What do I do with this unmotivated, very passive 10-year-old?

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

This past school year has been our most productive and structured year so far. But here we are at the tail end of it, and my oldest (11 in September) is miserable about schoolwork, and I can't keep pulling this wagon all by myself anymore. There's no enthusiasm about learning, no looking forward to any part of school, no proactivity about researching or looking anything up, nothing. Everything that is in any way even mildly educational has to be assigned (and constantly monitored) by me. I have to drag her out of her bed every morning, yell at her to get her to school table, remind her constantly to focus, stop cracking jokes, pay attention. I have to prompt her through every response to every question and nag about independent work getting done (which it doesn't, because she drags an hour's worth of independent work out for hours until it has to be finished the following day, then she feels overwhelmed because she has work to finish, work to do with me, then more independent work to do!).

 

We just had a month off, and on the day after we came back from vacation, we had a meeting to discuss what she might be looking for in terms of school in coming year. The response? "I want to make school easier." :glare: On a regular day, I teach the following:

• A Singapore math lesson (we're in 4B, so I know it's not too hard!)
  
• A Latin for Children A lesson (we are learning together, so I'm right there alongside her; the foot dragging during the lessons and independent work make it sound like I'm killing her, yet when words we've learned pop up in everyday life, the twinkle in her eye shows me she likes the end result)
  
• An FLL 4 lesson (we go through these very quickly)
  
• A Writing with Skill lesson (not much to teach, we go over the last assignment and discuss issues/changes. If I ask her to revise, she mopes and moans)
  
• Something history related--discussion of a chapter or topic, maybe mapwork or comprehension questions.
  

On a regular day, for her independent work, she'll be assigned:

• A Singapore workbook assignment
  
• A Latin for Children assignment (worksheet pages, or just to study the lesson)
  
• A Sentence Composing for Elementary (Killgallon) assignment (once or twice a week--usually only 4 of 6 sentences)
  
• Something history related--a related-reading assignment, spine pages to read and take a few notes on, note the important dates for the timeline, etc. (we're in the process of switching from SOTW to a very loose use of TOG, so it varies)
  
• A Writing with Skill assignment
  
• A page or two in Orbiting with Logic (maaaybe once a week, usually less)
  

Is this an overwhelming amount of work for a very bright 5th grader? It doesn't seem like it to me, but maybe I am really overworking her? We're not even doing any formal science!

 

Anyway, I can't tell if the problem is just that an attitude adjustment is needed, or if I'm really overworking her, or if I'm truly boring her to death, or if she's just an unmotivated kid. Until a year or so ago, she wanted me to pick out her clothes for her every day. She enjoys art classes, but I have to do the research and lay them all out for her, and then she hems and haws over them. Until this year, I was still picking out library books for her! I finally stopped, and even now, she keeps taking out the same 3-4 books over and over. She's mildly interested in other books, but she has no interest in learning how to use the library hold system for herself. She has to have almost everything pushed onto her or handed to her. She's eagerly reading the Harry Potter books now, but only because a friend and I repeatedly told her how much she'd like them (and I own them all). Same thing with The Hobbit. She's involved in a YouTube video collaboration thing, and she enjoys doing the videos, but she's about to quit that because it's "too hard." She's so impressed by her friend who writes stories and just won an award, and she talks about the stories she'll someday write, but she won't put pen to paper. She won't look anything up, has no particular desire to learn about anything, she's just...uninterested. There are a few classes at co-op that actually excite her, but I can't make "The Twilight Zone" the focus of my homeschool, you know?!

 

What would you do with this kid? My main concern is with school. My patience with dragging her through her schoolwork is really just gone. But on a larger scale, this concerns me. How does a person like this get through life? Should I just dump everything into her lap from now on and let her sink or swim? I've tried teaching her time management techniques to deal with some things (like making the videos and getting her independent work done), but she still leaves everything until the last minute and then it stresses her out until she wants to hide from it.

 

Ugh, sorry, this turned into a bit more of a vent than I realized I needed! The original title of my post was something about needing ideas to refresh my homeschool. As I typed, it became much more apparent where the real problem is in our school! I would very much appreciate any thoughts/solutions anyone can offer here.

