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I'm at my wits' end. Truly. Please forgive me, this is long and desperate, and I could have put it in "educational environments" but it seems more like a parenting issue. I guess.

DD11 has been with a virtual school for five years. I've told that story elsewhere, probably ad nauseum. She is now an 8th grader, but she has a high school placement. This year was supposed to be when everything finally "changed," but the only real change has been that DD seems to feel that she's been sold a pig in a poke in a big way. I sense that the adults (maybe including us) have lost a lot of credibility as a result of just how much MOTS high school has turned out to be.

Our options are:

virtual school
homeschool

This isn't just because of the giftedness issues. Like Bronxmom, we have a medical limitation we're working with, too. In the right environment, however, DD is for all intents and purposes NON-DISABLED. That's important.

Each winter, (~November to about March, roughly) we have an awful time getting her to work. It isn't that the quality] drops off-- the motivation and effort to do ANY OF IT does. The work that she produces is still easily top-notch relative to the standards set by the curriculum, and it doesn't really take her any longer to actually produce that work-- when she can be badgered into compliance, that is. The school sets very few "deadlines" on the kids-- they are supposed to work as scheduled, but if they get four, or even six or ten weeks, behind, it doesn't matter... until it matters. That is, the end of the semester, IT MATTERS; anything left incomplete becomes a zero at that point. These are her high school transcripts, even though she's 11, and she seems to take that quite seriously. She likes earning top grades and is an honor society student.

Now, we're not averse to push-parenting-- which is a good thing, since DD is not and has never been terribly good at self-directed learning for any length of time or outside of her flavor-of-the-day interest. She's easily as gifted socially/interpersonally as she is academically, so she is about as skillful a manipulator as I've ever met, including adults in academia. There's no way that we are "unschooling" material; not happening.

Here are the problems that are long-standing (most of these are related to being an EG/PG kid without a good educational fit, obviously):

• refusal to do work
• perfectionism-- meaning that she "hoards" assignments like a paper dragon in her lair until her fear of our wrath > fear of "failure" (missing a single question on a multiple choice quiz/other assessment... which is not entirely irrational on her part... more on this later*)
• failure to focus on work for any length of time unless under DIRECT supervision (and I do mean 'direct' as in same ROOM isn't always enough unless you pay attention)-- she will read, draw, or play computer games at CoolMath or something instead of working)
• you can't get two days of work out of her in a row-- I'm lucky to get three a week.
• snappishness and anger when parents make suggestions/inquiries re: schoolwork
• strenuously resists any and all attempts by us to schedule her school day... and even when SHE helps to devise a schedule, she seems to take some perverse pleasure in wrecking it after a day or so-- it's really odd
• lack of study skills-- because she never NEEDED to learn them when they were teaching all this stuff back in 4th-6th grade, she simply ignored it and compensated by doing things her way... which has now devolved into something fairly dysfunctional at the high school level.
• sleep disturbances-- mostly insomnia, but some oversleeping and sleep deficit problems in a general sense, too.
• loathing of "school" as being boring/torturous/MOTS/repetitive-- so generally, lack of any kind of motivation.
• general lassitude that spills over into every area of our family's life-- "school" becomes endless, consuming every evening, every weekend, and making home a living Hades for us all.

* The reason that we don't categorize this as purely a 'perfectionism' issue and also frame it as a curricular one is that some of these courses rely as much as 70% on multiple choice assessments-- and as many as 2-5% of them are ambiguously worded or technically incorrect-- which DD definitely notices and stresses out over. Her problem isn't that she's OVER-estimating the relative importance of missing a few things-- but that she is too precisely aware of just how costly they are. If that makes sense. She has a few perfectionistic tendencies, but this is a different type of stressor overall.

