I need some advice on how to motivate my 8 year old daughter to pay attention more at school and achieve higher grades.
She seems to have a short attention span and seems more interested in break times with her friends than the lessons themselves. Her teachers are always complaining she doesn't listen and doesn't pay attention enough therefore she is not learning as much as the others in her class.
She does however focus all her attentions on her friends, one in particular and has become obsessed with this girl and wants to spend all her time with her and this is also causing problems with her friendships in class as she doesn't seem to want to share this girl's attention. She has become very bossy and quite mouthy with the rest of her class and is proving very unpopular just now. This is upsetting her as she doesn't get picked for teams or groups.
Both her teachers and myself have tried to talk to her about focusing more on her lessons and I have tried motivation rewards for better grades but they haven't improved. I have tried to get her involved in hobbies also but again her attention span and interest is short and she doesn't seem to stick at anything in particular.
I have asked all sorts of questions regarding behaviour problem syndromes to professionals who seem to dismiss this and say she is just very strong willed and maybe has an obsessive personality but so far have offered no help in combating or improving this.
Any ideas to help with improving her school grades would be really appreciated.