My kid's an idiot

Factual Questions
1

Okay, maybe not quite, but I’m not in the mood to mince words and make all nicy nice about the situation.

Here’s the deal. She’ll be 10 in about a month, she has scored in the bottom 25% on the Iowa basic skills test. She has difficulty reading at her grade level and doesn’t like to read, she struggles through normal tasks that any other 10 year old ought to do. When I talk to her friends they seem much more articulate and coordinated than she is. I haven’t decided if she really is stupid or just lazy and doesn’t want to work hard for acheivement. Mom’s not much help yet (I’ve been stepdad for 1 year), she’s always giving excuses for the failures and behavior…i.e. the kid is sick, she didn’t get much sleep last night…she’s tired… she’s not used to this school environment…etc. We have her enrolled in Sylvan for reading which seems to help some but the school work still sucks and the maturity level isn’t something that can be taught. Of note (maybe) is that Mom has always been overprotective of the kid and likely has kept her UNDERstimulated.

So what’s the general question?

  1. Can the kid be worked with to improve her standing or is this something that is pretty well set at this age. (I’ve already heard the wimp-out terms like “not necessarily.” That just sounds like someone being “polite and PC” and doesn’t tell me anything.)

  2. If the kid can improve, what can we do as parents to improve the performance. Anything I can do specifically?

  3. If anyone has experience with kids in general can you give guesses, statistics, gut feelings about the likelyhood and degree of improvement we might be able to achieve? (The people who have told me she isn’t necessarily doomed to the bottom of the fish bowl have never given me evidence to hang my hat on. I suspect they are “just being nice.”)

  4. If she is destined to be struggling with this for the rest of her life, what can we do as parents and a family to cope with her struggles?

2

First of all, being in the bottom 25% isn’t all that bad. Take four kids at random, and on average, one of them is going to be that low or lower. Exactly what tasks are she struggling with, that you think she shouldn’t? What indications are there of a low maturity level? More details would help a lot. It’s very possible, for instance, that she’s terrible in language skills, but average or above in math (or vice versa), for an average at the 25th percentile.

As far as general advice, the only thing I can say at this point is to get her interested in reading. Get her a library card, if she doesn’t have one already, and find subjects or genres she’s interested in and help her pick out books in those areas. You might want to ration the time she can spend on TV or video games (usually harmless, but they take up time), but let her read as much as she wants, whenever she wants.

3

I’d second that. I am not a parent, and I am in NO position to offer “expert” advice. But… (here I go) she is your step kid, her mom’s new marriage has probably been a big adjustment for her, she’s probably a bit “off” her normal self right now. You know her better than the rest of us, so YMMV.

And, I just have to get back to the reading thing. In my not-so-humble opinion, reading is where it’s at. Reading for enjoyment, anything. Get your daughter Nancy Drew books, or something simular, and get her excited about reading. Have a “family hour” and read aloud to the family. This sounds lame, but it really is great, and it encourages kids to read on their own. I am a grown (oh, way grown - I feel elderly!) woman, and I still enjoy this. I have “read” books with my (even more elderly) mom. We just sit around and read to each other. It’s so “retro”! Kind of takes you back to the olden days before TV! It is a very cool way to spend an evening, IMO.

Growing up in a family where reading, reading, reading, reading aloud, reading some more, really helped me in school. And I found that my peers in school who did not read regularly had a much tougher time of it.

4

I agree with Chronos’s advice above, but would also like to add - DO NOT PUSH THE CHILD TOO HARD TO EXCEED. Be very careful about this. I understand that as a parent, you need to push some, but do not put high expectations on her that may make her lose self-confidence in her abilities should she fail to meet those expectations.

