6yr old bottom of class in everything and doesn't care

[beatrix03]

My 6yr old fb daughter has been teeth grindingly slow at every developmental stage. If something happens between 6-12 months, you can bet it'll be 14 months before she gets round to it. SHe does get round to it and is capable and not special needs (as far as we know)but she seems not to be motivated at all. She is currently skiing with her school. They were all beginners but all the rest of the class are now far and away better than she is. She refuses to do as she is asked and is not even doing the basics, let alone mastering them, as the others are. The instructors and her father are blue in the face telling her what to do, to no avail. And she does not care. All the others tease, and want to be better than each other and are motivated by their own success but she just wants to go down the smallest slope. She is not scared and actually thinks shes very good at it! It was the same riding a bike, swimming etc. She learned how not to drown but is refusing to take instruction to actually learn strokes. She doesn't use stabilisers but has given upriding her bike because its hard work. We are worried in case she is left behind so far in everything that she will not be able to catch up. If she offers no challenge and nothing interesting to her peers, how long before they forget all about her. I don't want a forgotten child who no-one wants to know becuase they perceive her to be too stupid to even learn the rudiments of all the usual kids stuff.
At school they say she is reading, writing and doing maths with no problem, so i am assured there isn't an over riding learning difficulty, but her "away with the fairies" approach to life in general is getting us all down, she seems to make zero progress on everything and we don't want to push to the point of "military school" approach. What can we do? How do we motivate a unmotivatable child? The fact that her peers are way ahead on other stuff does not bother her like it does for a normal 6 yr old. Help!

I totally agree with fox about fitting in.
DS1 is just like me, very motivated,high achieving, academic, popular (thats not like me but I wince sometimes when I watch him try to negotiate his way through the school social network.It's not easy.
ds2 is completely different, he's away with the fairies, individual and independent. He's also dyspraxic so has has many things at 8 that mark him out from the crowd. He's not really achieving at school despite having a high IQ. He can't swim, ride a bike, doesn't play sport yet he is incredibly popular. I think thats because he is so confident and also caring, sensitive, empathetic. I imagine we will have difficult times ahead but now at 8 he is very happy and I am so proud of him even though he doesn't fit my mould, so to speak.
Focus on her good points, of which I sure there are many,.. don't judge her on your standards.
HTH's

It is disconcerting to have what feels like a changeling child. Ours bemuses us She is stubborn, creative, messy, charming and very unlike academic ds, dh & me. Although her qualities can be frustrating they are also strengths that will stand her in good stead, just as your dd's will. I also have to keep reminding myself not to compare or pigeonhole her too much - something I've just done!

My DD is a totally non competative person. It's just her nature. The PE teacher pointed this out to me. She is no duffer by anyones standard with PE but doesn't have a competative edge. She is the same with fashion, boys etc. (now a teen). She is very bright but modest with it.

It's a sign of individualism and should not be a dissapointment. Children like this are happy with who they are and don't want to conform or fit in. Not such a bad thing really.

I'm tall and I was 'away with the fairies' as a child with zero competitive spirit. I am still vacant at times and couldn't give a stuff who wins what, but I have a degree, a family and a profession. I've never been bullied or rejected by my peers and most people seem to appreciate my laid back nature.
Enjoy her and appreciate her differences

beatrix she sounds SO SO much like ds3!

i embracE his difference but he is my 4th and i was NOT like this with the older ones

i honestly believe and friends have laughed and said to me ' Bet R turns out your brightest'

I often think the real 'shiners' in early years are by no means always the same kids who come top in secondary

i also believe in genetics!

Beatrix, she sounds just like one of my DDs and I understand your frustration. Mine is slightly older - 8 - but I realy sometimes feel i don't 'get' her like I do my other DD. I'm not really sure what makes her tick.

