Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy It's sooooo hard

DS6 is in first grade. His math level is probably at 3rd - 4th grade. He goes to Mathnasium and enjoys it.

However, he complains whenever he has to do homework from school. Everything is sooooo hard (e.g. writing his name on the top of the sheet, coloring the butterflies, etc), but he isn't necessarily complaining about the difficulty of the actual content.

DS is laidback and would happily use only 5% of his knowledge. Am I overthinking that it's a start to underachievement?

Thoughts?

I have been in a similar spot. It might not be underachievement. For us, my child had to try so hard during the day just to behave in an environment where no learning was happening. Then to have to come home and do more of the same was the final straw. It eventually went from whining about the dumb homework to all-out crying and refusing to do it.

This is when we approached the teacher, and from there, we eventually skipped a grade. I guess I should have gone to the teacher earlier.

I don't have an answer for you but it sounds like you are describing my DS7. Getting him to do homework is a real struggle and his constant complaint is "its soooooo hard" but when he finally does it, he has no trouble. I think what is "hard" is doing something that is boring and repetitious.

There are lots of reasons you are seeing this behavior. Not to put a worry into your head over nothing (because it is most likely just being 6 and under challenged), but for our ds it was an indication of 2e: he was years ahead of first grade cognitively, but he really *was* having a hard time writing his name. More likely for your ds is either that he's developmentally at a different place with handwriting or fine motor skills than he is with math computation, which is actually not all that unusual for young children to be ahead in one area and at grade/age level on another.

I'll also add - he's most likely ahead in some respects with math because he's receiving after-schooling enrichment in it. What type of work does he do in Mathnasium? Does it require much writing or is it answering questions, making marks, etc?


I looked back at your previous posts so that I could get a sense of whether or not this has been an issue before - I am not trying to be nosy, just find it's helpful in putting together a response because there are so many different children on this board it's easy to forget who's who. My gut feeling after reading the previous posts is that you are over-thinking achievement and what it means to be "gifted". Life isn't a race to be won by pushing our children ahead, and I don't see anything you've posted here as a worry re potential underachievement as much as a typical 6 year old in terms of perhaps having some things not come easily or not wanting to work on some things. When our children *lead* us and beg for more challenge, that's a sign to provide it, and that does happen with *some* highly gifted children, but no matter how profoundly gifted any of our children may be, I personally don't believe it's a red flag to see a child refusing to do work in first grade as a sign that they are headed for underachievement. But. that's just me

Best wishes,

polarbear

Could it be the actual writing that is hard or is there a lot of writing at the mathnasium that could rule that out?

I think Howdy makes a very interesting point. Recently, I've been reading a lot of books regarding habits/change/etc. There's a consistent point in them that had never occurred to me before, which is that the longer a person has had to use their self control/willpower that day, the less able they are to do so toward the end of the day. For us, this helps explain some behaviors.

Have you tried telling him he can wait and do it in the morning if he likes? If it's an energy thing (as in, "I cannot do one more worthless thing today"), he might be more able to get it done quickly in the morning before school.

I never thought about it that way. I always think he is unwilling to do it.



His actual handwriting is actually quite good.

Thanks for the honest opinion. I have a lot of "baggage" myself. I used to be ahead academically when I was younger, so I coasted right along. Then something happened, and I fell behind and felt like the stupidest person on the planet. It took a lot of hard work in college to reverse the damages.



All he has to write at mathnasium are numbers



Good idea!

It is possible that he has real difficulty concentrating on tasks that do not stimulate him cognitively and he considers pointless. Why go through the menial task of writing his name when the teacher knows his handwriting, or he can easily point out which paper is his? Why spend minutes coloring butterflies when he has gone through all the steps in half a second in his head? What new techniques does that even teach him?