DD7 (3rd grade in 4th grade math) is highly competitive and intense. ...
Now, I'm wondering what to do.
What I'm asking is kind of hpyothetical/philosophical.
Math at school is too easy for her, but she has always performed unevenly- excels when challenged, performs poorly when that sweet spot isn't found.
I call the sweet spot the 'readiness level' - maybe I stole the term, maybe I made it up, but it helps me realize that it's something my child deserves, not something 'special' that I can get for him if I try really hard.
Of course your daughter's level of product is 'uneven' if she is being taught at the bottom, or below her readiness level. If it was really seriously below, then she wouldn't perform at all. This is just a 'law of nature,' not a personality quirk. How am I so sure? I have no idea! It just seems like the decent thing to do.
You wouldn't ask 5th graders to go to first grade and learn to count - it wouldn't be decent. Remember all those TV movies where a perfectly bright child is thought to be retarded because they have a hearing difficulty that is missed? We all cry over the terrible indecency of those weird situations. And do we ever ask, 'do you think that child can catch up later?' I'll be some do, but I'll bet most don't. But we don't even ask, we just assume that putting a child that far below their readiness level isn't a decent thing to do.
OK, so my question is this - the reasonable way to solve this is finding an 'in school' accomidation. Is there a 6th grade in your daughter's school? Can she take the bus to the middle school in the AM? Can she take a class online, or do partial homeschooling for Math? Can she place out of Math all together and go to the library and do an independent study? Do they have a math team at her school or the middle school? Is there a math circle within driving distance the she can do one the weekends?
If all else does fail, yes I would insist on 10 minutes a day of Aleks.com, monday through friday, just to get her the idea that 'in our family, everyone works - and your work is to challenge yourself.' My son 'had' to be skipped in 5th grade due to the fact that he had such a bad attitude - he only wanted to do what the teacher had assigned everyone else. That pull to 'be like everyone else' will come soon enough - and it has some advantages, but it can be an intellectual disaster!
I do consider my son to be a 'reversed underachiever' but that was quite a struggle, and he sure doesn't see himself as being similar to the 'good/compliant' kids in his honors classes this year. His dream is to be the 'gothed-out' kid who graduates with all As and all honors classes, even thoush he certianly isn't 'goth.' Maybe he would be like that anyway, but I think that his long early years of enforced underachievement gave him a jaundiced view of 'athority figures.'
We all do the best we can at the time - but I'm so glad that you don't have to figure this out all on your own, they way I did!
Grinity