Teaching Kids to Think (16 page)

Academic Self-Concept

When encouraging children to become excited about learning, it is very important to help them develop a positive academic self-concept. A person's
academic self-concept
is the way he or she identifies with what type of student he or she is. It is how he would describe himself as a student. A person has many different aspects to their overall self-concept and likely identifies with each aspect differently. For example, every person will identify with their athletic, artistic, musical, social, emotional, or academic self-concept in different ways. A person might identify with being “really creative” or “bad at art” when thinking about her artistic self-concept or “really friendly” or “a loner” when thinking about her social self-concept. While there are numerous aspects to a person's self-concept, the academic self-concept tends to be the most ingrained and difficult to change once it is established. When thinking about your own academic self-concept, you are likely to have a quick answer to the question about what type of student you were. Adults will often make comments like, “I was never good at math,” “I was always smart in school,” “I wasn't a good student,” “School was easy,” or “Teachers never liked me.” Very often, how children see themselves as a student comes from the objective markers we have discussed.

Because school poses multiple challenges for students, it offers many opportunities for parents to help shape the way their children view themselves as students. Students begin to define their academic self-concept early on, usually by comparing themselves to other students. For example, as we saw in the last chapter, if a child is not able to complete math problems as quickly as his or her peers, weekly timed tests can become a source of frustration. If a child is not at one of the top levels in the class, parents may begin to hear “I am not good at math” or “I am not one of the smart kids.” How quickly a child can complete a math sheet is in no way indicative of whether he or she is “good at math,” but this is the message that the child internalizes. These comparisons happen all the time. Parents can use this opportunity to help reframe the idea that a specific skill does not define their child.

One of the best ways for parents to help their students have a positive academic self-concept is to focus on their child's achievements as a whole. Achievements are defined not only by the objective measures but also by the effort, consideration, sensitivity, and awareness he brings to his schoolwork. In addition to the tips on helping a child understand that a specific skill does not define a child, there are many amazing personality traits that are there when a child is sensitive to his performance.

When working with kids who are feeling down about their school performance, I will often say this:

“The fact that you care about how you are doing shows me so much. It shows me that you are considerate and responsible and hardworking. That is something that not many kids your age think about. It is also something that is really hard to teach. You have those gifts naturally. You have a lot to be proud of and I can't wait until you get past this tough school stuff so you know how much ahead of most kids you are.”

—Dr. Darlene

Complaints about Teachers

A mother shared with me that her daughter was having a difficult time with her first year of high school. She said that most of her daughter's teachers were “good,” but that two of her teachers did not keep their website updated with what homework was assigned for the week. She asked me, “What is she supposed to do if she misses a day and doesn't know what work she missed?” I answered, “Do what we all did. Call a friend or talk to her teacher when she returns to come up with a plan for making up the work.” In fact, having teachers who gave homework in class rather than posting it on the website might be the best thing that happened that year. She could take the opportunity to learn how to follow instructions that were provided verbally. She would need to write it down, keep a calendar, and plan her day accordingly. Adapting to different teaching styles in high school is wonderful preparation for learning how to work with different professors and bosses later on.

—Dr. Darlene

It is always a major red flag for us as therapists when we hear parents talk about all the negative experiences their children have had with teachers. We are not talking about a single negative experience, but parents who can recite criticisms for each teacher their child had over the course of multiple years.

We understand that it is desirable for children to have positive experiences with teachers who nurture their strengths and assist them in compensating their weaknesses. However, teachers are individuals with their own personalities. There is no way for every teacher to be a great fit for every student. Just as students have different learning styles, teachers have different teaching styles, and there will be times when a teacher-student match is not perfect. Maybe the teacher's personality is strict and the child prefers nurturance, or maybe the teacher is a stickler for detail and the child feels the grading is unfair. This is not only true for a child's experience throughout school, but it will be true for his experience throughout life. A supervisor's managerial style will not always be to the preference of all her employees.

Throughout this book, we have continually discussed how important it is for children and teens to have the opportunity to practice life skills throughout their childhood. Well, having a teacher who is not a perfect fit is a great opportunity to practice tolerance, patience, and empathy for individual differences. In many ways, learning to work through these issues with teachers might be more important than the letter grade.

When parents are vocal about their disapproval of their child's teachers, it gives their child an excuse to avoid taking responsibility. The child may begin to blame the teacher's grading policies, bias against her, or poor teaching skills as the reason she doesn't do her work. So instead of getting a B (when maybe she deserved an A, which might be unfair), she gets a C, lunch detentions, and/or feels angry throughout the year. Further, since it is easier to blame someone else than take responsibility, this can quickly develop into a pattern. Children have a choice about how they deal with it, and as a parent, you can help them navigate these difficult situations by promoting social skills and problem solving.

Whether a situation is truly unfair or not, parents should never put their child in the victim role. Once a child feels he is the victim, he can stop taking responsibility and he feels that all problems are the fault of someone else. On the other hand, if parents guide their children in coping with the situation, then they get practice dealing with difficult interpersonal situations. Most students will have experiences with teachers who are not well matched, especially when they have up to six teachers per year. People have differences and disagreements are normal. We encourage parents to use the experiences as teaching moments.

Parents to the Rescue: Beware of the Common Excuses

As we saw in
chapter 1
, parents who rescue their children from making mistakes at school are falling into one of the most common traps we encounter as therapists: the rescue trap.

Between our experiences with all the students we work with every day, teachers we interact with weekly, and our own children's excuses, we have extensive firsthand knowledge of the ways children and parents communicate the need to be rescued (sometimes without even realizing it).

What Children Say

What Parents Say

Parents also tell us that it feels good when their child still needs them when they offer some way to save the day. They tell us that they feel involved in their children's lives if they help their children in that way. When parents rescue their kids, there is typically an outpouring of gratitude. Face it, how often does that occur, especially with teens? It is understandable that parents are so easily lured into the trap.

While the trap is tremendously alluring, it is important to remember that teachers consistently reported that this is what interferes with a student's learning the most. It also contradicts all those characteristics that research, teachers, and teenagers themselves reported were indicative of strong and successful students, as we discussed earlier in this chapter.

When asked how parents can best support their children academically, here is what teachers interviewed from across the country said: