Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy How do we reignite the fire for learning?

We are in the midst of advocating for our dd9. She is becoming increasingly frustrated at school. She used to be curious and interested in learning. We couldn't contain her desire to learn, to explore outside, to experiment (she loves science) and discuss her favorite books. After months of frustration in 3rd grade, she doesn't even want to go to school anymore. Unfortunately, she doesn't want to do much at home either, aside from read books. No more interest in experiments. No more interest in writing stories, which she used to absolutely love. It's as if the fire has gone out in her.

Her teacher thinks she is doing just fine. She gets straight A's without much effort and doesn't make waves in class. She also doesn't show behaviors that get her labeled as gifted, according to the school. We get a lot of "She is bright but not gifted. If she were gifted, she would do ________." I don't care what they want to call it, they still need to teach my kid.

We are going in for another conference soon, although they don't seem to get us anywhere. I think she does such a good job of fitting into the mould at school that it's starting to happen at home.

How do we help her break out?

s it ever appropriate to tell your child that you disagree with the way something is being taught at school?

She was excited to take a young readers course through CTY, but when we went to register her, she changed her mind and said she doesn't want to do it. It's too much effort. That is becoming more and more the norm. Everything is too much effort.

I appreciate your suggestions. It is breaking our hearts to see her disengage this way. I'd love to see the light come back in her eyes.

happyreader...I really feel for you (and your daughter). My DD is in 3rd and very discouraged. They don't do anything for her, almost to the point where it's like they neglect average things, like correcting her papers correctly. For instance, she gets 100% on a spelling test, and I have to sign it but there are three wrong answers that haven't been marked wrong. So, I'm in the position of choosing to point out to my daughter that her teacher is not correcting the test right, or allowing my daughter to think that she got spelling words correct when she didn't. Same with spelling homework, the teacher let her spell one of the words on the list incorrectly all week. Same with the math test, she clearly got an answer wrong but it's not marked wrong. DH said it's like she's a complete write-off in class, they put no effort into her at all. The teacher is nice and sings her praises, but doesn't do anything to adjust the curriculum for her and she's just on the sidelines. This year she has no behavioral issues and I thought they'd step it up for her if she "proved herself" such as the carrot they've been hanging in front of her nose but they don't. The last conversation I had with the teacher it sounded like this year was designated for her to grow socially and emotionally, but they said that last year too. They say they "teach the whole child" and I say academics is at least half of the whole, so it's fine to address the social/emotional but I send her to school to learn academics as well and she simply doesn't.

If your daughter says something about school you can ask her what she thinks about it and how she feels, and validate if she is correct. Sometimes it's appropriate to call a spade a spade but not go on about how frustrated you are in front of your daughter. There is probably alot of stuff she notices at this point and might need to have an understanding ear without going off the deep end, which is probably what you feel like doing!!

My daughter has never said anything bad about school so far this year but recently she just sobs and says she is so bored and nobody ever teaches anything she doesn't already know. I say that her father and I know and are trying to be very nice and respectful to the school, but don't find it acceptable that she doesn't learn anything...but don't know exactly what to do just now, and are working very hard on it. She seems calmed down by that. She seems like she didn't realize we were aware of this, because we always try to act so cheerful for her all the time. It sort of broke the ice, but she was the one who made the first move.

However, at home my daughter still throws herself into things like LEGO and singing and working on her bike riding. She also reads junky books in school to fit in but is studying American history at home from library books, so she is not in as bad shape as your DD. Does summer vacation come soon for her? Can she take any camps then or on spring break (we havent' had ours yet but everyone is on a different schedule) or can you take her someplace like a big science museum, a few days in a hotel with an indoor pool, etc.? Sometimes science museums have student guides online that you can print out that are sort of meant for field trips but are publicly available. I've done that with my DD. Once I made a copy and sent it to the education department at the science museum and DD got the most wonderful letter back from them, encouraging her to pursue her passion no matter what.

For me, I can't do this every year. I don't know what that will translate into, but we do have some testing scheduled for later this spring to get updated and more detailed information and will take it from there.

