Does your kid do this? My DD (8) and DS (almost 5) are so different. DD never hides her abilities. It would never occur to her to do so. I vaguely recall she had a brief phase in which she would say "I can't" about reading, but it really meant "I can't read absolutely every word I ever see". She started reading CVC words around age 3 and was reading chapter books (Magic Tree House was a favorite) by age 5.

DS is a VERY different child. He didn't care to learn to read until one day around a year ago, when he said he would LIKE to read now please, so we got some BOB books and proceeded to "study" them. He has continuously maintained ever since that he "can't read" and without application of great bribery, typically will not read aloud from a book. But, this morning his new teachers at his new Montessori preschool (3-6 room), where he's been for 9 half-days, tell me they had to visit the library to get some Step 2 readers for him, because everything they already had was too easy. But they can't ever look like they're testing him in any way about any skill, because then he will TOTALLY refuse to do anything.

How do you/did you handle this? I've been waiting it out, but it kinda drives me nuts. Commiseration and/or advice welcomed.

But they can't ever look like they're testing him in any way about any skill, because then he will TOTALLY refuse to do anything.

Honestly, I chalk this one up to an artifact related to asynchrony, and peculiar to a particular type of HG child-- the one with a high need for autonomy and a wide oppositional streak, probably also with a distinct mischievous streak. At least that sums it up in my DD, along with her perfectionistic tendencies. In other words, she demonstrates:

1) nothing that isn't at "mastery" level-- learning is private and internal, evidently, where it occurs at all; and
2) nothing upon DEMAND; skills are demonstrated intrinsically or not at all.

Point 1 has required a LOT of remediation, and point 2 is something you'll just have to wait out, I'm afraid. It required DD being 8-10yo before she could do what others asked her to "show" this way-- she found it more entertaining to win the power struggle until then.

You do have my sympathies, however.

This was my DD for many years when she was young. For example, she spoke VERY early and well, but the day I put her on the phone with my mom and said something like "show off for grandma" she stopped speaking for close to a year and only started again when she was capable of perfect complex sentences. She'd mutter under her breath, but nothing else until she was ready.

Ugh, yes. If DS perceives so much as a hint of testing, he switches into full-on subversive mode. I've never seen a child with such a calculated deadpan. To him, the pleasure from having someone on far exceeds the pleasure of parental (or grandparental) approbation. At least he's intrinsically motivated!!

For example, DH had never seen DS read until this past weekend, and DS has been reading for over a year!

Modelling, Socratic dialog, tangential discussions, guide but never emit, appreciate but never gush or evaluate. Be prepared to heavily screen for authoritarian teachers in the future.

For DS, building his own critique has helped make him more confident in evaluating incoming criticism as another factor to consider rather than as a force to reckon with. It's probably easier for him being an extravert, vs. myself as an introvert.

I've got the same going on right now with DD4. She can do all sorts of things but pretends like she can't. She particularly likes to play this game at gymnastics. She is very capable there and has been accelerated. The typical routine is as follows: the teacher shows her the next thing to do. DD masters it on the first try. But usually the teacher will ask her to do it maybe 2 more times. On the subsequent tries she does an AWFUL fail with great drama. "I can't dooooo that." The teacher gets a little frustrated. I advised the teacher to try to look away a bit when it's time for DD to do her thing again. (She does the same thing with reading and all sorts of things.)

DD has been mischievous from birth. So I am not surprised that she does this. She likes getting the adults all engaged. I just try to keep the emotional volume low and not react too much. And I also do what Zen Scanner suggested, particularly "guide but never emit, appreciate but never gush". DD will shred any authoritarian teacher to pieces in seconds. She is a sweet, beautiful, cuddly little shark. Thank goodness her preschool teachers are as talented as they are.

I'm grinning at this description:

She is a sweet, beautiful, cuddly little shark.

YES.

