School report/ support for child

26 replies

DanielGault · 24/06/2024 17:33

Just got my daughter's last report from primary school. The results were mostly average to low but the comments were all about her lacking confidence. The confidence thing has come up before, last three years I think, to me she doesn't lack confidence but I'm clearly not objective. Her dad is massively not confident in an academic sense, despite being very intelligent (I suspect he's dyslexic but it wasn't a thing when he was growing up so he was just branded 'thick'). What can we do to build her up before secondary?

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DanielGault · 24/06/2024 21:13

MargaretThursday · 24/06/2024 20:49

Is she the sort that needs a little push?

Dd1 would need a bit of encouragement to try something, spend a term not really enjoying it, then decide she did want to do it and continue (often) until she was either too old for the class or left school.
Dd2 would have done non-stop classes every evening if I'd allowed her, and changed them regularly for new things.

Ds was choosing (he'd been very ill for a term) to do nothing outside school except stay at home. He didn't even want friends round. So I gave him a list of things to choose and said he had to do one. He chose drama because it was only an hour and close so he wasn't out for long. He moaned for a term and a half - I told him he could change, but he had to do something. After a term and a half he came out and totally out of the blue asked to do a second class. He added a third (musical theatre) and another (tap dancing) and another.... until he was doing around 15 hours a week. He has cut down now due to timing and not all the classes being offered to a 17yo but he still loves it and moans every holiday about it not being on, and is ready and waiting to go...*

But my point here is that sometimes you need to give them a little shove to try. I always told mine that they could ask to stop (in ds' case he'd have had to choose something else) but they had to complete the term I'd paid for. And with both dd1 and ds if I'd totally waited for them to say they wanted to do something they'd neither have done anything - even things they wanted to do.

I'm not saying do drama, but I am saying she may need encouragement simply to walk into a room that there are lots of other people who she doesn't know. Heck, I hate doing that too.
Maybe look at a holiday course of something she might like to continue doing, or see if any local groups would let her watch a class to start in September.

*However just as a warning, you may find yourself involved too. <eyes up bruises, sun burn and insect bites from last week chaperoning and the 30-40 costumes in piles round the room waiting for washing> 😂

Edited

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Sorry, just saw this now. She's been involved in a youth club for the last couple of years. Loves it! It's not educational but it's very beneficial iyswim. So I still don't see where the confidence thing comes from!

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