Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion So how did you get them to work through it?

I've written before about DS7 - 2nd grade with pretty much no accommodations at school. I'm concerned about his obvious inability to work through things that are challenging for him, even in areas in which he's interested.

Example:

Several weeks ago, we attended an event where DS got to play chess against a GrandMaster. He literally cried because he wasn't able to hold his own against her. He asked me to leave the room with him, so she wouldn't see him in tears. I explained it was a good thing that she was so good -- that if he were better than everyone there, he'd be less likely to learn something. Before we attended, we'd discussed how this event was not to see how good DS was, but to try to learn some things.

And yesterday, we attended a local chess club for the first time. DS had been excited for weeks about it. It turned out to be just folks playing chess, whereas DS had hoped for someone to teach him strategies and tactics. (I know the rules, but that's about it.) DS was able to hold the experienced middle-schoolers to stalemate in every game, which I thought was pretty good. But now DS says that maybe chess is too hard for him. This from a kid who understood how to play at 3 years old, and wanted to talk about nothing else! At home, DS doesn't want to practice end games (like on chessmagnetschool.com) unless it's the easy ones he already knows how to do. And if he is playing a full game, he will try to abandon it if he's not winning, and then won't want to play for a day or two.

So, I'm perplexed with how to get him past the "I can't do it!" attitude. Over the past several months, I've seen a bunch of examples of things he's excited over, but then turn out to be "too much work", and he just goes back to reading a book (granted, a fairly advanced book, but still...).

Between the bus rides and school, he's gone for roughly 8 hours a day. Part of me feels like that is enough time for him to spend doing something someone else makes him do. The other side of me knows we have to teach him this skill. Any ideas would be appreciated!

Sorry for the long post. As I've mentioned before, brevity is not my strong suit!

Happy holidays to everyone!

I was just wondering why you have to teach him this skill? I think many children, and adults are afraid to fail. Maybe he needs to spend time with no expectations...

Speaking from a purely anectdotal point-of-view...

I went through a similar experience at about the same age as your DS. I knew I was identified as GT, as did many other people including mothers of my friends, scout leaders, etc. I felt tremendous pressure to succeed in everything, and when I didn't succeed - I gave up. I think I used success as validation, so, when I couldn't do something, I didn't try because I didn't want to have my self-worth come crashing down.

I think this problem is very age-dependent and personality-dependent. I see similar traits in my DS, who is much like me in his intensity and sensitivity. My DD is much more open to trying something even if she may not excel. It's just a function of their personalities, and I believe these problems get better with maturity and age. I have seen improvements over time with DS, and yes, with myself. Heaven knows I've had many years to improve .

Maybe your DS will grow out of this problem in a few years. Hopefully he can learn to enjoy chess in the meantime, and maybe he doesn't have to be the expert right now.

We're struggling with this at our house as well. Based on my own crippling experience, which I'll spare you, I think you're right to want to intervene. Have you read the Optimistic Child? It outlines an intervention for curbing children's "negative self-talk" and "catastrophizing," which the author warns can lead to escalating anxiety and childhood depression. The book argues strongly (with supporting quantitative research data) that optimism and perseverance can be taught--that you can teach your child to talk himself down from a tearful "I can't do it!" to a calm "I can't do this yet."

Around here, we're big fans of the motto "Hard is good." Playing a chess Grandmaster? Hard! You're pretty much destined to lose. I think I'd even say that to my child upfront--"You're going to lose. Know that right now. The goal of this game is to do the best you can BEFORE you lose. But you will lose, and that's okay."

I often tell my kids that if you don't make any mistakes, if you perform perfectly, then what you're doing is too easy for you.

FWIW, I think if I were you I'd sit down and discuss this with DS7 at a time when he's in a cheerful mood. That's given me better success with my kids than waiting until they're upset. Lay the foundation every chance you get so that when faced with adversity, he doesn't see it as a trauma.

I also battle my own perfectionism every day, I'm afraid. I know I'm not a very good model for them! I do try to ease up on myself, however, and I do my best to make clear that I'm struggling with it, too.

Welcome to my life... and I know I am not alone.

My son -- just like yours, apparently -- has been conditioned to expect relatively easy mastery of everything he attempts. In my meetings with his school earlier this year, I would explain that we've got to do something now, because he's really getting used to rolling out of bed every morning and already knowing all the answers. That really was the extent of the effort required: Wake up, go to school, get A's. Lather-rinse-repeat.

