Just as an aside, here, I'm
still pulling my hair out over this one and my DD15 is a college freshman.
Right now, it's chemistry. She's in the accelerated majors' course, and she never took high school chemistry. So technically, she had to talk her way into the class because she lacked the prerequisite* for the course.
Right. So
of course she "can't" do this level of material, right? Yeah, I'm sure that a 200-level chemistry course is way beyond what my PG-let is capable of....
Riiiiiighhhhht.Except that she can certainly help her FRIENDS do the same chemistry problems, and answer their questions-- when she quits flailing around like a dying operatic soprano and stops wailing about her lack of "preparation" and all that she "is incompetent at."
There are days when a foot shock pad seems like a great all-purpose parenting tool. {sigh}
Er-- right.
What I meant to add, here, is that this kind of
thinking isn't exactly pretense. That is, when my daughter says, in her knee-jerk way, "I don't have any idea," she really means it sincerely. But it's entirely EMOTIONAL, that response. It's not that she really
doesn't know, or isn't capable of winkling it out, so much as that she HAS to actually consider it, and risk being wrong since she doesn't
know-know. Off the top of her head. And perfectly, with absolute confidence.
And yes, we insisted on this particular chemistry course
because it would push so hard on her perfectionism. We want her to know
now where her study skills are deficient-- not for her to find out a year from now in a 400-level computer science course in her major. We also want college to feel challenging to her. The rest has not, at least thus far-- the pace and content has been a bit too easy in a couple of her classes, and about right in math (well, it feels "comfortable" to her).
* this situation is somewhat unique (and as such presented a good opportunity for a PG child!) in that while she lacked the formal preparation in a credentialing sense, she's lived in an immersion environment for this subject, and has not one, but TWO former chem profs who have taught this course-- nay,
designed it, even-- many times. We KNOW that she is more than capable and better prepared than about 75% of her classmates, high school chemistry notwithstanding. Just wanted to say that-- I would
not have pressured her to take a 300-level engineering or math course if she lacked the prerequisites. This isn't even about her learning the chemistry. It's about learning study methods, facing her FEARS, and discovering that she does too have flight feathers. So. Golden opportunities like this one don't come along every day-- but when they do, with a perfectionist, you CHARGE for them if your child is HG, because the world is (mostly) too easy to make them possible.
