How do I accept that my DC just isn’t as clever as a lot of her peers?

[mommathatwearspink]

I’ve never really thought about it until now to be honest. DC (Y1) is likely to go back to school next week and the class has been split into groups obviously based on ability. It’s also obvious that my DC group is for children that struggle more than others. I also know that she isn’t quite as advanced as her peers from parents evening, etc.
I feel totally crushed! How do you come to accept that your child just isn’t as clever as some of their peers?

I don't worry how clever or not they are, and I don't see why you would. The important thing is that they are healthy and happy and try and wide range of activities to find out what they like. Happiness is far more important than how clever they are perceived to be (which is often a mark and not a true measure).

Everyone has a talent, some find it early some don’t.
DS1 is extremely clever. I often found myself comparing his younger siblings to his ability so of course they weren’t as clever or ‘were behind’
But when I stopped to think about it DD is extremely creative, loves art and craft, very practical and a great problem solver. She’s sociable and friendly. All things that DS1 is not.
Likewise DS2 is brilliant at building and designing and maths. He has great logic and problem solving skills. So he can’t spell, and took a lot longer than others to learn to read but he is talented in other areas
Other people are great carers , or good at reading people; or brilliant with animals or gardening or cooking etc likewise some extremely brainy people are useless socially and common sense wise and so flounder in the real world where you need more than just pure intelligence.

Are you sure that the groups are based on ability? It’s very surprising that a school would do this. There is such an awareness and emphasis on peer learning, and proximal development. Children learn so much from peers who are a shade ahead of them than from adults.

Crushed is a bit extreme isn’t it?

Is your academic performance important to your own self esteem?

My DS was suddenly put in two groups clearly designed to help kids with problems Socialising/communicating - my only problem was that the school hadn’t given me any indication that these were considered necessary!

They just are who they are.

She is in year 1. If you think she is struggleing in certain areas suppirt her. I was always made to feal like this and to some extent it was true but I still have a degree. Diffferent children mature at different stages.

I have definitely got the highest qualifications amongst my small group of friends from school.

I earn the least!

There are many paths to success in life, and lots of choices along the way. If she is really falling behind in a year or two with reading/maths, I think tutoring (either yourself if you can or pay for it) can help a child suddenly 'get' these things. One of my children has a specific learning difficulty and took two years longer to learn to read than one of the others. You can help her fulfil her potential.

I think by that age, you can only tell whether your child is truly astonishingly gifted or in need of an assessment for learning difficulties. The rest isn’t really determined yet.

Imagine the class average. Not the brightest kids, the ones you hear about, the average. The person who if you ranked all of the children in the class by ability, they’d come smack bang in the middle. On neither extreme. In order for that person to exist, 50% of the class are academically worse than them. 50% are better. That’s just one class, what about in the school, the country? The brightest at some schools aren’t
in the top 10% of the country. At some schools, the lowest performing are amongst the brightest.

Comparison is the thief of joy, but remember there is a vast world out there - and lots of people with varied academic success achieving lots beyond school. She should do her best, and beyond that, learn what makes her happy. She will thank you for it.

There's a lot more to life than being clever OP.

She's also far to young for you to make sweeping statements like that! Please don't ever say that to her! You will crush her self esteem!

There are huge differences at this age, a lot also can depend how young or old she is or if she is actually able to sit still for a time and work or is she more a child which thrives in being active.

If you think she does struggle than you need to find out why and not just where. It doesn't help trying to practice reading, writing or maths if there is an underlying issue like actually not understanding something. No point in try to practice adding up when she doesn't know what adding up means.

If you want to give her a boost, ask the teacher specific where she has issues or just try some basic things at home to see if there is a pattern. Work on one thing at a time and find a way to have fun. Practice doesn't have to be a workbook, lots can be done by daily stuff.

My sister hated reading and was slow to start, preferred to collect bugs and leaves and play to any learning activity. She got her doctorate in molecular biology 3y ago.

As more or less everyone else has said a)Year 1 is too young to draw and meaningful conclusions and b) there are more ways of being clever and valuable than academic prowess.
I saw an example of this fairly recently actually. A friend of mine had found a newspaper cutting of school exam results from the early 1980s and posted it on social media, prompting a lot of her friends to reminisce about their school days. I wasn't brought up here, but a lot if people who are now my friends were involved so I read it with interest. I noticed another friend joining in. He's now running a succesful business after having a professional sports career. It turns out he left school at 16 with a handful of CSEs, having been deemed "not clever enough" to do O levels some years prior to that. What a load of rubbish. He is extremely bright with a great deal of natural ability in his field, great people skills and plenty of business acumen. Because he did excel at traditional school subjects he could have been written off from an early age but he fortunately found his niche. I wonder how many don't though, because our education system doesn't allow it?
Yes, help your child as much as you can, and try to encourage a love of learning, but try not to be constrained by a narrow definition of "clever".

Do you know what she's struggling with, OP?
You care so you can support her, reading or numbers, whatever it is.

There's a lot more to life than being clever OP.

So much more to life. Enjoy your child and incidentally the two richest men I know dropped out of education at 15 because they struggled, academically not clever but fuck me they've done something right as they have at least 5 million each. It makes for a nice life 👍

OMG she is 6.
They haven't even started school in places like Finland at that age.
Chill out OP or risk her growing up anxious.
The "brightest" at that age are often left way behind as the slower ones start to develop and sometimes
overtake them.
Both my lads were in the TA assisted groups at primary. They both only started to flourish from age 14! Got good A levels and uni places.
My husband was written off at school but went on to get a PhD.
My DD who was the brightest in her class, spent the last 2 years working as a bar maid.
My advice is skip the Tiger mother role and just enjoy them being young.

