I have a daughter who’s turning seven this fall. Where we live seven-year-olds start elementary school, and six-year-olds like my daughter go to pre-school. My daughter is very bright (she breezes through the pre-school, having been an avid reader for a couple of years now), but also has certain sides to her personality familiar to me that may come to haunt her like they haunted me.
My daughter is very self-conscious and visibly aghast of showing weakness or admitting failure in any way. The one thing in her pre-school diploma in the “Needs more practice” bracket is pencil grip. She was given a special learning pencil to work on her grip at home, but she flat out refuses to use it out of obvious fear of admitting she doesn’t know how to hold a pencil properly. When she does accomplish something, she quickly exclaims how extremely easy that was, even if moments ago she was struggling to get through. There’s no middle ground.
Unlike her 3 ½ YO brother, she never admits to bad behavior, cheating or lying, but relies on creative, convoluted excuses and stands by them to the end, even if we always encourage telling the truth within the family, in words and actions. She has strong opinions on most any matter, as if she already knew everything there is to know. Example: she sees Chinese-looking characters somewhere, and asks me if that is Chinese. I say I can’t tell if it’s Chinese or Japanese, to which she replies: “hmm…it’s Japanese, yes it is.” I’ve never heard her say: “I don’t know.”
She vehemently criticizes religion and Christianity, which surprises (and secretly amuses) me. Her mother and I are atheists but have never mocked Christianity in her presence, if for no other reason that almost all our relatives are devout Christians. She also loudly criticizes fat people, “ugly” clothing, dogs etc. – plenty of potential for awkward, alienating situations in the school yard.
I was very much like her as a kid, and things didn’t go all that smoothly. I was a straight-A student, but socially the inadvertent style of a superior, opinionated know-it-all was murder. Mom would smack me around for my commentary, peers would turn their backs. I was so afraid of failure that I ended up passing on most activities that would’ve been really good to me socially and physically, things that I’ve learned to tolerate and eventually enjoy only as an adult. As a kid I learned stuff on my own, in my own way, in my own little room.
It took me a long time to realize how little I really know, how off-putting opinionated know-it-alls are to others, and how very inferior it is to learn things on your own, with no support and no feedback. While very book-smart, it took me a ridiculous while to learn many basic things that my less-self-conscious, more sociable peers took to the natural way, by staying humble and just participating.
Even with my personal background, having little experience with six-year-olds and being somewhat socially clueless to this day, I’m at a loss as to how to breach the almost-impenetrable defenses my daughter has built around her, and how to give her keys to the humility, courage and balance that are needed for true learning and, ultimately, happiness. I hope she doesn’t have to go through everything I did, at a glacial pace. Any suggestions or perspective on how to deal with this is welcomed.