I come from the other side of the coin here. In kindergarten I was reading at the 4th grade level. When other kids my age were just learning algebra, I had already learned geometry, trigonometry and calculus. But my parents still pushed for me to do more and excel, while I was getting sick of it. I was already well above my peers intellectually, but suffering socially. By the time I was a junior in high school, I hated school. I felt I had nothing more to learn there. My grades plummeted. I skipped school and started getting into trouble. I skipped college to go to the military. I did this as an act of rebellion for all the years of being pushed to exceed academically. My point is be careful not to substitute one aspect of the child’s well-being for another.

And how long has she been at Sylvan? These things take time, you know. And for the record, I don’t believe she is too old to show a marked improvement. Like Chronos said, keep her reading. Don’t force books down her throat though, find a topic she’s interested in and let her read books about that. I started reading horror and sci-fi, this lead to me reading Edgar Allen Poe and the Odyssey and the Iliad. From there I branched out to read all sorts of classic literature, all because the first real novel I read was something that interested me - the Shining by Stephen King. So let her read what she wants to read now and it will grow with time.

5

Sigene: there might be zillions of reasons: from bad tests to learning disabilities to “stupidfity”. I’d contact a GOOD child psycologist/pediatrician to make a correct diagnosis, if possible. Then play it accordingly: incite her interst, discipline her, etc. But if she is naturally “stupid” (not all of us are born geniuses), do not push her becase it may cause rejection and no results. Instead try to uncover what’s is not on the serface: she may succed in spotrs, music, performing arts, as a scout guide, etc. Ever noticed how many Hollywood stars are utterly stupid?

6

As the father of a very bright daughter with some quite serious, maturity level related behavioral issues I will tell you will all due candor that there are real limits to what you as an individual can accomplish. If her true functional intellect has limits you will simply need to work within those limits and adjust your expectations accordingly. To do otherwise is to doom yourself, the child (and mostly likely your marriage as well) to a whirling maelstrom of mutual aggravation.

While not a big fan of psychologists and counselors etc in general, in this case I think it would benefit you to get a professional third party like a child psychiatrist (not a psychologist or counselor) to give her a full evaluation. Explain your concerns prior to her being seen and tell the doctor you are looking for specific guidance as to her innate scholastic intelligence and what realistic expectations should be regarding her abilities.

This is the best way to get the real world “handle” you are looking for regarding the best way to proceed and frankly a lot of it is just going to involve muddling through. There is typically no “nose to grindstone, work harder, work faster” solutions in these situations.

As a final point, in the same spirit of “not mincing words and making all nicy nice about the situation” your subject line made me want to reach out through the internet and smack you upside the head. It really is beside the point how pissed you are at this not too bright kid for whatever numerous failings she and her mother may have. Despite your “help me fix it” questions, your attitude is seething hostility and frustration and I can’t imagine what it would be like to have you as a disappointed step dad if I was a child with some serious problem.

Despite your desire to “fix” the situation you need to step back and get some perspective and not make yourself and your frustrated attitude part of the problem.

7

Thanks for the replies so far.

Per Chronos;

She struggles in everything it seems. The Iowa Basic Skills Test was broken down into several subjects…all of which were poor. Her best score was in science which was shy of the 50th percentile. We have a library card more about that later. We are trying to get her interested in reading with some success but not much in my opinion

yosemitebabe

She claims to like Nancy Drew (I think because mom did) though I have never seen her actually read the books (they seem too advanced for her) She has taken them to school for “reading day” and I know all she had done was sit in the corner and fiddle fart around without reading it.

We went to the library last week she was looking for Nancy Drew. I found a scary story book for kids and suggested it. She said “that would be fine and now I ready to go.” Now she doesn’t want to read it because it wasn’t the book she wanted. She doesn’t want to read… she just wants us to think she wants to read.

Crunchy Frog

I can relate to your point. I don’t want to push too hard and Mom brings that up too (though I don’t think she pushes hard enough. She’s been in Sylvan for about 5 months of a 12 month program.
She already suffers socially too, because of this or other problems, She seems withdrawn, not wanting to try new things, and not very active. Always at the end of the line for anything, not playing games with the other kids. I think she already is recognizing she is different which concerns me because her self esteem is already too low. Which is why I have asked if she has to struggle what can we do to make it easier.

