blackcat - very good questions. Well, this is where I have a hard time teasing out the self-directed, non-people-pleasing personality from the possibly EF-challenged. She DOES need reminders for some things, but these are for things she doesn't particularly see as important (or that she'd rather not do) and she is pretty fearless. That is, you might as well throw out your parenting books...she often doesn't care about the "bad consequences" that she is supposed to. If she suspects someone is trying to manipulate her that way, she'll quickly switch into "I don't care mode" and virtually NOTHING bothers her. Did I mention that she is not particularly easy to parent, either?
Soooooo...I hesitate to invite or to turn her over to a school to try to somehow psychoanalyze her, because I suspect she is one complicated little girl. Will of steel and all. I fear this could lead to some pretty scary misdiagnoses by someone who is unlikely to have met many kids like DD (which statistically, at least, should be the case). I guess from what I have seen, I am also not sure that I trust the school with that.
DD's counselor specializes in children and is extremely supportive of her. At a minimum, DD has someone else who is listening to her (which I feel she needs). She sees DD as meeting the school's homework demands about where the are meeting her needs.
I have definitely witnessed time-filling activities as homework. Once in a while, a project will excite her, and she will throw herself into it and do an outstanding job. When it is over, however, she wilts again.
