Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School Mixed feelings - playing hardball with my daughter

I'm insisting on a bit of "homework" over Spring break -- partly as a dry run for summer, when I will want to keep her momentum going. Nothing too crazy, just 20 or 30 minutes a day, broken up between reading practice, a little math on Dreambox or IXL, and me reading her a picture book in Spanish.

Some days it's working but some days she's giving me INCREDIBLE pushback. So I find myself thinking, "I just made my kid cry by making her do Dreambox at a level beyond what the school is teaching her. I am an EVIL HOT-HOUSING PARENT! How did this happen?"

But here's the thing: the crying and wailing and fussing are about a power-struggle with Mom. I can totally see that it's manipulative -- she's exaggerating her upsetness to get what she wants. It's the exact same thing we go through with eating food that I know she basically likes, but she just doesn't feel like eating it right now and she'd rather move on to fruit. This is a strong-willed kid. Actually, "strong-willed" doesn't even begin to describe it. This is a kid who, when you try to teach her a board-game, will change the rules just so that they can be her rules and not someone else's.

She's been through this with her teachers at school, and they totally see through her bullpoop and don't let her get away with it. I had somewhat the same reaction at first ("She's too young! They're expecting too much! I'm pushing her!") but the teachers (who are awesome and whose judgement I really trust) don't seem worried at all. They think she's totally capable of rising to the expectations. And she has -- for the most part, the behavior problems at school have gone away. But when it's Mom? Whole different ball game.

I've been "bribing" her a little, 20 minutes of focusing on homework buys her 10 minutes of pure-fun games on ABCya or Starfall or Dreambox (which I also have mixed feelings about, but we kind of got there in a slippery-slope kind of way). Anyway, I'm thinking of going all behavior-mod on her tiny butt and using 10 marbles to represent the 10 minutes. Wailing and drama (which I'm careful to distinguish from real upset over something being too hard) means one marble goes away.

I keep reminding myself that I've been through this with this kid over and over, on different issues. Buckling her own seatbelt? WHINE FUSS FLOP THRASH DO-IT-WRONG-AND-THEN-FALL-TO-PIECES-BECAUSE-IT-DIDN'T-WORK. But I keep insisting, and then suddenly it's a non-issue, she does it cheerfully. Same with brushing teeth. Dressing herself. Carrying her own lunch-box.

But somehow, when the topic is academics, it triggers all that guilt about "pushing" and "taking away their childhood." I have to keep reminding myself that this kid will actually LOVE the intellectual power that will come with having mastered these skills -- she just hates being told what's what. Thank goodness I'm not homeschooling these early years -- I'd be an exhausted and self-doubting wreck!

I don't know how old your daughter is, but maybe the pushback is because she wants a mental break where she can be a normal kid on spring break. And that is reasonable. Sometimes a mental vacation is necessary.

Try letting her completely win this one with the negotiation that when she goes back to school, she will agree to ... whatever you decide your terms are.

It is one thing to teach discipline; it is another to push our kids to perform just because we know they can to where we burn them out and make them dislike their own gifts and talents.

Hi ABQMom,

I almost didn't post this because I knew I'd get responses like yours. The point I'm trying to make is that this isn't about being burnt out. I know my kid. This is about not wanting to cooperate with Mom. (This is the same kid who, yesterday, saw three rows of three trees and said, "Three, six, nine, there are nine of them," and was totally chuffed at her discovery. This is not a child who is mentally burnt out. This is also a child who, when she does focus on the work, grins like a maniac when she gets it right and asks to do more.)

Honestly, if I were asking her to do 20 minutes of household chores a day on Spring break, and the rest was play play play, nobody would be arguing that I was burning her out or not letting her be a normal kid.

MegMeg,

This is a public forum, and I am a total stranger, so I have absolutely no expectation that what I say will be something that meets your needs or is what you need to hear. I am sure there will be others who provide something more to what you're wanting or needing.

But as a parent who has raised three gifted kids - all of whom have pushed back, tested the system, given me attitude, messed up, lied to me, manipulated me, and needed me to help them, I think that it is a fair contribution to provide my insight from raising my own kids.

I know what you mean about kids pushing back and battles of wills and all of that. I, myself, was a lot like your daughter. My great grandmother once told me I'd argue with a fence post so much it would dig itself up and dig another hole just to get away from me. So I DO understand what you mean.

But doing chores around the house is not equivalent to doing academic work on spring break. Not for me. And this is only my opinion, so that is what I shared. In your original post you said that " I have to keep reminding myself that this kid will actually LOVE the intellectual power that will come with having mastered these skills...". And as a parent of two adult gifted children and one teenage gifted kid, my only point was that we can sometimes lose a battle to win the war.

