Hello everyone, I hope you might be able to help. I've got to the stage where I really need advice about my DD. She's just turned 8. Essentially, what it boils down to is that she's clumsy, struggles to concentrate on certain things, has trouble keeping friends, is secretive, and doesn't seem to know who she really is. Is this what 8 is like? Or should I be considering talking to a professional about strategies to help her?
This will be long, but I'm going to try to get down some stuff that I think is relevant.
For background, we live in a European country where the language is not our home language. We came when she was 5, and she had a rough start - spending a few months at kindergarten then on to a local school where she struggled to make real friends. We recently moved her to a bilingual school, where I thought she would find life easier. But no, she seems to have a friend for a couple of weeks, and then lose interest in them (or they in her? I don't know). So no apparent problem making them, but she struggles to keep them. What's really prompted me to write was something she revealed last night, having kept it to herself for months. She told us, at the dinner table, that the reason she fallen out with a girl at her old school was because, while playing, she had accidentally pushed another child over, and hurt her. And it's true that she's extremely clumsy - we joke that she can fall over from standing (but it's not really that funny), she knocks things over and spills things all the time, and doesn't seem to see the consequences of her physical actions. She's really kind though, and I really don't think would ever hurt another child on purpose.
She speaks the local language fine now, although it took her a long time to pick it up, despite her time at the local school and in kindergarten. She is now schooled in two languages, partly because I hoped she would excel in English, which would give her more confidence. And although her English (read and spoken) is way better than her classmates', she still refuses to properly engage in class, saying she's worried that her superior English skills will make the other children feel bad. I don't know what to think about this.
She's been homeschooling now for 6 weeks, which has given me more of an insight into her education than any mother should have! They've had livestream from the classroom every day from 8 till 3, which hasn't been very easy (for any of them, I'm sure). She has needed my support a LOT, is extremely disorganised, panics and cries about once a day because she's not following, it's been a nightmare. And I've seen that her work is incredibly erratic - sometimes great, sometimes a total mess. She's had to redo a lot of it, which obviously distresses her.
She CAN concentrate. She's got a piece of cross-stitch on the go at the moment, and will sit sewing for at least an hour. She's learning the piano, is practising and getting better. She's great at colouring and drawing. But oh god, if it's something she finds hard or isn't interested in, her attention span is non-existent. You can be talking to her and she just drifts away, I can see it happening. And I think it is why she was so slow to pick up the local language - she just wasn't "present" in the environment half the time, so wasn't absorbing anything. It's all affecting her confidence, I think. A recent school report wasn't that great. But the thing is, she's very quick on the uptake if she's paying attention. I've had to help her a lot with Maths recently, and if you ensure she's listening while you're telling her, she gets it really quick, and is able to apply it. But obviously her teachers don't have time to repeatedly say her name while they're explaining it, to make sure she's focussing!
Fuck, what shall I do about her? She seems so unhappy and honestly crushed a lot of the time. I love her so much, she's such a kind, helpful and lovely girl, but I feel like I'm not doing my best by her at the moment, and I want to help her to find life a bit easier. Any thoughts would be really helpful. Apologies for the essay!!