Anyone else have a clever, but lazy child?

[Mumfedup]

DD1 is 9.5, and she's at an excellent, small primary school with several Outstanding Ofsteds, in a row.

She scored all Level 3s at the end of Yr 2, and is safely on target to score all Level 5s at the end of Yr 6. Infact, she scored a Level 4c in Reading at the end of Yr4, so she might even go beyond a Level 5 in Reading before Yr 6?

So, the thing is I know she is pretty bright. But she's just so lazy. She's not that bothered about doing her homework, and doesn't seem perturbed if she only half finishes it. She's not that bothered about learning her spellings, and doesn't seem to care if she gets a few wrong.

She will only read if I tell her to, and left to her own devices she'd never read for pleasure. I have tried her with all sorts of books, but she's just not that bothered. I just found out today, that's she's dropped out of the top reading group, again. This happened this time last year, so I really worked hard with her for several months, got her reading a lot more to me, and she went back up in June. Since then I eased off again, thinking she'd be okay on her own, but obviously she's flagged again.

She enjoys school, has a lot of friends and no one ever has a bad word to say about her. But she's really quite dreamy, and doesn't seem to feel the need to ensure her homework is done, and she'll often rush it, just to get it over and done with.

I had a talk with her tonight, about 'how she is clever, but 'sometimes' has a lazy brain, and she got upset, which was horrible, but I felt something had to be said.

auntevil, I know what you mean! DS's psychologist told me he wasn't lazy, just slow at processing. Which is fine when he's not putting his had up in class, but not so fine when he needs to make a model volcano for a school project and it just aint happening. But when you can remember everything you see/read it kind of makes up for it.

I subscribe to the "will you just get on and do it?" school of parenting, rather than stroke his hair and say "I know you have a "disorder" it must be so difficult."

I'm probably doing all wrong, though.....

dd1 is quite lazy (moderately bright, but don't think thats really the issue tbh). Unless she's organizing things, or being creative, in which case she can be quite motivated - but will get 'tired' and give up quite easily, too.

I find it frustrating, not least because I was just the same in a lot of areas - but have learned over decades to keep plodding on through the ok times, not just the brilliantly exciting times.

Wanting them to avoid our own mistakes is soooo hard!