He say 'thirteen fourteen' but can't or won't say 'Thursday Friday' why oh why is this?

[tigermoth]

Title says it all really. My son, 5 in August, in reception since January, will happily, clearly and with no hesitation recite his numbers in perfect sequence up to twenty. He can say 'TH'irteen, 'F'ourteen' But ask him to say 'TH'ursday 'F'riday and the rest of the days of the week in sequence and it is no go.

I tried to teach him the days a few months back but gave up as he wasn't interested. All his class recite them as a group at school. Yesterday, after he counted up to twenty, I asked him to tell me the days of the week. He said 'monday, tuesday, wednesday.....friday saturday sunday. I told him he'd missed one out. He was very upset and bewildered. Over the next half an hour dh and I repeated the 7 days ad infinitum, got him to say, 'thursday/friday' got him to sing 'thursday/friday' but could we get him to say 'mon, tues, wed, thurs, fri, sat, sun' - NO!! we tried to get him to talk along with us, we bribed with chocolate, we threatened him with an early night, we told him he was just being silly, but nothing would make him say 'thursday' We had to end it because he was getting really upset. Tonight, dh asked him the days of the week and ds said ' monday, tuesday, wednesday,THURSDAY... Saturday' Ahhhh!!!!!!! After a few more attempts dh told him he'd go to bed and miss desert and his favourite TV programme if he wouldn't say the days of the week. Ds said, 'OK' and went upstairs to bed. We felt so mean that we brought him down.

Frankly, I am getting worried. I just cannot see why ds is not happy to recite the days of the week. I don't believe he can't do it, but for some reason he does not want to do it or gets afraid to do it. He won't tell us why - well he did say 'yes' when I asked him if he didn't like saying 'TH' but then I remembered he says 'THirteen' with absolutely no probs. The same with his age - he will simply not admit he is four. If you ask him the how old he is, he says he doesn't know, yet he can easily count to four, knows what birthdays are, knows some people are older than others. It's as if he rejects certain questions, just pulls a mental blind down. He doesn't tantrum about it, just calmly ignores the question and won't cooperate. My older son was never like this. Has anyone elst had this experience with their 4 and 5 year olds?

I do not know how ds2 will get on at school as the emphasis gets more towards 'reading/writing/arithmatic' in year 1. I know learning the days of the week is not so important right now, but ds's approach is making me feel very apprehensive and puzzled.

Strangely enough Thursday is the day ds1 tends to miss out too. He picked it up from the CBeebies song and sings it perfectly - except for Thursday.

Tigermoth - you are a fantastic mother, you love your son dearly, BUT....let it go! He's perfectly bright, very young (only four, the baby!) and I think your approach really isn't helping. Why should he be punished because he a/doesn't know/can't remember or b/doesn't want to say...the days of the week. It's genuinely not important. But the more you push it the more freaked he will be. This is the school's job if anyone's. At home all that matters is that he feel unconditionally loved, and it would be such a shame if he felt he was letting you down over something so trivial. Reciting is just reciting - it's basically meaningless. My stepdaughter - who is lovely, perfectly bright and charming (really, everyone loves her) didn't know how to tell the time for AGES! She was about nine or maybe even ten when she got the hang of it. But she's fine now. Really, do you know any adults who don't know the sequence of the days of the week? Of course not. He is a very young child. My son often says he doesn't know if he finds the question boring/baffling/irrelevant to his interests at that particular moment. I really think it is normal. Please don't project your worry over something so small into a great catastrophic fear about his whole future - it's getting things out of proportion. At the moment I expect the days of the week have little meaning to him. I imagine your anxiety about him worries him a bit. It's not really important so relax. If he has problems at school, let his teachers alert you. I'm sure they think he's great. How would you feel if his teachers tried to punish him for not saying his days of the week in perfect sequence? YOu'd post in fury I honestly think you've got this out of proportion.

please please let it go. its not important. days of the week are not an issue. please dont punish him for not knowing or not being bothered by it. my dd will say she doesnt know when she doesnt want to answer questions or tell u anything.

Also, I suspect this is turning into a bit of a power struggle and that is never a good thing. Put down the days of the week and walk away....