New and worrying:

1)lies-lies-lies.... my gosh, I can't trust ANYTHING that she says... she lies with such ease and fluency that it quite literally boggles the mind. She lies about crap that doesn't even MATTER-- and she knows that lying, above ALL other infractions, is the fastest way to get into very hot water around here with mom and dad,

2) she's almost stopped eating, claiming that "nothing tastes good" and that she just feels nauseous all the time... though she's still sneaking candy, so we don't think it's necessarily anorexia or anything like that... might be stress, could well be a medical problem related to her known medical issues (heavens, that's ALL we need)

3)she's finally reached the critical point where her ad hoc and unorthodox methods of 'study' are not effective (well, okay, in geometry, anyway-- and the fall-off grade-wise is VERY stark), and she has no idea what to do, but she's angry as all heck at US for suggesting she do anything different. This is the first time that she doesn't "just know" the material without effort, and she is furious with the world over this.

4) flakiness/lack of motivation has now spilled over into some extracurriculars that she previously was VERY committed to-- piano and a youth organization she's part of. It's been so bad at times that we've speculated that her poor piano teacher needs hazard pay.


_________________________________________________

Here's what I have tried to ask for from the school--

• placement options to minimize bad fit (this is about as good as it gets without writing curriculum especially FOR her)
• is this "normal" in terms of psychology?? (the level of defiance/resistance just seems SO extreme for a child this age)
• should we be having her evaluated by someone?? For WHAT, exactly?? (I mean, the bottom line is that this is pretty clearly existential depression combined with something else... it's seasonal, and it seems to be progressive and entirely ameliorated during June-October.)
• Help... just... help... from special ed (she has a 504 plan for her medical condition, but our state doesn't offer GIEPs at all, and does little but "identify" gifted children... and then throw extra worksheets and projects at them while teaching them in undifferentiated classrooms.)

I'm getting NOWHERE with any of that. We don't think that this is truly ADD, since it seems entirely situational and voluntary (other than the affective issues) and from everything we can tell, differentiating that from GT-related problems is practically impossible here anyway. Are her EF a little less than required for high school? Probably-- she's eleven, after all. The trouble is, I can't find anyone associated with the school who will even talk to me about executive skills and what "normal" even LOOKS like at this age. I've had it up to HERE with other parents who are looking for flaws in DD or our parenting, and offering criticisms about how their own optimally gifted or teacher-pleaser kids are so responsible and organized at this age, however. Yes, DD is like the Pigpen of PAPER... but she always has been (at home), and up until recently, she had sufficient working memory that she really could just sort of track all of it just fine. It's a skill deficit, not an inherent limitation, we think. That coupled with the fact that there isn't really any peer pressure to conform, and, well...

She also has a best friend(probably HG and ADD-- she's like a hummingbird) who is (alluringly-- nay, tantalizingly) UN-schooled-- yes, endless summer vacation (Augh-- sure, DD, what kid wouldn't love that idea... have your friend talk to me again when she's 30, okay?) This is my daughter's ONLY real friend, though, so much as I worry that it may be contributing to DD's manipulation of this situation, we're very reluctant to limit contact.

Kindness and understanding don't work, threats and screaming work... but at such a high cost that it can't possibly be "right" (can it??) and I truly don't know what else to try. I can't work outside the home until DD is more independent, so even homeschooling conventionally is going to present us with some serious financial challenges. Plus we have the problems associated with going it alone, then-- no transcripts, etc.


Help! I could really use thoughts from other parents that really do have kids like mine. Is some of this just normal adolescent, hormonally-fueled angst?? Would removing her from the virtual school help? (That may be a one-way ride, fwiw-- there is a lengthy waitlist and an enrollment cap if we withdraw her) How on earth do we help her?? The stress is just about intolerable for all three of us.

I am so sorry for you and your dd you are going through all of this. I know you have said you don't think this is the issue--but I am going to throw out ADD inattentive anyway--most of your bullet points could be explained by it. I hope you get some good advice from others.

This sounds hard.

About the poor sleeping and seasonal low mood, have you considered melatonin? Or maybe health issues rule this out for your DD?

Also, to get out of the power-struggle stalemates, I've been trying the Nurtured Heart Approach that I read about on this board.

