Teaching children to fail?

[Skimty]

Hi. I started posting this in Primary education and then decided this topic may be more appropriate. I have two children at school at the moment (and one younger at home). All three have autumn birthdays and I am aware this will reflect how well they do relative to their peers.

As a bit of background, my eldest (y2) is 'bright' and especially talented at writing (apparently exceptional 'for a boy' whatever that means) and my middle child (DD -yR) is on the gifted and talented register for literacy because she has been reading chapter books since about 3 and a half (the reception teacher said she had never taught such a good reader at entry into reception).

I'm very wary of labelling my children because I'm not too sure what that would mean and I also don't want to be the parent who thinks their children are more 'special' than anyone elses. However, I am getting worried that they can do everything they are given really easily. DS has had 10/10 in every spelling test this year and only got 9/10 once in his mental maths test (the rest of the time it's been 10/10). DD can obviously do all the reading that they are doing in reception easily and doesn't seem to have any problems with maths.

My concern is that they are not failing at anything ever. I know this may sound silly but I am worried that they are not learning to ever tackle anything they can't immediately do. I try to look at things at home but to be honest I don't know where to start. Also, I feel slightly aggrieved that the 6 and a half hours they spend at school seem to be not challenging them at all.

Can someone just reassure me that it's alright for children to be able to do everything easily and they will be able to deal with it when they encounter things that make them struggle?

Sorry, this is longer than I thought it would be. I find it difficult to talk about his in RL as I'm sure many of you do as well.

Thanks

I think dd likes doing stuff IYSWIM and there's just not enough of that. She's drifting off a lot - I'm just not sure what would keep her more engaged. I'm thinking of talking to her teacher next term, but realistically, I doubt there's much they can do.

All the stuff she does out of school only highlights for her how boring actual school work is . She gets so interested and engaged in all sorts of stuff out of school - it's worrying that she doesn't feel like that at school.

I wished she loved maths but she doesn't! I'll try teasing more information (i.e. get blood from the stone) over the holidays and see if I can bring something more concrete to discuss with her teacher.

I think the more formal the learning gets the more there is a potential for being bored because the more waiting around there is. So a EYFS child should never get bored because in a good setting the learning is all child led and open ended. Once your learning is reliant on others getting it before you can move on then you are more likely to be sitting around and what you can do while you are sitting around is strictly limited.

I like the open ended investigation idea OldRoan. I was also thinking (reading Proust and the Squid at the moment specifically Socrates worry about the introduction of writing) that I might try some old fashioned rote learning of poems etc.

Don't ask, but Y6 DD bought herself a KS3 maths book last year. That mostly collects dust but when playing with it one day she announced that something was boring. Ah ha, I thought, you've obviously hit something you don't understand and "boring" is just code for "I don't get it". But it turned out to be the decimals and percentages she could handle wrapped in some dull as a ditch water business manglement scenario.

Alternatively, the other week she came home with a tale of a some very ditzy fractions question with a more primary-age friendly scenario, that asked whether she'd prefer 2/5 or 5/10 of a cake. She apparently chose the "correct" answer, but "I'd want the smaller piece, not half a cake! Why do they blah-blah..." Ironically the class had all been measured for the NCMP BMI survey a couple of days before.

It's easy for her, but I've heard school maths called boring for the first time this year and then only twice. I suspect it was was the genuinely yawnsome stuff.

Science is good for resilience - experiments like the Marvin & Milo ones on the institute of physics are a good starting point. The parameters can be explored to see if things work or don't work - sometimes it fails, sometimes it works. There are lots of tricky questions you can explore with not necessarily right or wrong answers. By encouraging them to take risks and change things, they can really push their comfort zones of getting everything right.

No, not ridiculous at all & I'm currently dealing with the fall out from this exact same thing with my year 6 DD & its not pretty :(

she's sailed through everything with ease, never had to apply herself to learn any subject, sporty too - & ironically just like yours perspectve with walking & talking too, I've tried the musical instrument route - that didn't work as turned out she's gifted there too - she refused point blank to practice & then picked up her instrument & played to perfection at her next lesson - her teacher wouldn't believe she had refused to practice

Here we are in year 6 having excelled at everything she has wanted too with no effort at all & now due to health problems she is struggling in a test situation, she just cannot cope emotionally with what she sees as failure - even though she still does well, just not as well as SHE expects of herself & she is rapidly becoming completely demoralised by school & learning & quite frankly I am very worried as she sinks so low over it, its bordering in depression :(

Kicking myself for not taking the whole G&T thing more seriously when she was younger, so you are right to look into helping your own DCs now - I wish I had

DD1 (9) had this problem when she went to Junior school. Had sailed through. Salied through everything but for some reason cant do French. It has been good for her.

DD2 (7) is excellent academically but socially awkward. I asked her teacher to give her tasks that were too difficult so she would learn to fail. Teacher thought I was mad but said she would think about it. DD has come home a couple of times upset because she hasnt been able to do something.

Learning that you cant get everything right all of the time without putting in some effort is very important.

Thanks everyone. I'm pleased to see that I'm not worrying needlessly (although slightly gutted I may have to do something other than be proud ) I'm going to speak to both teachers in the new year.

Just a thought, I've just ordered THIS BOOK

reviews are very good on here & elsewhere, so I am hoping theres something in it to help with my own DD, but sounds like something I wish I had known about when she was younger, though the EI was less obvious then, it was there, just magnified now with hormones & feelings of failure

It might be of use to you too

I have no idea whether this could be helpful, but one of my Christmas presents (which I'd put on my amazon wish list) was the DVD of "The Very Best Time Team Digs". Now, that might not be of interest to some youngsters given the age and looks of some of those involved (!), but it's full of specialists of all kinds, including university professors, who are faced with a challenge, and sometimes get things wrong.

It is very difficult and problematic to introduce the concept of being wrong and how to deal with that, to youngsters who have yet to experience that, but maybe they could learn that although everything is easy for them now, there could well come a time when a high IQ/high expertise just isn't enough.

Rocking - that books looks very interesting. It's only since I've been reading MN, in various topics, that I've become more angry than I was back when my eldest DC was in a school that clearly had no idea how to deal with bright/very bright children. Everything in the school system seems to be tied to chronological age, yet that, to me, never seemed more significant than their shoe size. Age says little about an individual child. Tall children get treated as though they should be more emotionally mature than their age. Bright children often get treated according to their chronological age, not their intellectual or emotional age/needs.

It's very hard to be a parent of a bright/gifted child, because there's very often a mismatch between age and milestones, and not many outsiders realise that.

good book there Rockin - have saved, thanks

Art is good for gifted children. It's risky, with no known outcome. It's also something where the process is more rewarding then the end result, so could be a different way of thinking.