[Brooketopia]

I remember that age. There’s all this stuff you’re supposed to be doing, and it takes time. However, your mind is going 100 miles an hour thinking of other things you could be doing instead. It’s hard to focus on the “boring†day-to-day stuff because you’d much rather be doing the interesting and unique things, and the longer it takes to finish the “boring†stuff, the more wound-up you get about not being able to do the interesting things.

 

But then, you find yourself with fifteen minutes’ worth of time to do something interesting and unique (because it took fifteen hours to get through two hours of work because of the unable-to-focus thing)—and it is impossible to decide which ONE thing you’re going to do because you only have fifteen minutes to work on it. It takes thirty minutes just to decide what to work on at the expense of the other seventeen interesting things you’d also like to do. End result = I NEVER have enough time to do fun things, why bother trying to get the boring stuff done? It doesn't matter.

 

I say this because of the library thing you mentioned—I’d pick out the same books over and over because I was afraid to use my precious book allotment on something new in case the something new turned out to be something I didn’t like. Better to go with what I knew I’d like rather than risk one of my choices on something that potentially wouldn’t interest me.

 

It’s a weird “I’m interested in so many things, but have such high expectations that I can’t allow myself to relax and work on one thing until it’s done because then that means I’m not working on all the other things†mentality. (Always feeling like I’m missing out on something.) It’s still hard to cope with nowadays. Sink load of dirty dishes? It almost causes me nausea to wash them because I know, that while I’m washing them, I’m missing out on working on something I enjoy a whole lot more because I have to wash these stupid dishes. But, because I’ve had enough experiences, I know that my later job of making dinner relies heavily upon having clean dishes—and I’ve also, as an adult, had enough experiences with starting dinner and having no clean dishes to know that I prefer the dishes to be clean by that point. So much, that it’s almost worth it to not work on the interesting things in order to have clean dishes. The rest of it is just telling myself to be a grown-up and do my work.

 

Eleven years old is still pretty young. Adult thought processes aren’t all there yet. Add to it the “brightness†factor and we parents can really pressure our children to act far more mature beyond their years. I highly doubt that many eleven year olds can do anything after being shown how to do it once.

 

One thing that’s helping me right now is to remember that it’s a process to grow out of bad habits, and a process to just plain grow up. I can’t tell my daughter to get out of bed when the alarm goes off, in a cheerful mood, and then immediately head upstairs to take her shower. I break it down—we work on the getting up when the alarm goes off until it’s habit, and I bite my tongue on all the other stuff. Then, when it feels like she’s got the alarm thing down (oy, we’re talking seven months at least), I start “nagging†about immediately heading upstairs and taking a shower. That’s sort-of gelling at this point, four months later.

 

It takes time to learn new behaviors and habits. And that’s not a sign of laziness, it’s a sign of something being hard. I don’t yell at my kid for not understanding a math concept the first time I show it to her, why would I yell at her for not instantly snapping into a new behavior after only one sit-down chat? It’s different with each child—my second-born daughter has no trouble with getting up in the morning and doing her chores, but trying to get her to do chores in the afternoon is a nightmare. Ideally, I’d have my eldest do all her showering and chores at night because that seems like a better “mental†time for her, but it just doesn’t work with family scripture time, read-aloud time, spending time with Dad, etc. I sympathize that it’s hard for her to do stuff in the morning, but the response I give to the complaining is “I know, but throughout your life you’re going to have to do things you don’t want to do, at times you don’t want to do them, because it just works best that way.†Not fun, but just the way it is.

 

I don’t think you’re asking too much of her academically, but when I read through your list of stuff you do, I said, out loud, “There’s no fun in there,†when I finished reading. I’m guilty of this as well—it’s hard to have energy for the fun things after five hours of coaxing a stubborn child to finish something that really should have only taken three hours to do. I got to thinking about it though—how do I feel after three hours of housework? I’m certainly not ready to take on another room! I want a break; something completely different, a change of venue…something that isn’t the same as what I’ve been doing for the past three hours. I can only imagine that kids feel it even more keenly.

 

My plan for this next year is to make fun MANDATORY. I’m not talking about turning everything into play. I’m trying to schedule a hard-and-fast hour (minimum) most days where we’ll do something that’s just fun. So far, my list has Baking on Mondays, Poetry Tea Time on Tuesdays (hence the baking on Mondays…), Piano lessons on Wednesdays (my eldest is best friends with the piano teacher’s daughter—it always turns into a mini-playdate), and “Fun Friday†(Girl Scouts, Art, Music Appreciation, Nature Hike). Thursdays will have to be a bit of a hard work day in order to make Fun Friday happen, but I’m hoping the idea of finishing everything in order to have fun the next day will serve as a motivator.