And then came the litany of "it's too hard" when exploring a variety of extra-curricular interests -- same as your son. And at that point, any encouragement from me added fuel to the fire, because I was "making him do something hard." And then all the fun was gone.

Finally, through his piano practice, I was able to work with him and bring him through the "it's gonna be hard" process, finally with a modicum of success in recent months. He just finished his 3rd year of piano lessons, and most of the time he would lose his mind when a song didn't come instantly. "It's too hard... I hate this..."

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 kept up this strategy despite his occasional eye-rolling, but it did finally hit home. He began to ease up on himself and the frustration (for both of us) lessened dramatically. He was much more at peace with his sometimes hideous first attempts, and went through the step-by-step process of polishing one small section at a time. This was a HUGE leap for him, and he continues to improve.

I've recently had some success with him in other areas: he's learning the Rubik's cube, he's started the trumpet, and he's rediscovering his chemistry set. With each activity I revisit the initial goals, reminding him that he's not going to meet with success on the first try - or sometimes not even the first dozen... or more. And I'm also reminding him to celebrate the little successes along the way.

I think your instinct is spot on about needing to teach him how to follow-through with a challenging task or project.

I believe that allowing him to drop something at the slightest discomfort only reinforces the damage done by years of obtaining A's without any effort. And hopefully, after tasting the sweeter victory that often comes after overcoming a challenge, he'll become addicted to that instead!

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

Kriston, you describe pretty well the conversation we had for several days prior to the event. I tried to focus on how lucky it was that we'd be able to talk with/learn from some of the best players around, and how we weren't going there to see if we could beat them. This was about learning. The people there were experts, and they WOULD beat ALL of us! We, unexpectedly, ended up having a private hourlong session (DS7, DS5, DH and I) with a young lady who had just placed 6th in an International Women's Competition. I felt like we'd hit the jackpot having access to such a great player, but I could see DS was having a hard time of it. He told me through tears it was hard to feel like he'd played so badly, and he wasn't smart enough to play chess. I think part of it was that she was unimpressed by his skills. There were no accolades for how much he knew or how well he could play. This was new territory for him outside of our home. As hard as I saw it was, I also felt like it was an opportunity to learn that he wouldn't always be the best at everything, but he COULD get better at something hard through hard work. Maybe it was just not the right time, though.


Dandy, I really like the idea of using humor to get DS to lighten up. I used to do that a lot when he was younger, but somehow we got away from it. Well, maybe I'm the one who needs to lighten up!

And some of you also got me thinking that maybe (as much as he purports to like chess) we need to steer him toward something non-competitive first for him to learn to work through something hard, and keep it separate from the winning/losing issue.

Those of you with kids playing musical instruments.... Did your kids really WANT to learn to play? DS says he'd like to learn piano, but he knows it would mean daily practice and he says he doesn't want to have to do that. Again, with the long school days, I've had mixed feelings about pushing him into more activities that he doesn't really want to do.

Thanks for all the comments, everyone! I really appreciate your help.

There are a lot of great suggestions here. I might be coming back to this thread when swimming lessons start in January. I purposely chose swimming next because my risk-averse DS4 won't even put his face in the water. It's going to be a major challenge, for son and mom alike, and I know I'm going to need all the pep talk material I can get. I've signed him up for back to back sessions (three solid months) and might even do a third so he has time to take baby steps and keep at it long enough to see some real progress by summer.

Welcome to Perfectionism. It's one heckuva ride!

The one thing that keeps us moving forward, past the emotional outbursts and the "I can'ts" is praising the attempts rather than praising the achievements. For example, "I really like how you sat down and tried to do X this way." Instead of "Awesome, you got X right!". Also, erase perfect from your vocabulary!

We also continually point out things that DH and I are not really that good at, but that we still do because we enjoy it... it's ok to lose or not get it right.

DS got a 2 on his magnet paper last week. He was so upset. The reason he didn't get a 3 (basically an A) is because he didn't slow down and pay attention to which side he was putting the things that were picked up by magnets and which weren't. So instead of praising just the work he does when he gets things right, we point out the neat handwriting from taking his time, or the thought that went into the process instead of just the end result.

In our house, it's a-ok not to be the winner or get all the answers right. It really helps lessen the meltdowns from DS6 (and ME)!!!!

Oh, and DS plays baseball. He's CLEARLY not the best on the team... but he is improving, and he is really beginning to enjoy it. Sports may be our thing to get him to understand that he can't always be the best. He's not quite the athletic type.