My 10yo DD has been increasingly complaining about school for a few years. There's never been any question she's gifted, but I wasn't familiar with all of these resources so I've spent the last two grades trying to teach her the different strategies I figured out on my own as a teenager and adult to deal with boredom in school and challenging her at home in her writing and with higher level reading. After the last couple of months researching how to help her I now regret not addressing this earlier because I can see the lack of challenge in school has contributed to some of the emotional issues she's struggling with. There is not a gifted program at her school, but it is the most academically rigorous in the area, although this has decreased recently as core knowledge has been implemented and there is much more teaching to the test. Classes are said to be differentiated, but aside from reading groups and math they really aren't. And reading groups is a bad example even with leveled groups she complains about having to wait for everyone to finish the chapter to work on the discussion questions.

Recently her complaints about math have especially increased, to the point where I'm almost embarrassed to bring them up with the school because she sounds so entitled and dismissive of the math program. She reports that she is bored in math, she understand the concept after the first instruction from the teacher and is miserable sitting through an additional 15 minutes of instruction time. The instruction is designed to be teacher led so she can't work ahead. When it is time to start independent work she finishes right away with 20 minutes left of class time. She and a friend (I strongly suspect he is also gifted) spend the rest of the class time writing parodies and drawing sarcastic cartoons together. Her testing is above grade level but there are holes in her learning (due to the changes in math programs to meet the new requirements with the implementation of core knowledge curriculum) and I don't believe she'd do better in a higher grade math class anyway. I sat her down with higher grade math material and she figures out a lot of it on her own but if she sees something that doesn't provide clues she gives up immediately and refuses to ask for help. She skipped second grade math and it wasn't until the end of 3rd that I realized she never learned two digit multiplication - she just figured out on her own she could multiply two digit numbers as two completely separate problems and then add the answers together, and she had used that method for the whole school year. I think she needs independent and/or accelerated learning at her own grade level, although I believe with this she will advance quickly. However, this is less concerning to me; the real issue is her refusal to ask for help and how quickly she gives up when she has to push through a problem.

This has come up in other areas, too. She is an exceptional writer and creative thinker and this is most definitely her strength. She finishes her writing assignments quickly in class and is admired as the "best" writer in her class. Her teacher is making efforts to keep her engaged and has assigned her own "teacher" desk and pairs her up with students who need more help and encouragement. At first this was helpful and both her editing and communication skills improved, but it quickly lost it's impact and she complains that she wants to write more. She especially complains about formatting, such as recently when they had to write an opinion essay based on a piece of text and she drew her own, more complex conclusions (still based on the text IMO but she didn't want to get into "trouble" for doing it wrong) but she thought she couldn't include them. At home my husband and I have tried to challenge her, and it has not gone well. She starts out excited about the assignment, but even with tons of praise, she's so used to being the "best" she can't handle any kind of constructive criticism. If I tell her things like, "describe the excitement instead of using all of these exclamation points," she acts like it is a huge hassle and will wander off and avoid it until she gets bored with whatever distraction she has found. She eventually implements the feedback, usually better than I asked her to (i'm not competitive so it took me a while to realize that this is her way of "showing me up") and often she leaves some kind of passive-aggressive or sarcastic hint of opposition in what she's writing, so I am very careful in how I respond to this.

To sum up, she doesn't handle obstacles well, she can't accept feedback, she won't ask for help, and forget admitting mistakes. I remembering feeling uncomfortable the first time school became a challenge for me, but it wasn't until high school, and I was a pleaser so my approach to avoiding was much less confrontational. However, there is no question DD is far brighter than I was at her age, and these are not things that are especially hard - it's like any obstacle to finishing something in 5 minutes becomes a mountain.

I know this can be a problem from my own experience, and I have read this is common, but everything I find on how to address this is really vague about pushing them gently and helping them feel success. I get a better feel for these things if I have more specific examples and strategies and what kind of progress to expect from a 10yo. There must be some reading out there on this subject? Or advice?

I should add that DD is very socially inclined, so I don't think this is really about socially being unable to discuss these things. I think it's more about her perfectionism and not being able to handle or face anything she might not be able to do "perfectly" the first time. She tends to say she doesn't care and won't try if she is faced with something she isn't awesome at immediately. Like kickball, which I'm gathering is a problem because it sounds to me like she's the ringleader of a class wide attitude problem when the teacher assigns kickball for PE. On the other hand, I heard that she singlehandedly organized earning back class dodgeball by somehow taming a couple of boys who were being borderline aggressive and teaming up with a girl who was dramatizing her victim status.

Suggestions?

I know this is a long post, but lastly, how much do you teach your kids to be self sufficient in dealing with some of this? Yes, it is the responsibility of the school to challenge kids academically, but the constant complaining is getting to me. At some point shouldn't there must be some personal responsibility in finding ways to engage or use critical thinking skills in a book or concept that seems easy?