Getting DD to try harder

[Anonymous]

My DD is a great 4.5 year old, but she gives up so quickly, on everything! If she's drawing a picture and it doesn't come out immediately, she won't try again. Getting dressed or undressed, she'll get tangled up in her clothing and immediately ask for help. Same with reading. Same with every little thing. She just says, "I can't do it. Mommy, help." This is true of both home and preschool. When I encourage her and tell her to try again, or that I know she can do it, she'll start to either cry or giggle and change the subject. Lots of times, she won't even initially try, just says she can't do something I ask her to do, things that are well within her abilities.

Is this laziness? Perfectionism? Something else?

How can I get her to try past the first 30 seconds?

[Anonymous]

It's hard to offer advice w/o knowing your DD, but you could try praising all attempts she makes, being sure to accept things she does herself- even when they aren't perfect, and making it obvious when you make mistakes and try again or something is hard for you. ("Wow, this is hard, I'll have to try again", or "whoops, that didn't work, I'll have to try something else").

Another thing is to not offer help right away, ask her to try again and tell her you'll be there in a minute (helps if there is something you are doing)

She is only 4 and a half and in preschool, so stick with things that you know she can do. I'd wait and work on reading/pre-reading skills in Kindergarten (still earlier than I think many kids are ready, but that's how school is today)

[Anonymous]

First of all, I would recommend that you read the book "Nurture Shock" by Bronson and Merryman. They are researchers that have compiled studies and it helps you think about children in a different way. This may not be the issue with your daughter but you may want to consider how you praise your daughter. The first chapter is "The Inverse Power of Praise." Fantastic read. What do you praise your child about? Do you say things like, "Good job", "Excellent", Wonderful" and things like that? or things like, "You kept trying!", "You didn't give up!" You may want to think about how you say things and the meaning she hears behind them. Is the end product the most important thing or is it the process?

Perhaps you have been doing this already. What do you do when she gives up? Help her? Do it for her? This is not meant to be an "It's all your fault she's like this" post, at all! You know your child. Is she lazy? Is she afraid of failure?

[Anonymous]

If she can do it for herself, don't get in her way by being there to "help" if she runs into difficulty.

She gets twisted in her sweater? Let her know not to worry, you'll be in the kitchen drinking tea until she's ready to go. Then relax and wait.

Do you remember "The Lion Hunt" song from camp? It describes different obstacles people face on a lion hunt and how to surmount them. Teach DD the song and sing it often.

http://www.theteachersguide.com/Songs/goingonalionhunt.htm

A cabbie once told me that the only things you need in life are Patience and Fortitude. Sounds like you'll have to practice one of these virtues in order to instill the other in your DD. It's worth it!

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

OP here - thank you for the advice. Keep it coming....and I've already ordered "Nurture Shock". I'm hoping it gives me some insight.

Here's the thing with things like the sweater from 21:26's example - she gets tangled up but instead of trying to get herself out even for a moment, she starts crying and gets hysterical. With other things, she'll just sit there yelling for help and that she can't do whatever it is. Then she'll just sit and do nothing. She won't try again for anything. It's little things and big things. It's just so odd, because she's a really capable kid. She taught herself to read just before age 4 (but as soon as she hits a word she can't read, she'll just stop), took her 10 minutes to learn to tie her shoes. Things come so easily to her that the first tiny obstacle just throws her totally off.

Her preschool teacher thinks she just doesn't have confidence in herself. If that's the issue, how can I help her build this? Personally I don't think that's what's going on though.

[Anonymous]

I find my kids use this as a stalling tactic all the time. Sometimes it's also a matter of attention span and distractedness too, OP. They lose all track of what they were doing. At this age there's a lot of that. If she gets mixed up and asks for help, try verbally putting her back on track, like with the clothes and chores -- What's the first step? How do we unload the dishwasher? How do you get a sweater off? You can try humor too. Do these socks go on your nose? Do these toys go in the refrigerator?

For the picture that doesn't come out right, I wouldn't make her "try again." Let her move on to another activity. Maybe she'll come back to it on her own, maybe she won't. Kids flit from play activity to play activity at this age, and that's perfectly appropriate. It doesn't necessarily mean she's lazy, perfectionistic, or anything else.

[oahulisa]

Anonymous wrote:First of all, I would recommend that you read the book "Nurture Shock" by Bronson and Merryman. They are researchers that have compiled studies and it helps you think about children in a different way. This may not be the issue with your daughter but you may want to consider how you praise your daughter. The first chapter is "The Inverse Power of Praise." Fantastic read. What do you praise your child about? Do you say things like, "Good job", "Excellent", Wonderful" and things like that? or things like, "You kept trying!", "You didn't give up!" You may want to think about how you say things and the meaning she hears behind them. Is the end product the most important thing or is it the process?

Perhaps you have been doing this already. What do you do when she gives up? Help her? Do it for her? This is not meant to be an "It's all your fault she's like this" post, at all! You know your child. Is she lazy? Is she afraid of failure?

I second this advice. Nurture Shock was an awesome read.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD is a great 4.5 year old, but she gives up so quickly, on everything! If she's drawing a picture and it doesn't come out immediately, she won't try again. Getting dressed or undressed, she'll get tangled up in her clothing and immediately ask for help. Same with reading. Same with every little thing. She just says, "I can't do it. Mommy, help." This is true of both home and preschool. When I encourage her and tell her to try again, or that I know she can do it, she'll start to either cry or giggle and change the subject. Lots of times, she won't even initially try, just says she can't do something I ask her to do, things that are well within her abilities.

Is this laziness? Perfectionism? Something else?

How can I get her to try past the first 30 seconds?

I actually don't think it is possible for a 4.5 year old to be lazy! She sounds like a perfectly normal child for her age.

[Anonymous]

I don't think this is a confidence thing. Seems like that's just something teacher's love to say about little girls in particular. I think you've got a savvy darling, who knows that mommy will take care of anything that she asks. All the LO needs to do is wait you out!

Put the responsibility for these things back on her, Mom. Wait her out while expressing support and confidence in her ability to get it done.

Remember how utterly hopeless sleep-training seemed right up until the moment it worked?!! Same here.

[Anonymous]

I have not read NurtureShock, but a book that directly addresses this is Mindset by Carol Dweck. I really recommend it. I got it from the library, but she has a website that gives an overview of the basic premise.

http://mindsetonline.com/whatisit/about/index.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have not read NurtureShock, but a book that directly addresses this is Mindset by Carol Dweck. I really recommend it. I got it from the library, but she has a website that gives an overview of the basic premise.

http://mindsetonline.com/whatisit/about/index.html

I wouldn't waste my time reading this. It basically says that you should encourage a child by praising his/her effort instead of his/her ability/acheivement to foster a "growth" mindset as a opposed to a negative or closed mindset. Not a bad message, but one sentence sums up the entire book.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I encourage her and tell her to try again, or that I know she can do it, she'll start to either cry or giggle and change the subject.

I agree with a lot of the other comments. One additional point that may or may not be relevant. I don't know how you're saying it, but it's possible to sound over-confident about a person's ability, and thereby stress them out. For myself, I realized towards the end of my school years that when I had a big exam or defense that I was worried about, it was really frustrating to have people say, "I know you can do it! You'll be great!" In fact, it stressed me out more. What if I couldn't do it? What if I wasn't great? I knew they were trying to be supportive, but what I hoped to hear was something that would validate my worries, at least a little, rather than stating my success as if it were a done deal. (That said, I might also have cringed if the person was overly pessimistic: "you must be so worried!" There has to be a happy medium.)