There's the Tiger Mom camp. The parents who feel like teaching kids to compete and excel early and often prepares them for later in life, gives them resilience and a realistic understanding about how the world works. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. That's life, kid.
Then there's the Let Them Be Kids camp. The parents who eschew any form of competition or judgement for their kids. Everyone wins at sports. No soloists in the choir. That sort of thing. Everyone gets a gold star. No one's self esteem suffers.
And here's the thing. I don't think I like either camp. But it's not for any solidly arguable reason. It's certainly not based on any parenting studies (I am so sick of parenting studies). It's just that my gut and my heart tell me that the answer is somewhere in between. Kids aren't idiots. They know when other people are better at certain things than they are (usually). If they're too little to know, then they're too little for you to bother telling them. They're still young enough that it's safe to let them think that they are the best thing since sliced bread...always. But eventually they figure it out. Even the Dictator has figured it out. They're also smart enough to know that games are more fun if there are winners, and if those winners don't include EVERYONE. They know "you're ALL winners" is a lie. And, besides, competition is fun. It's exhilarating and challenging. I'm not against it. It makes sense...to an extent. The Dictator competes in (rather low intensity) dance competitions. She learns to be proud of herself, work as part of a team, take constructive criticism and manage disappointment. She doesn't always get high scores. She learns that there are people better than her. She learns that she has things to improve on. She learns to grow for next time. This is healthy. I can tell because...it feels healthy. She is growing and learning without being put in a position that would subject her to criticism that she's not yet ready to handle. Easing into things seems to be the trick.
But I also don't want everything to be a competition. I don't think everything needs to be a competition. I also don't think everything needs to be scored and critiqued...at least not formally, not so young. I am SO TIRED of assessments, standardized tests, charts and graphs of student scores, etc. We're on our third set of standardized test scores for the year and we're not done yet. These aren't just occasional, mildly useful benchmarks. These are a central focus of their schooling. And do you know what those scores have told me? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Other than that the Dictator was alert and interested in testing in September and tired and bored out of her skull with it in the winter. Either that, or she went from brilliant to a touch slow within the course of half a school year. Maybe it was all the video games...
We send these kids such mixed messages. We say things like, "Don't let other people determine your self worth." But the charts and graphs and numbers and scores that get sent home with them so very regularly tell them something very different. These numbers with their names on them implicitly tell them this: "These numbers matter so, so much. These numbers dictate who you are. These numbers are so important that we report them constantly. We put the results on a graph in the school's entryway. These numbers are you. You are what you score."
We don't say that, of course. But kids aren't stupid. When something's emphasized enough, they understand that it's important. When a graph/chart/score with their name on it is given that much weight in their lives, they know. Other people don't determine their self worth in these cases, but numbers do. Isolated moments in time do. "Hey kids, your value is in your score!" Not healthy. Not worthwhile.
And other times it is people who we let determine their self worth. Arbitrarily. Subjectively. Sometimes competition and judging is completely healthy and fine--the Dictator handles low dance scores with matter-of-factness and grace--and sometimes it's not. You can feel when it's not. Sometimes it's too much too soon. Sometimes it's not given adequate context. Sometimes it's the wrong time, place, judge, kid. And maybe sometimes it's just too much. Too intense. Too frequent. It's just one more thing on top of all the ways we score and chart and graph them. Maybe they just need a break.
Which is why I kick myself for letting my kids do the stupid reading fair today. I never like doing these things to begin with because they are exhausting, but I hated it even more today. Because I do not handle it well when someone with no aesthetic/literary sense or wit judges my child. I don't do injustice. Or poor judgement. Or things that make my stoic baby cry in public. I may or may not become livid. And
But I can rethink the ways I subject my kids to this world of scoring/judging/testing. I can be smarter about how to help them glean lessons from their experiences (today's was: Some Judges are as Dumb as Dirt...probably not my best). And I can learn to mitigate my furious wrath (I will NOT send a scathing email to the school. I will NOT send a scathing email to the school). And I can show you aesthetic/literary/witty folks just how creative and inventive my kids are.* I know you'll appreciate them. You will appreciate them. If you know what's best for you.
*The back story to my reading fair-related rage (that I need to really calm the heck down about because it is just a reading fair after all) will be recounted here soon. Complete with pictures (of me not strangling the superintendent/reading specialists/principal). I promise to make it funny. Because I'm pretty funny when I'm angry. Just ask my kids.