I never, EVER underestimate DD's potential for this kind of thing. Ever. My responses to DD's outbursts (which are admittedly a bit rare now that she's a teen) often strike others as callous or even a bit... chilly... but-- I've learned.

A highly Socratic method was for many years the ONLY mode of learning and evaluation that was feasible with DD. If you made the demonstration of the skill an assumption, or a condition of participation, well-- it took care of itself. If you made it the main event, fuhgeddaboudit. You had just embarked on the express train to Hades, with stops only at "you can't make me" and "I'll show YOU."


I also learned to trust my gut. If I saw something once-- I had to evaluate based on very limited data. So could my DD actually write like a 9th grader? Well, most of the time, I'd have been hard pressed to say so. On the other hand, I did see her do this once when she lost a file and needed to turn something in the following day-- she banged out a 3 page paper with full citations in just a couple of hours. So I had to be content with the fact that she COULD do it-- but only when she chose to.

DD8 is a perfectionist and I'd've expected this from her. But when it comes to academic stuff, she'll try something once, flail about crying about she can't, and then do it perfectly the next day.

Whereas DS4 is usually a wild child, reckless, mischievous, do-it-on-a-whim sort of child for everything that ISN'T academic. Climb right up the tallest thing on a playground? In a flash. Jump in the pool even thought he knows he can't swim? Done that--2 weeks ago. Bike off a 3-foot retaining wall? check. He said his first words around 8mo, just like DD, but didn't develop great vocabulary or clarity early, and he still gets word tenses screwed up. (Not that I would dare correct him, not after dealing with The World's Biggest Perfectionist Talker for years.)

He DOES like to play the quizmaster, though. He'll ask me all kinds of questions to which he actually knows the answer, or at least most of the answer. Like he's just testing me. "Why doesn't the car fall off the road into space, Mommy?" "Why do you think, DS?" "Oh, because of gravity."x1000.

My mother took me and my brother to our IQ test for the gifted program at the same time (we had just switched schools). I went first, and took quite a long time to get finished, so my brother had to sit around in the waiting room for a long time. Finally it was his turn, and Mom settled in to wait with me. But he came out in like half the time! So she headed home with us. On the way, my brother piped up, "Mommy, I tricked that lady!" She asked how. "She kept asking me silly questions. But if I answered wrong, she stopped and asked me about something else!"

He still squeaked into the gifted program, thank goodness. But he was a lot smarter than his IQ test scores would suggest.

When DD was 7 she took a photography class through a gifted summer program. She had a wonderful time and brought home a bunch of wonderful photographs. We were so proud, we decided to frame them for her as a surprise. What a mistake! Too much enthusiasm on our parts and she decided she wasn't that into photography anyway.

Yes, but in my case I think it is a family tradition that does not completely end with childhood.

Well, children often pretend like they can't do something if they want to get out of doing it. That much is natural. I have seen it more often with a difficult, intricate or tiring task that they prefer to pass off to someone else. In your case, I am a bit concerned by your reference to "without application of great bribery, typically will not read aloud from a book." I don't want to be judgmental and perhaps in your DS' case you had a compelling need to have him read aloud, but the bribery itself is a glaring red flag leading to trouble. Furthermore, I know that Montessori clumps several grades together but I am assuming that your DS is in pre-K although the 5-year-olds must be in K and the 6-year-olds in 1st. Personally, I am uncomfortable with why Pre-K "teachers" would have any need to test a child, particular in the fall. This is probably not what you want to hear, but I would back way off and make sure his daycare providers do the same. If he is at the Step 2 level, he has quite a ways to go (although that can happen very quickly) before he is secured/advanced enough in his reading not to be troubled by prying adults.

DS6 will not do anything until he can do so with mastery. DD4.5 can read early readers but pretends that she cannot.

So, yes, I can relate.

This is why I have really no idea how gifted my kid is. If asked to perform (as I have slowly come to realize) he takes 'evasive maneuvers'. He will read words like "camouflage" or "practice" but balk at "we".

