I think my dd is clever, school say she is really struggling. I feel like a knob.

[SewhereIam]

I have a 5 year old dd in year 1. She is my PSB, as my PFB is 13 years older and there are 6 miscarriages inbetween them, and PSB was a very poorly foetus and very poorly baby.

As a bit of background, I was a high achiever at school, went to Oxbridge, and PFB outshone me in her GCSE's and A-Levels, and is currently at a red brick university with hopes to do a masters PhD at Oxbridge, so academia means a lot to me and I put a lot of time and effort in to making sure my girls have everything they need to be able to suceed. (This is my problem, I know, there is more to life than academics).

DD2 has always had issues with her motor skills, and has had medical investigations for a suspected brain tumour and mild cerebral palsy when she was younger, but we have been very lucky and she is fine. She is incredibly quick, can outsmart me at every turn, is very self assured, loves word play and puns, and is on the pathway for ASD diagnosis. She has a fantastic vocabulary, a photographic memory and usually gets concepts first time (which is just infuriating 😂). I know I shouldn't say this, but out of the three of us I would say that she is mentally the quickest.

School have said that she is really behind. Her writing and numbers are very clearly wobbly and usually back to front and very shakey. We have done a lot of work on fine and gross motor skills from pretty much day dot, but she is still finding it really hard. School have said she needs a lot of extra support and we need to do more at home with her, which is fine, but they also suggested that she is far below average intelligence. Apparently they see "glimpses of great ideas in there but they just don't translate".

What can I do to help her? This isn't the dd2 I know, but maybe I have been blinded by her being my precarious child and my last baby. I feel like such an idiot, and like I have failed her terribly. Where do I start? I feel terrible.

I just wanted to add that my dd found that triangle pencils (by pentel) and coloured triangle pencils plus angled specialised handwriting pens helped. The pens have 2 versions for either right or left handed writers.Most were available in places like WHSmith.

An alternative view- she may not “catch up”. My eldest didn’t, my second has flown academically and my youngest, looking at how similar he is to my eldest probably won’t, academically.

I love them all the same, they’re all great kids (well the eldest is 22 so not a kid).

I’ve totally accepted that my youngest (the six year old) may not do any great shakes academically but will still be a great person if my eldest is anything to go by and I’ve hopefully broken the horrible cycle I grew up in that your academic achievements are what you’re valued for.

my mother STILL can’t accept that you wouldn’t be disappointed by a child who’s not able academically. Her problem 🤷‍♀️

My dd struggled with both gross and fine motor skills when she was small. Her profile is pretty spiky and she found the first few school years difficult.
She is now flying in y8.
Try not to make assumptions about who/what she is/will be. Children all develop differently and she will catch up. Indeed, she’ll probably fly - but you need to take the pressure off both yourself and her. Praise her effort, don’t be results led. She will get there and then, like me, you’ll wonder why in earth you worried so much.

It’s also possible that the school are wrong. My DD was very ahead on reading but the teacher kept insisting that DD wasn’t really ahead because she “doesn’t really know what the words mean” er yes she does, she’s just too intimidated by you to enter into a long conversation when its so easily dodged by saying instead “I don’t know.”

They DON’T always catch up though! That’s my point. They can still be amazing and valuable to society and all that, even when they actually don’t “catch up”

Coming from a big family, my siblings and I had varying degrees of academic ability.

One if my siblings is autistic (mildly), and although he struggled a lot in his early years at school, he’s academically outperformed all of us by secondary school. Very much a late bloomer.

I wouldn’t worry too much and continue to nurture her needs.

She probably has dysgraphia, get her seen by an educational psychologist. my son can't spell or write well.... he has an IQ of 136. He's doing much better using a computer.

Quite surprised by the some of the terminology the teacher has used. Seems there could be a few things going on. I think it's good that you are already getting her assessed as some of her behaviours could be neurotypical. Girls can often go under the radar. Be open to this as this will enable her to get the best support.

