How we react to mistakes may dictate whether our kids come to us with a problem.
Suppose you discover your child deliberately kept you in the dark about a bad test grade or a concerning note from the teacher. Before concluding that your child is untrustworthy, here’s an important question to consider: How are mistakes handled in your home? In other words, what reaction has your child come to expect if he had shared that grade or note?
For example, did your child anticipate (correctly) that he’d get a speech laced with disappointment, exasperation, and irritation, followed by some kind of punishment? If so, maybe your child’ reaction was more about self-preservation that dishonesty.
Ironically, we may be concerned about our child’s trustworthiness because he no longer trusts us to respond in a way that’s helpful when he’s messed up. So here’s how we may avoid that from happening.
1. Reassure your child that everyone makes mistakes.
Tell your child that you’re glad he makes mistakes—otherwise, that would mean he’s not human . . . and then that would mean he’s an alien from another planet!
2. Tell your child that you’ll stay calm whenever he approaches you with a problem.
Since that may not have always been the case, establish that if you do not stay composed, your child gets something that he likes. That helps ensure you don’t revert to old reactions. And if you do, then your child figures at least he’s still going to get something good by coming to you.
3. Ask questions that prompt reflection and positive action for the future.
In lieu of giving a speech, ask questions such as: Why do you think you reacted that way? What other options could you have explored? What will you do differently to avoid this from happening again?
If there was another person involved, you might ask: How would (name of that person) describe what happened? That open-ended question then becomes a non-threatening way to hear a different perspective of what happened without anyone confirming that the other person’s account is correct.
4. Avoid “prosecutor-type” questions.
You’ll get immediate feedback if you start doing this because your child will become defensive, rather than reflective. Note that our tone often dictates whether we’re coming across as a prosecutor drilling a witness or a concerned parent who wants to prompt some insightful thinking.
5. Ask your child how he’ll accept responsibility for whatever happened.
With a generic knee-jerk reaction (“You’re grounded for a week!), there’s little chance that our child reflects and learns from any particular mistake. So it’s important that we also ask our kids what they think might be a good “natural cause and effect” for whatever transpired. For example, a child may conclude, all on his own, that he’s spending too much time playing video games instead of studying. If so, it’s going to carry a lot more weight if he decides to limit video games to the weekends until his grades improve.
So yes, we all mess up. That in itself is not newsworthy. But how we deal with our mistakes may actually define us.
When students receive a failing grade, does it motivate them to do better--or do they just shut down?
When parents become upset over their kids’ grades, there’s one rarely mentioned fact they need to recall: The only grades included in college applications are those from 10th and 11th grade.
That’s right. Those two high school years are the only ones that count when it comes to college admissions.
That sobering fact should help put things in perspective when 7-year-old Joey bombs his spelling tests or 10-year-old Kate fails her math test. Knowing this, we may also consider the long-term effects of making too much out of a bad grade.
For example, if we focus too much on grades when kids are young, will they burn out by the time they actually count? Instead of becoming motivated to work harder, will they decide (early on) that they’re just not smart—and “check out” when it comes to school?
There are other considerations when looking at grades. Teachers get to choose how they present their lessons. So a child who is a kinesthetic learner may have difficulty learning new information from a teacher who relies on a lecture format and worksheets. But that doesn’t mean the child isn’t smart or motivated to learn.
It’s also possible that the child learned the information but wasn’t able to demonstrate that on the test. That scenario is more likely when kids feel test “pressure”—since such angst often causes them to temporarily forget what they know.
So, I have an idea on how to improve grades for all kids, but I don’t think it would go over well in schools.
What if teachers and kids “shared” the grade? In other words, if a teacher puts an “F” on a child’s paper, she, too, gets that “F.” After all, isn’t the grade equally reflective of how she presented the information and whether the content and format of the test actually evaluated what was learned?
And it that ever became the norm, do you think we’d see kids getting much better grades?
Some life experiences are priceless.
As parents, we spend a lot of money hoping that what we do now will pay off when our kids are adults. We invest in competitive sports. We hire tutors. We give them music lessons. Yet we can actually give our kids something that can be life-changing—and it costs nothing.
We can create opportunities for our kids to befriend a child with a disability. No, I’m not talking about having our son or daughter occasionally show up to become that child’s “helper.” I’m talking about becoming their friend, their buddy.
As a young girl, that chance absolutely changed my life.
When I was ten, Billy Mulligan moved onto our street. He was also ten, but he was different from the rest of the neighborhood kids. Billy had a pretty severe case of cerebral palsy. He could not walk or talk. In fact, he drooled quite a bit and also had minimal control of his arms and hands.
Yet, his parents never saw his limitations—and this was when people still referred to those with disabilities as “crippled.” But that’s not how Billy’s parents saw him. Nope, they just nonchalantly showed us how we could include Billy in whatever the neighborhood kids were playing.