Let it go and it will all seem different in the morning. If you still feel bad, give him a big cuddle and tell him that you and daddy didn't mean to be cross and that it doesn't matter. I apologise to my ds quite a bit.

I have let it go lots of times before. It's not that I want to force feed him information, make him read or write before he is ready to. No way! I know he is very young. But I am baffled about his approach to anserwing questions. I am really wondering if he has some problem. And why he won't say he is four years old - that's not expecting the earth, is it?

did u have a big celebration for his 4th birthday? dd has a party and we told her for weeks ahead she would be 4 when she has this party. it seemed to sink in very well. now she wants another party for when she 'is bigger than four'. i never knew my age til i was older as my parents didnt celebrate birthdays, aqnd i would ask my parents how old i was if anyone asked.

yep, we celebrated his fourth birthday, kept telling him he was four. Talked about it at length - in a non punishment kind of way But whenever someone asks him his age, he says he doesn't know.

maybe he is just stubborn. is it a dont care 'i dont know' or a confused 'i dont know'. dd1 pulls sillyu faces when she is being silly over not remember things.

My dd is 6 and a half and she can't say all the days of the week in the right order. She usually manages to say all 7 but never in the right order. sometimes she misses out thursday, no idea why. Sometimes she includes thursday but misses out another day instead.

don't worry about it your ds will manage it all in good time.

It's a matter of fact 'I don't know'. I have ignored this type of answer for ages, as he is so young, but he's is past toddlerhood now and it's begininning to freak me out!

If lots of mumsnetters tell me their nearly five year olds don't know their age, I'll feel better. But IME most children are happy to tell your their age by the time they start school. If it was just the age thing I'd put it down to some odd quirk, but ds uses the 'I don't know' answer quite often.

linnet, that's reassuring. I don't know when most children can say the days of the week, so I'd be interested to hear more from other people on this. My oldest son was eager to repeat things like the days of the week and if he got the sequence wrong first time, I would say them again and he'd happily copy me. My youngest son shows far less inclination to copy.

ds2 is 2 so a bit younger- but had exactly the same approcah. If I ask him what a horse says he says ee aw. Will he say neigh? No- but if I say who says neigh? He'll point to a horse. When I ask him if he's fibbing (we use the word in a nice way) about the ee aww- he says "tease".

Same with age. He knows he's 2 (ds1 just turned 5 and he's into birthdays). When I ask how old he is he says 4, then he says 3 then he says tease.

He thinks its hilarious. And having a kid with problems I can guarantee you 100% that it doesn't signify a problem! Agree with oracle aloha.

DS1 could count up to twenty but would always miss out fifteen. Every single time. He can do it properly now (5 mi Feb) but couldn't do it at the start of reception. I wouldn't worry about it.

We used to interrupt him at sixteen and say fourteen FIFTEEN sixteen... I don't know of that helped or if he simply got the hang of it through school.

Just read your post again and the only thing that would stand out as a problem to me is the not copuying, but it depends what you mean by not copying. If you told him to copy you could he? Is it that he tends not to bother and just trys to do it his own way? Did he copy as a baby - or did you have to teach him everything (by wich I mean I haven't ever really taught ds2 anything as he just trys it after seeing someone else do it- I''ve refined stuff maybe. But ds1 - becuase he couldn't copy had to be taught absolutely everything hands on).

Was he happy to tell you his age before he started school? Just wondering if he's aware that most of the others are now 5 and he's still "only" 4 or if a child's said "you're only four!" in a teasing way.

Tigermoth, I think you more you push it the more he will resist. Also the more it seems getting it 'right' matters to you, and getting it wrong may have bad consequences (ie punishment), then the more likely he is (IMO) to say "I don't know'.
If his school was saying to you 'he didn't get an answer right so he wasn't allowed lunch and kept in over break' you'd go ballistic! I cannot imagine what sort of problem you think he has - I'm sure he is perfectly normal, just a bit different to his brother and to be honest it seems such a small, trivial thing to get upset or worried about. My ds is three in Sept and he very often says 'I don't know' to questions he knows the answer to perfectly well. I think he just wants to talk about something else when he does this and finds the topic rather dull. Come to think of it, I think I have used this approach myself!