 

I’m also assigning a non-negotiable start time to the fun. I imagine we won’t have school done most of the time before the Scheduled Fun Things, but I think it’s going to help immensely with my daughter’s anxiety about not having enough time to do interesting things. The sky won’t fall if we take an hour off to bake cookies and then go back to finishing up Latin. (I imagine her concentration will improve after the break.) I did this all the time in college—study until XX:00pm and then get a half hour break. Sometimes it motivated me to work faster so I could finish A, B & C before my break; sometimes it was a beacon of relief—“I just have to keep working until then and then I can have a break.†Our moods are different from day-to-day.

 

Another thing I find myself doing with my daughter right now is helping her through the decision-making process when she finds herself trying to decide on something. I have her list her choices, sometimes adding in a few suggestions of my own, and then I have her pare the list down to five choices. Then I ask her if there’s two things on her list that she’s OK with getting rid of in favor of the other three. Once we have the list down to three choices, I ask “A or B?†If she answers ‘A,’ then I say “A or C?†She makes a decision, I say something positive, and send her on her way. It works for her. (Sometimes we have to write all the choices down…depending on her ability to “focus†that day.)

 

Wow, I wrote a novel. Maybe some it helps, maybe most of it sounds crazy. Regardless, just know that you’re not alone in your frustrations and that there are LOTS of parents that are trying to figure out this very dilemma—and that most “lazy†pre-adolescents grow up into responsible adults. It’s a process.

[RootAnn]

I don't think you have to have "fun" for school. You can throw in a bunch of bells & whistles, but with a kid like that, it won't matter. They'll still drag their feet for mandatory, non-fun stuff.

 

I'm wondering if she's clinically depressed? Sounds like this is in more than just "schoolwork" areas? Does she want to go outside & play with friends? (Here is just one of the 'depression tests for children & teens' - don't know how valid it is, just one that popped up when I searched.) I'd be looking at the Bigger Picture personally. How's she eating? On another front, is there perhaps some hormonal issue playing into this behavior?

 

Just some ideas...

[PeterPan]

Can I ask a question? When you say she's a very bright 5th grader, you mean she's rising 5th, as in you're calling her 5th in the fall? That's what she would be by birthdate, a rising 5th grader. So I think it's kind of striking that you have her doing what is actually a pretty rigorous load, a load that takes so much pulling by you that you don't even get to any fun stuff like science or art or music or opera study or spool knitting or underwater basket weaving (I'm having fun with you here)... And she's ASKING for an easier load... And you did say you used WWS1 with this dc who technically by age this past year was a *4th* grader? And I know she's bright, but, um, I know my dd's IQ and my dd is bright too. My dd did WWS1 this year for *8th* and she kicked butt with it and she didn't complain, just banged it out.

 

So my take is to listen to her. You said she's bright, so she's also intuitive. She clearly has something she likes. She's right on in math, overplaced in writing (to the point where she thinks she's a failure and is too intimidated to TRY to do the stuff she clearly admires). So it's time to back off. If she's bright, she should be having fun when you get the level right. She should actually light up and glow and look intellectually engaged. I didn't say she's gonna say she likes school, because mine never has. But when I get the level right, my kid mentally engages.

 

She's a rising 5th grader by age and very bright, likes creativity? I would offer her some creative writing and totally stop WWS for a while. Writing Tales 2 might be fabulous for her. Spice it up a bit and don't do it perfectly as written. Like do the story and find several versions online to compare. Then do 3 retellings, all short, and all super whack and creative. Like one is the straight version, one is mobsters, and one is a musical. Then have her pick one and turn it into a video. I don't know, I'm saying think OUT OF THE BOX. You said she's bright, and that's what bright kids do. Bright kids don't like sitting around crunching out the nastiest, lowest level of thought from stupid, dry lists of insipid, uninspiring, uncreative work.

 

Try to wrap your brain around the idea of a SIMPLE THING WELL DONE. You back off on the difficulty of the assignment and try to reapproach it from more creative, interesting ways.