8

Points well taken astro

9

  1. Turn OFF the TV (or limit it to one show a day).

  2. Read aloud to her.

  3. Be prepared for her to never quite measure up. (I am generally an opponent of “intelligence” tests for a number of reasons, but the Iowa does a reasonable job of indicating what a kid can actually accomplish.)
    I also support the idea of a thorough check-up. You may want to consider family counseling to help her cope with the social skills. (Individual therapy is OK for resolving specific trauma, but to create a setting in which she will move ahead while living in the family, the whole family needs to be involved in the therapy/counseling.)

10

My heart goes out to this girl!

Bravo tomndebb, I think the suggestion of keeping the TV time to one hour is great. When I was growing up, we had less than that! My sisters and I were so bored in the summertime, we had to read, to do something!

And yes, like tomndebb and I have been saying, read aloud to her. This not only encourages her to want to read on her own, but the time spent reading aloud to her is giving her one-on-one time with the family. Lots of loving attention, a “bonding” experience. It is a win-win thing all around.

Perhaps you can read aloud Nancy Drew to her. Looking back, I don’t think I was reading Nancy Drew at age 10. I discovered Nancy Drew at age 12. Of course, I have no idea if Nancy Drew was above my reading level at age 10, or not. I had pretty good reading skills at that age. (Mostly because our mom read to us, and we rarely got to see the TV!)

Look for books that are geared towards 8-9 year olds, and see if she’ll read that. Also, I still remember having “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” read aloud to me. I can’t remember at what age, but it probably was at about your daughter’s age. It is a wonderful book to read aloud to a kid.

11

Sigene,

Did you bother to discuss with your wife before you got married how bothered you were about your stepdaughter’s lack of achievement and how much control you would have over your stepdaughter? Forget for a second about your relationship with your daughter and think about your relationship with your wife. If your concerns were suddenly sprung on her after you got married, there could be real problems here with your marriage. These sorts of things need to be decided before you get married. If suddenly after you got married she discovers that you think you should be responsible for your stepdaughter’s academic life, she might justifiable be angry with you. Some remarried parents are quite insistent that a stepparent is not a parent and has no final say about what should be done with the children.

12

That’s a good suggestion, and there’s always the currently popular Harry Potter series. Let her pick the books though. If she isn’t interested in the subject matter of the books, she won’t be interested in reading them.

13

First of all: the simple question. Initiate a Reading Hour with your daughter every night. I think the best time is her current bedtime. This confuses the issue of force. You are ‘making’ her read – which could be construed as punishment, but you are also extending her bedtime by an hour – giving her an extra privilege. After all, if she equates reading with punishment, she’ll never learn to like it.

Number 1: Go to the library or bookstore – by yourself, at first – and pick out several books you think she’ll like. I realize that most people say that kids should choose their own reading material, but I disagree – at least when it comes to reluctant readers. Because she doesn’t know what type of book she likes yet, she’ll be likely to pick something faddish – like Harry Potter – or ‘safe’ like Nancy Drew. These books are going to be much to hard for her. Choose books that are unquestionably within her capability. What you need are beginning chapter books. I recommend the Magic Treehouse series – easy, interesting and engaging. If you don’t think those will appeal to her, look around that same section – at Waldenbooks it is marked 6 - 8 years old. There are a lot of series books in this age range – there are even some simplified Nancy Drew mysteries that she may enjoy.

Number 2: That night at her usual bedtime (let’s say 8:00) tell her it is ‘reading hour.’ Have her get into bed and read the first chapter of a book to her.

