Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy need some gifty parent camaraderie, please!

DD's grades are mostly B's at the moment. A smattering of zeros and one reading comprehension test at 67%.

She began preparing for the city-wide spelling bee with enthusiasm but now rolls her eyes at the spelling list. The bee is this Tuesday.

Her mouth is snarky, moody, sarcastic and disrespectful.

She takes EXPLORE on Saturday and I fear that the results won't reflect her real abilities while she is in this funk.

I know these things are normal for all ten year olds... but they have bigger consequences when the stakes are talent searches and Scripps National Spelling Bee qualifiers!

How do I cope?

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Wine has worked well for us. Lol

Can you do something fun to destress and make her feel loved? When it gets negative or stressful with my son, my DH takes him skiing. He comes back like a different boy. A one on one trip to the ice cream shop just giving attention and not talking about tensions may help. Or sometimes it is good to see if they want to talk and just listen without judgement.

Hang in there and try to destress yourself too. Kids pick up on our vibes. Best of luck. I hope this helps.

Wine and unstructured down-time. Will try!!!

Also looking into her diet. She's gluten free (celiac disease) but when we gave up gluten, we gave into a great many processed, empty starch, gluten-free substitutes out of pity.

Also looking into her bedtime routine. She might be reading with a flashlight again. I hate to tell her not to do it, but it makes her so grumpy in the morning!

Also looking into restricting a couple privileges (iPod, etc.) until she gets the zeroes made up.

And, as if the universe wanted to throw me a token, she had an amazing spelling practice session tonight.

Thanks to everyone for the support. I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.

I doubt it helps but you aren't alone, my DD10 is the same right now, down to the Explore test on Saturday. (No spelling though. :))I asked my DH if it was a full moon the other night it's been so bad. I know mine is reading with a flashlight again, more batteries have gone missing... I took her swimming this afternoon for a little break and Grandma picked her up to take her to dinner. Thank you Grandma! Definately unstructured down time.

Glad she has a good spelling practice, hang in there!

The universe hates us. She's running a fever. Please, please let her be well for EXPLORE and the spelling bee!

How about a mani/pedi? Girl time with mom?

Two things that may seem off topic.
1) Compliments. Put 3 peas/nuts/pebbles in one pocket. Transfer to other pocket as give compliment. Try to move at least twice each day. I know it sounds silly, but as she revs up, your tension likely does also, and it's easy to forget to compliment our children, as we deliver all the "good behavior" reminders.
Alternative: Put compliment jars on the table, with shiny marbles or similar for everyone in the family to use to transfer from one to the other, when something nice is said. One empty, one full. This may work better with younger kids, laughing.

2) Talk about the underlying emotions. (Designed to be started with younger children) is "Happy, sad and mad" time. Used at bedtime, both parent and child discuss something during the day when they felt each emotion. It's a window to find out what is happening in your child's life that you'd never imagine. It gives you a chance to model how you handle emotions, create emotional competency.

In this case, my hunch is the underlying undiscussed emotion is fear, in both people. (don't shoot). With someone her age, perhaps sitting down, each of you making a list of things you're afraid of regarding the event, then sharing them?

OK, you can shoot now, lol.

Another "You're not alone!" from me. DS11 has been annoyed with all of us lately and we HAVE been doing fun things like skiing with him. He's an introvert anyway, so we've been trying alternately to have nice interactions with him and to just let him have alone time. I think I'm going to try taking just him out for dinner -- that always seems to end up nicely.

One thing I've noticed is that the inherent value in some activites that I think are important just aren't obvious to my DS. YOU know why grades and the EXPLORE matter so much, but sometimes kids are a bit more here-and-now, even if they intellectually get the consequences. They know that they need good grades to get into college, for example, and they truly do want to do well, but they just can't see how one test or one grade can end up being life-changing. On the other hand, I think sometimes I need to take a cue from my son and realize that not everything done poorly leads to dire consequences.

I hope your DD's feeling better! Maybe the perfect answer this time with the fever and the stress is to cuddle up on the couch to relax and recuperate, lots of fluids to get rid of whatever bug is causing the fever, and then an early bedtime.