Your DD sounds like she needs a little hope, validation, and a bit of a break. Best wishes.

ps if your DD qualified for the CTY course, of course she's gifted in that area at least. It's a shame she didn't have the heart to pursue it. Have you shared that with the school, or done any private testing? I know it's very expensive and dicey as to whether it will make a difference. But never doubt your DD is gifted because of what the school says!!

Hearing this just drives me nuts! First, there is no one cookie-cutter mold that all gifted kids fit into. And second, because so what? Let's just say for argument's sake she's not "gifted" but *just* (sarcasm!) "bright". If she's "bright" and she's bored, why not give her more challenging work?

Do you have test data (ability and achievement) from the school? Did she miss a cutoff for a gifted program? Or is the teacher just making that non-gifted assumption based on not seeing certain behaviors?


I feel it's ok to share when you as a parent don't agree with something that is going on at school, and also to share some of your frustrations with the school (as long as you feel what your sharing is appropriate for your child and isn't going to erode their confidence in school in a situation where you can't make change). We've been honest with our kids about a number of things that we had issues with at school - my dd10 has severe allergies, and she was very aware of the times we disagreed with how her medical issues were handled at school - that was very important for her to know because we needed her to know what she needed to do to be safe *plus* we wanted her to see that we are always her advocate re her medical needs. There have been some times at school for all three of our kids that we weren't happy with what was going on in their classroom - whether or not we shared our concerns really depended on the situation. I've also found that it's usually for the most part good to share and be honest simply because our kids are living through the situation, and they are often more frustrated than we are, whether or not they tell us.


I doubt any of my kids, no matter how motivated (and I have quite the range of motivation at my house ;)) would want to take one of the CTY courses. It does take a bit of effort (especially mentally) to consider taking a real extra course that's added in on top of a full week of school. My kids love academic extras outside of school, but they prefer them in smaller doses, in the form of reading, watching a close-ended video as opposed to a full length course, building a project, going to a museum etc. They have done a few online courses, but only the open-ended type where they could set their own pace and take it or leave it as they pleased. I may be remembering this incorrectly, but I think CTY courses go by a calendar with set start and end dates?

I also think your dd is at a really really tough stage in life. Most of the girls I know (including my dd10) start to have some attitude changes hit when they hit pre-puberty. That sounds negative, and I don't mean it that way, just can't think of a better way to describe it. I have seen it *big* time in my own dd and in a few other girls I've known really well. So while your dd is having to sit in school bored, it's also happening at a time when a lot of girls just tend to have motivational challenges anyway. I really feel for her -

What to do? It really depends on the child. My ds became extremely frustrated with the pace of regular school by the time he was in 4th grade and he'd long before that started to lose that spark of love of learning that he so obviously had when he was younger. We switched to a small private school at that point. It still doesn't meet his needs entirely - he is very bored still in some of his classes, but he was allowed to accelerate in some of his subjects and that helped tremendously just getting to move ahead in a few areas. The change of environment helped too - schools can be as different as night and day, and his new school is a better fit for him in many ways other than academic. When you can't change schools, maybe try to find other things outside of school that are interesting, fun, challenging - but don't feel they have to be as organized and structured as a course. Sometimes just getting a little fun - whatever that is for a child - will help the rest of everything feel better.

Best wishes,

polarbear

pps (lol) something I thought of after my two posts, that polarbear also touched on that is so important, is that the interests my DD has at home are not academically based, so to speak. There is no grading, competition, schedule...it's simply just learning for the sake of it. She quizzes us on the presidents, but she's in charge. She can sit upside down on the couch and read out fun facts and timelines. And I realize how little I know, and the way she teaches us is so personal and fun, I feel like I'm starting to get to know these famous men...it's so cool.

I don't know that it's appropriate, but I've done it. Particularly for math topics being taught by rote, rather than by reason. (Math is not DD's strong suit, and learning anything by rote even more so.)