Sounds like you really need to focus on her motor skills.
Playdough is great at getting to use their digits, she can also make numbers and letters.
Get her pencil grips or the chunkier pencils with finger grips
Get her own whiteboard and markers at home to practise on
Lego is also great for motor skills
Make all number work concrete (cubes or counters to make numbers and physically take them away, add to and talk about the sums)
Use maths in real life 'we have 6 bananas but going to eat this one, how many are left?'
Keep reading, but make sure it's different books rather than favourites and she is actively reading herself

Talk about what she thinks will happen next, what new words she found, what's her favourite part of the story, what words can she use to describe the characters

Most importantly, stop giving yourself a hard time. Don't compare your daughter to you, or other child or anyone else. Be open to the school suggestions but also be your daughters advocate. The fact you are desperate to do things to help shows what a wonderful mum you are and your daughter, who sounds lovely, is lucky to have you.

vimeo.com/ondemand/2emovie She's probably twice exceptional

A) it doesn't matter if she doesn't have a high IQ

B) She sounds just like DC1 who has ASD and the worst handwriting and spelling known to humankind. She just did her GL levelling tests (she's not in the UK) and came back with G&T level scores for science. She still can't spell 'enough' properly though.

Don't panic. You've had some really good advice on this thread. Get her assessed, keep working on it. I never though DC1 would be able to manage sequencing a piece of work independently, but age 9 they have just decided they can, actually.

Wondering why nobody has considered dyspraxia at this point

The school system is not built for neurodiverse people. You need to hold onto the intelligence and value you see in your daughter because the school system is going to absolutely shit on her. Do not believe them.
My Mum has said I am the most intelligent of her children, based on how insightful, streetwise and quick thinking I can be. I left school with 3 GCSEs. My siblings left uni with 1st class degrees and are so successful at what they do. I have ADHD, I think differently.
it’s hard to see a child that you know is intelligent fail the education system. It’s more heartbreaking for the child who will internalise it and believe there is something inherently wrong with them. Hopefully that won’t happen to your daughter, she’s only 5! You can both navigate this together.
The worst case scenario, she fails school. I failed school. I'm 38 and I have just got a masters… I never did pass my GSCE English, A-levels or get a degree. She’ll get there, with your support.

I wonder whether it might be worth discussing with school how she can access the ‘full class curriculum’, but record her work in ways that aren’t dependent on fine motor skills?

I think your worry that she may miss out ‘academically’ by working on fine motor skills instead is potentially valid, or worth exploring at least. Can she do the Maths work using magnetic numbers, or write her words at a larger scale, or use recording aids to speak her ideas (either as an end in itself, to feed into software to type it up, or to listen to and write down at her own pace)? That will mean that she can work at things quite separately - the content and the fine motor skills.

FWIW, ds was a very able early reader and mathematician, with good gross motor skills but very poor fine ones. In Reception he dud top group Y1 spellings - but the sheet was blown up to 4x the size so he could write on it, and we practised them using a paintbrush on rolls of wallpaper! The adaptations he needed to show his ‘academic’ skills to the full were less needed as he got older, but were really good for his morale and progression in Reception and early KS1.

Seems odd the school day she's behind at such an early stage. My DD is a year ahead of yours and is mirror writing (they won't screen for dyslexia until second term in Y2) and all over the place with her writing.

She's very young to be worrying about these things. My eldest DD (ASD diagnosis at 11) got 9s across the board in GCSE and couldn't read or write until nearer 7 so give her time to catch up with herself 💗

These comments irritate me. It’s like you’re lesser if you’re less cognitively able. You’re not! Obviously you support your child, you rule out as far as you can any barriers to learning and all that and in some children it’ll release their inner academic ability.

but guess what? It doesn’t matter where you went to university, how well you did in school, how well you score in base iq tests.

your child MIGHT NOT.

my middle child is dyslexic so one of the outliers In that yes, he’s highly academically inclined and has a very high iq and is going to grammar school in a highly selective area.

my other two who are 22 and six (so I have quite a lot of experience in these things), are both not going to ever achieve brilliantly academically or “catch up” if “catch up” means ten GCSEs at a high level.

thankfully, I don’t place their value on their academic ability 🤷‍♀️

OP, you sound like an amazing mum who has done so much to support your girls.