It’s odd because decades later I know that I never had an actual conversation with Billy, but I still remember that his favorite television show was Divorce Court (he used to think it was so funny). I know that he knew the name of every model car and thought it was amusing when I couldn’t name the one he was pointing to.
I can also picture our neighborhood baseball games, where Billy sat strapped in his huge specially-made tricycle, taking his time to finally maneuver his hands around the plastic bat. And I remember his huge smile whenever he’d make contact with the large plastic ball and his brother ran to first base for him.
He was only on our block for a year, but I know that being Billy’s friend has stayed with me forever.
That’s because for my entire adult life, I have worked with all kinds of kids—including those with brain injuries, autism, and yes, cerebral palsy. But I can’t ever remember viewing any of those youngsters as anything but another great kid I was going to get the privilege to know. That kind of certainty had to have started with Billy Mulligan.
So, yes, we can provide life-changing experiences for our kids . . . and we can do so without ever spending a dime.
How often do we allow money
to dictate our parenting decisions?
What if our current finances cloud our ability to make decisions about programs for our kids?
There’s a simple way to prevent that from happening. We can either take money entirely out of the equation, or we can actually make it the entire focus.
Here’s what I mean. When we take money out of the equation, we pretend we’re Bill or Melinda Gates. That frees us to review a program solely on its merit. Since this is merely a mental exercise, we really don’t have to think about money at that moment.
We only bring money back into the equation if we conclude the program is something we’d like our child to participate in. And yes, at this point, we have to consider our current finances.
But since we’ve already decided our child would benefit from the program, we’re now more likely to explore creative solutions to make it happen. On the other hand, there’s no chance our child participates if we go straight to: We can’t afford it.
The opposite mental exercise (putting money into the equation) can also be helpful if our child is participating in or offered a free program. Here, we ask ourselves: Would I actually pay for this service if my child couldn’t get it for free? If the answer is no, then we may want to reconsider whether or not our child should participate.
You might be thinking . . . But why would anyone opt out of something that doesn’t cost anything?
If a program isn’t a good fit for our child (i.e. we wouldn’t pay for it ourselves), there can be a definite downside. Our child probably doesn’t have more spare time to participate in another program that better meets his needs. Or, if we try to cram that better program in as well, we risk putting our child on overload.
And what if our child doesn’t benefit after participating in various free programs? We may then shut down when we hear about yet another program. We become like folks who resist riding in taxis because they’ve already spent so much time on free buses that took them nowhere.
So that’s why we need to “play” with money in our mind. After all, it doesn’t cost us anything to do so, and it just may shine a new light on our decisions.
We want to avoid writing emails that escalate, rather than improve, a situation.
Sure, firing off an email now makes it possible to communicate with our kids’ teachers—at all hours—without ever setting foot on campus. But if we don’t exercise some care with this instant form of communication, we may end up doing more harm than good whenever we push “send.”
To start, it’s helpful to remember that the classroom teacher is doing one of the following whenever she receives our email: She’s teaching (if she gets an email during school hours), preparing for that or the next day’s lessons (if she gets an email right before or after school), or living her “other” life (if she receives an email in the evening or weekend).
It’s also good to recall that we’re just one of 20-30 families in the class. That means our email may be the third, fourth or fifth one that the teacher has received that day.
So here are some guidelines to ensure that our emails are well-received.
1. We keep it short.
We do this by limiting ourselves to no more than three or four lines, thereby eliminating any possibility of writing a long tirade (about what’s upsetting us). Also, with a minimum line requirement, we have to get right to the point.
2. We’re specific.
What do we want from the teacher? In other words, what would we like to happen after our email is read?
3. We ask instead of tell.
We put our concerns in the form of questions, rather than statements that could be interpreted as telling the teacher how to run her class. For example, instead of writing there’s too much nightly homework, we might ask if the teacher is willing to explore ways to reduce our child’s assignments.
4. We make sure we haven’t already received the information we’re seeking.
Suppose we can’t find the paper listing what our kids need to bring for an upcoming class project. In such case, we’d email another parent in the class—not the teacher—to get that information (again).
5. We sit on an email for at least 24 hours.
We establish a waiting period so that we then have a chance to re-read and edit our email with a different mindset. And who knows? Maybe a day later, we no longer even feel the need to send the email.
6. We also email when we’re pleased about something.
Was our child talking nonstop about the great field trip? Were we impressed with the teacher’s thorough, insightful comments on our child’s report? If so, we share that kind of upbeat feedback in a quick email.
And so, what happens when we put the above ideas in place? Emailing becomes a way to ensure, rather than jeopardize, positive communication with our child’s teacher.