 

Next, PLEASE, for all that is good, PUH-LEASE get something interesting back into her day. Actually what would she like to wake up for from that list? She's gonna get hormonal on you or already is. Everyone likes to have something worth waking up for. Where is it on her list? Some of the things you listed that you're doing are boring crap. Killgallon is absolutely unnecessary for a bright, creative dc. Highly verbal kids do that NATURALLY. Orbiting Logic is probably too easy for her. I've just glanced at it. Logic is a funny thing. There's a moment where it's suddenly very interesting to them, and until then it's like the thing they can do but don't care about. Until then, honestly, I'd go get logic games from Timberdoodle, etc. Have you played Chocolate Fix with her? That's a good one for a girl that age. Stop buying nasty curriculum and get real, fun games. Play games with her every day for 30 min. and call it school or break or whatever. That would totally perk up someone's mood. INVEST in good games. Ticket to Ride is super awesome and one I enjoy playing with my dd. She might even just enjoy doing puzzles together. You can get each of you 200-300 piece puzzles and then have puzzles races! It's good for their vision and good for your bonding. You need to do things like this, because it's positive stuff to get you through the hormonal mess of the next few years.

 

We're not very much into popular culture, but I've seen the posters of Twilight. I think I'd spin that and try to get her interested in photography. Twilight has very interesting post-processing techniques. She's old enough to learn Photoshop, and then she can pull videos into there for basic editing. The principles you learn in PS will carry over to any other editing she does with other software as well (color balance, layers, etc.). So don't stop where she is. Take her interest to the next level.

 

Kids reread books they like. For years with my dd that rereading was comics, which drove me CRAZY. However if they've been doing a lot of hard stuff, they need potato chip time to relax the brain. Maybe she *can't* pursue harder interests on her own because she's wearing herself plodding through that stupid WWS and whatnot. You ditch all that, and you might see her more sophisticated interests come out. Her reading preferences (Hobbit, for instance) certainly seem on-level for a bright girl her age. I think if you back off on the academics, ponder the virtue of easier things more creatively done, and allow her some mental reserve, she'll blossom JUST FINE. It's ok to give someone easier work. Honest.

[Element]

Oh, man, did I ever need this thread today. I'm not the OP, but thank you, OhE and everyone else, for your advice. Thank you, SMA, for asking.

[PachiSusan]

Oh my gosh - I am printing this thread out and keeping it. I have your daughter, OP. SHe's also 10 and a rising 5th grader. The only smiles I get out of her in school lately is our States Project - because it's "fun". . .

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

Thanks for the replies, everyone. I have mixed feelings about the fun element, mostly because, in the past, when I've tried to incorporate fun stuff, her immediate reaction is to not want to do it. I used to tear my hair out when she was little because she'd ask to do crafts and crafty projects, and I would bring home supplies and lay them out for her (and yes, do them with her), and she'd drag her feet and complain and the crafts and projects would never get done! And I am not a crafty person, so the whole thing was like torture for me. I finally gave up on that.

 

I know things like Killgallon are not entirely necessary, but I've tried incorporating fun creative writing, and she simply doesn't want to do it. She loves when I read to her, and when I give her poetry books to read, and when I talk about the creative writing I did as a child, but she does not want, and has never wanted, to produce any output of her own. Just like the videos--she'll sit with her iPad and watch videos all day, but actually making them on her own has been "too hard."

 

Also, when I asked her how she felt about Killgallon, she said she didn't love it, but she could see the improvement it had made in her writing and she really liked that. The same with Latin--she doesn't enjoy doing it, but she loves knowing that she can (sort of) speak/read a language that hardly anyone else can, and she loves recognizing words that have Latin roots that we've studied, and she loves being able to solve math problems that come up in real life on her own, and she loves being able to recite the poetry that I insisted she memorize...

 

I do know there's no fun in our school, but that's because I dropped it all to streamline down to what I felt was the bare necessities, because she didn't want to do any of it. When I ask her what SHE wants to study or learn, she has no answers. She wants me to teach her everything but require nothing of her, and I just can't sustain that. This is also the same child who refuses to go outside or in our pool unless I'm with her to lead the play.

