To feel quite so down about DC’s academics

[IProbablyAmBeingUnreasonable]

I know IABU because I have a lovely child who is healthy and happy. So really this is more about asking for anyone else’s stories and to help to sort my own head out, because it’s really getting me down with worry.

Aged 7, DC is struggling to do well with even the basics at school, and I mean things like copying out short sentences without multiple errors, knowing spellings well at home but then getting less than half when tested, unless watched like a hawk written sentences are just a massive mush of mispelled unintelligible words, maths might as well be a foreign language for anything to do with even basic additions or subtractions. Times tables draw an absolute blank, even the 2’s or 10’s. Concentration is less than zero. Reading is adequate.

School is very small with only about 10 children in the class and a teacher and TA. No concerns about dyslexia or anything else have been flagged which does seem to be consistent with what I see. Last report/assessment showed improvement required in every single area of maths and English.

Conversely I was very academic and I can’t seem to wrap my head around the fact that the honest truth seems to be that my child just simply isn’t that way inclined. I wonder if the attention and praise I got for getting top marks as a child has perhaps made me absorb a belief that worth and success is somehow tied to that. (I was always the fat unattractive friend too, which I mention because again I always felt that I had academics as my “thing” even when nobody wanted to snog me at parties and when all my friends had boyfriends!)

Homework this morning has been an absolute disaster with zero concentration, total lack of giving a stuff about any of it on DC’s part, sadness and frustration on mine. DH just gets cross with me for bothering about it; he took them to do their homework and it’s even worse when he’s been involved!

I am feeling really worried that they are going to get further and further behind despite the school trying hard. I am very upset about it but also very cross with myself that I seem to feel so deeply disappointed and sad when I am lucky enough to have this wonderful little person in my life. Being brutally honest and shameful, I also feel twinges of jealousy when friends have dazzlingly bright kids.

So, AIBU to ask if anyone else has ever felt this way when a child doesn’t perhaps meet preconceptions or expectations that you didn’t even realise you had? How do you have a word with yourself about something like this, and what should those words be?

I 100% understand. I've always been academic and found it all very easy.
My children are really not academic and it's been quite difficult as I worry things are so much harder for them. It makes me sad.

7 is very young. My high achiever DD (all 9’s at GCSE) was certainly not excelling at that age. In one year she was in a group who needed extra support. She didn’t really bloom until year 10. Her elder brother was a high achiever too and when he did great in his GCSE no way did we believe DD would exceed his great achievement. I’d swap it all for some confidence and self worth. Academics aren’t everything

I absolutely get where you are coming from.

But: almost every child without serious additional needs can learn to read and write. It might take longer and they might need a different approach to the one they are getting at school but they can get there.

Would second looking for a private dyslexia test asap as early intervention helps there.

It sounds like your child has good social skills. It is much easier to get a child with dyslexia or ADHD to a functional literacy and numeracy level than it is for a bright child with zero social skills to master those.

Someone said encourage your child to do things they enjoy which you should but you do also need to make them do things they don't enjoy as much (like maths). As well as needing a specific approach to learning, they will also need resilience because things will be a bit harder for them throughout their school life and beyond if they do have dyslexic or ADHD etc. So think about ways to reward them for trying and persevering

Dd was a year behind at this age, she’s gone on to get a first class degree and did actually pass her 11plus. She was diagnosed as dyslexic at 7yo, we paid for a private test. School said they didn’t think she was dyslexic. She’s since been diagnosed with adhd, she seemed to find her own coping mechanism for that. But potentially your ds might benefit from meds if he’s got it. I’d certainly look at private diagnosis if you can.

Have a think about your ds’ strengths. My guess is that they lie in things that aren’t school subjects. My son is similar and achieved good enough GCSEs to study his true passion and is a different person now. It’s a subject that isn’t taught at school but needed school subjects like science as a foundation. Your son’s academic achievements aren’t a result of something you’ve done or not done (bad parenting ) but if you push too hard then you risk turning him off education and damaging his self esteem.

You are getting wound up by details that don’t matter. What is the point of producing perfect homework (by you) when the teacher knows that he struggles and wouldn’t produce the perfect work at school? If it’s too hard then you need to send it back to school and ask for suitable work. If it can be done with some modification to the task eg Instead of “Write 2 paragraphs about your weekend” you might submit 2 sentences about his weekend because that’s achievable and he will feel good about completing the task.

