Help! G and T daughter getting very worked out if she finds things don't live up to her high standards

[doiwant3]

Hi
I am looking for any advice please! DD, aged 7, is a gorgeous girl, sensible (mostly), kind and thoughtful. And very clever, as her teacher says she is "fanastic at everything" and she is in all the top groups, taken out for extra maths etc. The problem is that if she ever finds something difficult, or if she does something (eg in art class) which she doesn't think is up to her high standards, then she cries and goes hysterical (this is even though whatever it is usually is very good!) It seems to be happening more and more in school, and I don't know what to do about it.
Please help if you have any thoughts!

[wabbit]

Sounds like she needs to do some more of what 7 year olds normally do - getting dirty playing outside (with other children) and just letting go

It's a great antidote to the high pressure 'learning' that she's having to do to reap the rewards of yours and her teacher's approval

Reward her when she fails - lighten up around her, do lots of 'doing' things like cooking, gardening, sewing, sticking, painting etc around her... (if she thinks this is beneath her, say that you enjoy it) she needs this kind of hands on experience to get away from what's being taught to her head/mind

Get more Holistic about her gifted and talentedness!

let her play with other children who are not 'gifted and talented'

they won't dilute her abilities... maybe you, and she will learn that there are many ways of being gifted and talented

She's concentrated so far on being 'fantastic at everything' (in school) that her emotional education seems to have been forgotten.

[roisin]

Some of the keys to lifetime success are perseverance, resilience and effort, so I think you are right to be concerned about your dd.

One thing you can do is for you and others (teachers etc.) to concentrate praise on the 'process' of a piece of work - how well she's concentrating, how hard she's trying, etc. rather than the end result.

Many experts now believe that labelling children as bright can be very damaging to them. They can stop taking risks and pushing themselves, because they view anything below perfection to be 'failure'.

A favourite phrase I use with my boys is "if you are getting it all perfectly, you're not learning, you're just practising". It is through making mistakes and correct them that you have a learning opportunity.

Talk to her about the story of the hare and the tortoise, and how the tortoise just keeps going, keeps trying even when it's hard work; he doesn't give up. That is why he succeeds.

[Littlefish]

I completely agree with Roisin and Wabbit. This is why it's so important for children to have the opportunity to work on projects and concepts that have no definitive "right" answer. It needs to be about the process, rather than the end product, there need to be lots of opportunities for her to try, fail and try again. High achievers can be very "brittle" learners. By that, I mean that because they rarely "fail" as such, when something is hard, or fails to reach their own high standards, they don't have the coping mechanisms in place to know how to deal with the accompanying emotions.

I would also look at getting her to do something like singing with a choir or drama group which will give her the opportunity to enjoy herself at something completely different.

[gagarin]

Change your approach and ask teh school to do the same - like roisin says - praise her for her personality, her smiles, her kindness, her perseverence.

Cut back on the praise for success.

I worry that there is a chance that these very bright dcs can get confused about what is important. If (even subconsciously) you know that people's appreciation of you as a person is rooted in your success at certain activities then the need for perfection becomes even more ingrained.

Ask the teacher to appreciate the effort not the end product.

And listen to yourself too.

Do you heap praise on her achievements? I'm not suggesting you ignore them BUT make sure she hears it loud and clear - you love her for WHO SHE IS not WHAT SHE CAN DO!

[Littlefish]

Have a look at this thread for more information about praise and its effects on children.

[jabberwocky]

Gifted children do tend to do this. They can be little perfectionists and are so hard on themselves sometimes This is just one of the things you will find over time and it can be difficult to deal with. Here is an article that may provide some answers for you.

[cory]

I would do what Binks suggested on the other thread and make sure she does activities that she is not particularly good at. I had an old tutor at uni who used to say that everybody needs to fail at something. I have since come to appreciate the wisdom of these words. I deal with too many students who are paralysed with fear because they have always been clever at everything they've done and it just becomes too much to live up to.

[jabberwocky]

That is an excellent point cory. They definitely need to be in the occasional situation where someone is better than them. A little perspective can go a long way.

[roisin]

I think learning a musical instrument can be a fantastic thing for all children. It simply does not "come easily" to anyone, but rather can only be mastered by sheer graft and putting in the hours and hours of practice.

[roisin]

Well OK, but that's not my experience KM. Lots of children enjoy playing an instrument and can make a good sound from the word go, but to achieve technical mastery everyone I have ever come across would confess to having had to put in hours and hours of painstaking, tedious practice on skills and techniques and so on. I'm talking about people who've gone to specialist music schools and have continued to make a full-time career in music.

What instruments does your ds play and to what level?

[roisin]

Sorry, I've just read that through and I'm not sure it's clear.

If a child makes fantastic progress with an instrument and, say, passes grade 3 with distinction within a year of starting learning then that's wonderful progress and the distinction probably indicates that they have considerable natural talent and an ear for music. But why hasn't that child passed grade 8 already? Or started performing professionally as a concert violinist with an orchestra?

