You Must Try Harder!

Last year while attending a local music festival I overheard a parent telling his child, "You must try harder. Next year I want to see you win three trophies."

What made this especially difficult to take was the fact the girl had just won two first place trophies for both of the classes she entered. There were no words of congratulations or any show of pride on the man's part. As you can imagine, there wasn't much happiness showing on the young girl's face either.

Not surprisingly, the follow-up on that story is the girl is no longer taking music lessons. My guess is it's just one of many things she will try and quit in an effort to please her dad. Eventually, she will give up trying altogether.

One of my pet peeves is the parent who not only withholds praise from their child, but takes every opportunity to keep the pressure turned up to unbearable limits. The thinking goes something like this, "If I let him relax for even a second, he will slack off for the rest of his life."

A huge part of a teacher's job is to motivate and encourage the student; to give each person a sense of confidence that (s)he can accomplish the task at hand. Often I will work one-on-one with a child for 30-60 minutes to boost their skills as well as their self-esteem, only to have it totally destroyed within seconds after reviewing the child's work with the parent after class. "Oh, he is SO LAZY!", the mom exclaims in front of the child and everyone else in the waiting area.

Hey, mom! You just told your kid in front of the whole world that he is virtually worthless. And this is supposed to make the child want to work harder? And I suppose taking a sledge hammer to your computer will make it work better? Same mentality!

Children live up to their expectations. In order to get postive results, you have to give them some encouragement and positive praise. After all, they tend to believe anything that their primary authority figures (usually parents and teachers) tell them. "If mom says I'm lazy, it must be true! Why would she lie?"

"I'm going to do whatever I can to prove her right! THEN she'll be proud of me."

Too often, the only kind of attention a child gets from the parents is negative attention. And negative attention is better than NO ATTENTION. Trust me, this is exactly how a child thinks!

Occasionally, it may appear that a student needs a "rectum rocket" or two to get motivated. I've had cases where no amount of praise or encouragement on my part seems to work because the student realizes this condition is only temporary. As soon as (s)he steps out of my class and back into the "real world", the negative harping and criticizing starts up again. They are literally afraid to feel good and so they desensitize themselves to the pain they experience at home.

In such cases I will pull the parent aside and let them know how they can join the 'success team' that I am creating with the child. Fortunately, this works most of the time as parents are usually grateful for any advice they can get to help their children.

Trouble develops when all three parties are not on the same page, with the child getting most of the damage. "Mom says I'm lazy. Teacher says I've got great potential." Confused, the child gives up and stands back on the sidelines of life to watch the adults fight it out.

Of course, there are the parents whose children can do no wrong! This offers a different set of challenges. Stay tuned for the next installment.

Posted by russhamel