At wits end with daughter

cookie54

we had this too with my son . Have a word with the brownie leader and explain what is going on and they may be able to change her group to a more friendly six group or have a general friendly chat with the group. They can also make allowance for her badge work so she diesn't fell under pressure or have to show it off to the rest of the group....... Could you work on a few badges at home on a mum and daughter bases and really praise her for it.

She may be finding the dance/ drama group going too quick with only verbal instructions not clear steps as per with D can have trouble remembering and following instructions so again have a word and see if that helps. The swiming is most likely to come with clear demo instructions so she knows what she is doing.

could she have just becoma aware that when she goes to her class that her little sister is getting all attention from you and she is aware that her dad isn't around as much and is just picking up on all the changes or could she be tired or hungry and just wants a rest after school.

RacyRed

averagemummy wrote: »

...Her teacher at school is also very positive, she gave daughter a good school report and said that daughter was progressing well, for her, and she was very pleased with daughter...

...She also goes to a drama/dance club on a Sunday afternoon, but it's turning into a battle to get her there. She says the other kids pick on her for getting stuff wrong and she just feels stupid.

OH is very keen for her to carry on with her clubs, especially the drama / dance club. He says she needs to feel good at something. I agree with this sentiment but daughter is often crying on the way to drama club.

Is your daughter being taught any coping mechanisms for dealing with dyslexia yet? If her diagnosis is recent then possibly not. That help will make a massive difference to her.

Why the "for her" in the above quote? She is progressing well and her teacher is pleased. Did that "for her" condition come from her teacher or from you? It turns something very positive into something quite negative by comparing her to other children.

Please, please, please don't force her into clubs like drama/dance. You are putting her into a situation where her dyslexia will be highlighted (reading from scripts, struggling to know her left from her right). Children in dance/drama groups are often very ambitious and can be pretty evil if they think someone is pulling the standard down. 8 is young to be put into such a potentially hostile situation. She may decide to join such an activity for herself when she is older but it sounds as if it is doing a lot more harm than good right now.

Find her activities, like the swimming, that will not highlight her dyslexia for now to increase her confidence. What about other sports or physical activities? Does she like animals? Riding, helping out at local animal rescues or similar may help her so much more. Animals do not judge and children involved with them tend not to either.

Your OH may not have the same level of dyslexia. A lot of my family are dyslexic but not all to the same degree. What worked for him may not work for her.

And as Seanymph says, make sure she understands what dyslexia is.

Please also do not be so determined she will not have medication. Her GP will not prescribe to someone so young lightly, but in some cases short term medication has a physical and positive effect on the brain. Would you be reluctant to let doctors set and plaster her arm if it was broken? This is not dissimilar.

Carl31

my oldest step daughter was diagnosed as being dyslexic about the same age as yours. After years of what appeared to be bullying at her last school, we moved her and her sister to another nearby primary, where they diagnosed it. The previous school didnt, meaning it went undetected for years, affecting her confidence and ability to socialise, as teachers were not aware, they were not helpful.

Its taken time, but shes better. Gone are the days of tears and uncontrollable tantrums (which were horrednous) due to not understanding why she couldnt keep up with the other kids, calling herself 'stupid' and 'thick'. She still struggles academically, but i think as she knows its something she has to accept wont happen naturally, she gets on best she can. Other than the fact she struggles, shes very academic from a trying stance.

It takes lots of encouragement and persaverance. Although we all want our kids to be brilliant and succesful, success doesnt have to come from being able to read and write, Our daughter is incredibly creative, so we encourage from that sense, plus fitness and exercise wise. She belongs to almost every club going at school, which also helps.

Friendships are difficult, I realised and read up on it and some dyslexics struggle as they are unable to 'read' people like those that are not dyslexic. Again, it took encouragement here, inviting friends over, arranging teas and days out, and that has improved.

I think it will be hard until they get to adulthood, but if they understand their difficulty, they can learn to live with it. You can buy these spelling calculator devices, its worth buying. The child can input a word (spelt incorrectly) and it suggests words it could be, i recommend one of those to help with school work

Seanymph

Sorry, I was so carried away I missed that bit - I also think you should never force her into situations she finds difficult.

As part of her package at college my daughter does not have to read out loud or present anything to class. This is I understand particularly traumatic for children with dyslexia, and although my daughter didn't ask for this she came home and cried with relief. She's 17 and has been forced to do it so far throughout her education - she has also done some drama, a summer school and been in school productions, but she's chosen them.

Your daughter knows best what is comfortable to her, what she feels able to do, and how her reasoning systems affect her.

You and your partner should be listening to her - not dimissing her. If she does a 'dramatic' everything is awful ask how you can make it better rather than saying 'don't be silly'.

But I certainly wouldn't be forcing social clubs onto her...... horse riding is brilliant and there are now stables set up for groups from addicts to autistic individuals, it's a solo activity with no pressure and it's all verbal - we had three horses for many years.

Skiing is another hobby of my daughters, trampolining and cross country - netball - pottery..... (or they were until she damaged her knee last year).

There are a LOT of options out there that do not involve driving a sobbing struggling child to a club she is begging not to go to.

