These are great ideas, especially since my daughter would rather be doing art anyways! Thanks for the reply. Hearing your experience is motivating to keep working on this even if my daughter is incredibly resistant.

Hi there, I’m COVID homeschooling my 2nd grader this year and plan to continue. I feel pretty awful that I just discovered she’s holding her pencil incorrectly (she’s curling her index finger so her knuckle is resting against her pencil). Although this explains why her handwriting is so messy I recognize going backward isn’t easy. Any tips or ideas of how to retrain her grip? I’d love any advice. Thanks in advance!

Great advice. I talked with her teacher on Friday after class to let her know this is in the works. I plan on writing a card and giving her a gift. She is a wonderful teacher and worked wonders with my older daughter. I think she was surprised at our decision but very supportive. This is great. Thanks for the advice. I was thinking of starting with Understood Betsy with her, just because I think has similar struggles of believing she can do things herself. I'll check out the ADAM test, as well, because otherwise I have no idea of seeing where to place her. Appreciate the insight!

That is so interesting. I will give it a try and see how she responds. Thank you! Yeah, I do think starting easy is great advice. We love the Great British Baking Show but no one is making a medieval pigeon pie around here anytime soon, lol. And I do think I need to continually work on my language that empowers her to make mistakes in the kitchen. I'm not controlling in hardly any areas of my life but I can be a controlling beast in the kitchen. I am skilled at pointing out my own mistakes - I just get controlling about the mess. I probably need to do some headspace meditations before we tackle our baking projects. ; ) Thanks for the great advice.

Thank you. You know, we actually have some of the logic puzzle workbooks from CTP lying around when the girls were into logic puzzles for a while. I will pull them back out. Those Balance math challenges are fun and a definite challenge! Both MUS and Beast academy sound good. I like the idea of the cartoons because it would be so different than her current math experience (black and white worksheets only, no manipulatives). I will check them out. Thanks so much for the details!

I will check with our doctor. I'm guessing the way to rule it out is to see if she has strep? So ask for a strep culture? I do remember at an appointment last year when she tested positive for strep the doctor was completely caught off guard. He thought for sure she didn't have it but ran a culture just in case. Makes me wonder. Thanks so much for taking the time to bring this to my attention. Not even on my radar.

You know, I actually think there is a course at the co-op that uses this curriculum. Sounds awesome. Thanks for the resource and I will check it out. I do think I need help in finding the right language to help her and not exacerbate her perfectionism. I appreciate the encouragement! I do feel more hopeful than I have in months.

We love Splendor, Century Spice Road and Azul. They are shorter games - 30-45 minutes - which is nice.

We are probably pulling her out next week so she can enroll in our district's parent partnership program. She is excited and my husband is on board. It's a really great program. I will look into some of this - thank you. We have a great naturopath that my husband goes to that I'm sure could help. I just picked up Story of the World audio from the library! She's interested in learning history and this seemed like a great way to ease into things. And we used to do poetry teatime back when I homeschooled my oldest (six years ago) and they still talk about it. Those are great memories. Thanks for these suggestions. I really do want to keep her up with math. She picks up concepts quickly (the slow pace in the classroom has been killing her love for the subject) so I'm looking forward to allowing her to have the freedom to move at a faster pace. I am not great at math, however, but I think I can keep up at this stage. But once we get to anything algebraic I'm out, coach. Thanks for the reminder to ease in. I homeschooled my oldest dd for K and 1 and I remember stressing about doing enough and curriculum choices, etc. I was overwhelmed all the time and it's a good reminder not to go back there. But it does feel different this time around. I think I trust my kids more and their abilities to learn. At the risk of sounding cliche, I do think the world can be our classroom (okay, maybe not for grammar) and I didn't understand that with my oldest. I'm grateful to feel more relaxed about the learning part. The anxiety part? I could use some less anxiety, lol. Thanks so much for your great suggestions. I really appreciate it.

I LOVE this idea. I know she will be resistant - she will interpret this as something being "wrong" with her. We are having breakfast together today to talk through all of this and I'm going to include this in my ideas for the months ahead. I've already been checking out some books about mindfulness for kids. And she's very interested in cooking but often reluctant because she can't do it "right." That's been in my mind to do a lot of together but I love linking it with shopping and nutrition. Thanks so much for the suggestion and taking the time to respond. : )

I have heard of PANS/PANDAS but it's been a while. That sounds like such a hard journey for your family. I will look into the links you gave - if I'm remembering correctly, strep can bring it on, right? She's struggled with strep repeatedly. Thanks for taking the time to respond and bringing this to my attention. Like I mentioned to Peter Pan, biomed hasn't been on my radar at all. Thank you.

Yes, if I'm being perfectly honest my dd does come by some of her anxiety by me. We manifest our anxiety differently but I do relate. Thanks for your feedback. : )

I'm going to PM you on some of this. THANK YOU for your reply. My grandmother and mother both have an MTHFR defect so it wouldn't be difficult to surmise that dd is dealing with the same. We tried to get my girls tested a couple years ago and it was just too pricey. Does the genetic route you're suggesting identify MTHFR? I'm familiar with social thinking but not that article. Thank you. I love their stuff. It's a parent partnership program through our district. I was really impressed with the principal and my dd is excited about the possibility. It does move up our timetable - applications are due next week. So we might be pulling her earlier than we thought, and my spouse is on board. The program has a great reputation in our community. But, yes, it will be interesting to see if these issues follow her. This anxiety isn't going away but I do think that the situation she's in currently is exacerbating it significantly. The whole reason we started down this path was because she was much calmer during break. Not an angel, but considerably more at ease, less tense, and less explosive. Thanks again. I haven't really considered biomed stuff with this dd. We did lots of biomed testing, diets, supplements, etc. with my oldest when she was younger and found a lot of success. It just hasn't been on my radar as much with my fourth grader. And genetics would be interesting because my youngest (first grade) does show signs of anxiety, too. Really appreciate your time and help.

Thank you! This is great. She's a quick learner and I think this could be a good place to start.