Number 3: At the end of chapter one, give her the book and leave the room. No activity except reading is allowed during Reading Hour. Lights out at the end of the hour (9:00 if her bedtime had been 8). Do not test her the next day to find out if she really read during the remainder of the hour. You want her to learn to like to read – and she will not like an activity that leads to an Inquisition. Instead, talk to her about the book casually. If she enjoyed the book and actually read some of it, then…

Number 4: …continue on with it the next night, using the same procedure. You start out reading to her, then leave her alone to continue. Or…

Number 4a: …if she obviously did not try any reading on her own, then put the first book away without comment and try another. Eventually, you will find one she enjoys and is engaged by. If you’re lucky you’ll find a series she enjoys and is engaged by – this will simplify the search process for you.

Eventually, you can phase out your own participation and just send her to bed with her book at Reading Hour. This method made readers out of both of my kids.

Now for the harder part: This poor little girl has obvious problems and needs some help. I very much second the idea of a medical/ psychiatric checkup. And I really, really agree with Tom’s notion that you all need some family counseling. Frankly, I found your hostility to the child to be both obvious and distressing. Her mother, whatever her deficits, loves the kid and will always love her whatever her intellect. You need to decide if you can learn to do the same. If you find that you absolutely can’t love ‘an idiot’ then you need to learn how to interact with her in a way that does not damage her further.

14

My daughter is dyslexic, so that is one of the first things I thought of. I don’t know if Sylvan is competent to treat dyslexia. I took my daughter to a psychiatrist, who tested her, found the dyslexia, and treated her for depression (she was depressed because she couldn’t do what the other kids were doing). I then hired a reading tutor on the recommendation of the shrink. I took Lisa to this tutor 3 times a week, for an hour each time, for a year or so. The tutor specialized in dyslexic kids, and made a big difference. This wasn’t a classroom setting, Lisa and the tutor went one-on-one for these visits, plus she had extra exercises that she worked on at home, both alone and with my help. In addition, we upped the story telling time in the house, on the recommendation of the tutor, and we chose more complex stories. We went through everything Beverly Cleary wrote, I believe. We also went through just about every Diana Wynne Jones book that I could find. It was Diana Wynne Jones who got Lisa to read for pleasure, I stopped reading at the end of a chapter, and Lisa said that she wanted to keep reading. I told her that I was done for the night, but that she could keep reading to herself…and so she did.

I also agree that the OP’s attitude isn’t much help. But enough has been said about that.

15

Reflecting the above: keep in mind that stepfathers, for all good intentions, are notoriously tough on stepchildren. There is little enough in your post to suggest that you hold this child dear to you. I assume you love her (Lord help her if you dont’t). Make sure that she knows that, never doubts it, would never hesitate to come to you for help.

TO hell with achievement! Screw the test scores! Give the child a father, the world will supply her with challenges, judges, etc. You are (it seems) the only man in a position to provide a loving father. Make that your primary reponsibility.

And for the love of God, don’t ever ever let her find out that you described her as an idiot!!

16

A very small addition

Your librarian can really come in handy here. There are a number of old children’s books (the “Miss Pickerel” series comes to mind) that always leaves the main character in a cliffhanger at the end of each chapter.
“What happens next?”
“We’ll find out tomorrow.”
That got me frustrated enough to want to find out myself.

Tom mentioned turning off the TV. When that set does go on can you make use of the numerous fun-to-learn programs available on daytime PBS? They’re best if watched together and discussed afterward.

17

I am a step parent and it was probably the hardest most difficult part of this marriage for me.

Your post reeks of hostility and anger towards this child. It’s not PC or patronising to say that a child has learning disabilities and need more support. It’s just reality for some kids. FWIW 60% of kids who test at the profoundly gifted level (180 and above) also have learning disabilities or ADHD. Learning disabilities are not a result of laziness - the results of the learning disabilities can be despair and giving up.

Where’s her mum in all this? have you guys tried counselling to sort out some boundaries here?

How much assessment and identification of actual LD’s has been done? IMO there’s not much point in doing remedial work until the actual problem is identified. Find a good psychologist to do some LD testing.

