Firedreamer:
It would be nice if an adult who had "school phobia", could describe the experience and say what helped cure the situation.
I agree with your suggestions....lower her expectations...But the questions is ...
How do you do it? We and the therapist explain to her, it's ok to not understand everything. It's Ok to ask for help. It's Ok to make mistakes...no one is perfect..
How do you change one's thought process....my daughter is pretty stubborn when it comes to changing her thought process....which is why she has the problem...
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I am a parent of 2 year olds
I teach adults for a living
I coach kids in evening for soccer
Some kids do well with structure
some kids need less structure
adults are same way (some need structure, some need less and less structure).
Saying it and meaning it and doing it are all very very different things. Way different.
For example, when teaching kids soccer, it is really important to allow them to make mistakes. This means losing games, this means a kid might make a mistake which costs team game, this might mean playing a weaker player over a stronger player to get better.
Know what happens when a coach does that- they get fired. Seriously- I speak from experience.
So some parents can embrace what is trying to happen (sports wise), others will control it, and others will lead interference for their kids so they never see failure as best the parents can try.
How I could apply this to your situation (as a parent) and daughter's situation (as a kid) could be many...
For example, you have to find a way to let your daughter be spontaneous. Might be playing sports, taking dance classes, acting or something which cannot be scripted. As a soccer coach we call it a comfort zone- find something a player is comfortable doing, and challenge them to break out of the comfort zone (a little at a time). A soccer example would be I could ask a 12 year old to go in and play striker (offense) and they might tell me I have never played that before. That is breaking kid out of comfort zone.
In acting it could be playing serious roles, then changing character types (funny roles, shy roles, gender roles).
For dancing it could be changing from hip hop to ball room dancing- you get the idea?
Use her social desires and outside school interests to deal with basic comfort zone and self confidence. Might be social activities or sports... and encourage daughter to try new activities frequently. Better to try many than only be good at 1-2 in this situation I think.
The second point I will make is look at the adults which "run" these activities. You want adults which are passionate about them and follow thru on the whole comfort zone thing.
Then make analogies between the adults for the activities and the adults which are school teachers.
The school system cannot fail... no child left behind and similar- its a system which is built on principles of mediocrity and tests which prevent mediocrity, so the level we attain with those schools is just above mediocrity. This means if there is a child which has specific needs (your daughter) there is no guarantee anyone in the school system can do what is best for her- the system has its own goals, your daughter is just a number to them IMO.
Schools are built (public schools anyway) based on passing certain standardized tests, teaching to those tests and securing state and federal funding. None of those main goals deal with your daughter's problem.
This is why I pointed out making analogies between the teachers and the coaches or other child activity leaders. The teachers are trying to make sure the kids don't fail and the pressure is put on the kids not to fail.
In your daughter's case, failure will teach her some life lessons. The issue you have as a parent is finding things she can fail at which won't destroy her (her confidence or her future).
For example if daughter played soccer and was really bad at it
then tried volleyball and really liked it
would she put more effort into getting better at volleyball?
could you as a parent then make analogy to her that if she put same effort in at soccer, she would be better at it?
If daughter competed at a science fair and lost, would she strive to learn more about science, or turn to music, acting or another hobby?
I think competitive events for your daughter (in moderation) would be effective. She would need the passion to compete, and that passion can then be channeled into the fear of failure, the anticipation of a result, and dealing with many issues related to this.
With adults I see the same issues (learning) but with different outcomes. You know how many adults won't click a button on a computer because they weren't told to click it?
Adults have a much faster learning curve, but their fear is more of the scope of the project or the unknowns within a project. Dealing with changing deadlines as well.
Adults also skip fundamentals. If I teach you 3-4 basic principles which the software is built on, many adults will skip that because the fundamentals are not what gets a job done. They want very specific procedures which apply to their specific situations.
I point this out because going back to daughter... whomever is the "adult in charge" for various activities might not focus on the fundamentals, which most kids embrace.
It's also possible the adult in charge is focusing on an end outcome (desired result) instead of letting child explore themselves.
The best thing for most kids is to be in "non scripted" environments which have only a little structure to them, then let kids explore on their own and fail without consequence. Most of this will need to be outside the school system.
