Help me teach my 6yo it is ok to not know everything

[LEK]

My just turned 6yo is advanced in math, spacial and logic areas. She is currently working 2 grade levels ahead in math and it has always been easy for her, too easy it would seem. Anyway, this week for the first time EVER she came across something in math that she did not immediately "get" or did not already know. She lost it, full on melt down, threatened to quit math and never do it again becasue it is "too hard" (honestly I had to laugh, full on tanty over not knowing one answer). Anyway, we stopped the lesson and cooked lunch instead and she had already mastered the concept before we were ready to eat, it was in no way too hard for her it was just that she did not get it instantly and had to think. So now to the question, how do we proceed from here? Clearly there will be times in the future that she will not get something instantly, i need her to understand that sometimes we have to think about things and (gulp) even work through a problem to get the answer instead of just knowing it. She is used to working through logic problems but apparently math never needed working through and she did not cope well with the idea that it might. Any ideas or suggestions? I just want her to be ok with not knowing how to do it immediately, if it is too hard clearly we will leave it and come back at a later time but if it is just something she needs to think about for a few seconds she needs to understand that this is ok.

[brendag]

Have you looked at the articles/resources on SENG?

 

Also, there is a video that Richard Rusczyk was in that talked about how it is good that kids hit that math "wall" earlier in life and learn how to work through it rather than high school or college. It sounds like your dd may be hitting a wall or dealing with the perfection issue so common with gifted kids. For some reason I can't find the video link in my email and my brain is running on fumes today. :)

 

I'm sure you will be able to get some advice from others who have been there, done that. In the meantime, here is a Davidson Gifted article with a huge list of resources at the bottom of the article:

 

http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10459.aspx

[LEK]

Sigh, so hard when that article describes me to a T as well. And yes I fully agree with it being best to hit that math wall earlier and not later hence i am allowing her to accelerate (well I am holding her back a bit, it is a compromise between zooming ahead at her pace and me being thorough), I myself only hit that math wall in 3rd year uni, boy was that a shock lol. No she did not hit a wall, it was not even really perfectionism (although she usually displays that too) this was a simple matter of i explained the question and she did not instantly have the answer hence it must be too hard as math is not something that you need to think about. End of story for her. I am thinking it might be time to let her accelerate a bit more until she needs to think just a little bit more every day but after yesterday I do not know how to approach it, i don't want a melt down every day. In this instance the question actually ended up being really simple for her, it just took a little bit of thought.

[brendag]

My son's kindy teacher, gifted trained, put it this way: "School is for learning new things, not showing off what you already know. You are going to have to think about some things and use your brain to figure things out. Sometimes that might take more than a day." She'd give an example from time to time, relating to real life inventors.

 

 

I like this. I am going to print that quote out and put it somewhere for safe keeping as I know I will probably have to bring that one out sooner rather than later. :)

[fraidycat]

We have this issue in our house, too.

 

I printed off a sign that I found on Pinterest: It's okay to not know, it's not okay to not try

 

We have had and continue to have several discussions that center around the premise that "we do school to LEARN, not because you already KNOW."

[LEK]

Thank you all, think we will need to talk about this. Loving that quote about school being for learning, exactly what i need her to be getting right now.