This is just a thought from someone who knows a number of gifted kids that did not have the best time with online virtual school. She's 11 needing high input. But is she necessarily ready to produce the output and have the attention span and focus necessary to *really* do high school as a high achieving student? It may just simply be a case of asynchronous development. And she may be acting out due to poor fit.

I have a 10 year who is working at least at 8th to 9th+ grade level across the boards. But I know if I tried doing a virtual (or real) school at this point we'd either need to sacrifice the appropriate academic level for whatever output he could produce or vice versa. I think if I tried to get him to produce the output that a 9th grader does, he would be pushing back in a matter of minutes.

So we're "eclectic" homeschoolers. And I'm very cheap. We use our library quite a bit and I usually go with cheap curriculum (like Singapore). If I get 4-5 days a week with 2-3 hours in for my 10 year old I'm happy. He's still wildly ahead and he's enjoying himself too. Other than that he focuses on many extracurriculars (circus, piano, engineering team, swimming lessons, reading, etc).

I will also say, winter is hard. I think it's hard for kids in school and kids homeschooled and parents everywhere. I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with other parents banging their heads against the wall in the past month.

I do think you should definitely follow up on the not eating thing in case something else could be going on.

I know, right. Everybody's got these opposing views on childraising and want to tell you so. The following is not answers, it's thoughts.
Yoga makes you cool and centered, bicycling makes you starving. I drag my kid on walks once a week. Oh. It will be swimming season soon! Not just to make her eat more but just because. You can't control everything but you can adjust the outside time, active inside time, and quiet inside time. Adjust it until it feels good. Plus take longer when you're cooking to let the smell waft and change. Start things at different times so the smell of cooking dinner changes several times. It makes you hungrier. Don't worry about it all being hot at the same time, that's the least of your worries. There's a microwave. Adjust these things until it feels good to you. The Mamma is the heart of the house.

Can your daughter do her work ahead and be done with it? I guess you have the virtual school for a reason. Plus it's streamlined.

Play with her with her diet since she's not eating anyway. Try healthy trendy diets- vegetarian, raw food itarian, juicer/smoothies. At least she'll be thinking about nutrition then. Smoothie-juicer. Live like a fairy on fruits, nuts, and berries. Put 1/2 glass of ice water, 2 yogurts,1 banana, and frozen fruit for color/flavor in a blender, top off with milk. I think it has vitamins and protein. I got the eating/ not eating cycle, but mine's 3 yrs old. He won't eat then he's a bottomless pit. I make a plate for him every meal and give it to the dogs if he don't eat it. I've got a terrible quote, "if you don't eat you don't poop. If you don't poop you die. So eat poop and live.". Ha-ha, real mature.

Okay, quick response to get some thought processes started.

First and foremost, it sounds to me like there are a lot of issues that may be getting lumped into a single problem. My first advice is to ask if you can break the big problem down into a group of smaller constituent problems. Then address one at a time. You may wish to start with the smaller ones if possible. That way a larger number of niggly little things can disappear. This can reduce mental clutter and ameliorate larger problems.

Some ideas, mostly hewing to the idea that actions speak louder than words (including shouts):

* How many extracurriculars are there? Can you jettison one or more? If she agrees, you'll reduce stress and scheduled time. If she objects, explain that it's too bad, because of x, y, and/or z. If she wants them back, she'll have to do x, y, and/or z.

* Can you let her sleep until she wakes up? As children become adolescents they need more sleep and tend to sleep later.

* Pick one academic thing and schedule it, say, four days a week for 45 minutes. Be firm about enforcing this small schedule. Pick something she likes.

I'm kind of confused about the virtual school thing. What does this mean? Do you homeschool and follow a curriculum? If you're at home all day, it seems reasonable to let her sleep until she wakes up, even if this means letting her sleep until 11 am. I did this as a kid and into my 20s (and still do on many Sundays). It doesn't stop me from being productive.

Okay, must go. HTH.

Val

Okay. I'm seeing things that make me think, "Don't tolerate this."

For example, school shouldn't spill over into everyone's life and make you all miserable. Your daughter also needs to learn to do stuff without someone in the room supervising her; this is an essential life skill.