And, really, it was just one person's opinion thrown out into the ether. But you did come asking for insight, so that is what I tried to provide.

I certainly do wish you the very best. Parenting is tough, and there are no right or wrong answers. We can only do our best.

Putting this in 7yo terms, "Mommy is making me do homework when I'm supposed to be on vacation. That's NOT FAIR!!"

Ultimately, you have to ask yourself what you're trying to accomplish here. This is a gifted child who is already running ahead of schedule educationally. She can't forget how to learn any more than she can forget how to breathe. So unless there's some kind of specific goal you're trying to achieve, I wouldn't bother. It's not a battle worth fighting.

Last year, we asked our DD what she wanted to do over the summer, and her response was, "Nothing!" No extracurriculars, no camps, just play and travel. So that's what she got.

This year, DD8 was asked to do some work over Spring Break, but that's with a specific goal in mind... in this case, we're homeschooling her into a grade skip as a way to bypass a skip-hostile school district and make them take her as a 4th grader next year. There's a statewide achievement test given to 3rd graders that we've registered her to to take later this month, and in order to close our argument with the school, she needs to excel on that. She needed to finish the last section of social studies over break, so she'd have a week for review before the test.

So that was a battle worth fighting.

Obediance and cooperation are different concepts. I get the best results with my son by telling him what we are doing, why we are doing it, and soliciting his input. I want him to be actively involved in goals amd contributing to how to achieve them, because I'm too lazy to do it for him forever and those are big life skills. I know many people don't care for an attachment parenting style, but a respect and communication centric approach works for me.

Agreed. And there will be times where you can get cooperation, and times when you can't. It's in those moments where you have to ask yourself how much you need obedience instead. Seat belts? Absolutely. Fashion choices? Meh... as long as there's nothing offensive about them, and there's no danger of hyper/hypothermia, I really don't care.

When you have a strong-willed child, ANY issue can become a battleground over control. And honestly, sometimes, you need to let the child have some control. That's vital for development of identity, self-confidence, etc. And a child who feels they have more control is more likely to graciously concede control when you require it... thus creating more cooperation, and necessitating less obedience.

And so... pick your battles wisely. Those battles you choose, do not lose.


We're not into the attachment thing, but respect and communication are central to what we do.

As a matter of policy, at our house we have made the extra stuff optional. Don't like Math Circle because you'd rather be home reading comic books? That's okay; it was optional enrichment. Don't want to do your assigned homework? That's not even remotely okay and we will sit you down and make you do it well before you do the fun stuff.

We want our kids to have opportunities, and our house is loaded with interesting things to read and do, and so on. We also limit time spent on "junk activity" like video games. But I don't want them to feel like they have to do academic work above and beyond what school requires to please us as parents. They have enough "gotta-dos."

For my kids, feeling forced would absolutely make them do less of it, not more; feeling like it's optional makes it stay interesting and motivating for them. (And I will indeed sometimes let them off the hook for small household chores if they are busy with something worthwhile, which gives them an extra fillip of joy in doing optional but quality stuff.)

Every family has to do it differently, but that's what we do.

DeeDee

I've always asked for little bit of work over vacation- or the child will disappear into a television/computer stupor for days on end. But I don't tell him what to do, and I haven't since he was 4. It's all his choice. Every vacation I make a "bingo" chart that we call "Brainy Bingo". When he completes a row, there is a prize- either a small trinket, a trip out for ice cream, time to make me play a game with him that I hate (his favorite reward), extra computer time etc. A full blackout on vacation earns an extra special reward (usually he picks what's for dinner and a movie).

I try to make the bingo chart parts fun. Listen to a read-aloud story, read for 20 min, do a craft project with me, play a math game on the iPad, bake cookies etc. - not things like 'do this terrible worksheet that will make you want to pull your eyes out!' Now that he's older, we make the chart together on the first day of vacation, incorporating some things he wants to learn (coding and programming) and some things he needs to work on (small motor skills, balance).

Often, if I don't push the issue, he'll do four or five things in a row happily. Some days it's only one. One is required to get on the computer but if he chooses not to be on the computer- I don't mention it.

Brilliant. I am going to steal this for my youngest. He loves Minecraft and Skyrim and always wants me to go see what he is doing. I despise sitting there and listening to the nth-degree of detailed explanations, so he will LOVE if he can make me sit there for a specific amount of time.