We had a very unhappy dd age 10 last fall. Lots of issues with her school and she was very depressed. We had her formally tested and it confirmed what we expected, she was HG and wilting instead of flourishing in her envirornment. We transfered her to a school for the gifted and for the first several months everything was great, she was happy and engaged, loved her new friends who "got her" and was respectful to her teachers. Life at home was MUCH better, her creativity came back, she is interested and excited about everything again.
We are now seeing some old issues creep up, namely being disrespectful to her teachers if she is not interested in what ever the assignment is for the day. She will state quite loudly that she is not doing the work, that it isn't interesting. Now when she is on a project she likes she works like a fiend and is thrilled with finding new information. She has also started saying she wants to go back to her old school, which I don't really think is the case because she was mostly miserable there. But, she does miss the "stuff" they had, large facilities, lots of kids, great art and drama program. She has literally gone from a mini college to a one from school house.
She has also started making up little lies, which everyone knows are lies, nothing harmful to others, but stuff like. "I speak Dutch", "my French tutor says I should do Spanish because it will confuse me".....she used to take French, but does not have a tutor and the only option at her new school is Spanish.
I am not sure what to do. I have just signed her up for some art classes, because I know that is a passion of hers and is not being met by the new school. Regarding the work she is not doing in school, she will bring it home and it will take her 5 minutes to finish, so she spends 45 minutes at school complaining and procrasting for something that is not a big deal. And yes, I know she doesn't like rote work, but there will be times no matter where one is in life that you have to do rote work. Her new teachers are beginning to worry about how her behavior will effect her peer relationships.
ACK!! How can I help this kid?
