SMARTT: Sometimes We Have to Watch Them Fail
This post was written on May 1st, 2011The SMARTT series stands for “Sugar Mama’s Advice for Raising Toddlers to Teens”. I do not claim to have all of the answers, but I’ve been a mother most of my life, “raised” several daycare kids, and read a lot of books. I write about what works for our family, while understanding it does not work for every family.
The assignment is due on Monday. Two weeks were given to complete the project worth 30% of your child’s overall grade. You haven’t seen him working on it, so you casually ask him about it.
He tells you he’ll get it done.
What do you do next?
Be honest.
Do you stand over him asking tons of questions about the assignment while making a list of what you need to go do/buy for the project?
Do you ground him until it is done? Forcing him to work only on the project?
Do you call other parents to ask what their child is doing? How far along they are on the project?
Or do you sit back and let your child be responsible for his assignment? Do you allow him to come to you if or when he needs help instead of taking over? Do you let him know you’re willing to help but you will NOT rush around at the last minute? (and you stick with it)
It breaks my heart to watch my children fail. I want to make it all better for them. I want to control the situation and make life easier for them. When Teen had a big poetry assignment due for his honor’s English class I asked him about it and told him if he needed me to let me know. And I never heard anything else about it. The weekend before the assignment was due I asked him if he had homework, secretly hoping he’d take the hint and get his butt in gear.
I knew he wasn’t working on it. I wanted to force him to do it.
What good would that do him? Yes, it would have given him the perfect grade he wanted– he is smart enough to do it. But it would have been my A; not his.
When Tween needed supplies for a project at school I said to him that I would drive him to get supplies ONLY after he made phone calls to locate them. I didn’t call. I didn’t remind him a hundred times. But I was thinking about it. He ended up making the phone calls– a few days later than I would have preferred– but he got it done on his own. And I was willing to do my part and drive him where he needed to go. A few days later we got a phone call from one of his friend’s mother. She was in a panic trying to find supplies for her son’s project (the same one Tween was working on), and was asking me for details. All I could think of was “who is doing the project” and “what is her son learning from it?”.
It will be terribly hard to watch your child fail, especially when other parents are doing all of the work for their kids. But haven’t we all experienced that failure equals growth? It’s true. Your kids will never learn how to manage their time, be organized, respect other people’s time, or develop a strong work ethic if we do it all for them. And besides don’t we, as the parents, have enough stuff to do as it is?!
The day your son or daughter comes to you with tears in their eyes and tells you they need you to help at the very last minute, after having plenty of time and reminders, what will you do?
May 1st, 2011 at 8:06 am
Whew that has to be one of the toughest things a parent can do. It’s so hard to not want to rush in to their rescue but that’s a part of life and growing as an individual.
May 1st, 2011 at 9:50 am
I’ll be honest to say that I wish my parents would have taken this advice. Over the years in middle/high school, if I didn’t start on my work right away, my parents would literally do the project for me. All my science fair projects were done by my father.
Actually, one time I waited too long to do a ‘about me’ project. It was stuff like “What car do you want when you grow up?” “What do you want to do?” etc. Since I waited too long, my father caught me doing it last minute, took it from me and completely re-did it, throwing out EVERYTHING I had written. I didn’t want a yellow corvette, I wanted a multi-colored iridescent mustang!
I don’t have kids yet, but I’m not making the same mistake over. It’s that learning experience of waiting too long and failing that I had to learn in college, where it almost made me fail several courses, when I could have learned it early. Better late than never, I suppose.
SugarMama Reply:
May 1st, 2011 at 10:34 am
Love the honesty here and the fact that you can see how it affected you. I wonder if sometimes parents are living vicariously through their children, and in doing so they take over and control things how they wish it would have been done for them? Also, the other reason parents might do this is to “prove” to everyone else how “amazing” their child is. When, in reality, having the best school project doesn’t make a kid amazing. I want a multi-colored mustang!
May 1st, 2011 at 10:26 am
This is a great post. It is a very difficult thing for a parent to do, but it must be done to teach responsibility. I think the hardest part is knowing when your child is old/mature enough for you to back off and let them take that responsibility. Especially because it’s different for every child.
May 1st, 2011 at 5:23 pm
Oooh, oooh, pick me! *waves hand wildly* I pick the last one! I refuse to be a helicopter mom and hover over my kids, running their lives for them. They have to learn personal responsibility, and they won’t do that if I’m holding their hand through life. My oldest son just turned 18, graduates this year. SUPER smart but hates to do his assignments. He’s doing well in school, but could be doing a lot better. But micromanaging his life isn’t going to help him at all.
Great post!
SugarMama Reply:
May 1st, 2011 at 5:52 pm
You are EXACTLY right… making him do the work will not benefit him. My oldest is super smart also but doesn’t manage his time well. As his mother I do my part in reminding him of assignments, but will not hover over him to make sure it’s done. That might work for some people though.
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:17 am
Oh gosh this scares me, mostly because I was the world’s biggest procrastinator & always had to drag my parents in at the last minute. I can remember doing this starting in the 1st grade & then hating myself at the last minute for waiting so long to get the project done. It’s a good lesson to learn though because once I was in college & grad school. I didn’t wait til the last minute. Especially not in grad school!
May 2nd, 2011 at 10:22 am
i would do what my parents did. tough cookies.
he had plenty of time and this is a perfect opportunity to teach him that actions-or lack of-have consequences. if it means elijah gets a failing grade, so be it.
my parents-whether i was in school or homeschool-had time frames for our work to be done. all homework stopped by 830pm. we could do it right after school or right after dinner. they only reminded us about our work once or twice. after 830, nothing was said. the rest of the night was for family time or whatever. i did my work! only after one embarrassing ZERO at school, i learned nobody other than myself was gonna do my work.
i know this will be hard for me sometimes, but it is best for elijah, i know it!
SugarMama Reply:
May 2nd, 2011 at 12:14 pm
I like the idea of setting a time limit. Next year Teen will be at the high school taking on 4 honor’s classes and a few tough electives along with basketball and soccer which has practice every day for a couple of hours. He will either learn to manage his time or fail miserably. Obviously I don’t want him to fail, but I can’t be nagging him all of the time either.
hannah Reply:
May 2nd, 2011 at 2:19 pm
@SugarMama, way to go on the honors classes!
since he is so bright and talented, i suspect that he will manage very well-most of the time
May 2nd, 2011 at 3:16 pm
Love the new SMARTT series! You are spot-on with this one for sure. I know that when my daughter heads off to college this fall she will be prepared for her journey because we let her make mistakes and did not always handle each situation for her. It is really hard to do that though because you don’t want to see them struggle. Good job showing the benefits of standing back at times!
SugarMama Reply:
May 3rd, 2011 at 8:27 am
Paula, The SMARTT series actually isn’t new… I’ve posted several in the series that started about a year ago. I should probably organize the blog better so they can be found. And I’ll be curious to hear what it’s like to have a child go off to college. Ugh! I can’t even begin to think about that right now!
May 3rd, 2011 at 6:47 am
I couldn’t agree more! My parents tried this method with me and even to this day I have to thank them! As hard as it may be, I think it makes us more functioning adults!
SugarMama Reply:
May 3rd, 2011 at 8:25 am
It’s been tough this week as my kids are so focused on the end of school year that they are “forgetting” to get work done. I’ve been drinking extra coffee to get me through!