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We have similar problems with DD8.5 and myself. I have to give myself a pep talk before I help her with anything. I have to remind myself that she doesn't see things like I do. It takes every ounce of my patience and a bunch that I have out on loan to get through a single homework session. Even the 'easy' stuff is a struggle because she might actually have to *gasp* WRITE SOMETHING DOWN!.

I am so happy that I found this forum. It helps to read how others struggle with similar problems. I was beating myself up last night after a disasterous session with her 'extra' work project. She is trying to convince her teacher that she can do harder work, but in truth.... she would never do it. I had to sit and hold her hand and cheerlead her through each step. It made me want to just give up advocating for her. She fights work at every turn. I guess I need to start thing of her as an onion, too. Although, I detest onions and they make me gag, LOL.

Ah, lots of memories here.

The main thing I'd say is that I would not just decide this is hard to deal with and the best plan is to avoid it. That's a great way to really feed the problem and to end up with a kid who is very difficult to deal with. This will cut down on your child's opportunities.

Thing to try: Get the child on your team where together you are working on deciding if work is appropriate. It won't take long before your child catches on that the elusive "just right" challenge can be very hard to find. The rule of thumb I read online that worked well for us: if you get 95% or more right we failed. You aren't going to learn anything from that and I don't want to waste your time. Same goes if you are going to get more than x percentage wrong. I will try to avoid assignments that but because you are an atypical learner (years ahead in some things, just your age in some things) there is a lot of guesswork and I won't always guess right. If I give you something that is way off that please tell me and we'll work together to find an alternative.

So, what you are trying to do is shift your child into the role where they are taking more responsibility. That may make them more sympathetic to the difficulty of finding appropriate assignments. And, it says the place of error is in finding the assignments, not in them. It will ultimately help you get better at figuring out that "just right" zone because they will be encouraged to communicate with you calmly rather than just melting down once they get started. This focus helps kid the kid in the thinking zone rather than deep in the feeling zone.

We combined this with lots of learning techniques to be able to stay on track when confronted with difficult material. Those including: setting a timer for x minutes (the child's choice) to see if they can make it through that time without a meltdown, learning to take stretching, exercise or breathing breaks, learning to set small realistic goals and noticing success when they are achieved, and working with outside classes and instructors where the child will be motivated to stick with it.

We had this also. I clearly remember the morning when I was driving DS - then 11 - to his day camp, a wonderful engineering-orriented camp with tons of peers, and he admitted - for the first time in his life - that one of his factoids that he gave me yesterday, was infact wrong.

I almost drove the car off the road - I was so suprised!!!!

Up until then he not only 'did battle' with me, he used to do it in school if the teacher tried to correct his writing samples. Our little town certianly didn't know what to do with a 3rd grader who, when told that he didn't do his writting correctly, handled it by telling the teacher - right to her face - that she was the one who was wrong. They had never seen a kid like mine, but let me know that it was all my fault for bad parenting. Perhaps it was, but jeesh!

((No wonder it was hard to see the difference between strong willed and totally insecure.))

What helps (slowly) was working together with Aleks.com, so that it wasn't ME saying he was wrong, and the reinforcer was really prized (new more difficult problems and beating the level.)

Also, I learned to say: "Oh, that's an interesting perspective" instead of "You are so wrong!"
Or "hum, that's not how I remember it, lets look that up, ok?"

It certianly was also true that lots of outlandish sounding factoids that sounded implausable to me that came from DS's mouth, were in fact true. That made the whole thing more tricky.

I'd console myself by thinking of all the dear men in my life who I've never yet heard 'Oh, I was wrong about that' from. Eleven might be late for that sort of admission, but it could be worse!

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Great ideas Passy,
My mom was terrific with 'well, just start, and in 10 minutes we'll see how it's going' with me, and I was so impressed with how often that was all it took.

When DS was in 4th grade, he usually tackled his homework worksheet right away and without much prodding. I called it the 'close your eyes and think of England' approach. But one day he came home in tears that he had 2 worksheets and it was so HARD and he had too much work and he would never be able to do it.....

I set up the timer and said: "Ok, do 10 minutes and we'll see" and then he finished in less than 90 seconds. I know because the time was running. That's is part of what prompted me to change his school for the following year. It really looked to me that the less he streched himself then the less he would be able to strech himself in the future. I had had such a hard time making the jump from 'open my ears and let the learning float in or give up' in High School, to actually working at learning in College that I didn't want the same thing to happen to my DS. Especially since I couldn't have gotten through that transition without plenty of peer support, which I got by playing the damsel in distress. I was pretty sure that that particular road wasn't going to be availible to my proud DS.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Everyday I think to myself, I really need to follow up on this thread but I don't. I still feel overwhelmed. I am so thankful for all of the suggestions and responses. I haven't been following this forum lately because I've been reading, reading, reading... one minute things seem like they are getting better and then it's back to square one. Right now I'm reading the Nurtured Heart Approach and various books on perfectionism, underachievement, anxiety!!!! I'm hoping to have some coherent thoughts soon!!! In the meantime, a very belated thanks.

Annaliisa

Hi Annaliisa,
Good to see you! Glad to hear that there are glimpses of moments where things seem to bee improving - it's only been 6 weeks! That's helps me hope that there is some movement - which is great when you think about how long your DD has been the way she used to be.

If you have any questions about Nurtured Heart, I'll do my best to answer them - that and getting the educational fit right is the only thing that worked for our family.

You mentioned that you like a challenge - here's one:
For the next week, see if you can find 5 moments in your day with DD where she is either doing something neutral or positive, and verbally narrate to her what you see without making any conclusions or judgements. Then post here daily what you saw and how she reacted to what you described.

(According to the book, they want you to do this once every 7 minutes in the begining, (since she's 7) and some mom's have set a timer just to be sure they do.)

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Annaliisa, if anxiety is a day-in day-out problem, I think you should have her seen by a psychologist. Anxiety can be really disabling, whether it's stand-alone or part of another condition (my DS is anxious because of his Asperger's). And yet it's treatable, and that can make a huge difference to quality of life.

DeeDee

Annalisa: I feel bad giving you one more thing to think about. But I just wanted to suggest that you including Stanford's Carol Dweck's research in your list of reading. She has a couple of concepts that I've found very helpful on a day to day basis working/talking with my children about academics.

One, that "intelligence praise" we give our children can backfire so that they don't risk doing tasks at which they might not excel. She has done some experiments that show clearly the type of praise that encourages a child to try harder things, and the type of praise where children opt to take the "safe" task.


Second, her discussion of a growth mindset: people believe they can develop their brain, abilities, and talent. This view creates a love for learning, a drive for growth and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishments.

Do you have any thoughts of switching from home schooling back to a public or private school? My children both refuse to accept formal instruction from me or DH, and completely shut down when we attempt to teach them anything that we initiate. They are happy to self-instigate exploration of all kinds of reading, math, and science concepts, and do so constantly, but the minute we try to introduce something resembling actual teaching, they shut down and refuse to engage.

DS6 thankfully has been perfectly willing to accept formal instruction in K, and so has learned to read along with his classmates, even though he was capable of learning at home at age 3. DD4 is thus far showing the same tendencies. I can't imagine trying to homeschool either of them because they are so resistant to instruction from me or DH. We've consulted a private educational counseling specialist a couple of times in the last year, and she said that's a common situation, especially with kids who are perfectionists and don't want to get things wrong in front of their parents - in line with what other posters have responded. So just posing the question of whether public/private schooling would be an option if you and DD continue to have issues with challenging work at home. No matter what, kudos to you for working so hard to meet your DD's needs.