How Do You Tell A Child To Not Be... Them?

Top Ender is like me, and by that I mean a stubborn sure they know the only right way pain in the arse. For me it's not a problem because as an adult as long as you follow a few rules of the land (like don't speed when you are driving, don't kill other people, pay for things in shops etc) you can be as different to the rest of the population as you like. Heck, we celebrate differences between people, we like that not everyone does the same thing, we like watching one person try to swim upstream against 100's of people going with the current, we like that people have opinions and that we question why things are the way they are and I think that we try to encourage it in our children.

For Top Ender it is a problem and I'm not too sure what to do about it.

Top Ender

As a child in a School you have to follow rules, some of which make no sense to you. I mean when you are Nine you don't care about reaching target A before B, you just want to finish the day so you can get home to play. When you are Nine if you're working in a group and the other children want to do something differently to you, you have to go along with it, rather than try your way. When you are Nine you think you know everything and in reality you don't know an awful lot.

So how can I tell Top Ender that whilst I love her and love that she is independent, able to think for herself and willing to argue until she is blue in the face for what she believes in that there is a time and a place and that at School she needs to work a little more on fitting in. How can I word that she needs to work a little more on not being so independent, that she needs to think a little more about what the group wants (without developing a herd mentality) and that sometimes when an adult tells you that you are wrong that they are right without having her stop questioning what people tell her?

I guess what I'm asking is, how can I help Top Ender survive school?

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