It's so interesting you say that! Potty training was the first clue, he accepted the reward, chocolate, his favorite, until he decided the chocolate just wasn't worth it to do what we wanted him to do. I agree that he wants to DO something (and definitely the capital DO), but his willingness to accept help is tempered by his stubbornness and desire to do it himself, plus the perfectionism which says he should be able to do it already. He capitulated to writing after I got new workbooks, and a triangular shaped pencils with a pencil sharpener. (he had one which didn't have a plastic catcher for the pieces so i was cutting him off and then i realized how stupid that was as it required a lot of dexterity!) He loves doing work books but always wanted me to write it down or to answer verbally. I've only done 3 days of the new regime, first day was him fighting me but I am learning! I got the new stuff, made the writing him doing the workbooks not me making him do practice and i stopped after 15 minutes and some successes. But I don't �disagree that he wants my respect I just never thought of it in terms of anything beyond pride or esteem or something along those lines. �More interesting, he of the amazing reading skills, will just wait for me to define a word or pronounce it and he never takes it personally, and that's how he took to the correcting of the grip, so maybe the tears and frustration were about just making him do it with how giving him the help that actually helped, and he didn't know how to ask for the help, lots of food for thought!! But it is such a relief to hear from people who get this, so many other people say just wait he's only 4.5! Don't pressure him! And we were, but not to be good at it, but to try. But we weren't listening to the response, I won't try because I don't know what to do differently. I figured he would react negatively to the constant, correct the grip, but he isn't.
��And you are right, they are such odd buggers!!!!
