Wife of OP here.
(This post will probably get buried and I?m supposed to be working so haven?t had time to read every post.)
Thanks to the several posters who have offered some good advice, but others have been unduly harsh. The flaming is completely unhelpful and makes it hard not to get distracted from the good advice. The initial post was negative because it was describing what seems to be a problem, so obviously it wasn?t going to include a full description of everything that goes on in our family?s life, or list all the good things. There is plenty of positivity and affection in DH and DD1?s relationship and he and I both set up fun things for her and enjoy plenty of cuddly ?downtime?. It was an anonymous forum post asking for advice about a particular issue, and obviously it?s completely different from anything that DH would say to DD1's face or to people we know IRL.
Of course we love her and are proud of her. We do tell her that we are proud of her ? and also that she should be proud of herself. For example, we praised her especially for her performance in her school show (She is naturally introverted and performing doesn?t come naturally to her so she had to push herself through nerves/embarrassment, even though it was a very small part.) We praise her for her swimming, her physical strength, her cooking, her stories, her drawings, for the times when she gets on well with her sister, for all sorts of everyday little things.
We do love her and know that we need to accept who she is ? but at the same time we want to encourage her to reach her full potential. Don?t most parents want to share their interests and teach their children about the world? Some posters have implied that it is harsh or abusive to ask children questions with a view to expanding their knowledge and encouraging them to notice and remember things. Is it wrong to ask a toddler what colour a bus is? Is it wrong to ask a 10yo, with a view to starting a conversation, ?Do you know why dinosaurs became extinct?? or ?Do you know who David Cameron is?? Is it wrong to ask, when visiting another country, what the child has noticed that is different from their home country? I suppose there is a scale ? and perhaps DH and/or I fall a bit far on the ?testing? side at times or find it hard to hide disappointment if she doesn?t understand something that seems simple to us or has forgotten a basic fact that was covered in a TV programme we?ve just watched. We?re only human. We do not accept that it is wrong or abusive to try to draw children out or encourage their curiosity about the world, but maybe we can modify the way we do it to be more in tune with DD1.
The ?trick question? aspect is not intended to belittle her, but to inspire surprise/wonder about the world. An example of a trick question is the puzzle about what would happen if you put a grain of rice on the first square of a chess board, two grains on the second square, four grains on the third square, and so on ? how much rice would you end up with in total? (The answer is amazingly large and obviously we weren?t expecting her to get a correct answer or belittling her in any way; it?s just that discussion and dialogue about something counter intuitive is usually more interesting than a lecture or just being told the answer.)
DD2 loves these type of trick questions and lateral thinking puzzles.
The problem isn?t as simple as DD1 being scared of being ?tested? ? it?s often hard to engage her in conversation generally, even about things she likes. For example, she enjoyed a particular book and suggested that I read it. I read it, enjoyed it too and was really looking forward to discussing it with her as it involved a lot of social issues, but then she gave monosyllabic/non committal responses to all my attempts to ask her open questions about her feelings/opinions about the book and the characters. Or if she enjoys a film or an outing we might ask her what her favourite part was, and she?ll simply reply ?all of it?. Things seem to wash over her ? we wonder if she is even taking the words in when she reads.
She rarely asks questions about the world or her surroundings or expresses opinions about the world ? we wish she would ask more questions. Even if she doesn?t set the world on fire academically, it?s important for her to develop ability to engage in conversations and find things she can be enthusiastic about, surely?
I agree with the posters who said that part of the disengagement could be linked to hormones, as she is into puberty.
We already do some of the things suggested in the helpful posts here ? eg having her make & write cards for the family. Recently I took her swimming and pointed out to her that she can swim front crawl better than I can.
Of course we accept that we need to love her for who she is. This morning she got up and came downstairs in a whiny stroppy grump and I immediately gave her a big hug, just because she looked like she needed it. She is far from cowed into oppression and is quite capable of good naturedly teasing DH or talking back to us when she wants to. As DH said at the end of the first post in this thread, we want to encourage her to gain enthusiasm and be the best she can be.