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My dd (age 6) has the same habit her Daddy had in school. She presses down too hard on her pencil when writing. She gets hand cramps, which made her resistant to writing assignments quite often in the past. She presses down hard enough that she often tears the paper.

So far, the writing assignments in BLHFHG have been okay, in that she doesn't get frustrated by her hand hurting. She does tear the paper though, which brings on the having to repair the paper so that she can continue without having to start over.

I have tried the pencil grips, which is what helped her Daddy, but they don't help her at all. I do have some Twist-N-Write mechanical pencils which our DS has to use. I am going to let her try that to see if it helps.

Other than those ideas, is there anything else that may help? I want to nip this in the bud before she grows to associate writing with the discomfort and not want to write at all.

Thanks.

I would love to know this, too!

I don't have any ideas but I am watching this thread as I write too hard.

My son grips his pencil very tightly also. One suggestion I got was to have him hold something (like a balled up tissue or paper towel) in his hand along with his pencil. I have had him do this a couple of times, and it definitely helped those times. You want to use something soft enough that the child can still grip their pencil but large enough that they must loosen their grip slightly. HTH.

Laura

I don't have a lot of advice, but I was thinking that she needs a surface that is more resistant until she gets this under control. Could she use a dry erase board and marker to write her assignments. If you want a copy of it to keep for records, take pictures of it each time.

Thanks for the ideas. She sits at her little school desk that a friend gave her. The new pencil seems to be helping.

I think mechanical pencils should help. We use white card stock instead of copy paper, and it would be near to impossible to rip. Maybe that will help with the ripping.

In Christ,
Julie