I'm finding that many if not all of my friends with preschool age children use workbooks with their kids, daily. I think they are stupified when I say we don't do those things. I guess they assume she does these things because we both work hard at it and I feel guilty that in a way we are both lazy and make very little effort. She just learned so many typical preschool things with what appeared to be "magic." I have looked around online and see just how involved "learning activities" can be and am scratching my head.


If other kids have already had to work to learn some things like their alphabet or reading etc. then they have experienced struggle and success but if these things came with what seemed like no exertion on her part, and we cannot assume everything will come like that, shouldn't I try to encourage something "academic" so that she can have that experience that many other children her age have of working to learn something? That doesn't seem like hothousing, it seems like what other parents do naturally. Any thoughts?

Hi TwinkleToes,

I think there are other areas in every day life that we can use to teach our preschool kids about effort, rather than picking up structured educational activities if they're not your or your daughter's thing. Surely (in an ideal world!) that is what they go to school for? We have some workbooks in our house and dd4 goes through stages of being interested in them or not. We don't push it. DD instead gets her challenges from her love of difficult puzzles, figuring out how much of something we need when we're cooking, teaching herself to read etc. Sometimes I'll set her a challenge, for example to use objects in the house to make an 'x' that does 'y', but only if she's up for it.

Having read some of your previous posts, I doubt very much that you're lazy - you just don't need to prove that your kid can do that stuff. I am guessing that there is plenty you do (would have to do!) to keep your dd interested and stimulated - they might just be very different things to others

I live in Australia and am spending the weekend at a conference conducted by Miraca Gross. She said something today that I though was interesting and kind of related, which was to praise how gifted kids use their ability (rather than just ability or just effort). So if your daughter is using her abilities and putting in her best work, then I guess that is what is important - rather than it having to be done in a particular way.

Just my thoughts!

Hi TwinkleToes,

What does your DD say and what is your gut feel about this? Is she keen for some sit down work? Don't let anyone guilt you into anything. My 2cts is, sit-down work is similar to potty training. When your daughter is ready, it'll take off like a dream. Even now, you could be feeling that it's natural for you to move on to something more structured, which could be why you're thinking about it.

But whatever it is, don't worry about academic challenge - there'll be plenty of that in the coming years, and plenty of time for her to learn about effort.

Kvmum - "praise how gifted kids use their ability" - tks for this. This is absolutely spot on for us at this point in time.

There is nothing hard about doing daily worksheet pages. It's simply repetitive. I don't think that being forced to do worksheets teaches kids about the value of hard work. Not in the least.

And even if academic things seem to come easily to your child, there are surely some things she has worked hard at. Perhaps she has even worked hard at learning to read? Though my DD taught herself, and it was clearly much more easy for her than it is for most kids, it was still a serious and sustained effort, and it took her years of daily practice to read as well as she does now. She is still working on it, and getting better all the time. She also works very hard at physical tasks. It took a long, sustained effort to learn to jump on one foot, for instance. It took much practice and much frustration for her to be able to draw the way she wanted.

In short, I am very skeptical of the idea that the way one learns to work hard is by being forced to learn things that are beyond one's current capabilities or interests. I think that is the way to kill work ethic, not the way to foster it. I believe children naturally work hard when they are interested, and I have seen that in my own child.

We never did worksheets/workbooks, never had them in the house until this year when DS7 demanded them for math. They lost their appeal pretty quickly...the constantly changing online math programs are more fun for him. I never thought it was "right" to have workbooks for kids, but DS was identified as gifted comparatively late (I think since he's 2e) and we were always busy with activities. I didn't think it was necessary, until I realized how much he craved it...so I feel sort of bad that I didn't have any for him earlier, but oh well. We've always had plenty of reading books including dictionaries and reference books, but not kids workbooks. Nan

Thanks, Nan. That is my goal: that she gives her best work and has a good attitude, not that she does XYZ. With physical things that she has to work at it was like pulling teeth to encourage her to do more. With "academic" things she she also needs to be in control and wants perfection and also will intentionally be contrary so I don't bother to push those things, BUT I LOVE doing all sorts of learning things. I loved them as a child and was a teacher (high school) so am hoping we can do more eventually. You are right: we do read books and go places and talk about things, I just wonder if there is a lesson that is about having to struggle and having a good attitude about doing what someone else asks if it is reasonable and also working with her extreme perfectionism...