Depends what the issues are.

Y1 mine all struggled we did extra help - dancing bears, apple and pears and maths factor and handwriting little and often and not all at once and did other things at home with edcuation bent I suppose and they slowly improved.

They were younger end of the year.

If it's just not good at school, and I think its way too soon to tell as I didn't do well till secondary, just give them as many opportunities to find their niche as possible outside of school.

One of the older mothers I knew with much older children said one teacher had come out and said her kids were middle of road academically and it would be their personalities that would get them on in life - they were having a great time in their 20's both running their own businesses but doing what they wanted and enough money and time to do what they wanted within reason.

You've many years to find their strengths and help them work out how to make the most of them.

Ignore other bosting parents - this age it's mostly bullshit.

As others have said she's a bit young to try and label her clever or not clever

But its more important to accept her for who she is and celebrate whatever she achives in life.
My son is adopted and has some additional needs. When he came to me he was in special school. He is now 16 and would have just finished his GCSEs. He will do well enough to get a college place but he is not university material.
I am incredibly proud of him. He might not be academically gifted but he works hard and tries his best at everything he does. He is popular and makes friends where ever he goes. He was a student leader in school and is a young leader in scouts. He wins awards because he is commited and enthusiastic.
All you ask is that she reaches her potential, whatever that may be.

As a secondary teacher I'd say it's way too early to make a judgement about her relative intelligence compared to other people. Maybe she'll be a brilliant academic, maybe she won't, but don't put her in the dunces pile at age 6. I've known kids who didn't really 'get it' until 14 or 15 and then suddenly a light bulb clicked on and they were completely different. Different children develop at different speeds.

That said, I really disagree with some pp's everyone excels at something/everyone has a talent idea. I've taught hundreds, probably thousands of kids, and honestly, I'd say it's the minority who are exceptionally good at something, whether academic or otherwise. Many many people are average academically, average at sport, average at art, average at pet care, basically average at everything. They can still be really amazing people and a joy to know, they can still go on to be well-rounded adults who have all the soft skills and great personalities, they just don't have one thing, or a collection of things, that is their niche that they're really good at. It doesn't mean they're failures at life, just that they are geniuses.

If I were you, I'd just carry on supporting her learning at home with the sorts of things I'm sure you're already doing (reading together, basic numeracy with household objects, talking a lot about the world around you etc.). And don't let her know how you feel about this. Celebrate her, praise her, and don't let her get an inkling that there's something wrong with her.

When in the year was she born? I am summer born, took me two years before I was settled and had similar maturity to my peers really. Was quite good at maths but not writing or any of the other stuff. I picked up in junior school and then again in secondary school. Eventually into oxbridge :). Honestly, she is so little why worry? Perhaps the biggest thing that might hold her back is thinking that she isn't good like the other kids.

Too early to tell really but I totally understand your worry when it's your child and it's happening now and they are in THAT group.
My DS was really 'clever' and in the top group when he was in Year 1. I was ever so proud and I was so pleased he wasn't sat on THAT table.
He is now in Year 5 and is on THAT table .

Your DD is still very young and I wouldn't predict her future just yet..

*aren't geniuses.

Should proof read!

My DD was poor at maths in infant school. She ended up doing extra maths classes In juniors. I also got her to learn a musical instrument and learn to read music which helped develop her brain. Hasn’t really mastered sports that require good hand / eye coordination, although she is a good artist. She does now has a first class honours degree in mathematics.
You cannot judge a child’s ability at 6 and certainly shouldn’t label them. Encourage and allow her to develop. What you see at 6 will be very different from what you see at 16

Oh and despite having 9 A levels, 2 degrees, a masters and a PhD between us, my husband and I are by far the poorest of our friends.
Even my young nephew with just a few gcses to his name, earns more than my husband. One of my cousins who has no qualifications at all, runs a business 'empire' and lives in a £3m house.

My ds struggled all the way through school. He was always at the bottom of everything class and subject, from reception onwards and he found it tough seeing others learning so easily and everyone beating him in sports. However he was not behind enough to enable him to have extra help either so seemed to be stuck in a no mans land.

I found it tough, not because he was not as good as his peers, but because I didn’t know how to help him. We worked on his self esteem and motivation at home. Always encouraging to try hard and to put 100% into everything he did.

Anyway, he did work really hard and kept it up right through to his GCSEs. He was predicted to get 3s and 4s in all subjects but through his hard work and determination he passed all subjects with grades 5 -7. He asked me to come into the hall with him to collect his results and I promptly burst into tears when we read them!

A child’s ability cannot be judged purely by how well they are doing in class. A lot of it will be down to their inner confidence, self esteem and determination.

Please don’t be upset already and comparing your dc to their peers at this age is futile and will damage their self esteem for a long time afterwards. Just concentrate on your child and work out how you a pan help them to achieve their own potential.

Don't worry. Children mature at different rates. Many don't "get" school and how to work for the first few years. My DH really struggled at school until he was about 14. He went to a top university, masters and is very bright/analytical. She will have your support and that of the school.

Children develop at different rates, please don't worry.
Two things that will help is being supportive of her learning (so reading with her/to her/hearing her read) and modelling an interest in learning yourself (be interested, let her see you reading, talk to her about a wide range of things, do activities that help her learn like cooking etc). The most important thing really is to foster a love of learning (don't be pushy!) it really doesn't matter if she can't count as high as her peers, can't right as many sentences etc at this point. The biggest impact will be her (and your) attitude to learning and education over the course of her life.
Let her know she is clever, children are spurred on by the idea they are doing well and the adults around them are pleased with them, if they get the inkling they're not up to much they are much more likely to disengage.