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Hi, I am new to these forums. I submitted my DD10 application a week ago and praying and waiting until the response comes back. I have a question that I hope I can get some advice. My DD10 is skipping 5th grade at a private school. School has always been too easy for her but she loves school and to read and math. The school asked me to do 5th Grade Math and Language with her in preparation for skipping. Math took all of 3 weeks. Even though she does well in Grammar, she does not get 100s and she hates it. I didn't realize how much until I started working with her myself. I was okay with hating grammar but she hates writing too. My sweet easy going child has been fighting me tooth and nail about writing. The thing is she is even good at it, but she even cries over having to do it. It is making me nervous about her skipping because I am afraid she will fight her teacher next year and this hatred of writing (and not just grammar) seems to have come out of the blue. We are doing the Duke Tip Cryptography class, which she loves, but every time it gets to a writing assignment she cries. Any advice?

Based on what is written, I see two factors at work here:

- Child with perfectionism issues dealing with not being perfect.

- Child with lack of experience with anything challenging finding something challenging.

And, having been through something similar at an earlier age with my own DD8, here's how we handled it in our home:

- Focused on teaching writing as a process, which does not have to be (and should not be) perfect the first time through. We introduced word processing at a very early stage, because the ease of editing made this point easy to convey. If you have to scratch out on paper, it looks ugly, which is not something that flies with a perfectionist, and rewriting is a tedious chore.

- Tried to encourage the idea of writing for fun, by encouraging more free expression. Our DD has a very silly sense of humor, so we encouraged her to write more humorous fiction. And then we were careful to point out which stories we particularly enjoyed, and what we liked about them.

http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10376.aspx

I think that writing can be where perfectionism really shows up. I think you will get some good advice here. Also, we have sought out and shared with dd all of the stories of writers who failed before they became well-known, emphasized how many drafts it sometimes takes, etc. J.K. Rowling is an especially inspiring example for my dd.)

I would go back to the beginning. Is your DD on board with the grade skip? Do your have the full support of the school adminstration/teachers? In other words, make sure that it is a writing issue. If it is a writing issue, then you need to narrow down the source of the angst and assess the level of her writing. If she is already at a 6th grade level, I would not push it and make the situation worse. It may be that she resents having to work on it over the summer and/or with her parent.

Thank you all for the advice. It has given me a nice checklist to go through. I really think the issue is strongly related to the perfectionism and there is nothing really emotionally in her background to induce it. It is just the way she always has been since she was a baby and we have to tell her mistakes are okay. As a 2yr old, she took all day to color because it had to be in the lines and the "right" color. I think the speed of writing may play a part as well. I just have to work on getting her past it. The article was fantastic and allowed me to take a sigh of relief. I knew these boards was worth my time. I think I may start a process of teaching her to type. Since she plays the piano well, i think if she learns to type separately from an assignment, she will pick it up and it will help her communicate more quickly "on paper". We'll see!

I would try for a writer's workshop approach--lots of choice, lots of writing, but only choosing some items to take through the entire writing process. The idea of sh!tyy first drafts and that all writers revise and edit, and keeping an audience in mind for those final products--that can help free done up from perfectionism. In the Middle by Nancy Atwell is a great book, along with others, there's one that's fantastic and I can't remember the the title but I'll see if I can dig it out of my three-deep stacked shelves... But your library probably has good writing books. Or peek into a big selection at the bookstore for ideas. Anyway I'd say writing different forms and genres, lots of informal and then trying different styles, writing on beloved topics or for real purposes, journaling and creative writing, along with reading good examples of all kinds of writing--that can help. You'll figure out something that appeals to her. Good luck!

I remembered; it's called Inside Out. Great about creating a safe environment to get writing flowing. They're both books about classrooms but you could still apply to at home; I've done it with a teeny tiny class and I'd say writing with the kids is key!

Thanks St Margaret. I will look them up. We had a talk this morning about the article and figured out a few things. She doesn't like putting anything on paper that isn't in the structure it is supposed to be first Physically writing is frustrating because it is too slow for her thoughts, but she likes her writing neat so writing faster and messy is not a good option. She also doesn't like the tedious exercise of writing and rewriting. Also, erasing makes the paper messy, which she of course, hates. Stream of conscious writing is torture because her mind moves too fast for her writing to keep. She was relieved that her frustration was not unusual and we decided that we would take a an approach of a "3-yr plan to enjoying writing" (which I hope is shorter but a longer timeframe goal will help her accept the baby steps better) The first thing we will start with is teaching her how to type. In school, they have to write but in 3-yrs, if not sooner, they will be typing and I want her to be good at it. Also, we will work on verbalizing what she wants to say first, organizing it verbally, and then putting it to paper. I like the idea of looking at the structure and process for different genres. Thank you St. Margaret for the book suggestion. I will look in the library. We are actually homeschooling our DD8 (a younger one) this year and I will use all of this advice with her too. Hopefully, we will start with a better experience.

That all sounds great! Maybe working on a computer would help, too?

The article was good. Writing is ds6's weakest point too. Unfortunately the only writing they do at school is of the - sit down for 15 minutes after lunch and write 2 pages on what you did in the weekend. Maybe I Can do some of the stuff when he is older.