 

OhE, we're finishing up 5th grade here, and she'll be starting 6th(ish) in September. I'm not sure about where you are, but here that's a normal (if slightly on the young side) progression. And while I can agree that we need some fun, I don't think I can toss aside what I feel are important academic goals in favor of it. IMO, writing is important--not just creative writing, but academic writing as well. And because she pretty much refuses to do any other writing across the curriculum, in any capacity, WWS was the compromise. I was all set to have her do writing for history and science, but she really, REALLY didn't want to. So I dropped that and said we'd just focus on WWS instead. We had the same problem with narrations and discussion in the younger years. She really hated narrating any of the books she read for history or science or any other subject, so I only made her do it via WWE. I don't know how else to reach academic goals. I truly don't. WWS is not too hard for her. It's really pretty much at exactly the right level. She gets every assignment around 80% correct, and listens to me talk about the tweaks it would need. She won't revise it without strong-arming, though. And I think being able to revise your work is an important skill no matter how old you are. I even make my youngest rewrite her incorrectly formed letters when we're working on handwriting.

 

Argh! Sorry, I'm very frustrated with all of this, and I'm really at a loss. It was a problem in the younger years too, but I chalked it up to being young and found so many ways to work around it and to draw her through it. But really, by 6th grade, I felt like I could start to expect a little more independence, and I'm just not seeing it. I don't want to keep forcing her to do everything, but I also don't think I can allow her to just drop everything and do nothing. And I don't feel like I should have to be the cruise director 24/7, telling her where to go and what to do and when to do it and doing it all with her, side by side.

 

Anyway, thank you again for all your insight, and for helping me talk through this issue. You've given me a lot to chew on, and your thoughts are helping me clarify my own perspective on all of it. I appreciate it!

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

Oh, and RootAnn, no, I don't think she's depressed. She laughs plenty and is cheerful and funny and silly and loves hanging out with her friends and with her dad and me. We have a very good family culture and have a lot of fun together. I do think there's maybe a little bit of anxiety at play here, but not a whole lot. I just think she has a passive personality, and I'm not sure how to work with that! She is always happiest when taking information and entertainment in, but has no interest in giving any out. When I ask her what she wants to do when she grows up, she has no clue, because there's just nothing she wants to DO. And she has been that way since she was a little child. Is that normal? I really don't know!

[HSmomof2]

No advice, just :grouphug: . I have a very, very similar 10-year-old ds. I cannot tell you how much time, research, and money I've spent trying to find things to engage this child. He is extremely bright, sweet, friendly and cheerful but just so uninterested in anything he sees as school work. I understand it is frustrating when you have a child with so much potential and so little motivation. Hopefully, encouragement, age and maturity will help them.....

[musicianmom]

My nearly 8-year-old is the same way. I always end up stripping schoolwork down to bare bones because she hates anything that is schoolwork, even if it's supposedly fun. She even loses interest in a book if she finds out it's a school book. I think she really just wants to be left to her own devices all the time to read Lang's Fairy Tales for the tenth time or play paper dolls for 8 hours straight (today's activity). I dread starting school again. The op has my sympathies.

[Penny_P]

OK, I can really empathize. My daughter was so unengaged and difficult I finally put her back in ps. When asked what she was interested in she would say nothing. Her attitude was demoralizing for her studious brother and left me angry many days. I grit my teeth at all the richness she is not exposed to in ps, but it has been the best choice for my relationship with her. Her grades are fair in school, as she is the master of getting by with doing minimal work. She just doesn't care! Sigh. I also worry about her success as an adult.

 

I'm not suggesting you go so far as putting your daughter back in school, but it had really reached a point that she was unwilling to put forth any effort. Hugs to you!

[Farrar]

I get what you're saying about the importance of academic goals. I think when people try to pit academic rigor and fun, self-directed learning as opposites, that that's a false dichotomy. They can go hand in hand.

 

BUT... Sometimes you have to ask yourself which is more important and what will be the long term impact of what you're doing. Sometimes I think it's better to push through - kids go through these stages, as she gets older, you'll have equipped her with really great skills, it can be important to help kids see what they're capable of and appreciate hard work by simply doing it. On the other hand, what you're doing could be impacting her love of learning for a long time. She's going to be a teenager before you know it - attitude problems don't typically get magically better then for kids. Is it possible that dropping some things and really redirecting your energies could help lay a better groundwork for the future?