I asked once him point blank (but gently) just how much he could read he replied "I can read a little bit ... little words like if an it" which is verbatim quote from "Hop on Pop". Sigh.

This is one of the reasons we are doing gifted private school - the only way I can think of to get him to drop the mask is to have so much interesting stuff and interesting peers that there is no time to play games any more.

DS8 is very straightforward, transparent and honest.

DD5, unfortunately, is not.


This is part of it. We've just started homeschooling DD5, after previously having a life of just play, and she is quite resistant to it, and extracts a pound of flesh per every minute of cooperation. I'm not sure if/when/why she may be hiding abilities, and it makes it difficult to parent.

extracts a pound of flesh per every minute of cooperation

Indeed.

I can certainly relate to this. My daughter can put a union-worker on a work slowdown to SHAME, I tell ya.

My DD (now 11) has a severe case of perfectionism. When she was three, the other parents could tell which sidewalk chalk drawing was hers because she insisted on drawing rainbows in ROYGBIV order every time, no exceptions. She refused to talk until she was three and could speak in complete sentences with a vocabulary she felt sufficient to express her thoughts. Before that, all she would do was use hand gestures. She began wanting to write from the time she could hold a pencil. Then she quit writing and drawing for over a year and would only scribble. She finally started drawing again and writing in cursive (she went to a Montessori pre-school) when she felt she could do it well enough.

She isn’t stubbornly resisting authority like some of your DCs. She is happy to show what she knows, but only if she’s absolutely certain it’s correct. She is anxiety ridden about doing everything perfectly, and she just shuts down if she can’t. Last year, she shut down in the middle of a math test because she was faced with a difficult problem that she didn’t immediately know the answer to. As a result, she didn’t finish the test, and earned a C. I told her in the future to just skip the problem and come back to it if she had time. What did she do on the next test? The same thing. She felt like she had to do the problems in order, skipping one felt like defeat to her. It took earning two Cs in a row before she changed her test taking strategy. Of course, I know that this was motivated in large part by her perfectionism too because she wanted the A and had to learn the hard way her strategy wasn’t getting it for her.

It’s a constant battle with us because I insist on challenging her. I keep explaining that if all she does is show what she already knows, she isn’t learning. I tell her she has to be exposed to concepts she doesn’t already understand and try problems that she doesn’t already know how to solve. This often means often failing on the first few attempts, but that what she needs to really learn. Even so, just this morning at math team practice, she sat teary eyed staring at the third problem because she couldn’t solve it. It didn’t matter that the eighth grade boys who are three years older than her couldn’t solve it; it didn’t matter that her math teacher couldn’t solve it. She refused to move on to the next problem. It’s déjà vu all over again.

We deal with this perfectionism as well. Some kids are just really aware of being ahead and not wanting to a)mess up and b) be different from other kids.

My kiddo at 4 (!) was telling me "Mommy, sometimes I get things wrong on purpose so I'm like the other kids."

Basically, on reading, I didn't bug him about it until kindy, at which point I realized he was reading way above grade level.

By that point we'd progressed to "I can't read because my friends can't read" excuses.

So what I did was at night, I read a book, he read a book. Sometimes we shared a book, alternating who was reading. It was not optional.

He balked but I pulled the mommy card and refused to accept that he couldn't read (as he liked to try and protest). Eventually he got over it and has become more open about reading.

I don't know what the answer is, but I do read a lot about perfectionism looking for tips. And I do things like, when we play tennis, I give speeches that go something along the lines of:

We are going to play tennis.

And by play, I mean we are going to miss the ball.

All the time.

If we do hit the ball, it will go into someone else's court.

Or bounce back and hit us.

But it doesn't matter because we hit the ball.

Any contact with the ball is good, okay?

It doesn't matter if it goes over the net, if it hits Daddy in the head, you hit the ball and that's what counts.

Playing tennis means we miss the ball, chase it around, pick it up and miss it some more. Any hits are a bonus.

