So I required a short face-to-face pep talk at the beginning of each lesson as we worked on the more complicated piece(s). I really, really, REALLY stressed the fact that nobody expects him to play a song perfectly on the first try... or even in the first couple of weeks. Before he puts his fingers to the keys, we come to a solid agreement about our expectations for the practice. And I would set the bar at "Spectacularly Stinky!" for how I expected the song to sound at the end of practice number one. And with the next practice, we would shoot for "Slightly Less Stinky" and so forth -- keeping some humor in the descriptions and strongly emphasizing that we were not aiming for perfection, only incremental progress.
I like this idea! We have the same troubles here. Lately DS8 has been quite vehemently saying "I am not gifted. I don't want gifted work!" We have started EPGY math and he is seeing work for the first time that he doesn't know instantly. "It's too hard. It's too much work. Forget I said I wanted harder work."
I like the idea of setting realistic goals for each session of something that is challenging for them. We also talk about future goals. DS wants to be a veterinarian and we talk about what steps he needs to take now to get there. Of course this career goal will probably change but for now it is a way to show him that future goals require hard work and planning. Nobody is going to walk up to him and say "Hey you are smart. Now you are a veterinarian." He gets this line of reasoning and it helps motivate him to try. The funny thing is that it isn't like he doesn't understand the new math. It is just that he actually has to think for a few seconds - literally. After a pep talk yesterday and doing the new math which is above grade level he then said "Maybe I can get another grade skip." When at the beginning of the session he was whining it was too hard. When we talked about how a grade skip would mean that most of his work would be hard he said "Then I will just be experiencing school like most kids do every day." What a roller coaster all in one half hour. LOL
