Speeding up a slowcoach?

[AChickenCalledKorma]

Can I harness the collective wisdom of mumsnet for ways to help my daughter speed up.

She's 9 and in Yr5. Her teachers love her - no worries - very bright - pleasure to teach etc except the constantly recurring theme that she does everything very slowly. Getting ready for things takes forever. She's constantly distracted. Takes an age to pack her bag, get dressed, eat breakfast etc. She's always the last one out of her class.

There is an element of perfectionism. Her last teacher commented that it was hard to tell her off, because the reason she was slow was because she was doing things "properly". Like washing her hands exactly the way the school nurse showed them - which does, of course, take ages. And how can you tell her off for being hygienic?!

There is also an element of getting distracted. Why bother putting your pyjamas on efficiently if you can stare into space for 5 minutes and wonder why the sky is blue? But int he meantime, everyone else's blood pressure is escalating with the frustration of nagging her to get on with it.

And more seriously, she's getting to a level with school work where things are timed and she needs to complete work in an efficient manner. And I don't know how to help her speed up.

can't help i'm afraid as I could have written this post about my 6 yr old! Would also love some advice. we try to make things into a 'timed' game ie; can you get your pyjamas off in 10 seconds, do (simple) homework in 5 minutes etc etc. So far we have had some success with that but it's wearing off!

Another one marking my place to get some answers, although it is probably too late me me DD4 is 14 years old and still driving me absolutely insane every single morning, noon and night due to slowness! If there was an A level in daydreaming she would have passed by the age of 6!!
We have tried absolutely everything!! We even went through a stage of getting her up early in the morning so that she had time to get ready for school, when she didnt do it all on time she was woken up 15 minutes earlier the following day. When we got back to 5am we gave up!! I was not going to get up at 5am for her to leave at 8.30!! Back to 7am now, which should be plenty of time. (DS, DD1, DD2, DD3 takes 20minutes to do everything she takes 90 minutes to do!)

Hey ho!! I live in hope!!

Thanks for responding ladies. It's nice to know we're not alone at least. Bumping this up in case anyone has any great ideas? Please?!?!?!

Can't help, but dd (also 9 and in yr 5) is exactly the same . . .

if you're setting a time limit, eg 5 mins for getting dressed or writing 2 sentences, do you give her a kind of countdown? 'Ok, 2 mins left, you should be halfway through... 1 min left you should be nearly finishing...'
try playing games where the point is to beat the clock, ie filling a bucket with toys in less than a minute (can't think of a better example at the mo...) etc, so she can see being quick can be fun... silly things that have no bearing on success or being perfect.
have you tried using egg timers put right in front of her during a task, so she can literally see time going by, you can buy these in a variety of times/minutes.
is it specifically writing? does she like to have perfect handwriting and presentation? copying out some text from favourite stories might help, with a time limit. or ' i bet you can't copy out that page by the time i've done the dishes' and then have a definite reward if she can keep this up at school for a week.

DD (11) is exactly the same (sigh).

DS1 is exactly the same at 14 and if you try to rush him, he panics, thus slowing down even more. AT OT assessment, handwriting is not even on the 1st centile! We have other concerns but are being told he is fine/doesn't need any intervention!

My daughter was the same until we had her checked medically. It turned out that she was anemic. She is now on prescription iron medication and her speed has changed. She is never going to be the road runner but is definately no way near as slow as before.

Another DS just the same. (9 Y4) No magic answers here either.

And to be fair, I found my old school reports the other day and I was just the same.

Hmmm - iron levels is a thought. She's always been skinny, not a big meat eater and does need a lot of sleep. In some ways quite hyper (can't walk past a tree without climbing) but on the other hand burns off a lot of energy. And grinds to a complete halt when there is anything routine/boring to be done.

Handwriting is actually OK, in that she can write quite fluently. It's typing that's a complete disaster. But there is definitely a big perfectionist streak.

Hadn't thought of having an egg-timer variety of timer, so that she can see it. We do use the kitchen timer sometimes, but she tends to just squawk with surprise when it goes off!

Interesting thread. Another one with dd aged 9 in year 5, exactly as described above. Iron thing is interesting - wouldn't be at all surprised, as she eats v little meat/fortified cereal etc. How do you go about getting your dc tested?

Same here.

DS almost 7, bright, well-behaved, but painfully slow/perfectionist. With regards to his schoolwork, had a chat with his teacher last week and she thinks it may have something to do with the fact that he's left-handed and that when he first learned to write his work was scruffy. He now takes more pride in his work, wants it to be neat and so works slowly.

His drawings are very detailed, painstakingly coloured (and actually very good), and have a lot going on in them. He takes ages to get dressed/undressed and will often be distracted by something that pops into his head when he should be concentrating on a task.

We have started to use the kitchen timer and have had some success. Hope it lasts.

Do you think there is an extent to which they are suffering from a school culture which moves very quickly from one thing to another, in order to keep children engaged?

Am thinking of the day during the summer holidays when my daughter spent all afternoon doing a beautiful pencil drawing of a pear - sitting next to her very patient grandfather, who also loves art.

There is no chance whatsoever that she'd be able to spend that long on a piece of work at school. And the results were fantastic.

Of course, at other times, she just has her head in the clouds

In addition to helping her to speed up, might there also be some merit in getting her to see that not everything has to be "perfect"? Things that don't matter so much - packing up your things can be done quickly and imperfectly but without causing any problems for yourself.

It's about choosing the times to hurry, the times to sacrifice a little bit of pefection and the times to get it just right. Having the talent to sit and draw a fabulous picture is a great talent and not one you want to squash. Getting dressed quickly is a useful skill to have!

Destination - those are really helpful thoughts. You are right, there are a lot of different issues going on. Perfectionism is definitely an issue and she probably needs to work on her ability to decide when it's appropriate to spend a long time doing something well and when you just need to get cracking.

And no, I definitely don't want to squash her ability to concentrate on something for a long time and do it well.