Just as an aside, here, I'm still pulling my hair out over this one and my DD15 is a college freshman.

Right now, it's chemistry. She's in the accelerated majors' course, and she never took high school chemistry. So technically, she had to talk her way into the class because she lacked the prerequisite* for the course.

Right. So of course she "can't" do this level of material, right? Yeah, I'm sure that a 200-level chemistry course is way beyond what my PG-let is capable of.... Riiiiiighhhhht.




Except that she can certainly help her FRIENDS do the same chemistry problems, and answer their questions-- when she quits flailing around like a dying operatic soprano and stops wailing about her lack of "preparation" and all that she "is incompetent at."

There are days when a foot shock pad seems like a great all-purpose parenting tool. {sigh}


Er-- right.

What I meant to add, here, is that this kind of thinking isn't exactly pretense. That is, when my daughter says, in her knee-jerk way, "I don't have any idea," she really means it sincerely. But it's entirely EMOTIONAL, that response. It's not that she really doesn't know, or isn't capable of winkling it out, so much as that she HAS to actually consider it, and risk being wrong since she doesn't know-know. Off the top of her head. And perfectly, with absolute confidence.


And yes, we insisted on this particular chemistry course because it would push so hard on her perfectionism. We want her to know now where her study skills are deficient-- not for her to find out a year from now in a 400-level computer science course in her major. We also want college to feel challenging to her. The rest has not, at least thus far-- the pace and content has been a bit too easy in a couple of her classes, and about right in math (well, it feels "comfortable" to her).




* this situation is somewhat unique (and as such presented a good opportunity for a PG child!) in that while she lacked the formal preparation in a credentialing sense, she's lived in an immersion environment for this subject, and has not one, but TWO former chem profs who have taught this course-- nay, designed it, even-- many times. We KNOW that she is more than capable and better prepared than about 75% of her classmates, high school chemistry notwithstanding. Just wanted to say that-- I would not have pressured her to take a 300-level engineering or math course if she lacked the prerequisites. This isn't even about her learning the chemistry. It's about learning study methods, facing her FEARS, and discovering that she does too have flight feathers. So. Golden opportunities like this one don't come along every day-- but when they do, with a perfectionist, you CHARGE for them if your child is HG, because the world is (mostly) too easy to make them possible.

"Sweet cuddly shark" oh my.... Just yesterday I was thinking that as long as manage to get her to adulthood without turning into a recluse or selective mute that one of our daughters is going to be capable of shredding people into tiny little pieces in the blink of an eye.

I am really struggling with teaching DD how to assess her abilities accurately. She is way off, most of the time. It's either she thinks she knows it all when she only knows little or she thinks she is going to fail for sure when the task is really not even all that challenging to her except that they require her to learn a new skill or two. I fear this combination is going to lead to many issues.

This is very tricky. My older daughter (who is 20 in college) is terrible about this and always was. She has language processing LD's. When she was in early elementary she would happily do an entire worksheet wrong. Over the years she did learn when to go and ask for help. She is better about being able to assess her ability but this still doesn't come instinctively. I try modeling this behavior for her and talk through my thought process. You could have her practice this at a time that isn't stressful like homework. For example if she does a page of math, ask her how she thought it went and write her feelings down, then grade it and talk over what was different and what was the same. Practice, over and over..

My DS15 on the other hand is instinctively very good at it. If he tells me he did well on an assessment he is almost always right. I didn't teach him this skill, he just had a much better grasp on when he understands something and when he doesn't.

HowlerKarma, I did something somewhat similar in college (I negotiated my way into a second semester German course despite never having had any previous German). It really wasn't difficult (despite the college being quite selective) and I'm glad I did it. From my perspective now as a professor, though, I see a lot of students who try to take things without prerequisites and then don't succeed. It can be a very difficult judgment call and I think it helps to illustrate why being able to realistically assess one's own abilities is so important.

