Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion In over her head

I really think you need to chat to teacher about this and explain what's going on. Maybe the teacher can stop saying it's ok to extend the work.

I've said elsewhere that I think kids learning to figure out what is required and then deliver what the teacher wants is an important skill. You can help with this. There isn't anything wrong with her doing deep study or even putting extra effort into projects but I feel this will set her up for bad habits when the workload takes off. Sounds like you have a wee perfectionist on your hands!

Well, thanks for all the advice. It really calmed me down and helped me keep my hands off and my mouth shut. My kid came home and did her entire week's homework so she'd have more time for the project. Then she played on the computer and when her dad came home, they finished the powerpoint, she kicked us out of the room, practiced twice and invited us in to hear her long and rambling, but cute, presentation.

She definitely has to cut, but she has all week to do it. I think it will be okay.

DS did a presentation on spiders in first grade when he was six. He practiced presenting it exactly once. I told him to start, he started crying because he did not know how to begin. So I wrote down exactly one sentence for him, something like "today i am going to talk to you about spiders" and then he just went through the material he had completely by heart.
At this age, for presentation skills it must suffice to speak loudly and clearly enough that the teacher understands what you are saying. If the other kids understand it, it's a bonus (with our kids, there is a good chance that a lot of the information will go of their heads anyway. She won't need to look at her notes so just tell he to look at her best friend in class and speak. The one thing that I agree must be practiced is clicking the slides along without having to look, just a quick glance to check that it's the right slide up there. A lot of adults can't do that! Also, a rule of thumb for a PowerPoint presentation is one slide a minute - how many minutes is she supposed to speak? It was five minutes for our first grader.
She must be satisfied with putting most of her content in the written report. After all, non of the other kids will have the historical background that you two have researched for weeks. Most important presentation skill - think of your audience!

Aw, in those ways her presentation isn't going to be particularly good and I don't care. I struggle more with the idea that she has enjoyed the learning behind this project so much and I didn't want to screw that up by starting to become demanding or by turning it into something unfun at the end that ended up ruining her experience with it or with learning. (But she did have to finish it.)

I don't really understand the intensity she has when it comes to all things history. It is strange and scares me, but I think a lot of it probably comes with just needing so much context in order to understand events.

And just because I can't talk about this stuff with my friends, I will add: She has dyspraxia and had a miserable kindergarten year. But she's getting so much better. Yesterday she finished her entire week's homework in about 45 minutes. Writing is getting easier and more automatic for her!!!

Also, she wanted us to pretend like we were students, and at one point, she looked at me and asked if I was okay. I said, "yes," but she she came and patted me softly on the shoulder anyway and said, "I know war is scary, but I am only going to talk about it for a second and then it will be over. Okay?"

It was very sweet. Last night was a good night.

Aw, I love your daughter!

me too, sounds like my dd

Someone (or more than one person) has got their expectations out of proportion.

Boy, isn't THAT the truth.

If anything, I'd go further and state outright that there may well be a tendency to learn horrible time management practices from proscribed assignments/work, which then translates into a kind of waking nightmare on open-ended projects like this. I feel your pain.

Another good reason to rein it in early, though, is that advanced coursework in middle/high school often has these embedded "projects" for independent learning. DD always did more-more-more-more-more on this stuff. She was chasing peer reviewed literature on altruism when she was 8 and 9, spending time in the local university library stacks, etc. On the other hand, getting her through to the finish line on a huge project was hellish.

I see this one as a scope-and-time-management problem, and it's one where it really is pretty critical to emphasize accurate estimation of one's own ability and time needed, and hope that they get it down by the time they reach post-secondary and beyond.

I still have to step in occasionally with DD15 about this, and she's in college. Mostly, she manages that immense course load just fine, and certainly so academically-- but there are times when she is not protective enough of her own open blocks of time. Deadly, that "it's fine" impulse, which is usually motivated by a sense of never having been SHORT on time to any appreciable degree.


I think that HG/+ kids in particular need help developing a sense of NEEDING to manage their time well.

Agreed.

I was thinking about this post the other day when DS6 had an assignment to summarize a book. (I wasn't watching him--usually, his HW is duh-easy, but this was a bit more demanding, clearly.) 20 minutes and one excruciatingly long and complex paragraph later, he'd gotten through about 1/8 of the book and was feeling worn out...whoops. I guided him to finish up in two more sentences. I know his teacher will know what happened. These kids WILL bite off more than they can chew, so you have to keep an eye on them or they'll wilt. partway through.

These kids WILL bite off more than they can chew, so you have to keep an eye on them or they'll wilt. partway through.[/quote]

I just went through this with dd11. She chose "harnessing the gravitational energy of Mars" for her math project. After about a week, she came home from school upset because she wasn't finding any good resources online. We spent an hour looking at physics websites and then I was feeling frustrated too. I told her that neither of us are physicists and could figure out in one more week how to do something that nobody else has discovered. Tears. The next morning I suggested that she calculate the energy with all of the formulae she had discovered online. I said that would be impressive enough and she could leave the harnessing part for when she's in graduate school. I think everyone is happy now but it took some guidance. It makes we wonder what her teacher was thinking when she encouraged her to go for the whole enchilada!