Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion What to Do About Over Confidence?

So, this is related to the post on arrogance v confidence, but slightly different.

Tonight I met with DS8's gifted teacher and she said that she had noticed, and that DS's 4th grade teacher had noticed, that DS takes a "this is easy, I know how to do this" approach to work and digs in without waiting to hear directions and subsequently does too much of his work a bit carelessly. I have talked to my DS about the need to listen carefully to instructions and to read directions carefully, as well as to write neatly and make sure he works carefully so as not to make silly mistakes. I don't think the issue is that he's bragging or being arrogant, just that he's just so sure what work he's given is easy that he just plows right in and doesn't do his best work.

My question, though, is how concerned to I need to be about his teachers' comments? DS8 is grade accelerated and subject accelerated further, primarily because we have always wanted him to be challenged, but he still generally isn't. Would it sound snotty for me to say, yes, I wish he would do this differently, but it's likely a result of him finding so much of his work lacks true challenge? It's not like he's not learning anything new, and socially school is a good fit (although outside of school his best friends are still one grade higher up), but more that he's learned that he doesn't have to pay a whole lot of attention in school to do well.

So, what do I say to this criticism? He can be careless and doesn't always listen, but he's never had to in order to do well.

This is one thing that doesn't seem to be a big deal.

I wouldn't be concerned, but then I'm a speed over accuracy kind of person.

Sometimes it is as simple as a sensing versus intuitive personality. Both have their strengths and drawbacks. (Myers Briggs)

Life has a way of built in failures for going too fast and not having enough prior instruction, and sometimes the fruit of that teaches the lesson far better than trying to prevent it. At least this was my experience with my kids.

I remember we had an exercise like this in ~5th grade or something and I *did* read all of the directions and the *last* one was to not do any of the above. I thought the correct way to proceed then, was to follow all of the directions in order, because otherwise you were picking and choosing which directions to follow, which of course could not be the right answer either. I still think there is a logical flaw in that sort of exercise, unless the instruction to not do something comes before the list of something that you are not supposed to do. And it still annoys me that I got in trouble for it. Oh well.

MON...

I remember those "tricky" sheets. I always, always tanked those. Maybe some very specific instructions of "pre-starting" would help: put pencil in desk, flip over worksheet if referencing it during instruction is unnecessary, sit back in chair instead of the "ready to pounce" position. I am extremely anticipatory...sometimes that's a helpful skill and many times it can be a hinderance. Honestly, I remember that sitting on my hands helped. I also recall doodling in the margins of my notes in high school and college, while the Prof was peresversting over a seemingly OBVIOUS point. My margins usually looked like complex tattoos...maybe that's not a great adaptive tool
- unless one intends to, indeed, become a tattoo artist.

OMG this is my DS, look that's shiny, how about that picture on the wall I've seen 1000x it's soooo interesting! Although I don't think my DS is thinking it will need careful thought rather that it will require work. If it did require thought maybe it would catch his attention - nah, probably not!

It seems to me that the best course of action in this case is to do nothing. Natural consequences will take care of the problem.

Your results may vary. In my personal experience, the results were that getting marked off usually forced me to figure out what I'd done wrong. If I couldn't figure out what I'd done wrong, I'd ask. Occasionally it wasn't my problem, but one where the teacher may have made a mistake, or where the question was terrible, directions poorly written, etc. Most of the time, the mistake was mine, and I owned it.

Over time, I gradually learned to read directions and/or check my work. That serves me well today, where I'm in a position where a simple error, a failure to follow instructions, or a failure to check my work can cost my organization millions of dollars. Over the course of my career, I've encountered numerous professionals who are so frozen by the fear of making mistakes that they're practically useless to their employers.

Mistakes are the best teacher on earth. Very few 8yos face the same kinds of stakes I do, and a little bit of failure can do them a lot of good.

I REMEMBER those worksheets.

OMG the feeling when you read the one that said "skip #5 untilll"... Exactly, precicely, identically identical to the feeling of being fired.

I find another common problem is when faced with a bunch of easy problems, my child assumes they are all the same (ie all addition) and misses the signs because it is too easy to care. Just pushing that focus on the simple makes her more conscientious about reading instructions. Though it took forever of reminding her last year.