Well I did say there might be another post tonight and here it is. We spoke to my daughter's teacher ('we' being my boyfriend and myself as my ex husband never has anything to do with school) and she mentioned it even before we did that she gets herself all in a tizz, upset over nothing and cries when she doesn't understand something straight away. We've agreed that we think she's putting too much pressure on herself to get it right first time but I really don't know where that comes from, I'm always chatting to her and telling that not everyone is good at everything all the time and sometimes it can take a while to understand things, some people pick things up quicker than others etc etc. Don't get me wrong she is an extremely bright kid, all her teachers have said so all the way through the school and we were told tonight that the subjects she's not already in the top group for she will be moved up to the top group within the next week or so - they test them once a term and move them up or down accordingly. I try not to pressure her into doing things she doesn't want to or doing things faster than necessary and I am by no means a perfectionist (you only have to see the state of my house to know that!) The thing is, and this is where I may be on dangerous ground, but her father is a perfectionist, his house is spotless at all times, he insists on things being a certain way and that can be a good thing at times but I'm wondering if she's picked up on this when she's there and is putting undue pressure on herself because of it, but I have no idea how to bring this up with him! But anyway the teacher is going to have a word with their 'learning mentor' which I think is a posh way of saying school counselor and see if she can come up with any techniques or things we can try with S to see if that might work.
On a good note though she is doing very well in school, as I mentioned moving to the top groups across all subjects now, she listens well, responds well and is very well liked amongst peers and teachers as she is so well behaved. Now that is the sort of school report I like hearing.
I have a suggestion. As her what she thinks or fears will happen if she doesn't get it right the first time. See what is going on in her head. I know that I used to really put a lot of pressure on myself to succeed because I value adult approval (which means I always, even as an adult student, valued the approval of my teachers and parents, etc). I finally worked through things in my mind that an A is an A. It doesn't have to be a 100, and if there is a B in the mix, that's ok too because it all averages out. We all have bad days, so even the brightest people can have B days when they typically make an A. Maybe do some practice tests at home where you average her grades to show her that she'll still have a good grade even if some of them aren't perfect scores.
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