 

By the way, my kids also have Sept. birthdays. Our cut off is Sept. 30th, but Sept. 1st does seem to have become the norm in many places. I call my kids by the grade they would be in, but sometimes, for myself, I do a little mental trick where I say, but if we lived five miles north (in another jurisdiction) then they'd be a whole grade younger! And wow, how it changes my perspective. How much smarter and amazing they seem! I mean, obviously it shouldn't matter, but sometimes I need a little dose of that because it helps me lighten up a LOT.

 

I also think if you do decide to change something, that it shouldn't be you who takes the burden of it. You say how you've tried in the past to add in crafty, creative type stuff. However, for some kids, doing their creative stuff as part of "school" is like poisoning their creative endeavors. I would say try to put it on her. You could cut back your work... And be okay if it's not your vision of things. Be willing to let some things go. Part of feeling more ownership of your own learning is actually owning it and making your own mistakes and determining your own side trips.

[Ellie]

Why not do something different, like R&S for English and that's all, keep your Singapore math if y'all are happy with it, and something like the Prairie Primer for everything else?

 

Why does she have to "produce" anything? Can't she just read good books and enjoy them? Does there need to be an assignment involved? Maybe if you don't harp on her to produce, she'll do it on her own. Or maybe not, but clearly what you're doing now isn't working. The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing but expect different results, eh?

[Alte Veste Academy]

Anyway, I can't tell if the problem is just that an attitude adjustment is needed, or if I'm really overworking her, or if I'm truly boring her to death, or if she's just an unmotivated kid. Until a year or so ago, she wanted me to pick out her clothes for her every day. She enjoys art classes, but I have to do the research and lay them all out for her, and then she hems and haws over them. Until this year, I was still picking out library books for her! I finally stopped, and even now, she keeps taking out the same 3-4 books over and over. She's mildly interested in other books, but she has no interest in learning how to use the library hold system for herself. She has to have almost everything pushed onto her or handed to her. She's eagerly reading the Harry Potter books now, but only because a friend and I repeatedly told her how much she'd like them (and I own them all). Same thing with The Hobbit. She's involved in a YouTube video collaboration thing, and she enjoys doing the videos, but she's about to quit that because it's "too hard." She's so impressed by her friend who writes stories and just won an award, and she talks about the stories she'll someday write, but she won't put pen to paper. She won't look anything up, has no particular desire to learn about anything, she's just...uninterested. There are a few classes at co-op that actually excite her, but I can't make "The Twilight Zone" the focus of my homeschool, you know?!

 

What would you do with this kid? My main concern is with school. My patience with dragging her through her schoolwork is really just gone. But on a larger scale, this concerns me. How does a person like this get through life? Should I just dump everything into her lap from now on and let her sink or swim? I've tried teaching her time management techniques to deal with some things (like making the videos and getting her independent work done), but she still leaves everything until the last minute and then it stresses her out until she wants to hide from it.

 

Ugh, sorry, this turned into a bit more of a vent than I realized I needed! The original title of my post was something about needing ideas to refresh my homeschool. As I typed, it became much more apparent where the real problem is in our school! I would very much appreciate any thoughts/solutions anyone can offer here.

 

What I am about to say may have no bearing on your situation whatsoever, so please take it as a thoughts that I'm throwing out there just in case it is helpful at all. I don't know you and your DD at all, just some thoughts that occurred to me in reading your post. :)

 

I think your vent is valid, because you are her mom. I know as a mom I'm constantly worried that my kids' biggest flaws will become exponentially more powerful in their adult lives and become dealbreakers for their success. It's enough to make you hyperventilate. LOL...sort of.

 

I'm wondering if you vent to her? I so wish I was better able to bite my tongue with my kids about what I view as their shortcomings. But I fail, sometimes miserably. So if you do vent to her, if you do express frustration with her, I totally get that. That said, you have pegged her as "a person like this," as inherently unmotivated. I'm wondering if that might be becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy for your DD. I wonder if you might be attempting to serve as a constant counterbalance in her life by providing extra structure, these lessons on organization, etc. Essentially, you are taking something that is not a strength in her and asking her to focus on it. To fix it. Argh! It is sooooo hard to fix your biggest character flaw! I mean, that's overwhelming stuff!

 

Is your relationship strong outside of school? Is it warm? Does she talk? Do you listen? (And this is me talking from my own experience about how I can be sometimes, not pointing any fingers...) Do you gripe at her more often than you talk with her?

