Does anyone have input on skill fatigue?

n/m

I had a kid who went to bed late. She just always needed 20% less sleep than the books recommended as “average” for her age. Now at age 20 she’s tiring more easily but I think other things are affecting it.

I have never heard the term “skill fatigue” but I have certainly experienced it, and I’m sure you have too. Some high school and university classes were a struggle to stay awake; some were fun discussions; and some were a marathon race to take notes fast enough, stay on top of the topic, and follow the professor’s argument. If your daughter finds her math class to be a race to keep up, she will show fatigue; then when she changes to a less-stressful subject she will perk up again.

Some extra tutoring help, especially some teaching ahead of new topics, may reverse the fatigue load.

My son has always attention that goes in and out. Last year he had an 11:30 lunch. The teacher kept saying he needed to go to bed earlier. He had trouble paying attention in the afternoon. He would come home starving every day. I asked them repeatedly to allow him a snack in the afternoon but they didn’t do it unless he asked and he wasn’t the type to ask.

I have since added alot of protein to his diet. He says it helps him to concentrate and he won’t go to school without his bacon egg and cheese sandwich for breakfast. He also drinks protein shakes. I have been told by an expert that some kids with in and out attention need protein every 3 hours.

‘Skill fatigue’ would be a new one on me. Not knowing what it is, it’s hard to say if a child has it or not. What skill is it exactly are they saying that’s fatigued in math class? And just for math class? Something doesn’t quite fit together …

How does your child feel about math and the math teacher might be questions to ask. Math is very difficult sometimes for otherwise excellent students. If your daughter does not seem tired later in the day, or earlier in the day, it’s a little hard to believe that she’s tired every day during math class.

What might be helpful is knowing more about what they mean by “language-based”? Does your daughter have language issues?

In any case, what I like to suggest is going in and observing yourself. If you sit quietly in the back of any classroom, the children rather quickly stop noting your presence and routine class life resumes in front of you. Spend the morning. Watch your daughter in other activities and during math and see what you see.

Good luck.

Thanks for the input.My child is 9 years old.She does have language processing issues her expressive language is poor in grammer,syntax etc.Math is her favorite subject. - In her math class it is a 1 to 3 ratio the math teacher told her to sit up and keep her head up while I was there.She was doing a regular worksheet at the time I arrived with addition problems on it so it wasn’t a hard task for her.

Interesting point. My daughter has always had to eat six meals a day. She is also the only one in the whole family without an overweight problem and the only one who can eat half a pack of candy and leave the rest alone. She simply has to eat several small amounts, and I luckily decided that, with the family weight problem, I should not interfere at all with her instincts. Unfortunately she does eat too much sugar and starches — I should give her your suggestion on protein snacks because recently she has been too fatigued.