Back to the OP, here, I'm not sure that I have any really awesome input...
but it sounds painfully familiar, at least.
DD (now 11) still hates to write (mostly, anyway), and is only just now really learning to take a lot of joy in drawing.
She has always seen keyboarding and the computer as a way of avoiding that (relative) weakness in her skills. She also used me as a scribe until I started refusing to do it (when she was ~8-9 yo/5th-6th grade).
I am torn regarding whether or not it is good/bad to allow them to avoid it (as we did to some degree), or whether forcing them to develop those skills is best.
I truly don't know. On the one hand, I can see that forcing them to "face their fears" is good. Teaching them to work, etc. has to be positive in some respects, yes?
Except...
I can also remember the tears, etc. when we DID try to force DD to do things "normally" with her hands. I mean, sure, we did the penmanship stuff with her-- she KNOWS how to do all of it "properly" and all. I'm just not sure that it was worth fighting over, years later. After all, she seems to be (finally) developing those skills in her own time after all.
Her computer skills are phenomenal-- she can use Paint and CorelDraw extremely well-- with a mouse, even. Her keyboarding skills are very good as well.
Is it really so wrong to allow kids to use their strengths to shore up their weaknesses like that? Part of me says that it is not; that there is a life lesson to be learned THERE, too, and that maybe it is just as important as the one about persevering.
Sorry. Even though I feel like I should have an answer for this one (after all, we have gone through it with DD), I don't.