Hiya - I want to echo what SoupDragon says about the age thing. I didn't realise what a big deal it was to ds2 that he was still 4, until his 5th birthday last week. It is a huge thing in school - there are charts with their pictures on and they get ceremoniously moved up on their birthday. Also he is on a table with children who all had their birthdays before Christmas, so it's been a long wait for him. He had been reluctant to 'admit to' being 4, but is now delighted to tell people that he's 5.

Yep agree with aloha. When I said not copying can be a problem- I mean if he totally does not understand what is meant by copying and is completely unable to imitate. Not the same as choosing not to copy.

Not copying is a problem as people assume that children copy and so when they teach they rely heavily on a child being able to copy. I cringe inside when I see people doing this with ds1 and he just totally ignores them (hasn't got a clue what's expected of him), they then redouble their efforts and get very confused.

I doubt you meant that when you said your son didn't copy much though.

I remember i class 2 the list of children in the class was put in order of age. I was the youngest in the class and my name was at the bottom for a term- I hated it, I loathed being the youngest in the class it was a very big thing for me. So yes I think age means a lot.

Btw I can't imagine you're "pushing the issue" at all - though maybe your post does come across a bit that way. DS2 is a bit stubborn like this sometimes, and if I try and persuade him (in a way that would work with ds1, it often falls flat).

DS2 also still says in automatic response to most direct questions, "I don't know" or "I've forgotten". If we wait, he will usually come up with the right answer. He's also a superb reader, but when faced with a word he doesn't instantly recognise will immediately say "wozatsay" (What does that say?). We just ignore it and wait, and he usually works it out.

And incidentally ds1 never did this. He was always, and is always delighted to parade his knowledge, and would never pretend not to know something ... quite the opposite in fact.

I have no idea whether ds2 knows the days of the week, or not. I'll try him out tonight.

HTH

My DD2 (4 in August) can count to twenty - but always misses sixteen - and knows most of her letter sounds - but doesn't have a clue about days of the week. She wouldn't be able to recite them, and for example doesn't know that Sat and Sun are the days she doesn't go to nursery or which day follows another. I don't think they have done anything on days of the week at nursery which suggests it is not one of the things they are expected to know early. They all learn different things at different rates. Don't worry about it. On the age thing -she is the youngest in the class she gets really confused when say certain things will happen when she if four eg going to big school - since most of her nursery friends are alrady four and they haven't gone to big school !

well, I can see not knowing the days in sequence is not so unusual at this age, so that's reassuring. But that's not what I was most worried about.

The age thing - well he's never admitted his age, so don't think it's got much to do with him being the youngest in school. However, I may be wrong, so I will see what happens when he turns five.

I'm still worried about his approach to questions. If my ds1 at this age didn't get a song line or the days of the week, I would repeat the correct version to him, make a game of it, and he would most likely copy me. It wouldn't mean he'd then get it right for ever and ever. I 'd ask him the same question the next day and he'd get it wrong again, I'd remind him and he'd remember the conversation and laugh about it. This could go on for months. It would be no big deal for either of us.

It's just that my ds2 tends to shut off when I give him 'my' version. He stubbornly sticks to his own version and isn't interested in copying or exploring alternative answers.

I am still thinking about the copying, jimjams - he did pick things up like feeding, going to the loo, without me being hands on. He's also got a good ear for phrases he hears on TV or in real life and uses them when he plays. Must dash but will think about this more. It might seem a trivial problem to some of you - but it is something I've noticed for a long time and I've really tried to rationalise it and I still can't feel 100% ok about it.

I might feel a bit uneasy if the school made him miss a playtime for not getting an answer right, but tbh, if this continues next year, I quite expect they will come down harder on him and I wouldn't feel furious if they did. If he refuses point blank to take on board his teacher's views, it can easily be interpreted as defiance, attention-seeking and winding up the teacher. I am not entirely convined there isn't an element of that in his behaviour already.

My Dd2 is 4 1/2 and she can count fine but can't say the days of the week in the right order. If i ask her and she says it wrong then i just say "no it's xxxxx" and leave it at that.
She also won't always say how old she is.

I can sort of see why it would worry you, but tbh i know of kids older than 4 who can't do these things either.
He will get it in the end.