Dear Dr. Weisbord,
My daughter, aged eight, often tells me in the morning that she is afraid to go to school. On the last occasion, it was the day after test results were returned to the class. She said that the teacher likes the girls who get good marks on the tests. There is one girl whom the teacher always praises because she regularly gets 100 on tests. My daughter finds it hard to memorize and feels she can never compete with this girl in the teacher’s eyes. She studies hard and still gets average marks.
In reply to my daughter, I asked her, “Do you think anyone remembers what ‘Rochel’ (her older, married sister) got on a third grade social studies test?” I told her that she is a wonderful, kind girl whom a lot of people like, and that I am happy with whatever grade she gets. The important thing is to do her best.
Even though this calmed her down for the moment, I wonder if I handled it well. If I tell her grades are not important, why should she study? Besides, she sees that in school grades are important. If I say something like, “Your strength is not in memorization,” am I giving her a sense of realism about her abilities, or am I limiting her and planting the seeds of a self-fulfilling prophecy?
My parents tell me that their grammar school grades were posted for all to see. Are we a generation of weaklings who can’t bear to know the truth about ourselves? Are we babying our children by not showing them their strengths and weaknesses? Wouldn’t knowing how they stand among their peers empower them to try to do better or, alternatively, to take a path where they can be successful rather than banging their heads against the wall?
Or are we smarter about the importance of showing sensitivity to feelings and not destroying a child’s self-esteem? How do you protect your child, on the one hand, yet build her up on the other? How do you find the delicate balance between preserving her self-esteem and not discouraging her from studying?
From the teacher’s point of view, if scoring 100 comes easy to a girl, why does the teacher give her all the attention to the detriment of a child who studies hard but makes a few mistakes? Is there something wrong with our system?
Awaiting Your Reply
Dear Awaiting,
You have hit on an issue that is a defining one for our generation. Western culture places great emphasis on competition and success, and even we in the frum community are not immune to these values. However, they are antithetical to the good middos that we are trying to instill in our students and children. My grandfather, Rabbi Yaakov Weinberg, zt”l, said that competition is an easy way to motivate but that we pay dearly for it. Someone like your daughter who, at her young age, already realizes that she may not be the best, might decide that it isn’t worth trying so hard. She is already feeling the pain of not being praised, of believing that she is not good enough, and perhaps even the bitterness of jealousy. Is this what we want our students to learn? Rav Yaakov, zt”l, believed that it is essential to find ways to motivate children whereby each one can feel they have achieved something on whatever level is appropriate for them.
In terms of dealing with your daughter, there is a fine line that you must walk in order to escape the opposing problems that you expressed so well in your letter. Children get their sense of self from the way they are treated by the adults in their lives. They learn that they are important if we listen to them seriously, and they learn that they are capable if we give them responsibility that is appropriate for their age and ability. Therefore, a parent must validate the concerns of her child. When your daughter is upset about her grades, it is important that you show understanding for the pain she is experiencing. That is more effective than pointing out that people won’t remember her grades in years to come.
At the same time, you also need to convey the confidence that she can manage just fine in school and in life. For this you need to be sure that you are not at all disappointed by her grades. Children are incredibly sensitive and perceptive when it comes to knowing what their parents really value. Once you have worked on your feelings, you can then express trust that she will work hard in school, as she has been. Trust that, in spite of her discomfort with going back to school after not getting 100 on a test, she will be able to bear it despite her discomfort, and that it will pass. Trust her desire to learn, and support her in finding ways to manage. The way you demonstrate this trust is in the attitude you have towards her. Understand her frustration, but don’t get as upset as she is, because you know something that she doesn’t – she will get through this!
When you express empathy, you can say something like, “I know you really don’t want to go to school today, and I know you feel badly about this test, but I also know that in spite of that you will manage this.” Your daughter will see the confidence you have and feel strengthened. If you are as scared about this as she is, then she will become more scared, because her parent, whom she relies on, is also scared!
This is the fine line that you must walk to deal with this issue. Then you can branch out. Find her strengths in other areas and celebrate them, and believe that she is worthwhile in spite of her scholastic area of weakness. Success in life does not depend on being the best in the class, and we need to be sure we remember that ourselves when speaking to children about it.
We have to work hard to maintain our own healthy attitude towards school. Let’s think about school for a moment – it is actually a place where students are supposed to learn things, not simply an opportunity for them to achieve high scores on tests. If your daughter focuses on learning the material rather than on trying to do well on tests, she will benefit more, and may even find that her test scores improve. Often, it is the anxiety over grades that makes studying more difficult than it already is. If learning is not as easy for her as for some of her peers, help her set realistic goals for the different subjects in terms of what she is trying to walk away with. Consult with her teachers about this, and try to enroll them in supporting her efforts. When your daughter can feel that she is meeting her own goals, she will find more pleasure in her accomplishments. It’s also possible, even probable, that her teacher would be happy to acknowledge her if she were gently shown how much effort your daughter is putting in, and how well she really is doing.
In terms of our society, I would agree with you that it is healthy for children to be able to know where they stand without feeling bad about it. My wife taught in London for many years before coming to America, and there, students generally did not feel bad about being in a lower level class if that’s where they would benefit the most. They also were more realistic about what grades they could expect, and were pleased if they improved from a 75 to an 80 on a test. Naturally this attitude was present in the teaching staff as well.
In this sense, our maala (advantage) in sensitivity is also our chisaron (shortcoming). By being more solicitous of the needs of our children, we can go too far and forget that they are not as fragile as we think. It is our fear that they can’t handle certain things that helps create that reality. If we are matter-of-fact about grades, then the children learn that grades aren’t worth feeling bad over. When we are scared to address this type of issue directly, and try to soften it by euphemisms, etc., they learn that being imperfect in school is so bad that the adults in their lives don’t even want to talk about it. So, as adults, we have much work to do on ourselves and on our attitudes.
When we can accept imperfection, we will realize that just because a child isn’t the best at something doesn’t mean they need to be doing something else. There are thousands of people in every possible profession, and only very few are in the top five or ten percent of their field. Yet we don’t discourage the other 95 percent from entering that field.
One final thought: Your daughter might have a tendency towards perfectionism which makes it hard for her to accept being imperfectly human. If so, this is a difficult but needed opportunity for her to learn that life is not perfect but that she can be wonderful in her imperfection. You can share some of your own imperfections (within the bounds of what is age appropriate, of course) to illustrate the point.
I wish you much hatzlacha, and thank you for raising this important issue. You are clearly approaching this in a thoughtful and caring manner, which in itself goes a long way towards helping your daughter.
Yehuda Weisbord, a licensed counselor, is available for consultation at 410-484-6604.