We spent a lot of time looking at leaves and comparing them and other odd things like that. For alphabet, find items that begin with letters. This is a great vocabulary expander and fun too.

Our favorite was opposum for "o" - nobody said the "o" so we thought it was a great joke - giftie humor (I love it). She would say "o" for possum and just laugh. She truly got the joke.

I really enjoy sit down work so maybe this is my issue. She will do things once in awhile but never if I lead in any way. I just think that at some point she needs to learn how to go with the flow and follow someone else's lead once in a blue moon. When she does things I try to praise her ability to follow directions, being cooperative, pay attention, and be careful as opposed to being smart, because those other skills are harder for her and so I'd like to help them grow even though they may seem very mundane.

Oh the workbooks. We are in the same boat. DD has no interest in them. I've bought them and she will do them a few times but then she's bored with it and could care less.

Here are my feelings on the questions pondered:

Challenging them - There are many ways to skin a cat as they say (yuck) and workbooks are not the only way to challenge a child. Tune in to her likes and raise the bar. If she likes puzzles, get her a harder one to try. If she likes playing games, pull out the more advanced ones and see how she does. Every day lends itself to learning and challenges. Just taking a walk outside sets up opportunities. Take a walk with a book about birds and teach her how to look up the birds in the neighborhood. This is way more advanced then anything a workbook could offer.

Repetition of workbooks - Depending on the level of gifted your child is at, the idea of repetition can be the worst thing for them. Most HG+ kids need to hear about it once or twice and then they just have it.

Learning to sit down and do things: This is the one bonus to the workbooks, because they start to develop the 'classroom' environment and prepare the children for that, but let's be honest. She will get plenty of that in Kindergarten and Kindergarten is not all about sitting down. DD's school is academic and though she is in the 3 yr old class they do Kindergarten level work (but all in Spanish) so she has the similar set up of Kindergarten: activities and lessons at the table; circle time; art projects, etc. Right now they are learning about the solar system. I have noticed that DD is all about sitting at the table in the kitchen with pen and paper to write notes for different family members. Though she has always been a calm child and had a crazy attention span it is even more so now and I suspect it has to do with her school experience.

So basically ... I wouldn't worry about workbooks. Just remember you don't have the 'normal' child and you will be walking down a different path and this is totally fine.

I posted the same thing twice by accident because the server rebooted in the middle of send...sorry for being repetitive LOL

Oh - we never did anything really academic during the preschool years. We just had a lot of open ended toys around - blocks, legos, dress up stuff, dolls, kitchen toys, etc. And we're always ready to answer questions. We did a lot of active play and cooking in the kitchen. I have 2 kids that showed no interest in reading, but we never introduced them to easy readers until they were 5. My daughter briefly leaped slightly in reading interest at 4 and dropped it again. Both jumped in reading in kindergarten. My son was tested achievement wise yesterday and is at that 99th percentile achievement wise as a 3rd grader, even though he wasn't there at K. He is still the same kid. And he had a lot of knowledge as a preschooler. Just not the kind of knowledge that would be on a standardized achievement test. :-) And I was completely in the dark my DS was even GT until mid-kindergarten (neither DH or I were IDed). It was quite blissful not knowing actually.

I personally think my kids lost nothing by never seeing a workbook that young. They both are very active and have great social skills too. The problem with many standard workbooks for gifties is they are incredibly slow paced and repetitive IMHO. I've picked up a few as filler homeschooling, but have rarely had luck unless they're way, way above level (which sometimes makes the content "boring"). Or they're designed for gifted kids.

