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Joined: Feb 2012
Posts: 67
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Joined: Feb 2012
Posts: 67 |
My DD9 is also not very coordinated and dislikes sports. We have a family rule that she has to participate in something physical. Otherwise, she would sit on the couch and read all day and night. She tried soccer, gymnastics and dance-- stuck with each one for a while but never quite got the hang of any of them. But now she is into Zumba (of all things!). It is not competitive, but it keeps her moving. We do it together (the place near us won't allow kids without an adult) so it's mother-daughter bonding and she says it makes her feel stronger. This might be something you could try. I also second the poster who mentioned horseback riding. We have a friend whose 2e daughter is a great experience with it. She helps to care for the horses, learns to calm herself and focus.
Something else to consider . . . has your DD ever been taught any relaxation techniques? When things get too intense, this can help them to relax and let go of some of the intensity. My kids love tapping therapy. I thought it was nuts at first, but it truly does help them to calm down and focus, especially when they are upset. (No idea if there is any scientific reason this works. I don't even care if it's all in their heads, as long as it helps them.)
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Joined: Oct 2011
Posts: 2,856
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Joined: Oct 2011
Posts: 2,856 |
I'm interested in how many of you are mentioning sports. My DD enjoys being active, but is not physically talented. I would say she is probably in the bottom 25% for athletic ability, though not delayed. Do any of your kids meet this description or anything near it, or are they talented physically? I did. I was considered a hopeless clutz at home as a little boy, but my mom signed me up for football when I was 9. One of the benefits was I learned to stop thinking so much about every movement, just react and trust my body. When I did that, I found it doing things I never thought it could. I wouldn't consider my soccer-playing DD7 to be gifted physically, because it's not like she has unusual speed, agility, or strength. But what she does have is a control ability well beyond her years... I've seen 5yos who were as likely to throw a ball behind themselves as they were to throw it in your direction, but she could reasonably throw a ball at me at one. At 18mos we'd kick a ball back and forth, and she had an arrow-straight kicking motion that I could never have coached her. Her ball came to me every time, but mine didn't always come straight to her, and she'd be annoyed. These days she's playing soccer, while she has teammates who are more talented than she is, she demonstrates an ability to think strategically beyond anyone else on the field. She's the only one I've seen who can consistently spot an open player upfield and make a pass to a spot where her teammate can get to it and a defender can't. All of this I interpret as her maximizing her physical gifts because of her mental ones.
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Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 433
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Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 433 |
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. I also worry for her, because she often just doesn't seem happy  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; 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 think the only way to have any of our children feel good in their skin is for them to understand themselves, their strengths and weaknesses, and how sometimes their weaknesses are strengths in disguise. If I were you, I'd get a full educational eval with a really good tester. It's not enough to know she's gifted, it's not going to mean a whole lot to her. But giving her details, priceless. just my 2 cents.
Last edited by herenow; 05/02/12 07:27 AM.
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Joined: Aug 2010
Posts: 3,428
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Joined: Aug 2010
Posts: 3,428 |
My DD is 8. I should say--she is not inactive--we are a very outdoorsy family, and are outside in some way (hiking, swimming, boating, fishing) almost every weekend. But we have not done any organized sports of any kind. You know, the one sport she does do at home with her dad is baseball, and she's actually quite a good hitter, according to him. But it's such a "all eyes on you" kind of sport that it worries me a bit for her. And it seems to be one of those sports that brings out a really negative side in other parents. She will freak out if that happens.
I appreciate the thoughts and ideas.
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Joined: Feb 2009
Posts: 407
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Joined: Feb 2009
Posts: 407 |
I feel your pain. My daughter is now almost 15. Some days I can barely stand being around her. She can be so rude to me. I set down certain rules and will take away her phone. This seems to be the only thing that works. She plays apps on her phone all the time and looks things up.
She tried sports when she was young and was so-so, but is not interested at this age. She is not that coordinated. She is in band, but loves singing. She is in a type of Glee Club that she loves.
Her room is a disaster and I have (almost) given up on it. I work hard to pick my battles with her. She is an excellent student and during 8th grade suddenly began organizing herself - academically. So there is some hope there. She wants to be top of her class and will do some work to stay there. (She is first in her class now.)
