When DS doesn't feel like doing something, he pretends he doesn't know how.

[minkajane]

DS is 5.5. He has been doing this for a couple of years. If he doesn't feel like doing something or gets tired of it, he pretends he doesn't know how to do it, even if he knew a second ago. Today, he was halfway through a reading worksheet and suddenly started asking me what every single letter said, letters he knew two words (or in one case, 2 seconds) before.

At the moment, we can just put whatever we're doing aside when he starts this and come back to it. But we're doing Connections Academy and he'll have a schedule starting in two weeks. He needs to sit down and do something start to finish. Even if we're able to stop and start, it's a bad habit to have to pretend you don't know something just because you don't feel like doing it. He really doesn't get it when I say it's like lying to pretend you don't know something when you do, but I don't know how else to explain it to him that this is NOT ok, that he needs to tell me he needs a break or something. How else am I supposed to tell if he's really struggling with something or if he just doesn't feel like doing it or is tired of it for the moment?

Anybody else have this issue? How do you deal with it?

[RiverSky]

I think he does that because he's 5.

Kids in school do that, too, only frequently a teacher wouldn't even notice, because she/he would be busy with 20-30 other kids.

I say don't worry so much and continue on as you are.

[Lillian J]

This is very, very common, especially with such young children - there are periodic threads about it here.

What most posters respond is the feeling that a child doing that is either feeling pressured more than he's comfortable with at a particular age (5 is awfully young for formal studies), or is not comfortable having to continually feed back knowledge he already knows. Or it just feels like tedious work that doesn't make sense to him in terms of any real reason for it that he can relate to. In other words, if he already knows the material that's on the page, there generally isn't a good reason to be repeating it, and it can feel like frustrating busy work. So sometimes just automatically feigning blankness might just be the only tool/language such a very young child has for saying he wants out. It isn't a habit - it's a coping mechanism, and it passes. I'd try getting away from work pages and getting more simple and irect about what's on them - it often takes very little effort to learn something more simply and directly as compared to going through a lot of tedious work page repetition.

I'm not sure I'm expressing myself well today - in fact, I'm pretty sure I'm not - very tired and distracted - but I'll see if I can find links to some of the other threads where this has been discussed at length. Lillian

[Lillian J]

Originally Posted by RiverSky

I think he does that because he's 5.

Kids in school do that, too, only frequently a teacher wouldn't even notice, because she/he would be busy with 20-30 other kids.

I say don't worry so much and continue on as you are.

I hate it when I go on and on and then find someone has just posted the same thing in a few succinct words! - Lillian

[Princess ConsuelaB]

Originally Posted by RiverSky

I think he does that because he's 5.

Kids in school do that, too, only frequently a teacher wouldn't even notice, because she/he would be busy with 20-30 other kids.

I say don't worry so much and continue on as you are.

This is very, very common, especially with such young children - there are periodic threads about it here.

What most posters respond is the feeling that a child doing that is either feeling pressured more than he's comfortable with at a particular age (5 is awfully young for formal studies), or is not comfortable having to continually feed back knowledge he already knows. Or it just feels like tedious work that doesn't make sense to him in terms of any real reason for it that he can relate to.

That too.

[RiverSky]

Originally Posted by Lillian J

I hate it when I go on and on and then find someone has just posted the same thing in a few succinct words! - Lillian

Actually, Lillian, I think you hit it on the head, talking about how he's likely bored with what is being taught, that perhaps the lesson has gone on too long for him, and he's just trying to end it whatever way he can figure out to end it.

I've heard from school-at-homers in our group that 5 year olds can generally only sit for 5-10 minutes at a time focused on a "lesson". OP, are you going longer than that?

[One_Girl]

My dd does this sometimes and it is very irritating. When it is in reading I give her the first sound or the first two sounds for a long word and she goes on from there. I sometimes tell her to stop and take a break and she either goes to play or I read one of the books she picked out from the library and we come back to the work later. I don't change that days work, but I do make sure we move on to something else or shorten up how much we focus on something if she is getting bored with the work. I also try to find a way to make it more engaging if it is something essential but somewhat boring. I have a college nearby with a library anyone can use, though you have to be a student to check out, so I like to go there and get ideas for math and reading games to make these subjects funner. They have a lot of ideas for games that are easy to make with paper and sometimes a dice. If you google phonics or math games for teachers you may come up with some fun ideas you can make at home.

[Lillian J]

I found a couple of the threads I was thinking about earlier:

DS is continuing the "playing dumb" routine and I'm about to lose my mind!

Worried that I won't succeed at teaching - this one has links to a number of other good threads that touch on this subject.

Lillian

[minkajane]

That first link was actually me. This has been going on for quite some time. We try to do short lessons and take lots of breaks, but when school starts, we have to get things done that need to be done on a certain schedule. We need to figure out how to either just push through things or help DS let me know we need to work on something else for a while.