4.5 year old thinks she knows everything

[elenajasmine]

Hi and thanks for reading. This is my first time on here and I signed up this morning as my DD is driving me to distraction - for the 1st time really and I am now doubting my parenting skills. Sorry if I start to ramble!
I always wanted her to be confident and assertive (I was shy and self doubting as a child) and she really always has seemed that way - whether by genetics or my wonderful parenting (haha).
However, recently she has decided she knows everything to the extent that she won't be told anything and if she can't do something immediately gives up, won;t try any more and says she knows how to do it anyway. For example she says she already knows how to write and won't listen if I say I could help her with her letters (something school said I should encourage - I would have left it until she showed the inclination). So she just scribbles on paper to show me that she can do it and says she knows what it says.
I tried dance classes for her as she loves to move to music but my usually confident, very chatty daughter who was very excited to be going dancing ran from the room as soon as I left the room. I kept returning her to the dance room that lesson, she kept leaving in floods of tears saying she wanted to be with me. I wonder if it is me she wants or the fact that she can't yet do the dance moves that is putting her off. Having spoken to her about it she says she doesn't need to go to lessons as she already knows how to dance and then wiggles her hips.
Please any advice. Am I being overly worried - does this matter. I am in fear that she won't learn anything. Also feeling I've failed her as I have always encouraged her and feel I've always let her know that getting something wrong is fine - you just practice and it gets easier. Is this a normal phase? All my friends children seem to be having a great time learning to write and meeting new people and learning new skills. Mine seems to have stopped wanting to do anything.
She has also started to be a little like a mini teenager and have some real attitude - arguing for the sake of it. She's always been a very active and verbal child. Won't sit still, talks all the time. No concentration problems though - she can play a game to death, until all around are bored stiff, or exhausted.

Please help!

Hi, I recognise plenty of what you describe. Certainly the mini teenager thing seems pretty standard, you'll see if you scroll through the threads a bit.

The know everything thing is a bit different, but my DS has that tendency too - a perfectionist, doesn't like things he can't do. For what its worth, 'lessons' of any sort are still a bit much for most kids this age, which is why the school curriculum is learning through play.

Don't know what you can do to encourage the practice thing (wish I did) but perhaps just back off on the instruction for now.

Is she about to start school in September? If so, maybe all this is related to subconscious nervousness about the coming big step and new routine. My DS is 4.5, and has had some odd behaviours lately - not all the same as your DD - but I'm pretty sure it's all because he knows he's going to 'big school' soon.

He is in a pre-school full time and normally very confident and outgoing, but when we went to taster sessions at his new school, he was very unsure and wanted to stay with me the whole time.

Thanks so much for feedback. She is in a Welsh language school and they started her full time last September (when she was going to be 4 in October). This didn't sit too well with me and has left her shattered but it is the best school around.
You are right witlesssarah - I thought it was a bit young to start proper lessons but as many of her contemporaries were enjoying similar activities, and she said she'd love to - I thought great. These were opportunities I never got (grew up in the middle of nowhere on a farm) so maybe I'm being too eager.
After what you've said - I completely forgot that we have recently put our house on the market and maybe that has had more of an effect than I thought. I;ve been focusing on the positives - bigger garden - new paint (pink) in the bedroom. Maybe just full time school, a fairly new sister (9 months) and now the thought of moving house is all a bit much - and then I want her to learn how to dance and write!!!!! Her teacher said she needed guidance on letter formation - but she isn't particularly interested. She seems fairly bright but still very uninterested in writing or letters.
I'll lay off the pressure for a while me thinks. I must stop comparing us to seemingly 'perfect' families.

Thank you ladies - you have really helped to put my mind at ease. :)I shall contact you again when she is 12 and still can't write a word because I became so laid back!!!

Find some "fun" ways of practising letters?

You could use house painting brushes and water and let her paint with water outside on a wall or patio. ( but only use old or cheap brushes because it wears them out)

Get bath crayons (the kind that are like soap and that children can draw on themselves with)and let her write letters on the bath tiles (or on herself) while in the bath - if you can stand the mess!

Write letters with a finger in sand or a tray of dry rice or salt.

Draw large letters on paper, laminate them and let her trace over them with a dry wipe marker.

Let her use finger paints to write letters with a finger (another messy one).

At 4.5 she is still very young and may actually still be finding the basic skills necessary for writing quite tricky. Then saying "I know" might be a defense against being asked to do something she doesn't feel ready for.

I think I would (ignore the teacher's suggestion for a bit and take the pressure off - she is still young and) start by using activities like the above for just general mark making - it's all about developing control anyway and leave letters out of it for a bit if she is resisting. Do some fun play activities like play shopping and let her write a (scribble) shopping list or make a pretend post box and let her write and "post" (scribble) letters to Granny. ( Young children love putting things in envelopes!) Encourage drawing and colouring activities and things like very simple dot-to-dots. Then try loads of pre-writing tracing activities (draw zigzags, wavy lines etc in pencil and ask her to trace over them with a felt tip). You can find workbooks in places like W H Smiths that have these kinds of pre-writing tasks in too. Make the whole thing as much fun and "game-like as possible"

After a while introduce a minute or two of letter writing into a time of more general free mark making activity. To begin letter formation practice, give her a letter to trace rather than write from memory and keep watching to make sure she is forming it the correct way and is holding the pen(cil) correctly. She will feel more secure when she is tracing letters and you may find this reduces her resistance. For the moment I wouldn't progress beyond tracing letters at home. She is still practicing the letter formations (as requested by school) and she will get practice in non-traced writing in school. Within a few months I bet you will get letters spontaneously appearing in her "play" writing without you having asked her!!

Thank you! Have put bath crayons on shopping list and have dusted off the post box which hasn't been touched for months. I am going to completely ease up on this for a little while and see how it goes. She does resist even tracing letters. She hates colouring too (I remember hating it when small). However she draws quite intricate little pen drawings of caterpillars, flowers and beetles from her imagination. I'm sure it will happen and I have to learn to relax.

Loving mumsnet - wish I'd joined ages ago.

OMG know how you feel, have a DS who will be 5 in december and exactly the same behaviour! Has started to cross his arms and puts on that huffy face like a stroppy teenager.. god knows what he will be like at 16 if I have that now!! He too talks constanly and will get annoyed if you are saying something he doesnt agree with and will get irriated and start saying Mummy you are not listening to me... if I am trying to tell him or explain something god I cant belive sometimes 1 little person is so argumentative! Other than that very loving and very funny... happiest when he is making me laugh, starting to imatate people off the TV etc !!