Good luck and set a few rules that she can't break (such as name calling). And consider giving her an i-phone so you can take it away when needed. LOL
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Joined: Jul 2010
Posts: 948
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Joined: Jul 2010
Posts: 948 |
I'm interested in how many of you are mentioning sports. My DD enjoys being active, but is not physically talented. I would say she is probably in the bottom 25% for athletic ability, though not delayed. Do any of your kids meet this description or anything near it, or are they talented physically? I did. I was considered a hopeless clutz at home as a little boy, but my mom signed me up for football when I was 9. One of the benefits was I learned to stop thinking so much about every movement, just react and trust my body. When I did that, I found it doing things I never thought it could. I wouldn't consider my soccer-playing DD7 to be gifted physically, because it's not like she has unusual speed, agility, or strength. But what she does have is a control ability well beyond her years... I've seen 5yos who were as likely to throw a ball behind themselves as they were to throw it in your direction, but she could reasonably throw a ball at me at one. At 18mos we'd kick a ball back and forth, and she had an arrow-straight kicking motion that I could never have coached her. Her ball came to me every time, but mine didn't always come straight to her, and she'd be annoyed. These days she's playing soccer, while she has teammates who are more talented than she is, she demonstrates an ability to think strategically beyond anyone else on the field. She's the only one I've seen who can consistently spot an open player upfield and make a pass to a spot where her teammate can get to it and a defender can't. All of this I interpret as her maximizing her physical gifts because of her mental ones. This was my dd with tap and tennis. She is not gifted physically, but she used her mental skills and effort to keep up with the others, even when she was with girls several years older. It was great for working on perfectionism and perseverance too. Thankfully she chose to drop dance. I think it will be more of an asset in tennis. It is so extremely competitive here that I think it is unlikely she will even make the varsity high school team--BUT I think she can be a great player and the mental lessons learned can be applied to other areas of life too.
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Joined: Sep 2009
Posts: 701
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Joined: Sep 2009
Posts: 701 |
I'm interested in how many of you are mentioning sports. My DD enjoys being active, but is not physically talented. I would say she is probably in the bottom 25% for athletic ability, though not delayed. Do any of your kids meet this description or anything near it, or are they talented physically? I did. I was considered a hopeless clutz at home as a little boy, but my mom signed me up for football when I was 9. One of the benefits was I learned to stop thinking so much about every movement, just react and trust my body. When I did that, I found it doing things I never thought it could. I wouldn't consider my soccer-playing DD7 to be gifted physically, because it's not like she has unusual speed, agility, or strength. But what she does have is a control ability well beyond her years... I've seen 5yos who were as likely to throw a ball behind themselves as they were to throw it in your direction, but she could reasonably throw a ball at me at one. At 18mos we'd kick a ball back and forth, and she had an arrow-straight kicking motion that I could never have coached her. Her ball came to me every time, but mine didn't always come straight to her, and she'd be annoyed. These days she's playing soccer, while she has teammates who are more talented than she is, she demonstrates an ability to think strategically beyond anyone else on the field. She's the only one I've seen who can consistently spot an open player upfield and make a pass to a spot where her teammate can get to it and a defender can't. All of this I interpret as her maximizing her physical gifts because of her mental ones. This was my dd with tap and tennis. She is not gifted physically, but she used her mental skills and effort to keep up with the others, even when she was with girls several years older. It was great for working on perfectionism and perseverance too. Thankfully she chose to drop dance. I think it will be more of an asset in tennis. It is so extremely competitive here that I think it is unlikely she will even make the varsity high school team--BUT I think she can be a great player and the mental lessons learned can be applied to other areas of life too. This is my DD, too. She's not particularly talented physically, although she is playing school sports with kids up to 2+ years older than her and holding her own, but she is particularly good at using her mind to her advantage. She is very consistent and measured when she plays and is adept and learning offenses and defenses and strategizing and knowing where she needs to be when. My DD plays primarily because she loves the social aspect, but it also is such a nice contrast to her school experience for her to be expending both physical and mental energy.
She thought she could, so she did.
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Joined: Sep 2009
Posts: 701
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Joined: Sep 2009
Posts: 701 |
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  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 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.
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