I think there are a lot of different issues here:

• perfectionism vs. learning to be careful
• following directions vs. being in control
• learning tasks vs. mundane work
• age expectations vs. mental ability

First, you characterize her as being a perfectionist, and say that you'd like to help her get over that, but you also say that you'd like to teach her to be more careful. I'd respectfully suggest that these are contrary ideas at this point. To address the perfectionism, I'd suggest embracing the idea that it is okay to make mistakes, to not put forward your best effort all of the time, to do things wrong, etc. You can't really teach that at the same time that you're teaching her to go slowly and carefully so that she doesn't make mistakes.

Second, yes, of course, it is important for kids to learn to follow directions. And of course that will conflict with her very natural desire to be in control. Personally, I wouldn't want academics to be the battleground in a power struggle with a preschooler--it's an area in which she will always win. And like others have said, if she goes to school she will learn soon enough to follow directions.

Third, I think a lot of people believe that you must work through all the mundane details of something before you can really learn it. And perhaps that is true for some things, and some learning styles. But for most things that is simply not true. My kid still does not know the proper names for several letters ("c" and "s") but that hasn't stopped her from reading beautifully. Am I worried that because she hasn't memorized the alphabet she will miss out on learning? Of course not. When she needs to know it, I've no doubt she will learn it easily enough. It's not true that she needs to learn those details now, and if I tried to pretend that it was, she'd see right through me.

Finally, I think you've got to remember just how young your child is. Her academic abilities may be years beyond her emotional age and her physical abilities. You can't expect her to sit still and pay attention and work hard and concentrate and cooperate and follow directions and be careful at her age for more than a minute or two, if she isn't interested. And a minute or two may be enough time for a child to work through a simple letter-recognition workbook page, but it isn't enough time for her to learn anything significant at the academic level she is at. So if you want to push academics at this age, you're either going to teach her well below her level (in which case she'll learn that academics are a waste of time) or you're both going to get frustrated by her perfectly age-appropriate inability to concentrate and work hard for long periods (in which case she'll only learn that there's something wrong with her--which there isn't).

Whew, that was long. I guess I feel pretty strongly about this topic.

I was just discussing this with another mom while waiting outside dance class. She asked if dd4 was trying to read, and I said, well she's got some sight words, and memorizes lots of books, but just doesn't seem to enjoy the books when we go at them in a 'lets learn to read' kind of way, so I don't really do much about it. She said she knows several other parents who say their kids are already reading at 4, but they don't seem to enjoy it~ I wondered what it would take to make a kid learn all that stuff if they weren't ready, and didn't enjoy it.

My kids seems more the sort to have interests above their ages, rather than outright ability to gather information on their own (read) at age 3, so I help them with that - answering questions about space, vocab., anatomy, flipping through books on the human body, etc.

When I hear something like this, I just assume that the parents are using a liberal definition of "reading." E.g., the child recognizes his or her name and a few signs here & there. I just can't (or don't want to?) imagine a child who is really reading at 4 without any interest.

I really think this has more to do with personality. Just to be fair, there a few people on this board whose toddlers do workbooks and seemed to enjoy them and I would hate to offend them by implying that it is yet another 'hothousing' example. Not saying this is what you were implying but it could come off that way. I, personally, see nothing wrong with workbooks, so long as the toddler enjoys doing them. My DD doesn't and would rather do other things. If she enjoyed them then I would happily buy them for her and let her go to town on them. But for TT's question of guilt, etc ... nothing to be guilty about if your DD isn't interested. She will have plenty of time to experience worksheets when she gets into school.

my son never tends to learn alphabets and stuff.
yet he knows everything.
he is also very fast in grasping dance moves and songs.
he knows and remembers a lot of things in one speck..!
is he gifted?

cuddlycutebaby,

The best thing you could do is read Deborah Ruf's book 'Losing Our Minds'. She gives a run down of examples for each level and at different ages which should help you with your question.