Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy goldilocks syndrome/perfectionism and Kumon?

Hi everyone:

When I recently met with a psychologist who does G&T assessment and consulting, she suggested I try to get DS9 (grade 3, in regular elementary school, gifted in math but much more verbally gifted) tutored in math to: 1) boost his confidence 2) advance his math knowledge and skills to test into a better school 3) deal with the perfectionism issue, where he is REALLY unwilling to try anything he doesn't already know how to do and 4) not have ME involved with this hot-housing because he is probably being even more perfectionistic around me.

I think she is accustomed to dealing with a totally different economic strata than plain old middle class us. The tutors she put me in contact with are great-- and charge anywhere from $100 - 200 per hour! We haven't started with one yet and I was hunting around for less expensive tutors.

At any rate, during this hunt, an acquaintance whose son really likes math suggested we try Kumon. It seems like they emphasize starting a child at a point well below their frustration level, and then doing lots and lots of computational worksheets until the child achieves 100 percent mastery of a particular set of math facts and then moving on to a slightly higher level, and doing the same,with about 15minutes of homework each and every night. I feel like this could address the perfectionism issue, AND help him develop a real comfort with computation. (his school does not focus on developing this at all.) on the other hand, he might REALLY REALLY hate the repetition.

Has anybody tried this with a perfectionistic child who is afraid to try something s/he doesn't know ( and an unconfident, not self-directed math learner?)

bk

We are also a middle income family and have hired advanced high school students as tutors for our kids rather than professional tutors when they were younger.

ALEX is a very inexpensive math program that might work for your son.

I have no first hand knowledge of Kumon, but my friend has used it with her young daughter and has been very pleased. She credits it in helping get her daughter early entranced to 1st grade.

Are you familiar with the Mathnasium franchise? I think the cost is approximately $200 per month for after-school group tutoring. It might be a good short term solution.

We looked into Kumon for our kids and left after the initial consultation. The 100% mastery thing was a big concern. The kids can't move up until they get ALL the problems right in a certain amount of time. My feeling is if a child has perfectionism problems, Kumon's all-or-nothing approach might exacerbate them. And the repetition thing would have bored my eldest son silly.

My second son can be a perfectionist and we approach it by pushing him gently to try something new. Occasionally I don't quit until he's tried, even if he gets upset. This may sound harsh, but when he tries and discovers he can do something he thought he couldn't, he gets a huge sense of achievement. He had a real fit about trying to write the letter K one evening last September but I pushed him until he wrote one because I could see that fear, not inability, was holding him back. Then he wrote a few more and I gave him a big hug and told him how proud I was of him. The next day, he came home from kindergarten with a whole page of Ks and proudly told me he could WRITE LOTS OF Ks!!

From what I've seen, nothing --- NOTHING --- builds confidence like trying something that's hard and succeeding. I often remind my kids that they thought that such-and-such was impossible and yet they did it!

It's taken a lot of patience and a lot of time, but we're really seeing changes in his willingness to attempt new things.

Oh, as for hothousing, I think it gets an unfair amount of criticism. In January, roses thrive in hothouses. They would die out in the cold. A mind is no different.

Val

Do not spend the monies!!!! Unless there is nothing funnier (:-)
you can spend it for.
Like above post suggest, check out Aleks, check out Beestar, check out math games (like Descarte's Cove). There is hiennas(sp) around every corner trying to live of your insecurities.
Is there a math circle nearby your son could become a part of?
Can you organize one (I did), can you start an after school math club?

I'm with Val about the perfectionism. Demanding perfection of a kid is not going to relieve perfectionism.

Trying new things and finding that the sky does not fall if you're bad at them helps ease perfectionism. Trying hard things that you have to struggle with before you--finally!--gain mastery helps ease perfectionism.

Also, I heard a talk by one of the guys from SENG ( http://www.sengifted.org/ ), and he suggested that you REQUIRE a perfectionist kid to TRY to get as bad a grade as possible on an assignment. Obviously you have to get the teacher on board, but having a kid TRY to fail can help him/her see just how hard it actually is to do. If you're trying to do the worst job possible and you get a B or C, you start to realize that it's not necessary to worry so much.

