Bright but Immature 7 Year Old Refusing to Study!

[Quandryquandry]

I'm starting to get very frustrated with my extremely immature DD, who's in the middle of her 7+ school assessments - any tips?

She refuses to do any work at home unless I tell her the work was set by her teachers.

She always thinks her answers are perfect, even if we discuss why they're different from the answers at the back of the test book - she'll always have a strong "childish logic" argument explaining why her answers are "correct".

She seems unable to follow even the most basic grammatical rules in English, eg capital letters, and her spellings are all over the place in her written work (although she always gets full marks in her weekly spelling tests).

She cheats all the time when playing board games, but storms off in floods of tears when I point out that she's cheating.

She's even started "showing off" to her friends at the school gate by lifting up her coat and wiggling her bottom at them or by kicking and pushing me to make them laugh, although I immediately stop her.

How did my lovely intelligent, but headstrong, 4 year old DD become such an underperforming and immature 7 year old?

Is this just a phase that will pass, or is this her real character?

My husband is overindulgent, showering her every week with presents and extremely unhealthy food, and allowing her to watch Kids YouTube for hours on end, even though I've banned it. Could this be causing her behaviour?

If so, any tips on how I can stop him? I've tried begging him, forwarding articles about the psychological damage spoiling children does but all to no avail - he just giggles with her and they run off together to the local coffee shop for more high calorie sugary food and YouTube!

Does she really need to do any work at home? Have you spoken to her teacher about her behaviour?

As for the board games, she’s 7, isn’t cheating normal?

Behaving like that to make her friends laugh suggests that she lacks self-esteem and is doing anything at all to get a positive reaction. Does she have any problems with social skills, or does she mostly get on well with the other children in school?

It seems pretty natural that she will not do work that has not been set by her teachers - why would she want to? In any case at seven I would not expect much homework to be set. You could encourage her to practice but her practice or homework with you should be all about "well done for doing the question" and commenting on every single aspect that she gets right and passing over her mistakes. Let the teachers focus on results, you just need to encourage her to try the work. If you critique and compare her work to the answers in the book and nitpick her grammar and spelling that's counter-productive because it is discouraging her. She is arguing with you to try to boost her own confidence again.

Wanting to win, cheating and getting upset at losing are all pretty normal. She will get plenty of experience at not-winning with other children and at school, so long she copes there she doesn't have a real problem. At home you can stop her cheating by letting her win or by switching players if you are getting ahead.

I agree it sounds as if your husband over-indulging her, feeding her rubbish and doing nothing but watch telly aren't helping her, and you are undermining each other. The two of you parents need to meet in the middle with a positive approach that encourages her to do activities that she enjoys and maybe to practice things she finds a bit hard without being too critical or focusing on her mistakes. You can s
use praise and encouragement and treats just to get her to do things that take a bit of effort.

Thanks for your advice, everyone. Probably expecting a bit too much of her, I suppose! It's just very difficult as a parent to watch her falling behind her peers (heavily tutored or homework heavily supervised at home) in her school tests and being overlooked for roles in plays, solos in the choir, etc, despite seeming to be a very talented and extrovert performer at home, because her friends interact with the teachers like little puppies whereas she doesn't seem to understand the need to take care with her written work and doesn't even seem to look at the teachers at all during drama/choir, despite me reminding her to! I'm sure she'll come good in the long run...

I think you are expecting a lot of her and putting unnecessary pressure on her. She sounds like a very normal 7 year old but you sound overly anxious about her.

The most important thing is if she is happy and enjoying life and learning to be kind to others.