My daughter is currently working on math with a tutor and it has been wonderful for her. She gets really intimidated and doesn't want to try the work because she is used to basically just doing calculations in school and these problems require her to think. Despite her reluctance to do the problems, though, she loves working with the tutor and it is her decision to continue. I'm very grateful the opportunity came along.

Bluemagic,

I've been thinking about your reply and I think I am or was very much like your DS. I almost always knew how I did on assessments because I knew what the question was asking and I knew if I could or couldn't generate the right answer.

I am hoping that a lot of DD's "I know it all and can do it" attitude comes from not knowing the big picture and as she matures, she will become aware of how learning works.

I do wonder if her false sense of accomplishment contributes to her frustration when she faces unfamiliar tasks and then she starts sulking that she can't do it or doesn't want to do it. It's a complicated mixture of immaturity, perfectionism, and over-confidence.

DD is going to go through testing soon. I am glad that she doesn't mind performing on demand if she is properly motivated. I was afraid she'd ask for something outrageous expensive and she did; she wants to go back to a sushi restaurant where the cheapest roll costs $8.

$8 seems expensive when a kid is 4 years old...wait and see what she asks for when she is a teen. I am afraid that DD17 will break her softball bat this morning since it is cold. That's $300 for another composite bat. Or crash my car since she took it to the game.

I know that DD17 had troubles with perfectionism when she was little. She still has those tendencies, but it got a lot better by age 7 or 8. She typically has a good sense for how she did on a test. On the other hand, DD19 is not like this at all, and she always thinks she did a fabulous job on every test (but we know to wait for the results). DD10 is somewhere in between, but probably closer to DD17 in terms of test predictions, perfectionism and ability.

All I can say is it got better for DD17. All her weird quirks with clothing seams and food texture got better too. She still sort of has them, but they have lessened and she knows when it is not socially acceptable to bring up that stuff.

My youngest is a bit like that. I mostly don't see him practicing anything. Last week at gym was a classic example. He couldn't do it, the more he was helped the more hopeless and giggly he became. The next time round there was no instructor at that station so he just breezed up and did it perfectly. I think he mostly co-operates with the teacher for assessment but I don't think he does as well as he van because he doesn't take risks.

yep dd4 just like this - mostly I go round thinking she doesn't know anything! Then for eg, at music the other day after not practising (another battle) she plays everything perfectly, when they learnt a new song, she played it once quietly before they were supposed to. OF course when the whole class played she literally couldn't play it - I quizzed her on it after and she said, well I can't play it that slow.....


She also had a meltdown at a new chess club when instead of saying she knew something to the instructor she sat there taking all the old info in - being 4 I though maybe she didn't really know it all and good for her for listening again. Well she cried all the way home because it was not very exciting to practise stuff she already knew and not play any games.

$8+ (average dish was $12) x 5 orders = over $50 for lunch. That to me is outrageously expensive for a 4 year old...or even for a grown up. I think I will just watch her eat and order a drink for myself.

Anyhow, yes, I am already dreading the teenage years when she is going to act entitled to the latest cell phone and designer shoes and handbags. Of course, I hope she doesn't turn out that way and those are not values we're trying to instill in her but at some points, we won't be able to choose her friends for her and they'll have more influences than we would.

My DD still has issue with seams and she is still rather quirky but slowly but surely, it is becoming easier to parent her. She seems less defiant but more determined - what I mean is, she isn't as rebellious anymore but she is more resourceful about getting what she wants and she definitely knows what she wants now. Anyhow, I'm glad that she isn't 3 anymore. I loved every second I spent with her of course but there were moments when I desperately needed a 24 hour break for my mental health.

My stock response to requests for expensive treats is that it will use up the treats budget for the month/week and do they really want to use it up on one thing?

