Originally Posted by marylandmommy
I'm the mom of a 9.5 year old daughter. Never had her formally tested. She goes to small, private school that we love, and all of her teachers have referred to her as "gifted" over the years, and every checklist or criteria for giftedness I have seen is a fit for her...the good, bad and the ugly smirk

Essentially, I come to you now because I am at my wit's end parenting her. She exhausts me. She wears me down. I'm a special education teacher,with two masters' degrees, so I am not without skills and strategies, but I am often finding myself at the end of my rope in dealing with her. Her language and reasoning is sophisticated beyond her years, she is relentless when she wants something (or doesn't want something) bordering on obsessive. Her "smart" remarks, or way of "beating us at our own game" when we try to reason and negotiate with her are unnerving. You can't even punish the child, or take away privileges, because she reasons and rationalizes about why it doesn't matter.

At this point, I am fearful for my relationship with her as she approaches her teen years. As I said to my husband, at this age she stomps upstairs and locks herself in her room when furious; in 6 or 8 years she could be stomping out of the house and jumping into a boyfriends car. I worry that if I can't manage her effectively now, things are only going to get worse as we enter the teens.

I also worry for her, because she often just doesn't seem happy frown I wonder if it's too much negativity from us at home (she does classic things like know exactly how to complete the entire unit in math with the teacher barely covering it, but forgetting to bring her math book home to complete her homework 3 days a week; her room is a disaster area and we can never get her to keep it remotely neat, but then she loses everything; she is so absorbed in what she is reading or playing or watching or imagining that she doesn't do half of what she's supposed to, and doesn't hear us trying to gain her attention). She has had issues with serious anxiety in the past, though that seems to be in check lately. She is seeming to have more trouble fitting in with her peers (classic, again) though her teacher's don't seem to see it. She is very hard on herself with perfectionist tendancies, but at the same time careless bordering on lazy about her assignments and tasks at home.

I love her dearly and just want her to be happy and confident and feel comfortable in her own skin. My husband and I have always said life is going to be hard on her, smart as she is, because she analyzes things so deeply, thinks so hard about everything, and can never just "roll with it".

How can we help her? What can help us help and parent her productively???

I'm sorry things have been so frustrating lately. It seems like you're really doing your best, and your DD is lucky that she has such attentive parents who want the best for her (even if she doesn't fully appreciate it yet!).

Two things I'm thinking. About the organization (forgetting school stuff, organizing her room, etc.), my thoughts are that they probably just aren't as important to her as they are to you. Your DD maybe just doesn't have the social experience to care about the need to jump through the hoops of turning in work that required no effort or cleaning her room. And if she's had to pay no attention in order to do the school work that is much too easy, then it's hard to snap her brain to attention in order to turn it in. And, just my personal opinion, unless the unclean room is unsanitary, it may just be one of those things that you have to ignore. It's really a self-limiting behavior with natural consequences. When she's had enough experiences not finding something that is really important to her, then she'll make changes in some way (not necessarily keeping her room clean) that will make her more organized.

The other thing I'm thinking is about engaging her negativity. And I'm saying this more from an intellectual perspective than from experience because, honestly, this is something I struggle with with my kids on a regular basis. But maybe try to rein in your interactions with her when she's argumentative or acting out. Try to ignore the tone of her voice, tell her she can be angry but that she can't be loud and disruptive about it or she'll have to go some place away from others in the house, let her have alone time in her room to freak out about things until you can have a pleasant conversation. Maybe your extreme calmness in the more challenging situations will help her. If she's hard on herself, then she probably knows when she's messed up and, tempting though it may be to try to make sure she sees the error of her ways, she may just need you to be there, hug her, and say nothing. I was that way as a kid, being hard on myself -- still am -- and the best thing someone can do to support me is let me figure things out on my own and let me know that they are there if I decide I need them.

She thought she could, so she did.