized she was having hypoglycemic episodes at that time. Let's not even forget that much of the food children eat now adays will cause that too. I believe ADHD is not a brain disorder per se, but an actual physiological health issue with the body. Sometimes the body is being poisoned by food or toxins, or heavy metals in vaccines, or in foods and water.

I am reading a book right now called "Healing the Gerson Way." They say that the therapy, which is based on nutrition and cutting out toxic foods, gets rid of ADHD in no time flat. It also heals diabetes and hypoglycema as well as many , many so called incurable diseases.