The reason is because they haven't yet put in the necessary hours and hours and hours of sheer graft to perfect their skills and techniques to bring them up to that level.

[stealthsquiggle]

The OP could be describing my DS. The only difference is that because he is in an independent school he is not 'labelled' G&T. His teachers have worked hard on getting him to stop being so hard on himself and to raise his self-confidence (his teacher was shocked to realise, when she talked to him, that he thought he was doing 'just OK' when she said she had to refrain from saying 'well done' too much because she didn't want him singled out.

Piano has been good for him - he is basically musical but it is clear even to him that more practice = more praise from his teacher at the next lesson.

[cory]

I agree with roisin about the music. I have known some very talented musicians and it's amazing how much hard work they have had to put in to get beyond proficiency (=the point where it no longer grates on the ears) to the point where they are actually interpreting a composer. And that is something totally different.

[cory]

I think we are quite simply talking about different things with the music, Kerry. With playing it perfectly you probably mean getting all the notes right and the beat correct. Roisin and I are talking about the next step up, interpreting music, the sort of reason why Yehudi Menuhin is better known than your average back-of-the-orchestra player. The latter can also (hopefully) put all the notes in the right place, but he won't be able to reduce an audience to tears of ecstasy.

I grew up with a budding musician, so I have some idea of how much work you still have to put in after you've got the basic getting-the-notes-right-and-not-squeaking.

Strumming is fine. But music can mean so much more. As far as I know, none of the greatest performers- i.e. the ones that have given other people the greatest amount of pleasure- have been entirely self-taught. And they have always worked tremendously hard to keep in improving. That's the great thing about music: there is always more work to be done, something that can be improved, and people who are seriously into music always know that they can improve, that that piece could be played so as to mean just a little bit more. Which makes music ideal stretching material.

[cory]

I am sure your ds is absolutely fine. I am thinking more in the context of music as a suitable stretching subject. And I suspect part of the truth is that your ds does stretch himself and does work hard; you just don't have to nag him to do it

I think when somebody has a natural gift you can tend to forget how much work they are also doing; it looks so easy. I had an unusual gift for languages; it seemed to people around me that I just picked them up effortlessly. But looking back I spent longer hours on it than anyone else I knew; I certainly can't get my dd to work like that.

You are right in that classical music almost certainly does require more tuition; there are in a sense more tricks of the trade to be taught. To become a really good violin player you need to know an awful lot.

[snorkle]

The amount of practice needed to get to any particular grade varies enormously between children I think it's fair to say. I do agree that it's not possible to become a virtuoso soloist with very little practice though - for that you need the rare combination of being the kind of child who has the talent to sail through with very little practice combined with the dedication/diligence to actually do the practice anyway!

[LilyBolero]

Music is definitely an area where you need to work hard - even the most gifted musician needs to work really hard at it. And professional musicians will practise up to 8 hours a day, to maintain and improve technique.

The great Vladimir Horowitz, an acclaimed Russian-American concert pianist once said, "If I do not practice for a day, I know it. If I do not practice for two days, my wife knows it. If I do not practice for three days, my audience knows it."

[LilyBolero]

(Apologies for incorrect spelling of practise - was C&P from a webpage, and didn't spell check! Should of course have been practise)

[LilyBolero]

doiwant3 - my dd does this, and we were advised to 'model getting things wrong' - but having a go. And dd is JUST getting the idea that sometimes it's better to have a go than to only try things she knows she will succeed at. It's often characteristic of high achievers (which dd is). She is learning the cello, which is great for her, as her teacher is taking it very slowly to really get a good solid technique.

[Kitsilano]

As a child I was thought of as very bright and even though my parents didn't put pressure on me, their praise and the teachers' praise when I came top or did well has made me put a lot of pressure on myself.

I ended up expecting to be the best at anything I did (academically) and feeling like a failure when I wasn't. It has stopped me trying new things and taking risks in my career - even to the extent that I find it difficult to speak up in meetings for example just in case I am wrong.

I am also horribly dependent on the praise of others in order to feel good about myself.

I think being bad at stuff and still enoying them is really valuable at this young age. And that less praise is better than too much.

[Acinonyx]

I was like this and I can already see dd is the same. I totally agree about music. I was pretty talented, played a lot of instruments, got to piano grade 5 in 2 years - but there is definitley a point where the hours of practice matter and when I was younger I just couldn't accept that.

Now I'm older I understand the pleasure of working at the limit of your abilities. I am doing soemthing now which is absolutely at my limit - wish I'd tried it years ago. That is something I really want to teach dd.

Dd is only 3.5 but we have come up against this a few times. The solution I found accidentally is for her to see/hear about examples of how I/people had to learn things when i was young and it is normal to be not so good at something until you have learned/practised more. Drawing was a major example - she's very good at drawing but stopped for a year until she saw my childhood scribbles.

It's not always easy to figure out how to get this message across - that it's OK and actually very rewarding to work at something that isn't easy straight off - but it's such a valuable lesson.

I can't honestly say I really enjoy doing things I'm really bad at though! I think that's pretty normal.