All right, folks, I'm having a personal family crisis just like in the good old days.
The situation is with my little niece, who turned four years old in March.
She is very, very smart.
She is also very, very spoiled.
Back during Spring, I was actually the adult to take her to her yearly checkup. The only thing she didn't check off on the developmental milestones list was counting to ten.
I know she could count to ten if she wanted to. She regularly repeats longer statements than numbers one through ten.
The new school year began this week. She is not in preschool. She will go to kindergarten next year, as kindergarten is mandatory. The way my brother and his wife explain it, she is too smart for preschool.
Well, frankly, that is an insult to my children, her cousins. And me. And her father, although her father thinks he's doing his daughter a favor by telling her she's smarter than he is and smarter than the whole family. That is the opposite of a favor. That is making her very obnoxious, and she's too young for my sarcasm to make any difference since four year olds don't really comprehend things like that.
She is very bossy toward her cousins, especially towards those near her age. Some are more forgiving than others. I want my kids to grow up with someone like my brother, whom I do love. I don't want them growing up with the negative side to that.
Anyhow, as my niece is not in school, I decided with her parents' permission to prepare her for school.
Counting made her cry for forty minutes. I am so perplexed. I had to drive her around the neighborhood for her to relax and stop having a nervous breakdown over counting to six, although she counted to five easily. She didn't even try getting to six.
I told her all she had to do was believe in herself, to which she said, quote, "I hate believing in myself!"
I have to admit I saw my brother in her at that moment, the "I hate believing in myself!" response. I laughed a bit, hiding the giggle.
Today, I was told to not try teaching her. This followed with a bizarre argument with her mother about my teaching abilities (which she had never questioned before), and that left me in tears. Now I feel just awful.
My niece, by the way, counted to nine at random today. I honestly think she is teasing me, thinking this a fun game instead of a way to make me not believe in my own self. I don't think she cares about my feelings at all, and her parents only ever respond to that with "she's four". If she were not their child, and their only child, they most likely would not raise her this way.
The situation is what it is, and I am saddened and feel helpless.
