Just to add my own experience... It's not just girls who cry!

I wasn't using RS when my son was 7 or 8 years old. But I did "force" him to do his math and didn't let him "get away with" crying in order to "get out of" his math or other schoolwork.

The end result? A kid who hated all schoolwork, who resisted EVERYTHING, and who on top of it all believed he was stupid -- even though he's actually gifted.

It took a couple years of relaxing, de-stressing, and just flat out not worrying about "academics" to even begin to recover. He does fine now, meltdowns are (almost) unheard of (and usually directly related to fatigue, hunger, etc) and we're doing a goodly amount of bookwork in addition to the good kind of "life learning" stuff... including RS Math now, too. He's almost 11, and I think much of it is also just the level of maturity that kicks in around this age.

The lesson I learned is that it is NOT WORTH FIGHTING over academics when they're this young. I remind myself that in some countries (Sweden, Norway, for instance) they don't even "start school" until age 7 and they have some of the highest literacy rates.

I also remind myself of a school experiment some decades ago where a group of kids did no formal math AT ALL until I think age 11. Then they did the entire grade 1-6 math curriculum in a few weeks or a couple months or something.

The goal of any education at this still-so-young age should be instilling curiosity, confidence, and a love of learning -- rather than any particular knowledge or skill set.

They have TONS and TONS of time to learn what they need to know. And in fact if you wait until they're older and more developmentally advanced, they will learn more quickly and more easily, with less time "wasted" waiting for their brains to "catch up" to the material you're trying to teach. They're also starting to feel more 'grown up' and are more likely to be willing to work and want to learn stuff, just because they're more cognitively aware of the reasons for doing so.

All that being said, I think RS is a great program for kids this age and wish I'd known about it when DS was younger. It's more fun and more attuned to normal brain development than most programs.

BUT -- if the kid is resisting, then there's no reason to force it. Play the games for a few days, a few weeks, a few months even! DO be careful though that your child doesn't believe that you're not doing math lessons for awhile because she's "not smart enough" to do it... Maybe say something like "I can see that math is really stressing you out, and I want you to be able to enjoy it. Would you rather focus on playing the math games for awhile and we'll get back to the lessons when you feel you're ready?"

That way it's not YOU dictating that she's "not ready", but it's herself in control. Then don't push it... don't ask every day "are you ready for a lesson today?" Wait until she brings it up.

Hope that helps... I think it's one of the most important lessons I learned HSing my son. My daughter is only 2 and a very different personality, but I've well-learned now that I'm going to wait until SHE directs that she wants to do "academics", even if that's not until she's 10.