Expecting Perfection Does Not Lead to Perfection

Imagine the following fictional parent-teacher conference. (I promise it is fictional.  It does not represent anyone I have recently met with.)

Teacher:  Hello, Jenny's mom.  Jenny is a delight to have in class.  I really enjoy teaching her.
Jenny's mom:  Thanks.  Let's talk about her grade.
Teacher:  She's doing well.  She asks great questions in class and has given some very insightful answers on her tests.
Jenny's mom:  That's good, but her grade is a B.
Teacher:  Yes, I'm really happy to see how much she improved between her first and second tests.  She's getting better at analytical thinking, which takes some time to develop at this age.  That B+ is great.
Jenny's mom:  In our house, a B is not acceptable.
Teacher:  If she keeps improving at the rate she is, it will be an A in no time.
Jenny's mom:  I think we'll hire a tutor and take her phone until it comes up.  On another note, she has anxiety.  What is the school doing to help her with that?

While this conversation is fictional, I know there are some of you who will recognize parts of it.  There is frequently a disconnect between the teacher's viewpoint of success and a parents.  It sometimes works the other way too, with a parent believing their child cannot do better and the teacher believing they can, but that's a topic for another post.

Sometimes, we see this start very young.  We've all been at a children's soccer game in which a parent is "coaching" from the sidelines, losing their mind over a missed goal and screaming at the ref or coach for a perceived injustice.  We all roll our eyes at that parent and inwardly tell them off in our minds.  "They're five-year-olds, lady.  Stop screaming or squeeze into a uniform and go show them how to do it."  That parent is only going to get more anxious when the stakes are raised, which might be how we ended up with the moms who felt comfortable photoshopping their kids into athletic photos and paying for SAT scores in order to get their kids into Stanford.  It's also what leads some kids to cheat in order to get the grade their parent expects from them.

As adults, we know that we are good at some things and just okay at others.  We even allow for the fact that we aren't good at a few things and are happy with ourselves (and our friends) when we improve a little at those things.  In our kids, however, we seem to think that they must perform at the same level of mastery on everything they do.  In my career, I've met only a handful of kids who don't seem to have a weakness, those who are good at science and math, eloquent writers, creative artists, and able to sing and play instruments.  They are exceptions.  The vast majority of my students have been particularly great at some things and pretty average in other things.  One of the most dyslexic students I ever taught struggled greatly with algebra because letters and numbers were hard enough separately.  She fought valiantly just to pass, but she was a gifted artist who now owns a graphic design business.  I have had students who struggle academically but are gifted with an extra dose of kindness and empathy.  I have met some incredible scientists who have trouble writing a coherent sentence.  They work to improve so that they can communicate clearly, but they aren't going to write the great American novel.

When we demand students get straight As, we are asking them to be equally good at everything they try, something we would never ask of ourselves or another adult.  We tell our students that they must be captain of an athletic team, leader of a service organization, perform well on the SAT (despite knowing that the research shows no correlation between SAT scores and college success), get 4s and 5s on AP tests . . .  It's no wonder we are experiencing anxiety at unprecedented levels (even more than during times of world wars).  We are telling students that anything less than perfection is unacceptable. 

Successful people are not perfect.  You know why?  No one is.  Most successful people did not make perfect grades.  If they did, they were not being properly challenged by their teachers.  Most are not equally gifted in a hundred different skills.  They tend to be specialists in one thing.

Successful people are learners.  They are people who grow.  If they encounter something they don't know how to do, they put in the work to learn how rather than complaining that they weren't taught it during high school.  If we recognized that our kids have strengths and weakness and celebrated their growth rather than expecting perfection, our kids would have less anxiety; and we would ultimately raise better adults.