Parents: let your kids fail. You’ll be doing them a favor (2015)
qz.com
qz.com
I'm just hoping I can maybe help my younger siblings cope with it. (Nine and eighteen years younger than I am.)
When my wife was in high school, her mother would find out the results of every single assignment before she did, using a tool on the school's website.
Ever seen those little 4 point pop quizzes to keep kids awake for class? 3 out of 4 points is a fine result and barely impacts grades one iota... but that individual assignment shows up as a 75%... a C grade. Which would trigger fits of rage.
It was a living hell of unending anxiety.
Especially since teachers are prone to do goofy things with their gradebooks. I've seen a lot of teachers mark assignments as 0 until they're turned in, even if they aren't due yet, for instance. Parents go into panic mode about their kids getting "Fs" when the assignments aren't even due yet.
My mom did the same with my brother but but not with me. I was much younger than my brother and still in elementary school but by fifth grade I began to feel afraid of my mom doing the same thing to me. I almost got straight As in Chinese, but a B on the final quiz could’ve ruined that. I ended up having an anxiety attack within the last 5-10 minutes of class, right before I would have to walk home. I had two attacks back to back after that and I was taken out of the class, but after a few years I had another attack in a similar situation and I recently had another, albeit at home because I didn’t that I could get a project done on time. I think something about my mother yelling at my brother and my brother yelling at her had traumatised me, because I know that when I was in fifth trade, my brother was really struggling in school. When my mom found out I was having attacks age got really scared and calmed down with my brother and things definitely got better for all of us. But for a while, even though I wasn’t a direct victim, it really, really hurt me. I understand that she was trying to look out for my brother who had lied to her on multiple occasions. I understand that she tried to do the right thing, and that it’s harder than it sounds. I have no idea what I would’ve done in her place either. I am not mad at her for what she did at all, don’t get me wrong, but the irony of the situation has always frustrated me.
In an attempt to make my brother more responsible while allowing me to still feel comfortable learning, helicopter parenting just made my brother want to spite my mom more and led to me having to be taken out of a class because of anxiety.
There’s something to learn from these experiences, but I’ve struggled to figure it out. Because in spite of how it has affected me, I have never been able to think of something that my mom should’ve done instead.
An example from my own life. I graduated high school with a very good GPA. I was always a good student, did my homework, etc, etc. However, my Sophomore year I ran into a horrible Spanish teacher. I tried consistently, studied nightly (reviewing vocab with my mom, etc) and got Cs and Ds in the class. I worked hard. My mom had no issues with the resulting grades. She did take umbrage at my teacher's belittling of me. I was continually accused of not caring, not studying, being lazy, and being stupid. Nothing could have been further from the truth.
My mom knew I struggled with this, but it was not due to a lack of effort. She intervened with the school multiple times due to my teaher's treatment of me. I don't think that was a bad thing.
We later discovered that I have (what qualifies as) a learning disability when it comes to language and auditory processing. Basically, it is exponentially more difficult for me to hear the differences in how things are pronounced, tone, accent, etc. This is most likely from my dozens of ear infections and two ear surgeries as a child. I actually was exempt from language requirements in University due to this.
Again, I was a very good student in other aspects and I was trying. Sometimes, I wish my mother had intervened more and maybe said, "this is odd. She doesn't fail like this. Something else is wrong here. With this effort, she shouldn't be failing." But, it was a slight blip with an otherwise above average student. I see why she didn't worry all that much.
As an aside, I can't really blame parents all that much for quickly intervening. The cost of failure as a 14 year old is much higher than it was even 14 years ago when I was that age. Kids cannot eascape one bad semester when applying for college. It doesn't matter if grades and activities the followings years were markedly improved. Even getting into good state schools is quite competitive. If you had 2 good years, there will always be someone who has 3.