 

What makes her excited about life, even if there is no end product? Do you often just share in that excitement? Maybe spend the summer just letting her be her passive self and watch her. Express interest in her interests, again making no mention of output or asking leading questions about what she might want to do now, where this project is leading, etc.

 

NOT ABOUT YOU AT ALL WARNING :lol: : My father was very...perfect. :rolleyes: And very condescending, accusatory, and just plain snide and sarcastic when any of us were less than perfect...which we were, frequently (being human and all, LOL). I am NOT imagining you are the same. But what I will share is that because I knew I couldn't live up to his standards, I never (ever, never, ever!) let him see me try. At anything. I knew I wasn't going to impress him, so I let him think I just didn't care. If I was good at something, well it just came easy. ;) I didn't care about it. Nooooo, that wasn't safe, because then if I failed at this thing, I would have...well...failed. You can't fail if you don't care.

 

So, again, I promise I am NOT imagining you as my father. LOL What I am saying is that I wonder if she knows she's letting you down by being the way she is, so she's just shutting down to making effort in this area. Bizarrely, the lesson I have taken from this is to sometimes pretend I don't care as much as I actually do as the parent. This is Very Hard. (See earlier paragraph about me failing miserably sometimes...not nearly as often as my dad though!)

 

Or has she internalized that this is a truth about herself? Truths are hard to change, so why bother trying.

 

What I would do with this child is bite my tongue as much as possible when I wanted to correct her or instruct her about how she could change in this way. Maybe just forbid yourself from mentioning this flaw for the entire summer. (Oooh, you could make yourself a penalty jar, like a curse jar. :tongue_smilie:) On the flipside, I would compliment her as often as possible on what I perceive to be her strengths. And I would make The Twilight Zone the focus of my summer. Truly, I would. :D

 

Toward the end of the summer, I would have a talk (maybe with brownies :D) about my responsibility to educate her (yadda, yadda, yadda), letting her know that I would like us to have fun. Then I would ask her to look at (my pre-vetted, acceptable list of) curricula with me to help pick what suits her strengths (yes, knowing full well she might lose steam). I would try really hard to make her a partner. I would even print samples, let her read/work through some, then let her make some decisions.

 

You might be the nicest person who has ever lived, for all I know. You might be the warmest, longest listening, tongue-bitingest, most understanding and adaptable person on the planet. You and your DD might have a fabulous relationship. So, really, just take these thoughts as something I'm throwing out in case it does apply. (I just really don't want to get skewered here. :lol:) I have been there with one of my kids, although luckily not quite to this degree or age/level of importance, so most of what I said was actually me beating up on myself. And my dad. Obviously. :D

[Alte Veste Academy]

Everything that is in any way even mildly educational has to be assigned (and constantly monitored) by me. I have to drag her out of her bed every morning, yell at her to get her to school table, remind her constantly to focus, stop cracking jokes, pay attention. I have to prompt her through every response to every question and nag about independent work getting done (which it doesn't, because she drags an hour's worth of independent work out for hours until it has to be finished the following day, then she feels overwhelmed because she has work to finish, work to do with me, then more independent work to do!).

 

We just had a month off, and on the day after we came back from vacation, we had a meeting to discuss what she might be looking for in terms of school in coming year. The response? "I want to make school easier." :glare:

 

In all seriousness, I probably would have gasped and said, "YAY! I want this school year to be easier too!" ;)

 

About the first paragraph, although it is going to sound almost completely counter to what I wrote in the post above, I have posted here before about the "zen showdown" I have done with my kids. Fact is, work must be done. The key there is to refuse to engage in a fight. http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/448187-first-day-nothings-changed/page__hl__+zen#entry4601347

[Crimson Wife]

I've got a fall birthday rising 6th grader who is currently going through puberty and has turned from being a reasonably compliant student to being a complete PITA. Complaints, whining, moaning, feet-dragging, tears over completely picayune stuff, tons of careless mistakes because she's half-@$$ing her work, etc., etc. :glare: And then she turns around and demands to be grade-skipped to 9th in the fall (she has the brains to do it, but lacks the work ethic to produce the output necessary for high school credit).

 

I know it's a normal developmental stage, but ugh!

