Suddenly everything just came together! All my passions and all my knowledge.
Languages, children, human resources development, teaching, parenting …
Suddenly, this text just started to run on paper …
Parents, I know many of you who will find this text familiar.
We all get lost, or at least the majority of parents I know, in a multitude of questions about how to be a parent of today’s children. How to support them through schooling, the system whose constraints we are all well aware of … How to support them in today’s multimedia world when they are so ahead of us in some things. Who are our children? What do they need?
These are big questions and I do not have answers, but I want to focus on an example each parent copes with on a daily basis.
One day, my son returned from school with an “A” while he was attending 1st grade, but it was an “A” with a dot. Since I did not know what that dot meant, I asked him and got the answer: Mom, it is not a “perfect A.” I said, as I believe every parent would do: Well done son, but he said: Yes, but it has a dot …
Then, at the end of the school year, I witnessed a scene of a child having finished the year with an “A”, BUT with one “B” in his certificate, and therefore he received no praise, and I witnessed his desperate tears and disappointment, while other children were jumping cheerfully around him and playing …
Then one day, I received a message from a mum: Mirjana, I do not know what I’m going to do, my son got a “D” in nature and he keeps on crying, how can I help him? He’s in terrible fear of getting a “D” again!
Then once I asked a young student whom I am coaching: Do you think the grades measure the actual knowledge? She said: No, but I cannot possibly get a “D” if I’ve learned as it should be done. And after a couple of days she called me laughing and in disbelief to tell me that she had not passed the exam because she was so uncertain of the simplicity of the questions, that she doubted herself and complicated all the answers so much that they were no longer meaningful. She had learned as it should be done. And she failed.
I’ve just highlighted a couple of examples …
I got then an extra insight. Listening to my coach at the Life Coaching School I heard him saying: Be behind the client and look at the goal from his perspective. When you have a feeling of dragging or pushing someone, everything is wrong, it means that you have come out of the listening process and the real support.
How many times do we have that feeling with our children, but also with our employees, colleagues? I intentionally omit friendship and partnership out of this article, because I hereby wish to address especially parents, whose children will tomorrow become somebody’s employees and colleagues.
I’ve been working long enough as a human resource development consultant all over the continent. I have been listening long enough to adult people from several market sectors and their problems and difficulties in working environments …
Maybe not for as long, but surely long enough to perceive similar patterns when I worked as a teacher and taught children languages.
Do you know what is the most common “diagnosis” (I apologize in advance for this term to all experts) in adults, but also in children I observe?
Lack of self-confidence. And the need to be acknowledged by other people. This is no news for you, I believe.
We are, among other things, social beings. At least nobody has convinced me of the opposite.
And do you know what the result of lack of self-confidence is? I’m sure you know. And do you know how difficult it is to work on these aspects of personality in adulthood? I’m sure you know this as well …
The school system is what it is. Not all is ideal, but it’s not all bad either. There are beautiful and dedicated educators in each system. As much as there are others … But we can act within our circles of influence, as teachers, as parents.
We all know very well that grades are not the measure of knowledge. We’ve lived through all this. We know that countless children with “Fs” became geniuses. And those who have not become ones, are still quite “normal”, “good”, “creative”, “effective”, “successful”, such or such people. Some who had only “As” became who knows what kind of humans. It is so irrelevant, and we all know that so well but again … the constant focus of parents and children on marks ….
When I was teaching German at school, I introduced the non-rating system, that is children would only self-assess, but after a month the pupils asked me to test them for a grade, they even insisted, and when I allowed them to do so, a few who deserved a “B” had immediately asked to sit another test for the opportunity to raise the grade to “A”. That’s how much influence the rating system has on them.
Of course I have nothing against the ambition and the desire for success and excellence, on the contrary, I do this for living, but the burden I felt, no, it did not smell like any positive ambition. It did not smell like desire for knowledge or excellence. It smelled only as the burden of the grade or maybe as pleasure because of possible awards or recognitions – by other people …
And this aspect is very noticeable even in today’s adults.
On this occasion, I would like to call parents to attention.
When your child comes home with an “A” or an “F”, or whatever grade, try to be neutral, as if it REALLY does not matter, as if the rating REALLY is not the measure of knowledge, except maybe for some current state of remembering or learning, I repeat, CURRENT, which the child has been able to express. Try to answer to EVERY grade: It’s OK. Are you satisfied with what you know in this subject? So if they are dissatisfied with their knowledge, encourage them to learn from that motivation. Try to repeat as often as you can, even if it seems banal to you: Child, you really learn for yourself, to learn something, to know, to apply in life, not for evaluation’s sake.
Try to be aware that you always shift their motivation for learning to the inner drive rather than on the external need for approval, reward (or, as in the worst case scenario, a lack of punishment).
As far as my human resources development practice is concerned, believe me that this will greatly contribute to generating a generation that will not depend on the opinion of tomorrow’s superiors or colleagues whether they are good enough and they will not suffer from the resulting frustration and dissatisfaction at work, burn-out and psychosomatic problems …
I know this is a detail. But life is made up of details and every bit is more important when it occurs constantly. Evaluation and grades are still a daily detail in the lives of our children in the school system. So it’s not a good thing to ignore it, even if we all know we’ve survived “Fs” and the like. We have survived them, some undoubtedly empowered us, but most of the feelings caused by the reactions of the environment have created our perception of ourselves and we carry it with us today. Just as we have survived the many “As” , so some of us today do not allow themselves the slightest mistake and are freaking out by trying to control everything and be perfect at all times …
Take note of this detail, keeping in mind that this one grade, today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and again, makes an impact on the personality of your child, likely to follow him/her for many years in the future …
