8yo gets ticked off when things are "too hard"

[Halcyon]

Need a little advice. my 8 yo, who is accelerated, has little patience when he perceives things as being "too hard". "Too hard" means basically anything that he has to work at. He has a flair for the dramatic, so he'll plop his head on the table, tears will begin to flow, he will get his teddy bear and declare he has "no idea!" what to do. 

 

Now, believe me when I say the work is not beyond him. However, he does need to apply himself and work harder than he is. 

 

Any advice on how to cultivate stick-to-iveness in an 8 year old gifted child? 

 

(And yes, he has stick-to-it-iveness when it is something he wants to do, but not so much with Latin.....) ;)

[Runningmom80]

Following. My 7 year old is the king of this.

[azucena]

7yo ds does not want to do work that is too hard.  He also does not want to do work that is too easy.  

 

I eagerly await the post with advice for resolving this dilemma!  In the meantime, you have my sympathy.

[Alte Veste Academy]

"Too hard" means basically anything that he has to work at.

I finally put 2 and 2 together to realize that most of the time when one of my kids balks and says too hard about things that I know should be within reach, the truth was that the skills to break things down were insufficient, not knowledge. So I have been explicitly teaching this (executive function stuff, basically). Do you have Smart But Scattered? I highly recommend it. I will say that with younger kids doing advanced work, it is not necessarily that they are scattered, more that maturity has not caught up to the complexity of their work. Either way, explicitly working on patience, breaking things down, etc., can help.

 

Also, my younger kids have more of a need for me to be adjacent when they are working through things, as a sort of woobie. LOL I have one that is sure to hang in there if I just say nice words and deliver a cup of tea at the right moment. :lol: Sometimes what helps most is mom recognizing and acknowledging the challenge, which again is more likely to be unrelated to the actual topic being studied and more likely to be related to the challenge of puzzling through new experiences. The worst thing is for them to hear shoulds and...other words of frustration from me. So I bite my tongue pretty frequently.

[Runningmom80]

I have that book in my amazon cart, as I am on a VSL bender! :laugh:

[Alte Veste Academy]

I have that book in my amazon cart, as I am on a VSL bender! :laugh:

My very favorite book for my own understanding is Dreamers, Discoverers, and Dynamos. I swear, every other page is dog-eared, and it is littered with notes and exclamation marks.

[Steppenwolf]

If everything is 'too hard' or 'too easy' + careless mistakes, this could be perfectionism caused by underchallenge. If it looks like it is the case with your child, the following may be useful.

 

Do not use 'drill and kill'. Remove meaningless busywork. Reduce repetition. Use hard (challenging) tasks.

 

Use hard math, music instrument; individual sports (gymnastics, swimming, traditional martial arts (which are pretty much like gymnastics)) might work too.

 

Use extensive hand-holding - until it is no longer needed. (See Alte Veste Academy's post above.) Be present, be supportive. The change could take a long time.

 

Maintain the balance of hard and easy - you want a happy child. Pick particular areas and the amount of time for the hard stuff.

 

Talk to your child about this. Explain why hard stuff is good for him/her and easy stuff is bad.

 

I am pretty sure that 'A Parent's Guide to Gifted Children' by James T. Webb has a chapter on this, though the content may be not exactly what I said above - it's been a while since I read it. (I consider this book the single best resource on the topic of gifted children - or adults.) Also, google search  'perfectionism caused by underchallenge' seems to show some meaningful results.

[EndOfOrdinary]

My experience is just a reiteration of the above. There is so much great advice on these forums. Such a blessing!

 

To some degree none of us like doing something "too hard." Frustration, perceived or not, is just plain annoying. My son and I have had multiple discussions about how if I allow a task to pile up, I become overwhelmed, and bail. It could be laundry or some ridiculous email, whatever. It is stupid, but I build it up. It doesn't make my life better. By admitting this, it has helped him make connections to his own behavior of melting down before even really trying anything. We all have stupid things we do that are not productive or conducive to being our best selves. When I admit mine, he tends to admit his because the pressure is off.