I thought that was rather brilliant, and I think it would have been really good for me when I was in school.

As for the price, that's just crazy! Find a high school or college student or try Aleks or Singapore Math. WAAAAAAAY cheaper, and the latter are self-taught to boot.

I just signed up the girls at Score which I think is similar to Kumon, but I never went to Kumon, so I haven't checked it out.

The cost roughly works out to a little less than $22 per hour.
They are not tutored privately, they are working independently on a computer which delivers questions. A tutor stands around and answers questions for up to six kids. Although, if you go at the right times, it's only my two kids.
Benefits:

They like it.
We had another achievement assessment for DD8(included in cost) which gives us additional info about where we think her learning readiness level is.
They told us DD5 would understand and be able to use phonics by the end of her program, which she is on track to finish it in a few weeks. She sight reads and memorizes, I fully doubted they could do what they say, but I'm starting to see a glimmer of what they were talking about, althought the jury is still out.
DD8 is actually very challenged for 2 hours a week. This has been rough on her little ego. But,
The center is focused on positive reinforcement so there are high fives, cheering and the kids earn score cards to turn in for prizes.

No, I don't work for Score

Neato

P.S.- they are not required to have 100% mastery to move on. I've found them quite flexible. They moved up DD8 in math simply because I told them to. And they should do what I tell them to, I'm paying them.
They get a score card for completing a computer worksheet and obtaining 70%. They get more, the highter the percentage.
My kid better not be getting 100% all the time, I'm paying for learning not review work. They get that for 6 1/2 hours at school as my DD likes to remind me.

I agree 100% will just make things much worse plus it's most likely drill and kill. As for the prices, they vary by region a lot. I've heard that $80+ per hour is a regular price here. I haven't looked for anybody yet.

I think Aleks may be a good thing to try. It's cheap, you can try it and see if it's a good fit and if he makes a mistake the computer corrects it. DS5 is a perfectionist, and he for sure prefers to be corrected by a computer program than by me.

I don't know about Kumon, but I don't see Score being anymore drill and kill than Aleks. FWIW, DD8 uses both and likes them both. Aleks isn't appropriate for DD5 yet, but she will probably have learned enough by the end of her program at Score to start it if she wishes.
I do work with the girls a little after school. I want them to accept me in a teaching role in case I have to homeschool.
Although, both girls prefer to have someone else teach them. As they get older they just want me to be "the mom".
The Score programs have the same algorithms built in as Aleks so it is "self leveling" as well.
We do a lot of incidental learning and it seems as though that's where we are naturally progressing to.

Thanks for the feedback.

Val, DS9 sounds like your second son. DS9's perfectionism manifests itself by either 1) outright refusing to do something if he doesn't get it right or understand it immediately, 2) not wanting to do something if he is not going to be the absolute best at it, or 3) putting forth no effort and turning in very sloppy work. His teacher actually thought he needed extra help in math -- until he got the results of the NCLB predictive tests (all the little tests kids here have to take to prep for the big test).

For an example of perfectionism, he finally learned to ride a bike last fall (at 8!), when I took him out to the park and said, "This is it. We are going to stay out here however long it take for you to learn to ride a bike. No matter how much you cry. You may think I'm a mean mom, but I know you will learn if you just keep trying,and that's why I'm making you try. You are going to learn and find out that bike riding is fun."

Tantrums ensued, bike falls, crying, people staring and probably wondering why I was making my crying son get back up on the bike. Every previous attempt I would give in to the tears and let him go home. This time, I persisted, he did keep trying, and he did finally learn to ride a bike.

I had previously thought the tantrums were the result of overpressure and never put on ANY pressure because of the tantrums. Now, I've read Sylvia Rimm's book on underachievement (Trinity's recommendation), and realized I had been applying too little pressure of any sort, always allowing him to stay in his comfort zone, and never stretch. The protests, tears and tantrums were his reaction to having to stretch.

