Help me with my doesn't-want-to-try 6yo

[Pepe]

Does anyone have experience with such a kiddo?  DS is 6 and is in what I hope is a phase and not a permanent approach to life.  He seems to have some real barriers to TRYING to learn or do something, whether it's riding a bike, tying shoes, or practicing reading.  He's been reading since last November but he hates practicing, and we find it important to practice at home for the obvious reasons and because he's in a dual immersion program and we need to keep up the English at home. 

As a kid, I was a perfectionist and afraid of failure.  DH and I were both rather physically cautious kids though we are now normal adults.  :)  Perhaps our tendencies, whether genetic or otherwise, are a part of this--eek, have we "done this" to him? We are trying to decide what we need to encourage and what we can let go of--some things will just take time, and if he's not ready to do them, no rush.  We encourage effort, we don't show our frustration or concern, and we don't compare him to anyone else.

Our biggest concern is to see how the school year goes in first grade, which started the other day.  I know that some children relate differently to their parents as opposed to other adults in their life--and this phase seemed to start at the beginning of the summer when we were trying to maintain some of his skills.

Please advise!  Thanks.

[Mummoth]

My son didn't like to try things until he was relatively sure he could do them. He didn't realize it's normal to try and try something before you succeed. I would point out to him when I saw a kid practicing something, that there are some things that take time to learn. I think he started paying attention to other kids at school, and saw that they weren't always perfect at things... at any rate, it's a lot less of an issue at 9 as it was at 6. I found the teachers were way better at getting him to try than I was when it came to reading.

[LynnS6]

Our son has this tendency as well. We saw a huge change around 8-9 too. Before then he didn't get the point of practicing anything.

Things that helped:

Point out to him often things that he has learned to do. "Remember that 3 months ago, it was hard for you to go even 2-3 rungs on the monkey bars. Look how far you got today!" Pointing out incremental progress is really important. Get out some books, for example, that he struggled with at the beginning of the year last year. Have him read one or two and remark -- remember how hard that one was for you last year?

Tell him stories of when YOU failed. My kids love hearing stories about when I messed up or something didn't go right for me. (Even the story of how I arrived at work one day with 2 different colored shoes amused them to no end.)

Break the task down into manageable bits. When my ds was learning to ride a bike (he learned at age 7, BTW), we would practice for FIVE minutes a night. It took about a week of practice before he got it.

[Imakcerka]

You can't let them know they're practicing.  At bedtime we do all of our reading, both DD's will fight over who gets to read the story.  It can get nasty!  Oh but my trickery has worked again.  I let the nastiness slide for a few days and then I told them we needed a system.  Instead of one story we can read 3.  Theirs and the flashlight, lights out story mama reads that knocks them OUT!  I have a little little who is the same way.  Can't try anything, like she wants to know how to do it first.  I've had to find ways to make it her idea.  You know your child best, so you could find out what would make him consider trying. 

[Mummoth]

For reading practice, I kept a pad of paper in the bathroom. I'd draw a picture and write a sentence.... for example one said "I sure hope no dogs pee on my fire hydrant!" with a picture of a fire hydrant. The next time I went in, there'd be a dog peeing on the fire hydrant, and we'd take turns adding to the story and the picture. Another thing he liked doing was reading the grocery list to see if there was anything good on it. Pretty soon there'd be ISE CRAM chicken-scratched in at the bottom of the list. And yes, I bought ice cream the first time that happened. A lot of the grade 1 books only have a few sentences worth of text in them, so they don't need to read volumes of text for practice. 

[Imakcerka]

Awesome idea Mummoth!  Fun and kind of a between us sort of thing that kids really take too.  I like it!

[Cavy]

I have major issues with this, DS (7) hates to draw or write.  He's especially disinclined to do those after long summer holidays. Got in big trouble about it last Friday.  I had to spend about 3 hours in last 2 days getting him to finish the school work (most of that time he spent tantrumming about why he couldn't do it, sigh).  It was well done, truly, when he finally applied himself.

No solution here, I know that I need to insist that he does something every day, the more he does it the more he'll know he can do it.  Wish I had made him do some work all summer; he will have daily drawing & writing for now on.

We aren't perfectionists at all, either.

[Pepe]

Thank you very much for the replies.  You have all helped me enormously.

So far, this year's teacher seems more flexible, more open to different learning styles, and just more aware of kids' limitations than the kinder teacher was, and I think that will help me chill out and allow DS time to get interested and move along at something closer to his own pace.  I also appreciated all the ideas for encouraging him and slipping opportunities in on the sly to make things more palatable and less direct.

I have also realized anew that he is showing a strong preference to take his time with trying or advancing in certain areas, and I need to respect that as much as possible--even if, or maybe especially if, I am not sure of the reason(s).