Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion is this hovering?

Anyone want to chime in if I have turned into a helicopter parent?

DD7 told me Friday that she had a science project to do over the weekend. I realized it that differentiated from the rest of her class and I was thrilled - first time with science teacher. It turned out to be something she had not finished in class. Okay, that's fine. At this point I'm hovering between worrying she has set herself up for something too big and that the idea of what she wants to make is amazing, and well beyond her dexterity.

So she builds the model - a rock hanging from a clothes hanger repressenting the Earth and a ring of clear plastic with phases of the moon drawn on it. I think the idea is to shine a flastlight through the plastic and see the shadow cast on the Earth, spin the dial and see the Moon wax an wane.

Well the model fell apart in the car going to school Monday AM. DH takes her to school so I didn't find out until Monday PM. She was calm, but her stomach hurt so much she couldn't stand up straight. I felt horrible.

Tuesday I took the rubber cement, tape, rubber bands and yarn with me when I picked her up. DD and I sat in the science room for an hour while she rebuilt the model which changed our whole evening around.

The science teacher commented that this was a fantastic opportunity for dd to learn from her mistakes. I agree but ugh.

Now the model looks so battered and lumpy. She really did 95% of it by herself but the presentation is less than stellar. I sat on my hands the entire time. This is a normal amount of advocacy? Yes, no?

Would you have helped her fix it if a different project had fallen apart?

I think the answer is Yes and therefore it's not hovering IMO. If you rebuilt the whole model to make it perfect then i think there would be an issue there.

I think dd would have put the problem aside and never fixed it on her own. She is the opposite of a perfectionist so maybe it was good for her to do.
Chrys

Sounds fine to me! Bringing the materials was a nice thing to do, and letting her have time to fix it I think just shows her that her work is important to you. (Important enough to change the schedule.) Like Mewzard said, if you'd taken over and fixed it for her I'd think you might have overstepped a bit, but the way it panned out she faced her disaster and overcame it - even if it's lumpy. When I would start to object would be if you had shielded her from the disaster or from having to deal with its consequences. I have no objection to parents being kind and helpful to their children - only to parents who keep their children from facing mistakes and minor misfortunes.

It sounds fine. You simply gave her the opportunity to correct a misfortunate accident.

I love helping ds with stuff like this but have to really control myself!! Here is where I allow myself to offer help - if he is trying to build something which requires a completely new technique he has never tried, I give him some examples, we build a small prototype or something like that.

I definitely still do dangerous cutting, soldering, things of that nature so he doesn't kill himself. Kids work is usually not what "I" would do...but usually he gets really good comments and feels ok about things. Often he does things I'd never ever think of doing. He did a king tut model last year, I really really thought he should make this model from 1 big piece of cardboard to avoid falling apart but he insisted on making it out of several... he did it his way and it turned out to be really cool because of that decision - the burial mask could come off completely and you could see old Tut's shriveled face, and the arms moved a bit too.
I couldn't see what was in ds' head when he started, but in the end it was all clear.

At age 7, I think it is reasonable for there to be a disconnect from what the child wants to make and what they understand about the materials, etc. in order to complete the project they have envisioned. I think for gt kids especially this divide is going to be a big gap and offering technical help seems completely acceptable. I understand other folks might disagree...

I think it is fine. As long as you did not initiate the work and do the work, which it sounds like you didn't. Kids at 7 can't be expected to figure out material science, and you only helped by "bringing the fix", she did the final fix. And, as long as you did not get emotionally vested in the success/failure of the project (which again, sounds like you controlled). It is only a school project for a 7-yr old, afterall, and her learning from it is most important, not the final end-product.

One of my pet-peeves is school-projects where parents go WAY-overboard to help the child create "museum-perfect" displays...it becomes a project of who can outspend themselves at Michael's (a craft store), or some science store. I've seen Kindergarten projects submitted by kids (who can barely manage using a scissor and cut or draw stick figures) that are "museum-worthy" 3-D displays complete with fake pond-water to emulate a marsh, live gekkos, live insect eggs ready to hatch (store bought) etc. etc.

That's "hovering"!!

Luckily, we moved to a GT school program where teachers have the kids do most of the big projects and assignments at school, specifically to ensure student autonomy, creativity and independence.

Bingo -
actually the tendency to give up and put problems aside is a perfectionistic behavior.

So you are 'scaffolding' her to take on harder projects and not give up.

IMHO,
Grinity