Now, I remind him of the bike riding lessons when he wails that math is too hard and uninteresting -- but it's still not working. I'm thinking that if someone else is applying the pressure (i.e., expecting him to learn something that's relatively harder for him) he might respond better.

We are definitely suffering from goldilocks syndrome. The math work at school is too easy, but when I've tried independent study of Singapore Math or Aleks at home, he gets tantrumy because it's too hard, and he doesn't understand (after trying for two seoconds!), and he seems to have brain freeze when I try to show him. In the meantime, the IQ and achievement tests tell us he is gifted in math (just much more gifted in verbal areas). He's otherwise such a well-behaved kid who would happily sit for hours devouring science or history books.

I've used the bikeriding as lesson in how hard work pays off, and things that did seem hard can become easy, etc. I've also talked about how important math is to science and tried to talk about the math in the science he is studying.

I've also explained to him that his elementary school doesn't do math at the pace that would put him at the knowledge and skill level necessary for him to test into one of the great free gifted and talented middle schools or private gifted schools there are here in our city. He understands that but still has a meltdown whenever I ask for him to do more math.

I guess the answer is, instead of looking for some magic pill, to keep plugging away with this message and to hire a (cheaper) math tutor to force him to stretch in math.

As part of this effort to help him stretch, I made an appointment with the principal for Thursday a.m. to ask for a math grade skip and curriculum adjustment for him.

I realized that the first half of each year's math seems to be a review of the last year's math. I am going to ask that DS9, who will be in 4th grade next year, get placed in 5th grade for math, where he will spend the first part of the year covering 4th grade math for the first time and the second half of the year learning actual 5th grade math. I think the pace will still be slow, but he will actually be learning new material --- and by then we should have to tutor in place to help deal with any bumpy patches.

The principal is very good at saying yes, but not getting pinned down to anything. I have fallen for so many yeses before! Wish me luck.

This time I am going in armed with RE-Forming Gifted Education and its various worksheets. I am going to start of talking about DS's behavior and how I've learned its actually the result of a gifted child not being challenged enough, and that I want this math grade skip so he can experience challenge in this one area.
I'm also going to ask whether any of the teachers for 4th and 5th have gifted training, and which teachers would be best prepared to give him a differentiated curriculum with more info to learn, more complex, deeper assignments, etc. in his other subjects. For back up, we ahve last year's IQ and achievement tests and the results of all those predictive tests.

Thanks again, everyone. You are such a great resource and I'm hoping other people can also learn from my experiences and your advice.

bk

Good luck with the meeting bk! I'm glad you are advocating for a reasonable challenge, I agree with everything you are saying about inadequate challenges leading to underachieving in the future.
I have been working with both the kids on this.

When DD5 was so upset about making mistakes and was about to quit, I asked her why is it that every pencil in the world has an eraser on the top. She thought for a minute and then started laughing. That's right, I said, If no one ever made a mistake the pencil making company would go out of business and a whole lot of good people would lose their jobs!

It seemed to do the trick.

Marching onward in battles against perfectionism.

Neato

If anyone has any other tips or tricks--especially for dealing with a sensitive pre-K GT child who suffers from both perfectionism and RE (rampant emotionalism), I'd LOVE to hear it.

Dealing with an older child's perfectionism is plenty hard. But dealing with the wild emotions of a not-yet 4yo perfectionist is darn near killing me!

Here is what worked for me in dealing with RE way back when. I'd keep my mouth shut and my arms wide open. We'd hug without me saying a word for several minutes. As soon as I opened my mouth the RE would start again. Keeping mouth shut was the hardest thing for me, but it really worked.

Brilliant! No amount of words can stop the RE when it reaches a certain point and I love the idea of open arms instead of the arm extended with palm outword, like a cop saying "STOP". BTDT a couple times

'Neato,

I LOVE the pencil analogy! I'm stealing it immediately!
aline

No need to steal, I givith freely and willingly!

I also think the pencil analogy might come up in our house too. I think it will make lots of sense to DS5.