My DD8 (almost 9) has huge fear of chooser's remorse, and would rather choose nothing than make a choice that turns out to be wrong. Giving her the opportunity to make consequence-free choices doesn't help her deal with choices that do have consequences. Explicitly stating that she can doesn't have to stick with her choice helps some - but by totally eliminating the choice (she can both have her cake and eat it), not by helping her deal with the finality of choosing. Plus, those classes are pricey, so I'm unwilling to strongarm her into something that I'm not willing to strongarm her through, you know? (I have not yet mastered an understanding of sunk costs, I know.) Explaining that not-choosing is a choice doesn't appear to help. It's really frustrating.


Yeah, we had that here, too. DD completely blew a spelling test, and when I asked why, one reason was "I copied some words down wrong, and practiced them from the list I'd copied." Sure enough, graded practice list had a teacher-handwriting checkmark right next to the incorrect spellings, same as next to the correct ones.


Same here. Because my DD is young compared to her classmates, I don't know how much of her attitude and lack of motivation is peer influence, and how much is pre-puberty, but there is something there.

Yes! We have this issue, too. And sometimes DD's teacher is a little off base in the stuff he tells them. They are learning cursive this year and the teacher taught them that cursive letter "Z" was actually "Q." DD insisted that her teacher knew best; and I didn't want to undermine him, so I encouraged her to ask him about it. His answer . . . "You're right. I made a mistake and we'll fix it today." I thought that was great. Everybody makes mistakes, even adults. It's good to learn from them. But then he added, "That letter used to be cursive Q when I was a kid but they changed it to a Z." Umm. No. They didn't. I am fervently praying that DD's incredible second grade teacher will decide to move up the fourth for next year. I come from a family of teachers, so we are really trying to work within the system and respect their professionalism, but . . .

The CTY thing is a little intimidating for her. Her confidence has really been shaken this year. It was good for her to take the SCAT so we could see that she really is strong in her verbal skills, as we thought. She did not qualify in math, but it showed that her current math placement is good. We haven't done full testing, mostly due to cost and because I don't think it will make a difference at school. They use CogAT as a screener and she did not make the cut-off, which we were told was around the 99th percentile. I don't think she could handle a class during the school year but I thought it might be good to keep her engaged over the summer. But, as Alex'smom pointed out, not for all that $$ if I have to cajole her all summer.

I can't decide if it's best to push her or completely back off. We're not that far from DC. I'm thinking some summer day trips to the Smithsonian museums might be a natural way to get her engaged again. We talked tonight and she told me that learning used to make her feel like she had a campfire in her heart. Now she has a tiny flame that is about to go out. I told her that DH and I are trying to help her get her campfire back, that we believe in her and that we are trying to work with her teachers to help her. Now I just hope that we can have an open, productive conversation at the school.

Thank you for all your responses. It's nice to know I'm not completely nuts.

Happyreader, I hope you can perk up your DD. That is really special how she described the campfire in her heart.

Does she like nature? My DD loves it...and I think there are alot of therapeutic qualities to connecting with nature...and where we live there are small nature centers nearby where they have safe trails, an education center and scheduled classes. We're going to a family one in a couple of weeks and she's taking a class with other kids the Sat. before Easter. Next year she'll be old enough to join a nature/environmental club. You can also join up with clean-ups and invasive-species removal.

Also if you have a college or university nearby, see if they have any girls' science/math/engineering/computer clubs or camps. Sometimes they don't start until middle school, but sometimes they're age 10 and if your DD is 9 already and you write or talk to them about her waning interest in science, they might be happy to let her join, because the purpose of these things is to not lose girls who have the interest in STEM subjects as they struggle with those upper elementary and middle school years.

It was very interesting to read that others have that issue with the teachers and marking things correctly when they are wrong. Interesting but not very encouraging.

The parts I have the hardest time keeping my frustration in check is the inconsistency. DD has issues with organization but it's extremely hard to support her with this at home regarding schoolwork because they're always changing how they do things and don't tell you about it, it's always chasing things down and reacting after the fact. She prefers to self-advocate so I'm "not allowed" to write any notes or e-mails about these things. The teacher mostly writes stuff on the board for the kids, and they copy it down, but then the teacher will decide she wants to "test their listening skills" and something important will be communicated verbally. If DD misses something, no recess and she knows that and gets stressed about it since it's her favorite part of the day. However she's getting so tired right now earlier and earlier in the week and it's tough. The upcoming conferences include the child so you can't really say much the teacher if you have "issues".

