02/12/2021
My pastor posted this. Very accurate.
My freshman daughter came home from school yesterday and let me know that her teacher pulled her aside. āShe wants me to move up to honors next year. Or maybe take the AP class,ā she told me. āShe said she didnāt think I was challenging myself enough.ā
āWell, thatās a compliment,ā I responded. āBut, what do you think?ā
She looked crestfallen. āI just donāt know how I can fit it in because everyone complains about how much extra work honors is. I mean, even with remote school I feel like I had so much reading and I liked having one class I didn't have to stress about. And next year I have driving school and soccer and the other advanced classes. I have to volunteer for Key Club and I want to babysit to have spending money and . . .ā She went on and on for a few minutes.
āI guess we have our answer then,ā I told her. āYou are pretty busy already, so you donāt have to add to your schedule.ā
āBut what about challenging myself?ā she asked. āLike, are colleges going to be down on me because I didnāt take all honors classes?ā
I looked at my young daughter and for the first time in a long while she appeared small to me instead of the young woman she is becomingāmore like when she was a scared toddler about to get in trouble.
And I thought, how much more challenged does she have to be? She lived through a pandemic, remote schooling, being isolated from the only life she's ever known.
She is challenged to get enough sleep every night after long school days.
She is challenged to find downtime because she chose to participate in a high school sport.
She is challenged to find balance in a stress-filled trek to get into a college.
She is challenged by peer pressure and social media.
While I know the teacher was encouraging my daughter, she didn't know that at that moment all she felt was pressure from the world around her.
Do more. Work harder. Take the challenge.
Itās not this teacherās fault. Itās her job to see the potential in kids, and she has taught my child well this year. But my teenagerās response underscored what I think is a pervasive problem.
I think we have to start looking at our kids in a more holistic manner and choosing our words a little differently.
Last year, my daughter (with our input) made a conscious choice not to take all honors classes in her first year of high school. As parents, we told her she should challenge herself in the subjects that she cared about the most, which in her case is math and science, and then decide one-off in the other areas.
She has said several times it was the best decision sheās ever made, and her grades have backed it up even during this crazy time of hybrid and remote learning. Sheās adjusted well to the high school routine.
But I saw her anxiety first-hand when discussing her schedule for next year, and with course selection coming up, she was a pressure cooker.
If I've learned anything during this crazy year, it's that not everything our tweens and teens do needs to be challenging or rigorous or competitive.
Most of us donāt thrive in that kind of environment, and for sure our kids donāt.
So, I told my daughter I thought she should take the grade-level course again for the next year. She challenged herself in other areas, and I thought she found a good balance this year in her course selection.
Itās the educatorsā and coachesā and activity leadersā jobs to build our kids up and push them to their limits, but itās our job as parents to also let them know that they donāt have to do this with everything. At the end of the day, itās our job as parents to look at the big picture, but I think as a whole we should be changing the conversations we have with our teens.
Iām glad that my child has teachers that believe in her potential, but Iām also glad my daughter recognizes she has limits.
Itās tough to find the balance in teaching our kids to push themselves to reach their potential without burning out or breaking down.
We need to start putting our kidsā mental health first, and then teach them how to decide what they can handle. Because if your kid canāt sleep because of stress or starts hurting themselves to cope with anxiety or something worse yet, that āchallengingā course they felt they should take or team we pushed them to join or added responsibility they werenāt ready for may not be worth it.
I absolutely want my kids to challenge themselves, but I hope they learn to care about their well-being more than anything else.
*shared with permission from Whitney Fleming, Playdates on Fridays