My suggestion: I've been through homework resistance with my eldest. I think it's normal to a degree, but it was going overboard. So I got very tough (DH too), and was very consistent about it. He had to do it, no complaints, and no way was he going to be doing homework at 9 p.m. If it wasn't done by 8:30, it was too bad.

My opinion is that it's a bad idea to let a school situation dominate your lives. If for no other reason, this is because it can let your daughter believe that she is the center of attention, and rightly so. Well, Mom and Dad and others also have a right to do stuff they want to do.


I'm thinking it you might want to consider letting her fail. Resistance to homework is normal and too much homework doesn't really teach much IMHO. But beyond that, everyone, EVERYONE, has to learn how to do stuff they don't want to do. This includes working when you'd rather be playing.

As per my earlier post, actions speak louder than words, and it may be time for firm and consistent actions.

HTH; bedtime for kids!

Above all else, these are just my ideas and YMMV.

For girls, I find the most extreme behavior occurs around age 11-12 and then eases up a bit. This tends to be delayed in boys by a year or two. I dealt with my now ex's daughter (undiagnosed) during these years and it was quite frankly a nightmare. My cousin had boys with ADHD and I would describe the age 12-13 behavior of one of them as nothing short of abusesive towards the mom. So yes, there is a hormonal or life stage aspect to this. These are cases of very extreme behavior. Although the behavior tends to become milder in later years, you then have all the teenage issues to deal with.

Whatever parent was the child's favorite will receive the greatest level of abuse and will be the one the child will least listen to. Parents are now the enemy and the favorite one is at the top of the list. Often children will behave fairly well outside the home, so you can expect the outside world to have no idea of what you are dealing with and will direct the blame on the parents.

In the case of the 11 year old I dealt with, her biological father took her right up to the doors of an all girls religious school to register her. She backed down a lot and it solved some of the school problems. I don't believe in threats, but it did work to some degree. If you can stick to it, you may consider cutting her off everything she likes for long enough to get through to her. This however can be a 24/7 effort on your part for a good month before it begins to work. It also needs everyone involved to cooperate on this plan (rarely does this happen). Sometimes another adult less familiar to the child can get through to them.

You may find extreme changes in talent during this stage. Hard to say which way and in what subjects you will see the changes.

It would not hurt to look into diet and sleep as others have mentioned, further psychological evaluation and medical testing. Don't get your hopes up on finding a solution through further evaluation any time soon. I am no expert, just a person with some experience.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention one other thing. During heightened emotional states, the information the brain is able to access during normal emotional states is often not available. When you speak to your child, she may not even be aware of what you are saying to her. She may have difficulty doing even simple tasks she was once able to do. The hormones may be putting her into a continuous emotional state she was not normally in. One of the children I had mentioned actually said they could not understand a word said to them when the parents were yelling at them.

One of the reasons for these hormonal and emotional state changes, which begin from the time the child is in the crib, is to allow the brain to relearn much of what has been learned during the normal states. Certain children are more apt to having extreme parts of knowledge disconnected during these states than other children.

The best way to think of this is to realize in some ways your child is now functioning at the level of a much younger child. This is only temporary, but it does help the brain to learn information useful later in life when these emotional states are triggered. People who fail to learn during these early childhood cycles will often freeze up during traumatic events. They are literally unable to talk or walk.

By the way, the behavior you are seeing will probably calm down occasionally for short periods and then flare up again.

And one other thing, in the two extreme cases I mentioned, the children both suddenly took an interest in guitar (I think it had a cool aspect to it) once this one to two year cycle had ended. It did go a long ways towards keeping them occupied during the teenage years (they are still not through them yet).

Rest assured - you are not alone. We have a similar story - too long for here. Quick thoughts?
Like us, they are searching for meaning. How long could you stick at something you found meaningless?
Support her in her search for meaning.
Remember Einstein didn't fit into any "institution".
We are on our 6th school in 3rd country, and at times I too am at wits end. But it passes. Stay strong.