It seems off that the school are labelling her so young. My daughter is in Year 1, she is a little behind but is having interventions to help her close the gap. The teacher said she is too young for them to have substantial concerns and she will get there.

My DD has hypermobility so her writing is not so neat but she does lots fine motor exercises and she will get there.

Try and take some pressure of yourself (and DD). She will get where she needs to be in her own time 💐

My dd is left handed and has really struggled with fine motor control. I think she has some unidentified difficulties but nothing severe enough for school to notice. Try dough disco video's and don't stress about the writing, it will come.

Where she needs to be, yes I agree! As far as she can go with supportive parents and schooling. But it’s actually ok if, with all those interventions, she doesn’t “catch up” and does as well as SHE can.

Meant extremely kindly (& also because you've acknowledged it yourself), you have to stop linking their achievements or struggles to yourself as a reflection on your parenting in the way that you do, as that's making their experiences all about you in a self absorbed way, and in reality they are their own person and it's not about you, it's about them!

My eldest son got three Cs at gcse and an A in his pe qualification.

I couldn’t have been prouder.

he’s doing really well at 22.

that his c grades included maths and English language just made his life easier not to have to repeat then when he went on to do what he wanted to do at college 🤷‍♀️

he doesn’t have significant special needs in terms of cognitive function, and he’s the same as a lot of kids across the country academically.

i went to a very good university, have all a grades at gcse and three at a level.

this doesn’t make me any better than him.

Sounds like she needs OT work. There’s lots of things you can do at home. strengthening her hands and improving her hand eye co-ordination will help her shaky letters.

• Buy firm theraputty and bury marbles into it. She has to dig them out.
• buy large plastic tweezers and some beads. She has to use them to pick the beads up and put them into the cup. Make the beads smaller when she gets better at it. If it’s too tricky, use pom poms.
• Threading activities. You can buy large chunky wooden beads or cards where they thread a shoe lace type string through.
• cut a small slit in a tennis ball so it looks like it has a mouth (can draw eyes and nose on too) and use it to pick up small items like beads or marbles. Squeezing the ball will help strengthen her hand.
• Buy a cheap pool noodle and get her thread elastic bands on to it. The smaller the band, the tighter the tension and trickier it will be.

There may be lots of other ideas on Google but regular practice of these will improve hand strength and make writing easier for her and therefore less ‘wobbly.’

He’s currently earning more than me, which is mildly annoying 😂

Sounds like my daughter. Vision. The issue was found to be with her eyes. Visual stress needing a coloured overlay or glasses, visual tracking and sequencing. This won't necessarily be picked up by opticians, needs an ophthalmologist.

Hypermobility in her hands or sensory perception - holding pen too tight. Adhd (rushing though boring writing as her brain works faster then her hands. Lots of possibilities ... Educational psycology and OT assessment.

On a post about a child who has mild cerebral palsy and needs additional support at school to help with fine motor skills, why is it relevant and are we reading paragraphs of your 7 years at Cambridge and multiple comparisons of who is ‘cleverest’ of the 3 of you? Do you realise how odd that is, even for a neurotypical child, and add in the fact they’re only 5!

Everything is a projection of you: how well you did, how you view success, that your DDs achievement is a reflection how good a parent you are etc. Nowhere have I read that DD is happy/sad or any mention of how they feel about school, whether they enjoy/can draw etc.

I’m sorry to be blunt OP and it’s not my intention to upset you, rather reflect back what and how you’ve communicated here. You do need to work on yourself in order for you to support your child. I’d be as concerned how much of this you’re projecting, just as much as the school providing the right support.