 

One of the best teachers I have ever had made the remark that gifted kids fundamentally think differently. They "go from A to D without B and C." I distinctly remember this being a light bulb moment for me because it gave me words I did not have. They mentally leap without even realizing it. The problem becomes that then they do not know how to work A, B, C, D. It is "too hard" because he has hit a subject his brain does not leap with or she is on that edge of knowledge where she is really having to learn so her brain cannot go faster. It is like trying to work backwards and forwards at the same time. If we try the idea of making the problem simpler, the sentence simpler, the task in general simpler, my son can calm down. He can handle it. At that point we physically write out the process and go through it about five times. Then he is good. But I have to help him often times see the process he has just gone through. We have been working on this method for about six months and I can definitely see progress. It will most assuredly be another year before he can really stand alone with it though.

[Halcyon]

Great advice from the Hive, as always. My son DEFINITELY is an A to D jumper, and when that doesn't work is when the frustration kicks in. He does multi step problems briliantly, but he's not really doing them as multistep; he's doing them in one big leap. So when he actually DOES have to break the steps down, he gets annoyed. This is the only instance we've needed to review the work a few times and do multiple examples. For example, converting mixed numbers to improper fractions--he can't "see" what to do, so we've had to break it down, explain why he's doing it, and do that a few times. Then he can do it no problem. But the fact that he can't just VOILA get the answer irritates him. Thank you!

[OneStepAtATime]

Great advice from the Hive, as always. My son DEFINITELY is an A to D jumper, and when that doesn't work is when the frustration kicks in. He does multi step problems briliantly, but he's not really doing them as multistep; he's doing them in one big leap. So when he actually DOES have to break the steps down, he gets annoyed. This is the only instance we've needed to review the work a few times and do multiple examples. For example, converting mixed numbers to improper fractions--he can't "see" what to do, so we've had to break it down, explain why he's doing it, and do that a few times. Then he can do it no problem. But the fact that he can't just VOILA get the answer irritates him. Thank you!

My husband and both of my kids are A to D jumpers (not me, they always throw me for a loop).  And when they can't make the jump all three get frustrated and resistant, even DH.  Going back and slowly, pleasantly, working through how to get to steps B and C, usually several times, generally smooths out the process and the resistance.  (Wish I had realized this when DH and I were dealing with pregnancy and child birth the first time.  He really needed some help with B and C... :) ).  Good luck, Halcyon!

[wapiti]

Sometimes ds will say, "it's BOTH too hard AND too easy."  :glare:  I agree with all the advice above.

 

The other day, he told me, "I think too much."  He explained that the hard math interferes with him thinking about many other things at the same time he's doing math.  Easy math doesn't do that.  (Thanks for the encouragement, dude :))

[blondeviolin]

I can commiserate! And I'm not quite sure how to help then to sit down and say, "how do you...?" until they jump up and blurt out the answer. LOL My oldest I have to say, "Okay, what are you doing? WRITE IT DOWN." She thinks she can just jump from A to D, but often gets caught up in computation somewhere else. And I agree that sometimes they don't even REALIZE they've made that leap. For example, my oldest was doing a time-elapsed problem that ended with her result as 15:04. She happily drew her hour hand to the 3 and then I asked her why she put it there. She erased it, assuming she was wrong, and then flipped out that it was TOO HARD and she couldn't find the 15 on the clock. Mmmhmmm. When I walked her through what she was done, she was annoyed that she had already erased her correct answer and glared at me heavily. Punk.

 

I'm off to look up these book recommendations!

[deerforest]

DD is very much like this too. I'm a very sequential learner but I skip through steps wicked fast. It's a problem for me at work sometimes because I often leap along all the steps mentally and am sitting down at the end, waiting for my co-workers to catch up to me. It's feedback I've gotten on reviews--that I need to realize that it takes longer for other people to get to where I am.

 

But, DD just seems to spin around a bit in circles at step A while I toss every resource I can at her, lamenting that she won't practice or try or whatever. She claims things are too hard, but she won't try them. Then, she over thinks them to the point where I am practically chanting "keep it simple, keep it simple..." Then, suddenly she has not only seemingly and suddenly listened to what I've been saying but has made this huge leap and is at the end waving. There is simply no in between steps.

