Very bright child with no common sense.

[alligatorpurse]

My dd(10) is a lovely girl, well-behaved (mostly), popular at school, many hobbies and interests etc.

The problem we are having (and have always had) is that, although she is really really bright in the academic sense, she seems to have very little common sense. By common sense I mean life-skills type stuff, e.g. crossing the road, pouring a drink in such a way that it doesn't spill everywhere, that kind of thing.

She has an amazing memory, but is very inflexible in her thinking. It's like every time you want her to do something slightly differently from how you told her to do it before, you have to re-programme her. She can't seem to think through these processes by herself. For example, she knows you have to wash your hands after you go to the toilet. Then I realised that in the evenings, she was using the toilet, washing her hands, then getting into the shower. Her hands were getting red and cracked from all the washing! I explained that if you are about to get into the shower you can just wash your hands in the shower instead. So now she does that. It's a silly example I know, but it illustrates the way her mind seems to work.

Is there any way you can "teach" some common sense? We seem to have been saying she's young etc for years, but now she's getting a bit self-conscious about not feeling able to do some of the more grown-up things her friends are doing, like walking to shops alone. She's quite a perfectionist, and pretty self-aware.

Thanks.

This wont help i guess - but this is exactly as i was as a child.I have got more common sense now but i admit not a lot!! dont know about some basic things ! my family have always laughed at me !!have set my kitchen on fire,cant do some common sense things.. have been knocked down by a car when thinking of something elsE. I too an very literal.However in my job i deal with V complex situations!!i wonder if people can just be wired that way?

Thanks Lincolnlass, indeed I do see a bit of myself in her, although I honestly don't think I was quite so clueless! I put a lot of my own lack of life-skills down to my parents being rather over-protective and not encouraging me to be independent. But I would like dd to be able to do things like help around the house and go to friends alone. DH is often telling me what he was doing at her age and how he can't imagine her doing that any time soon! I mean things like watching younger siblings for a short time, simple cooking etc. '

We have 2 younger dcs, both of whom have a lot of common sense and I think dd senses them "overtaking" her in some ways, which is why I wondered if there's any way we could help her. We try not to get annoyed when she spills a drink for the 100th time or walks in from the paddling pool without drying herself and leaves puddles through the house AGAIN (while 5yo sis wipes herself down outside without being told...) but it's not always easy! I think it's mixed up with her perfectionism too so we try to go easy on her - she will come back and ask a million clarifications for a simple request, and she also does that at school apparently. If she doesn't know exactly what's expected of her (and by this age some school works requires/encoursges a bit of lateral thinking) she will just panic and give up.

You could be describing my DS2 - nearly 12 - who is very bright, in an other-worldly sort of way, but seems to live on a far distant planet most of the time and when it comes to day to day practical stuff is hopeless.

He's Dyspraxic - apart from the co-ordination issues, it also involves struggling to follow sequences of instructions, and being slower to absorb verbal information. So I can't say "Wash your face, brush your teeth, find your shoes, get your coat on", because he won't remember anything other than "wash your face". You just have to adapt, rather than teach, I think. Your DD will get there.

that is so my older sister!! (as a child, she is much better now)

my dad re-plumbed the bathroom and swapped the hot and cold tap around. i walked in to the bathroom with her sitting with the cold tap on waiting for it to warm up she wasnt thick, quite the opposite very bright!

if you wanted her to do the washing up you had to tell her what to wash in what order eg do the cleanest stuff first then do the dirty stuff. but you had to say wash the cups, cutlery, then the plates then do the pots, pans and oven trays. and she could do it no problem, but if you didnt tell her she didnt know what to do!

she would quite happily walk down the road (crossing the road) reading a book, just stepping out in to the road and couldnt see why this was a problem.

and i have to say my very clever dh, is also lacking in the common sence department

i have no advice but i can say that it seems to be a common theame amonst clever people! so you are definatly not alone.

No you can't teach common sense IMO. My DH is 40 he is amazingly intelligent but has zero absolutely zero common sense.
He couldn't work out if you defrosted frozen peas before you cooked them.

That's interesting Hassled. I wondered about some Dyspraxic traits when I read the OP.

Alligator - do any of the statements in this link strike a chord with you?

Thanks for the replies.

I hope she will get there in time. We do practise things together a lot, like crossing the road. The problems happen when she can't fit a situation into the rules she's been given. For example, we were once walking from school, there was quite a crowd of people, several families, and dd ended up with her friend and her friend's mum. She was halfway across the road with them, when she must have remembered she is supposed to wait and cross with me, so she RUNS BACK to me, causing a car to brake. Aargh...so now I get her to check the road for herself - re-programming again.

Hassled I have wondered about coordination issues - she is quite generally clumsy and falls more than my other 2 dcs. When she was little I just assumed that's what kids are like until I had more dcs who seemed much more aware of their bodies and capabilities. But she's very good at listening and following instructions, but they have to be specfic - just the same as addicated's sister doing the washing up!

alligator it sounds like you are doing a good job then, just keep telling her 'rules'

if it helps my sister now has a 1 year old and is very responsible and looks after her very well...apart from a few instances where my mum has had to tell her its ok to chnage the babys clothes more than once a day if they get dirty and to take a change of clothes with her when they go out. my sister does make me laugh sometimes!

oh and when she was weaning her she wouldnt feed her bread untill she was 7 months because of the wheat in it, but she was happy to give her soup because it was liquid, my mum had to point out it had a ton of salt in it and the bread was [probably the better option. (my sister also only takes direction form my mum no-one else)

but as your dd gets older and is put in more and moer situaltions she will get better, just keep telling her what to do in certain situations and one day she'll start to figure it out alittle bit.

Thanks addicted. I have got frustrated with her more than once and I know it's not helpful but I sometimes just can't believe what she does!

Littlefish just looked at the link - there are a couple of ticks like messy eating and general clumsiness but that's all. She reached developmental milestones very early, has always had excellent language skills then later reading and writing skills. When she was 6 her teacher did a reading assessment which came out at age 12 for both decoding and comprehension, so that's obviously a strength. I suspect the gap will have closed a bit now though.

She does lack creativity too - I've seen her use whole passages lifted from books or films in her school writing - she must have memorised them but her teacher obviously thought she had come up with it herself.

She LOVES structure and is always asking me what's happening on what day and at what time. Particularly when she was younger this meant she was very demanding and couldn't just play on her own. If I put a DVD on for her to get some peace she would come to me the second it finished to tell me it was finished and ask what she could do next. Better now she's at school and occupied more - I didn't know until I had more dcs that most kids just potter about a lot....!