[Lieutenant Stranger]

Well, what are the consequences when she acts like this? Does anything happen if she drags it out? No TV, computer time, whatever?

 

One of my children is definitely not a "go-getter." I've realized that about this child-- that this child will ALWAYS choose the easy way, no matter what. I understand to a point, we're all human, but the easy way isn't going to help in college.

 

I'd pick one thing to work on. Do you want work done faster? Without complaints? Figure out what it is you're wanting and then go after it. Heck-- give her a goal. No complaining/dragging feet for a week and you get ice cream Friday night.

 

There has to be SOMETHING that is her "currency." I'd find it and use it.

[shinyhappypeople]

OP, clearly what you're doing now isn't working (that's not a judgment, just an observation). So, are you willing to try an experiment? You need to practice benign neglect.

 

You're trying to help her break a habit of passivity that has been reinforced for a decade. This is going to be hard and take time, but I think it will work. For the next six months, except for a stripped-down school schedule (maybe math and FLL4?) and basic hygiene and other truly essential areas (the house is on fire! Get out!), you practice benign neglect.

 

Strictly limit screens, unless she's working on a specific project on the computer (and even then I'd limit the time to an hour or two a day, tops). Take a break from adult-led extra-curriculars.

 

You will be tempted to continue the habit of stepping in. Don't. You are not the entertainment committee (feel free to tell her that). You might occasionally remind her that no one has ever actually, literally died of boredom.

 

When she asks you to do something that she can do for herself, the answer is "no, you need to do that yourself." If it's important enough, eventually she will.

 

She wants to read the same three books over and over? Fine. She wants to sit passively on her bed and stare at the ceiling for hours on end? Have at it! She wants to do arts and crafts? Make sure a variety of supplies and a few how-to books are in the house and in reach. She'll see them. She'll figure something out. Do not intervene. Do not try to fix her mistakes, do not offer unsolicited advice. Resist the urge to help or make suggestions of fun things to do (this is hard). "I'm bored," needs to be meet with a sympathetic smile and a suggestion that she clean her room.

 

Eventually she will figure out how to entertain herself out of sheer desperation and boredom. Eventually she will discover her passions. Eventually you can add in a bit of Latin and WWS :) Eventually.

[Courtney_Ostaff]

You said the one thing she does like to do is watch stuff on her iPad, right? Well, how about focusing her writing on critiquing? As in, being a movie/YouTube video critic? "What could this do better? How does it compare to X?" Maybe you could reach out to a professional movie critic, who might be willing to mentor her? If she liked The Twilight Zone, maybe she could read some dystopic sci-fi short stories? Some Shirley Jackson?

 

Also, ditto on shinyhappypeople's comment--let her be bored. Just do readin', writin', & arithmetic, and let her explore the rest, even if she's whiny as all-get-out in the meantime. And severely limited screentime.

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

I've been stewing over all of your advice and thoughts since I posted this, and I realized I forgot to come back and say a final thank you for the discussion. This issue has been on my mind a lot these past few weeks, and I've been thinking through my goals--educational and otherwise--to pin down the things I just can't let go of but can ease up on, such as WWS (we decided to make each lesson last two weeks, to give her more breathing room on the assignments); the things that I can accomplish in a more creative manner, as OhE suggested (like science and history--e.g., they've been wanting more experiments, so I'm going to have both girls conduct their own at the right level, then present to me and the non-participating sister, and as many family members as I can rope into listening, LOL); and the things I can probably let go of entirely, like Killgallon. I'd also been trying to back out of reading everything to this child, because I felt like she needed to start digesting more on her own, but she really thrives on a collaborative environment, so I'm going to jump back into reading aloud a lot more (so very hard for me, because I really hate reading aloud *sigh*).

 

I'm also paying a lot more attention to how much direction I'm giving both kids. I really shouldn't have to tell a 10-year-old exactly where to find the shiny package of cream cheese in the half empty fridge! I'm trying to leave them both alone more and give them more responsibility and freedom. Younger DD is more capable of navigating that than oldest is, so I'm working on fixing that. Shinyhappypeople, I've been telling myself for so long now that I need to do just what you outlined, but it's so hard to get out of the habit of managing every minute of our days!

 

Anyway, thank you, everyone, for your very valuable advice and for taking the time to share it. I'm already seeing some changes, and I have high hopes for the coming school year!