I just want to assure you that, at no point will her friends likely have more influence than you will. There will certainly be periods when it -looks- that way, but that's mostly a facade. And, of course, like we all did, she will make some decisions that you would prefer she not. There's no guarantee that they will -do- what we ask, but--my work population has been focused on adolescents for well over a decade, and I can tell you that I have not interviewed one single adolescent who truly did not care what the parent figures thought. They just choose a rather opaque way of showing it!

aeh, thank you for the reassurance. I keep on fearing that my DD would be as difficult as I was as a teen (age 13 & 14 were the worst years) and that terrifies me. I never caused any real problems as in I was a good student and I never did anything illegal but I was very unpleasant to be around back then, to put it mildly.

My parents were not around much when I was growing up so they were more like abstract figures to me rather than real people. I probably have swung to the extreme opposite direction with DD and I wonder if I am too present in her life and that's going to make her rebel against me more but it's not like she's going to be 4 forever and once she starts K next year, she'd be gone just about all day.

I am so hoping that she'd be over been a teen before she actually becomes a teenager.

Sorry for the thread hijack.

puffin, DD normally only gets treats when we are celebrating special occasions/accomplishments and I try not to bribe but I NEED her to cooperate during testing so we won't be throwing our applications fees down the drain.

I am so tempted to put her through private testing first so at least I'd know now rather than months later.

Mana, my DD15 at 15 is nothing like most of the teens we know. She is reasonable, (mostly) not unpleasant to be around, and in short, very much not what I feared in my heart of hearts back when she was 7 or 8.

She did go through her asynchronous terrible teens early. Much to my immense relief, let me add.

My second ds 4 is very much like this about Everything! It's on his terms, that's it! Until about 1 year ago, we thought maybe he was what a "normal" kid looked. He did meet many milestones before his brother, except lagged in speech.

I have seen bits of what he knows, but that's all. Ex. During a game when he was 3, he could show me that he could add and subtract. I found out he could count in Spanish to 20, when I overheard him counting... On the toilet. He is spelling, but not really reading. He led a pretty good discussion with his brother about what cosmos was about.

However, if I ask him anything that would demonstrate knowledge "I don't know" and "I can't" are the only responses I get. It is very frustrating to me.

All this leads me to worry about testing. I'm afraid he won't show his true ability. And he will need to be tested to be considered for the school his brother attends.

Also, from reading through the thread, I'm wondering if this is somewhat normal for the second child?

"They" say the 2nd child chooses different behaviors to differentiate from the 1st child. But I don't know. DS was entirely different from DD when he was a baby (terrible sleeper, weak internal clock, didn't want to be in a wrap, loved the baby swing, etcetc) so I dunno.

On Sunday we were working on something in the garage and I caught him counting our pieces by 2's. I have no idea where he learned that. Maybe at school? He's such a mystery.

I'm on the fence about having him tested and trying to skip him directly into 1st next year. I think he's the sort of child who will just bump along doing whatever everyone else is doing and causing trouble when he's bored.

Aufilia- that's my concern with my ds4. No good advice, but I can empathize.

HowlerKarma, a girl I watched grow up (most likely gifted, 99%+ achievements in all subject areas) also went through a very difficult phase when she was around 8-9; she was very moody and difficult to communicate to then she went back to being herself. She did hit another rough patch after she turned 18 but that probably had more to do with external factors.

I think I'm being paranoid because I feel we're making all kinds of wrong decisions for her and she's going to be really resentful when she realizes how incompetent we are as parents.

Yes! I have the damnedest time with my DD over this. Getting her to say she doesn't know or to make an educated guess in circumstances under which I know she doesn't know is like pulling my own teeth. I am at my wits end and have to keep saying 'she is only 9 so maybe she will grow out of it one day' to myself like a mantra at times.

Funny follow-up story -- 2 months later, with a whole lot of silent patience & tongue-biting on my part and letting his Montessori teachers do their thing at school, DS is now reading books like Mr. Putter and Tabby, and Frog and Toad books, quite easily and often spontaneously. He still likes to just plain guess at a lot of words rather than slowing down to actually figure them out, but he's gotten better, I think.