Spelling tests are something to let go of. Children of all abilities can learn to spell a word for the test but end up not using it in their day to day writing- especially if it’s not a word that they’d use when writing. It is part of SATS so pushed in schools but not a big deal really.

Being disappointed that your child isn’t like you is unfair- after all why wouldn’t you be equally disappointed that they aren’t sporty, musical… Life is easier if you’re good at something but education is a marathon and not a sprint so supporting the basics while broadening his interests is the best long term plan.

I’m a parent of much older kids and trust me , the kids who are top of the class now aren’t necessarily the ones who will be top in 10 years. Learning isn’t linear and it’s about resilience and keeping on going in the long term.

Definitely get hearing and eyesight tested. I have no experience of ADHD or dyslexia so won't comment on those.

But, your DC is only 7. There's plenty of time for them to find their groove. Try not to worry.

Sounds like my dd. Now diagnosed with dyslexia and ASD.

Hi op

I have an ADHD son (not saying that your DC has by the way!) what has really helped him with school (in conjunction with ADHD meds) is some low key tutoring. His tutor is a lovely, gentle retired primary HT who does an hour once a week, incorporating breaks as needed, It’s very much at his pace and is there to support and scaffold him. He loves her and crucially he enjoys it. It’s really helped his confidence. One of us helping him at home was disastrous as I think it is for a lot of children!

Audiobooks and Times Tables songs were also really good for in the car finally I know my times tables too at the age of 41.

Would something like this be an option? If it is, make sure it’s the right tutor for your DC.

I’d also echo that 7 is still very young.

One of my DC was very similar at that age. Was more or less labelled by primary and secondary school (and extended family!) as not very bright. Very emotionally intelligent and good at sports and art. Sixth Form College assessed them internally, then funded a diagnostic level test (found on the severe end of the scale for most indicators). We now have a lot of insight into the best way for them to learn and the college approach and support enabled them to gain much better final results than expected.

The full diagnostic test included so many aspects and mini-tests within the whole thing. I wish I'd asked the primary and secondary school to test in full at an earlier age though or funded privately, before their confidence was affected. Dyslexia has so many facets (affects Maths as well) and can easily be missed by a parent, or in our case two schools (across 13 years of education!).

Sounds quite like my son at that age. I always felt that he struggled more than was normal in academic terms but was obviously not stupid. It felt like there was "something", but it wasn't dyslexia. Found maths imposible, concentrating on homework almost imposible, anything memory based like learning by rote a total nightmare, like it literally went in one ear and out the other not matter how much it was practised.
Eventually at 13 he was diagnosed with inattentive ADHD. He's not hyperactive and not difficult in class so probably why it took until secondary to get picked up. We are also in Spain where I think these things are less on the radar for a lot of teachers.
He was also clumsy, although that got better with age and doing sports like rollerblading and basketball.
When he was diagnosed they told me one of the ways it manifested with him was executive functioning and short term memory, which was one of the reasons his writing and spelling was poor and his maths was poor (can't follow the steps in the correct order to do the sum). They said it's like trying to read in the dark by torchlight but the torch keeps cutting out so you keep missing chunks.

i struggled tremendously at school with reading and writing and my presentation was terrible. This was in the 80s so nothing was done about it at the time, I do often wonder if it should have though! Anyway, despite no intervention, I now have a Master’s degree and earn a high salary. I love reading but spelling still does not come easily to me, doesn’t matter so much as there is spell check (apart from when I have spelled something so badly the spellcheck doesn’t recognize it!).

Absolutely!

I actually thought you mistyped and meant to write 17 at first.

At 7 all you should care about is them being happy and healthy, they’ve got the rest of their lives to focus on grades and employment.

If you think they could have additional needs or disabilities then absolutely get it checked, but even people with no additional needs aren’t always the top of the class.

As the PP said, we all have different skill sets.

Your child may not be a neurosurgeon or lawyer when they’re older but they could be an incredible painter, athlete, teacher, nurse, actor etc.

It doesn’t mean they’ll be any less happy or successful.

