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My response to you concerning your little girl was getting so long I decided to put it in my own blog. I hope you see it here. And, it certainly isn't just for you because I think all of us need this. Several in your blog expressed similar problems.

As I say, you have quite a quandary. What a wonderful child you have and what a wonderful mother you are. Well, I don't mean to be funny here but it sounds like the missing part of the equation is humor and optimism, not that you aren't providing those, but you didn't mention them when describing her personality.

I read recently of a study on freshmen entering a university and a test of optimism predicted their grades better than their SAT scores or high-school grades.

Have you ever heard of MOPs International? That stands for Mothers of Preschoolers and I know your daughter is well beyond preschool age, but I was the mentor for our local group for several years. The only reason I mention this is because the founder of our group had a little girl who was very sweet, very intelligent and kind-hearted, but extremely tense. She asked for help and I went searching. When I asked her about humor it's like a light went on as we talked. Many years later the mother shared how much this helped.

One of the greatest ways to show and teach optimism is humor. Most all of us love to laugh and be silly at times. Humor creates fun in our lives. It can relieve frustration and many times bring peace to conflicts. Even ancient cultures recognized the importance of humor and expressed this by creating gods and goddesses of laughter and mischief, fools, and court jesters.
It has become a popular thing to spend some time at the end of each day to think about and express gratitude for the things that have made our lives abundant. As a family, whether around the dinner table (a rare thing) or before bed each night or whenever your family is together, try to 'practice' seeing humor in the day's events. I think it helps our children take their frustrations less seriously. Life is serious but sometimes we need a little break even if it's some really lame joke.

I know I'm beginning to sound like a lecture, sorry, but maybe this will help you or someone else reading. I hope so.
Poke fun at yourself, other people (careful here) and situations you get yourself in to. Joke about your own flaws, mistakes and conflicts with other people. It can be great 'material'. There may be times that you can gently tease your daughter but, as I said, gently. Life can also be absurd. Be intentional in describing things in an exaggerated way or even great understatement. Memorize some jokes and practice telling them. Puns, double meanings, plays on words can all be fun. Sometimes we, as parents, have to lighten up and exaggerate the fact that we are doing so. Again, I'm not saying you aren't. I don't know. You have shared some humorous things with us about your life. Lord knows, you have a lot going on there to choose from, I'm sure.

I even found this 8-Step Program on how to develop humor.
1. Determine the nature of your own sense of humor
2. Become less serious and cultivate a more playful attitude in life
3. Develop a more hearty and healthy belly laugh
4. Improve your joke-telling skills
5. Create your own spontaneous verbal humor
6. Find humor in everyday life
7. Laugh at yourself
8. Start applying these skills to cope with stress

Gee, I think I already said some of those. (Patting myself on the back )

I also read that optimistic people tend to stay motivated despite frustrations and failures. Pessimistic people often give up and make their poor expectations come true, another self-fulfilling prophecy.

Man oh man, parenting is tough. It's not enough, it seems, to provide the basics of food, clothing and shelter and that thing called love, but now you have to be a stand up comic.

With love,
amp