I think when you yourself have been one of those children who get a lot of their happiness from getting things, it can be very hard to get your head round the fact that not everyone is built the same way. You want them to be happy- and you think you know what makes somebody happy. This is where dh is so good for me: he clearly had a happy childhood and is a happy and well adjusted adult: he just didn't need the things I needed to make him happy, like facing new challenges and learning to master difficult things. It doesn't mean his childhood was wasted: he still did lots of things, and he certainly knows lots of things as an adult: he just never had any need for that challenging/pushing boundaries sort of thrill. He was not socially excluded as a child, and adults seem to like him, so really it's not a problem for him, though it might have been one for me.

This was me as a child. I wasn't obviously less intelligent than other children in my class, but frustratingly, they did seem to pick new things up quicker, and they all seemed to have better co-ordination and to dance better and move more gracefully etc..!

I was never cut any slack by parents or teachers though! I was always being told that I too could do x,y,z tooo, and I just felt like it was one more exhausting uphill challenge. I could feel my parents' frustration with me, and I was powerless to change. I kept up, mostly, and occasionally I was good at something, so nobody ever thought I actually needed extra help.

Dyspraxia is called the hidden handicap, and I think a lot more of us than we think are on a sliding scale.

Check out the dyspraxia foundation wesbite. There's an excellent checklist on it.

My dc2 has it for sure, and my dc1 has ADHS (but mild TG). However, luckily instead of being nagged for not trying hard enough, they're both getting specialist extra classes. Nobody would ever know if I didn't tell them.

I found school really hard, yet everybody around me kept telling me how intelligent and capable I was, if only I'd do things properly and better it would all fall into place. I didn't like to argue with the information that I was clever and capable, but yet, it did leave me very confused, if I was clever then why was everything so hard?!

I pick battles with my daughter carefully. At the moment she's learning tin whistle! and she's so laughably shite at it! but I just put her in charge of her tin whistle homework because I've taken the decision not to nag her about something that won't matter in five years time.

at "being all grown up, talking about Hannah Montana "

Er, no, being slightly daft little girls.
Be glad you don't have a sheep! One who asks interesting questions about the world. My DD doesn't go in for all that HSM/HM stuff, does different activities to most of her friends - and hey, know what? They get along great.

my dd is 7 and she's not into hannah montana either. She doesn't get it at all. she's still running around pretending to be a mermaid when her feet touch the sea.

tv - she likes pinky dinky doo and miss bee gee, both good strong role models for women! lol

that hsm, hannah montana stuff gives me the creeps though. maybe she deliberately doesn't mention it in front of me!

I'm back, thanks again for all the replies.
I went off to work and thought I might get a roasting for being too pushy or complaining so I was nervous logging back in!
But I can see that, while everyone of us had a different childhood, and we all produce totally disparate kids, even within the same family, we all, (me most of all) need to relax about it, and wonder if it indeed does matter in 5 years. (The tin whistle story made me laugh!)

i will check out the dyspraxia website, I have worked with teens with dyspraxia but I can't remember them resembling what I face with her right now. But I will check it out nonetheless.

DD1, since I was last on, has moved up in her trampolining club class. Just when you think you will be tearing your last hair out, she plays a blinder! Now, I just need to steel my DH for her next ski lesson.
Maybe I'll distract him with wine and send her up with her aunt instead! She'll probalby do just fine when he's not there!

ok, I've been to the dyspraxia foundatin website. Apart from a couple of similarities, i'm pretty sure that's not it.
She did bottom shuffle then walk, she does still get her words mixed up and she sometimes gets so excited she can't sit still but the rest is not familiar to me. As far as I can tell, that hit rate probably means that it's not dyspraxia, she's just an excitable, do it all in her own time kid who wants to say so much it gets jumbled up as it comes out!
Dyspraxics seem to have no imagination and are very literal, whereas she inhabits a rich fantasy world to which we are all invited, with dressing up, drawing pics of princesses etc. She can ride a bike etc, she just takes forever to do stuff and does not suffer with any apparant co-ordination skills.
I just have to be patient and he has to accept she is not the world champion skier he would like her to be. TO be honest, I would prefer holidays on a beach, anyway...xxx

OP- this is such an old post. But I wonder if you are still on Mnet, how is your DD doing now?