You have to adjust your thinking now, and the most important thing you can do is listen and respect her - she will know more about how she feels about things than anyone else will.

oh, and does she have a mobile phone? My daughter says the predictive text on there has taught her spelling more than anything else in her life - she is now proficient enough that she can support the subjects she is doing.

duchy

OP I have a son who had similar issues at that age -Can I suggest a different approach as she has self esteem issues and struggles socially -drama and Brownies are both group activities so she is finding them tough as her social skills are not strong so the self esteem takes a knock too. How about a different type of activity -one that isn't so group focused- off the top of my head trampolining is good for this, judo is another -although they are group classes it isn't all dependent on good communication skills so she might enjoy them more-and of course if we enjoy something -we do better at it -and our self esteem increases. Once her confidence increases so will her social interaction within the class -and that will benefit her in all areas of socialization.

EDIT Is there a swimming club locally she could join ?

267

Molly41 wrote: »

it is quite likely that the dyslexia is masking a very intelligent little girl.

I would second this. A friend of mine has 3 children, the youngest of which is dyslexic. Although she is an adult now she was always encouraged to do things she enjoyed and wanted to do rather than things that "may help her". Now 23, she runs her own business, employs 2 others and has her own house & car.

I am sure if you think back to your own childhood you will remember that *anything* you were made to do, you hated ( it's the law :rotfl: ) stuff you chose for yourself was the best.

Let your daughter flourish, encourage, don't push. She is at a very sensitive time in her life, seeing her friends / peers progress and feeling left behind. Anything that heightens that feeling (drama club) will only darken the mood.

Do what so many of us fail to do these days, talk to your daughter but do it while you are doing something fun together so she doesn't feel she is being interrogated.

Can I also just point out ( and it isn't meant to offend ), your OH may be dyslexic but even if you are both only 25 the help and processes available in primary education have changed so much since he "went through the system", as to render his knowledge/experience almost obsolete.

lemontart

A couple of things stood out reading the post -that is that you struggle to get her to want to go to one of the extra curricular activities she does, and she does seem to do alot.

Perhaps drop the one she does not want to do and spend some time with her when your oh can take care of your other children, as you say she seems to get jealous of one of them when you pick them up.

A little mother daughter time for just the two of you is priceless and she may open up to you and tell you why she feels bad. Making special memories for just you two.

I have a younger brother who took all the attention shall we say to the point I felt not so much jealous but lost out on that time with my mother - suffice to say we are not close as I also have a much younger sister, I was basically left to get on with it, perhaps if my mother had made more time for just us it would be different, not blaming her at all - it is merely an observation.

My dad on the other had did make time to spend with each of us individually and I have some wonderful memories of those times when It was just dad and me to the exclusion of the world.

Sambucus_Nigra

OP - I agree that what she needs are coping strategies, an explanation of what her diagnosis means, additional help if she feels she doesn't understand things at school, and maybe a reassessment of her classes [would an arts/crafts based one help, where there was no reading/writing etc] and one where it's more likely that 'outsider' types would frequent.

My niece [9] has dyslexia and when she comes to stay she is 'let off' from doing any reading or writing based work but I tell her to bring her glasses [she has blue ones to help her see the words] just in case she wants to read something and so when we are doing stuff she does it without realising it. I never say 'lets sit down with your studies' I say 'lets research that plant or that insect or that 'thing'' and she runs to get them and sits there and reads to me without even being asked. And she draws and writes update messages to her parents whilst she is here. It's all in the 'how' you approach these things.

FBaby

Your priority is not dealing with the dislexia but her low self-esteem. Have you actually yourself assessed what is it she is GOOD at? There has to be something, maybe not obvious, maybe not a physical skill, but an special ability.

You need to start encouraging her to focus on what she is good at and arranging social activities around this, and teaching her to accept her limitations and how you can cope with them.

The worse you can do is to force her to get involved in things that are not just her. If she is shy, forcing her to do drama so that she can learn to be less shy is only going to make introvert into herself even more.

Talk to her a lot and listen attentively. If she tells you that she is upset because she didn't do so well at an exam than her friends, tell her that it is harder for her because of her being dyslexic, which doesn't mean she is any less worthy, but that it will be take her longer and maybe demand more hard work to do certain things, however, she is lucky to be very good at -say art- and her friends probably wish they could be as creative than her when ask to draw something. Tell her yourself and her teacher will help her finding ways to make it easier for her, that it might take some time, but like everything, the more your practice, the better you get and then you don't think about it any longer, just like she learnt to walk as a baby.

Mojisola

We paid for an assessment by one of the national dyslexia organisations which not only highlighted exactly what my son's problems were but also what his strengths were. It encouraged him a lot because it showed that he was years ahead of his peers in some areas.

Dyslexia only causes problems in our society because it's based on the written word. We talked to my son about how a dyslexic brain isn't faulty but wired differently so that he is good at things the rest of us struggle with. The trick is to find areas to work and play in that let a dyslexic use these valuable skills.

Many dyslexics have amazing spacial awareness. My son went to pottery evening classes and the adults were in awe of him because he could "see" the way a finished piece of work should look before he started on it, in a similar way to those computer programmes that let you move an object around and look at it from all angles.

He also thinks laterally very easily. We would be discussing a problem at home and getting nowhere with it when he would pipe up "Why don't you do this and this?" with exactly the solution.

My son has also found having software on the computer that reads to him very beneficial. Years of looking at the words and hearing them spoken back have improved his language skills.

He loves the spoken software on his Kindle and has been able to devour books that were beyond him before. He usually reads it at the same time as listening. Whereas before he would have got stuck on certain words and lost the flow of the story, he now hears the word and is able to carry on enjoying the book.