Okay, so having read the article CFK linked, I am still at a loss as to what to do other than what I have already been doing. I am familiar with the Learned Helplessness model (studied it in grad school). I haven't done anything differently w/ dd9 than I did with dd12 and dd12 is very internally motivated and believes that she can control the outcomes.
Dd9 epitomizes someone who believes she is helpless. For that matter, dh does too. He's a huge pessimist who thinks that the world is out to get him, but dd is my focus at this point, not him.
I have spent years telling her that effort is more important than ability assuming that there is no major intellectual disability involved -- which there isn't in her case. We've tried getting her into classes in which she has to exert some effort but have not thrown her in over her head as far as I can tell.
She has had some very bad schooling experiences, but there is nothing I can do about things that happened in the past at this point. I really do believe that her 3rd grade teacher spending much of the year telling dd that she was just a good guesser and not that able did a lot of damage to her self image. She's really never been the same child since that year, but again it's in the past.
She has had some non-academic successes in the past year in terms of lead roles in musicals through the theatre group she's involved with and placing in the top 10 in the state in a pageant she somehow talked us into letting her enter last summer (I'm really not a pageant person!). She attributes the musical roles to all of the other kids being really bad singers, not to her effort. Honestly, I can't say that she is doing anything to get these roles other than having a good voice and acting ability, though, without any serious practice.
Any ideas other than continuing to harp on the kid that effort and desire to learn is what matters here?
