Tips/advice on how to handle my adorable but very dreamy 8 yr old dd?

[Tensmumym]

My 8 year old dd is a sweet, kind, adorable girl who, most of the time seems to be living on a sweet, adorable planet elsewhere. She seems to be incapable of doing anything when I ask her. "Please go and brush your teeth." 5 minutes later, no sound of anything indicating teeth are being brushed. "Please go and get changed for school or we will be late." Dd wanders into her bedroom, looks in the mirror, rearranges the toys on her bed and doesn't start getting changed until I pop my head around the door. The same applies to doing homework - boy does it apply to doing homework - and to doing practically anything. Her 5 year old sister is the complete opposite and just gets on with things - a bit like me - whereas dd1 is more like daddy. How do you avoid losing your cool with your adorable dd whose character is so different from your own??

How is she getting on at school, and do teachers experience similar behaviour from her? Some children behave quite differently at school compared to at home. What subjects does she like/is good at? Does she do any extra curricular activities? How does she interact with her peers, or with other adults?

Being 'dreamy' may indicate an active imagination, that is always thinking of different things, and not on the task in hand.

Thanks Ferguson. I think you're right, she does have a very active imagination and it's a shame that we live in a world where our busy lives do not leave time for her to sit and think. This reminds me of an article I read about - but hadn't read until just now So similar to my darling dd.

She's dreamy at school as well. She likes art and singing. She goes to a drama group but is very shy so, combined with her tendency to be thinking about other things rather than engaged with what's going on, means that she is often left out. How much this bothers her is not clear - hopefully less than it worries me. She interacts much better with adults, partly I think because they tend to give you more time to get your point across and will listen more attentively if you are speaking quietly.

Ah. I could have written this! Have you got my eldest at yours by mistake? She is 6 and away with fairies much of the time. You can go into her room, ask her to get dressed, she smile and say OK. You go away, have a shower, come back in and she is still standing in the same place looking dreamily out of the window. She likes reading and art best. Recently we were staying at the in laws and her older cousin, also very arty was there. I would often stray into the sitting room and see him staring into space, lost in his own world. Clearly its in the genes.

I also have a DC2 who is the polar opposite (and much as I was as a child) - thrusts through life like a power zapper (weep). He is two years younger but if you say, go and brush teeth please, off he goes and does it. That boy has focus, I'll say that for him.

I'm not sure I could work out which of them is the more tiring!

My DD was so dreamy in YR that they were convinced she had a hearing problem. She does't in fact she has got better than normal hearing. She just tunes out. In Y1 she improved and was more focussed most of the time. She is still famous in the school though for being ALWAYS the last out and ALWAYS the last one to finish her lunch. I am told often still sat there munching her apple and away with the fairies when all the other kids have already been playing out for at least 20 mins. God love her.

Does she have a watch? If not I'd invest in one and say to her 'I want you to go and do xxx by this time. What's the time now? OK, so you have 5 minutes'

My 8 year old isn't that bad but she can drift away even so. The watch does help as she's a little pendant and often I will say 'it's twenty past' and she'll be busy going 'actually it's only 19 minutes past'

Bump So many similarities. Dd is invariably the last to finish lunch. Once when she was in year 2 I went in as a parent helper to listen to children read. I was in one corner of the room with an occasional eye on what dd was up to. At circle time the teacher told the children to get into a circle and to make sure that no one was left outside. Of course dd was left outside and it felt like an hour before the teacher noticed and she was let in to the circle. I immediately worried that she was being excluded but when I asked her later how she felt she said she quite liked it actually "As when you're on the outside of the circle you can just look around at the classroom " When she was in Nursery and Reception, every morning before she went into class she would look around her as if it was the first time she had gone in, while other children pushed past her to hang up their coats, she would still be standing there. Another parent said she thought it was quite a good thing as she had such an awareness of what was around her which was good to hear as I was just obsessing about children pushing ahead of her as she got left behind. After reading the article I linked to I resolved this morning not to say "Hurry up" and I didn't. I agreed with dd that I would smile and wave my hand around to indicate that she needed to get a move on and that worked well.

Cedar - thanks. Great idea about wearing a watch.