Good luck with it all

18

Forty-something mother of 3 here. I’d second what Astro and Wendell Wagner said, although I’d hold off on the smack upside the head. :slight_smile: Actually, kudos to you for caring enough to get involved with this kid.

Still, my preliminary take on the problem would be, more or less, “Why is it YOUR problem?” You’re “The Stepfather”, you’ve only been in her life for 12 months, and she’s probably been “like this” since she was 4 or 5. I’d have to ask, “Why do you feel obligated somehow to ‘fix’ her?” She and her mother have evolved their own little dance of inter-personal relations, and you can’t expect to just jump in and start dancing.

You can’t “make” a kid be bright. It’s 50% heredity and 50% environment, and either way, it’s out of your jurisdiction. You weren’t there during the years it took her to get to this point. I’d say, encourage her to read, maybe try to find motivational things to help her do better in school, but otherwise, try to relax and enjoy her for the person she is.

Oh, and don’t get hypnotized by test scores, they don’t prove a darn thing. Each one of my kids has always tested just fine on those CAT and Iowa tests, and up until this spring I was seriously (VERY seriously :frowning: ) concerned that the high school kid had something wrong with her because she didn’t like to read, that the middle school kid was going to flunk out of sixth grade because he just wasn’t doing the work, and that the 3th-grader was going to have to go into some kind of remedial math program because her teacher kept telling me at conferences, “She’s not getting the hang of this math at all.”

So now, they are all fine, normal kids, and they have other strengths that don’t show up on the Iowa tests or in the grade books. And I’ll bet a nickel that if you’ll look around, you’ll discover that your stepdaughter also has one or two phenomenal strengths that nobody has noticed because they’ve been so focused on her reading skills. Maybe she’s the one who makes friends with the new kid, or maybe she just hates story problems but is good at long division.

Here’s something else to think about: We eventually found out that the reason La Principessa was flunking 3rd grade math was because the teacher was assuming she knew her times tables, and she didn’t. So we worked with flash cards on those, and poof! Her math grade went up. Maybe your stepdaughter is lacking a basic skill of some kind but nobody has noticed. Kids can fake it to an amazing degree, if nobody’s been paying attention.

One final piece of advice. Find some positive way to motivate her. Parental nagging doesn’t work. Bonzo nearly flunked out of both 6th and 7th grade before we discovered what makes his clock tick–a color GameBoy. He retains custody of it only as long as his grades are above a C. If he brings home a report card with anything below a C, or if we get a letter from a teacher stating that he has failed to hand in 3 assignments (which means 3 zeros), he loses custody of the thing until the next report card, which could conceivably be as long as 9 weeks. He went from C’s and D’s to A’s and B’s in one grading period. (Sorry, not really meaning to brag here, just illustrating a point.)

So, find something she likes, or wants, and work out a deal. Ten is old enough to understand that (and no, she’s not “set”. Nobody is ever “set” until they’re cold in their coffins.)

Whatever you do, once you start, DON’T QUIT. That will send an even worse message to her–“you’re hopeless.” Find ways to increase her self-esteem. Compliment her (sincerely) on things she IS good at. Psychologists tell us that the one thing that keeps teens from premarital sex and unplanned pregnancies is “high self-esteem”. You need to start laying the groundwork now for 4 years down the road. If she really likes herself, because she sees that other people like her, she’ll be less likely to end up in the back seat of some football player’s car, and you’ll be less likely to become a step-grandpa in the year 2005.

19

Don’t let her go overboard with the reading either because at that young a age it would make you nearsighted.

For the books I would suggest

harry potter

Historical fiction and autobiographys of girls about her age.(my sisters the same age and she likes both)

20

Has she been tested for dyslexia? That and ADD (undiagnosed) were my basic problems in school.

Oh yeah, & the fact that I was a hyperactive little maniac.

I think everybody here is right on track. Have her tested, take an active interest, read together.

Gee, yr a buncha smart cookies!