 

Do I manage to remember this, ever? Not while in the middle of some exceedingly frustrating moment. It's usually only at the end that I think. Huh. She did it again.

 

So, I have to think that some of this is my problem. I need to find a way to trust that it will be okay. It's hard to do that, though. Every major milestone as an infant and toddler was like this too. I'm not sure why I think academic learning is ever going to be any different.

 

[Runningmom80]

Great advice from the Hive, as always. My son DEFINITELY is an A to D jumper, and when that doesn't work is when the frustration kicks in. He does multi step problems briliantly, but he's not really doing them as multistep; he's doing them in one big leap. So when he actually DOES have to break the steps down, he gets annoyed. This is the only instance we've needed to review the work a few times and do multiple examples. For example, converting mixed numbers to improper fractions--he can't "see" what to do, so we've had to break it down, explain why he's doing it, and do that a few times. Then he can do it no problem. But the fact that he can't just VOILA get the answer irritates him. Thank you!

 

I'm loving this book right now, it says it's for ADD kids, but I think it's for VSL or whole-to-parts learners in general.  http://www.amazon.com/Right-Brained-Children-Left-Brained-World-Unlocking/dp/0684847930

[mathwonk]

i try to work problems together with my charges and share that i myself make lots of mistakes.  I hope this gives the impression that i am not opposed to mistakes.  especially when they get something right that i get wrong i emphasize this fact and praise them enormously.  i always admit openly at once that i made a mistake when  i really have, which is often, so i have no need to fake it.

 

the connesction with the OP's question is that fear of making mistakes is linked with the fear of the difficult.

[raptor_dad]

I can commiserate! And I'm not quite sure how to help then to sit down and say, "how do you...?" until they jump up and blurt out the answer. LOL My oldest I have to say, "Okay, what are you doing? WRITE IT DOWN." She thinks she can just jump from A to D, but often gets caught up in computation somewhere else. And I agree that sometimes they don't even REALIZE they've made that leap. For example, my oldest was doing a time-elapsed problem that ended with her result as 15:04. She happily drew her hour hand to the 3 and then I asked her why she put it there. She erased it, assuming she was wrong, and then flipped out that it was TOO HARD and she couldn't find the 15 on the clock. Mmmhmmm. When I walked her through what she was done, she was annoyed that she had already erased her correct answer and glared at me heavily. Punk.

 

 

This is why I spend a lot of time playing the rube for DS7 ;) Roughly half the time he has to explain it to me... the other half of the time he looks back and say aargh! and immediately corrects the error. He's never sure which is coming. The ~10% where he is right but can't immediately explain it is some of our richest instructional time since it is provably in his zone of proximal development. This feigned ignorance is only usable ~10% of the time but it still forces more introspection and self-checking than would be apparent otherwise. As long as he is clicking along at an accelerated pace, this level of checking is sufficient.

 

PS We are using MEP and Miquon above level and Singapore CWP a grade above that for a challenge. So we have both material that spirals and major challenges within MEP and CWP. Perhaps this approach would be harder in a pure mastery curriculum.

 

[blondeviolin]

This is why I spend a lot of time playing the rube for DS7 ;) Roughly half the time he has to explain it to me... the other half of the time he looks back and say aargh! and immediately corrects the error. He's never sure which is coming. The ~10% where he is right but can't immediately explain it is some of our richest instructional time since it is provably in his zone of proximal development. This feigned ignorance is only usable ~10% of the time but it still forces more introspection and self-checking than would be apparent otherwise. As long as he is clicking along at an accelerated pace, this level of checking is sufficient.

 

PS We are using MEP and Miquon above level and Singapore CWP a grade above that for a challenge. So we have both material that spirals and major challenges within MEP and CWP. Perhaps this approach would be harder in a pure mastery curriculum.

 

Yep. Sometimes I'll say, "I don't get how you did it." So then she'll roll her eyes and say, "look, Mom..." Sasypants, she is!