younger siblings

[workshy]

DD1 is classed by the school as G&T (level 6 in English and Maths in Yr 5 and yes I know she is some massive genius but meets the criteria)

DD2 (yr 3) has been classified as G&T for reading and is on the top table for everything, level 3a in maths and writing but insists she is rubbish at everything and not very clever

I have been trying to improve her confidence, teachers say she is more able than she believes herself, and I thought she was getting somewhere but this week she did a maths assesment and got less than 50%, couldn't do anything, far too hard etc etc and she has now totally lost any confidence she did have (she'd just had a week off and walked straight into the assesment so think she just didn't have her school brain turned on if that makes sense, as this was way below her usual scores)

DD1 tells me what she got in a test and DD2 sees this as confirmation of the fact that she is rubbish

how do I build DD2's confidence without telling DD1 that she shouldn't talk about her own achievements?

You have to make sure that dd2 knows you love her for her & not in competition with her sister. I have a similar thing & to be perfectly honest I wouldn't be surprised if dd2 did better at A' level where she picks her favourite/best subjects as dd1 is more of an all rounder BUT as long as they end up happy with their lives that is all I'm bothered about.

I tell her all the time, I praise her for trying, we have time alone when her sister is at guides and I always make sure she knows that is our special time and she looks forward to it

she has a fantastic imagination and writes chapters of her own stories

but she hates the attention being on her and praise just seems to make her more insistant that she doesn't deserve it and is rubbish

Really hard. I have a middle child (10) who is the typical "golden child" -academically gifted, sporty, musical, confident, sensible, easy going... She is a joy and we are constantly complimented on her personality as well as her achievements. She is a class ahead at school

The flip side is that DS(12) has always been jealous. He used to love athletics and did well in it until DD1 started and won everything she entered. He doesn't work hard at school and I'm sure that part of it is that he doesn't want to compete with little sister. If he doesn't try, he has the perfect excuse for not doing as well :-(

DD2(6) is also jealous of her sister but so far, this is fairly positive as she is determined to outdo her! We recently had to have words as she had started doing everything quickly -speaking, writing etc. She had decided that if she went quick, she would also skip a class!

It is hard keeping them all happy but all we can do as parents is encourage and try our best not to compare (or at least not comment.)