They were supposed to have book reports once per month and they did in Dec. then it just evaporated. They were bringing home the spelling tests to be signed and now they're not. They were bringing home math multiplication quizzes and then they switched to oral quizzes. The spelling word process for the week has changed three times this year. And all of this has no communication from the teacher...you just figure it out after the fact. DD gets so mad at me when I ask questions, or maybe she thinks I'm just really dumb because I'm always confused. !!

I've spoken to other parents in the class about it, just in case it's "just us" being really out-of-it, but it's everyone. You just shrug your shoulders and do your best.

Last week on Thur. DD was upset because we didn't have the "right" type of thesaurus for her to do her homework. I said what kind does she need, etc. (she didn't want to use mine, but she ended up using it anyway) and I said we'd have been happy to get it for her if we knew about it, but it was Thur., I didn't have a car that afternoon. I said I needed more notice from the school to get her the items she needed, and it was never on a supply list or I never got the memo.

And I won't even get into the food issues. Treats brought in every Friday for a lunch party, 3rd graders still having their parents send in treats for birthdays, using food for science projects that are either filled with sugar, artificial dyes, or last time was vegetables and the kids handled them alot, then ate them while dipping them in dip, and DD was sick as a dog after that. They use Skittles for multiplication, they get Starburst for "rewards", they used graham crackers for fractions.

AAAARRRRRGGGGG.

She literally ticks off the days until spring break and we have little days shaved off this week and next for conferences. She'll keep tally marks in the kitchen like on the walls of the movie prison cell...and it's pathetic but somehow it seems to help her.

I think all they are doing in my DD's class right now is going over and over and over the material for the assessments. In our state they are changing things over this year and including the 3rd graders on some new stuff.

I've thought for a little while now that girls need to be intercepted a little earlier than traditionally the 6th grade time, to keep them interested in being students and in math and science. The age for struggling between the adolescent social things and doing well in math/science seems to be dropping. The camps and activities for girls to support them haven't kept up with this too much, they really need to drop it down to 3rd grade instead of 6th/5th grade. They are starting to a little. Even that Sci Girls PBS show is cute, but my DD doesn't relate to the girls in it very much because they don't look like "girls" they look like young women.

Anyway I guess this has turned into a total rant. Thanks for listening.

I've also found that my DD will perk up if I "make" her do things that have nothing to do with learning info at all, but count as life skills I guess, like making her own muffins to take for snack (since the class snack now is Cocopuffs). She can honestly say that she made them herself and feel mature about it. Also doing yard work. The "important things", like starting to clean up some of the leaves off the plants that are trying to come through, trimming the old stalks we left off the perennials from last fall. This seems to give her a sense of pride in her own home and when we get any compliments about our flowers she gets a glow because she took part in its care. Even if she gave me a little hard time when I tried to guide her to get started. It always comes out really well once she gets going.

Anyway not everyone has a garden, but this sort of idea...getting around the whole school/learning thing all together, it can be a relief.

I'm with bzylzy. I can't speak for most kids, but mine both thrive on doing "grown up" things. They fight me on their chores every day, but just something different from the routine often gets them thinking again. This weekend we are planning on planting vegetables - I have yet to be able to keep a plant alive, but they are looking forward to it, and it can be a learning experience for them. Carefully selected extracurricular activities may help as well. My son takes violin lessons, and while he has a talent for it, his teacher always makes a point to give him something to work on that is somewhat difficult for him. He gets a huge thrill from working hard at something and finally mastering it (as opposed to assignments at school, which he finishes quickly and easily). I also try to challenge them in normal daily activities. We went hiking last weekend, and I showed them what quartz looked like - they both started hunting for pieces of it along the trail. That led to questions about why some rocks were smooth and others were jagged - which led to discussions about places where water has obviously been running recently, why it was dry now, and if you were lost in the woods and needed to find water, what would be the best way to find it?
I'm struggling with finding ways to challenge both of mine and keep them interested as well, so I don't know how effective this will be for your child. But it works (mostly) for mine, so hopefully I'm not the only one!