Glitter and handwriting

I bragged on both my girls earlier, so I guess it's time to temper it a bit. I already did my post on how I made Sparkle hate math. Now it's Glitter's turn.

I was teaching Glitter how to write in cursive. She finally learned enough letters to write her entire name in cursive, and she proudly did so on the dry-erase board at home. So I figured that Glitter could now write her name in cursive. Silly me.

At dance class yesterday we finally get the forms to sign up for the spring recital. Glitter has been waiting for this form for weeks and was thrilled to finally be old enough to go on "real stage." On the form there is a separate line for the student's signature. I fill out the rest of the form and show Glitter the line for her signature. I tell her that signatures are usually done in cursive. At first Glitter is excited and grabs the pen. She writes her first name in cursive. She has lots of practice writing her first name in cursive and she writes it effortlessly, although not neatly. Then she writes the first letter of her last name. Then she totally looses it. She throws down the pen and almost bursts into tears. I don't know what's going on. I think she's forgotten how to spell her last name or how to form the letters, so I offer to write it for her to copy. That doesn't help. She asks if she can still be in the show even if she doesn't sign the form. Reassuring her that she can still be in the show doesn't help her. She asks if I can sign her name for her and I say no, it's supposed to be the student's signature. I remind her that what she's written so far is good enough. I don't know what to do and I'm embarrassed. She doesn't want to go off and play and she doesn't want to try writing her name either. Eventually, she decides to copy her name and then goes off to play, so I can turn in the form and pay the $$$.

The next day when Glitter does handwriting, she looks at the dry-erase board and somehow I understand that her difficulty yesterday was the lack of the dotted midline and top line on the signature line of the form. Sigh. She could write her name on the dry-erase board because it had the familiar lines, but without those lines she was lost and overwhelmed. Poor girl.