Mine is 16 now and got a decent mark in his leavers certificate (having been put in an adapted stream for the last year of high school because of his ADHD, which really really helped) and is doing a vocational post 16 qualification in sport and really enjoying it.

You say no concerns about dyslexia but if maths is also an issue have the school tested for dyscalculia?

Have you had her sight and hearing tested?

I think your expectations might be somewhat unreasonable, especially given you are comparing her to yourself. She is not you and her abilities may lay in other areas.

I agree but there may be something like adhd and if there is it is really important to get that diagnosed early if it's there. My son just about managed in primary. I kept bringing it up but was just told he needed to grow up a bit and work harder. It wasn't until the second year of high school (would be year 9 in the UK) that it fell apart completely and his literarure teacher said she thought, looking at his written work that there was something going on and finally I was able to get them to do an evaluation (WSV I think, done by the school edupsych). But he had a couple of really shit years at high school thinking he was just stupid.

OP, she's 7. Kids develop at different rates.

I'm from a family full of oxbridgeites. My niece got 12 A* at gcse. My ds was exactly as you described. Really not interested. Spelling suddenly came right at 11.

He's 16 now, just passed 9 good GCSEs. Doing three stem a'levels. Wants to read Civil Engineering. Each year he gets more enthusiastic.

Give her time, let her develop at her own rate. Don't show your disappointment , don't pressure her, don't turn her off learning. Raising dcs is a long game.

DD was like that at primary, very sporty but no way academic, she was ok at reading/writing (still not hitting targets), however struggled with everything else, art, music, and especially maths and science, very little concentration, never asked for help and at times resorted to copying other childrens work. She would happily hit the hockey ball hundreds of times but not sit down and learn fractions etc. There was moments of concern because her future was not mapped out like mine was as I was always very studious and a more natural academic. I was also worrying if I could fund any future sports career.

Things changed when she went to secondary, DD thrived in subjects like geography, languages and business studies, stuff that just was not offered at primary. Thankfully, I am in accountant so managed to support her through GCES maths, and she scraped a c, she had the drive and determination because she wanted to go to university. Not going to lie though, it was a slog. She scraped a c in biology too, but the less said about her chem/physics results the better! Despite those results, DD graduated with a masters in geography.

I guess what I am trying to articulate, your dc might find her passions later during her education, and apply herself then, and if not, there will be other opportunities. DD's partner also gained few GCES, and he earns more than her from his job in the trades!

One of mine struggled with times tables and English. It turns out they are dyslexic.
My advice on times tables, is work on getting 1,2,3,4,5 and 10 embedded. There is a technique with fingers they can learn that will give the answers to 6,7,8 and 9 (incredibly helpful) and beyond this it's pretty much addition.

They are now 23, they have a full time job they are good at and are looking to purchase their own home. They also have a sport they are love, and are learning the coaching side so that they will be able to teach and open their own club. They willingly signed up to English lessons when they were in college.

When I read the headline I thought that this was going to be about a child at university. But 7! Counterintuitively, all research shows that children - and adults- do better and develop long lasting motivation when the focus is on being interested in them, not on assessing or praising the outcomes.

Yes I completely agree that any potential needs should be looked into.

But even if the child does have ADHD or needs glasses etc doesn’t mean they’re going to suddenly become top of the class.

Some people aren’t academically clever, which is fine because that’s how we have an entire world filled with people with completely different skill sets.

This is terrible advice and your poor kids.

The thing is though that usually a child’s level of intelligence is similar to their parents so it’s OP isn’t being unreasonable to question this.

I haven't said she isn't, I said her abilities may lay in other areas.

My expertise lays in Literature, dd is good but not exceptional. However her maths ability outstrips ne by miles.

Op I live in a country where dc only start to learn to read and write formally at six years old. They are only in the very early stages at seven.

Leading up to that they familiarise themselves with the alphabet and numbers through song, playing with modelling clay and literally moving their bodies to form the shapes.

Maybe this way of teaching would suit your child better?

Either way - said in the kindest way possible - chill! 😀 Parenting is a marathon not a sprint!

I’d get a tutor on it and a meeting in with the headteacher. No point in investing too much negativity, a constructive solution must be sought.